In April 1915 , Barss entered the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force following the outbreak of World War I . At that time , he listed his occupation as clerk and indicated that he had three years of prior military service . In his history of the University of Michigan 's hockey program , author John U. Bacon provides a lengthy account of Barss ' war-time service and its impact on his decision to become a medical doctor . According to Bacon , Barss was wounded by shrapnel and gassed at the Second Battle of Ypres in April and May 1915 . However , Barss ' military records indicate that Barss ' Attestation Paper for the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force was completed on April 30 , 1915 in Montreal . Accordingly , it appears that Barss likely did not see combat action at the Second Battle of Ypres . Barss ' Service Record states that he was wounded on June 2 , 1916 . He was a machine gunner sergeant with the P.P.C.L.I and badly wounded in Sanctuary Wood during the first day of the Battle of Mt. Sorrel on the eastern border of Ypres , Belgium . According to Bacon , Barss suffered permanent lung damage and a severe abdominal injury from shrapnel while serving in Belgium . After a lengthy hospitalization in France , Barss was sent to Camp Hill Hospital in Halifax , Nova Scotia in November 1917 . Barss arrived in Halifax weeks before the Halifax Explosion , an explosion of a ship in Halifax harbor loaded with 10 tons of gunpowder , 35 tons of airplane fuel and 200 tons of TNT . More than 1,700 people were killed in the explosion . Barss was not injured and helped tend to the injured in the aftermath of the disaster
Halifax Explosion
Halifax Explosion
Joseph Barss (ice hockey)