First World War drew to a close on Nov. 11, 1918, the planet was already fighting a new, more deadly war, against an influenza pandemic that killed as many as 50 million people.The effects of the so-called Spanish flu are thought to have shortened the war, but the virus claimed the lives of about 50,000 Canadians, many of them veterans who had survived the conflict.Among those soldiers was the Canadian immigrant James Baird Brown, whose love for his son led to him becoming infected by the deadly flu virus.The tragic story began in 1907 when James and his wife Ellen (née McQueen) emigrated from Scotland to Canada with their children.They built a new life in Winnipeg, only for the outbreak of war to send three of the Browns back across the.