GASSED NEAR HILL 60
[When the Germans plunged the civilised world into this appalling
war, one of their big hopes was that the sons of the Motherland would
desert her in the hour of her greatest need. Never was a greater
miscalculation made, even in a war which has become notorious for
enemy miscalculations, for her Colonies rallied round Great Britain
in a manner that has covered them with lasting glory. A particularly
splendid contingent hurried over from Canada to our shores, and went
into the most severe training, lasting through an uncommonly bad
winter. In due course it left England, and entered almost at once into
some of the hardest and most deadly fighting of the whole campaign--the
conflict at the village of St. Julien, in the region of the famous Hill
60, where many troops fell gloriously in repelling the attempts of the
Germans to hack their way through to Calais. In their determination
to succeed, the Germans deliberately adopted the devilish device of
poison-gas. How even that cowardly expedient failed is told in this
story by Lance-Corporal R. G. Simmins, of the 8th Battalion Canadian
Infantry, 90th Winnipeg Rifles.]
When I recall my experiences at the front, I am particularly struck by
the circumstance that the thing which stands out most clearly in my
mind is not the actual campaigning, not the long and weary times in the
trenches, not even artillery, rifle, or bayonet work, but the coming
of the poison-gas. I myself was gassed in the furious fighting at St.
Julien.
I will get right at things quickly. Towards the end of April the
Canadian Division was holding a line near Ypres, which was not far
short of three miles in extent. That line ran north-west from
Poelcapelle-Paschendaile Road, and at the end joined up with the
French. Three infantry brigades with artillery comprised the division,
the first being in reserve, the second on the right of the third, and
the third connecting with the French.
We were in the salient of Ypres which was known to be weak, but the
holding of which was of vast importance. I am proud to think that I am
one of the Canadian Contingent to whom the big task of keeping back the
German hosts at that point was given, and that I fought with men who
gave their lives in stopping the German attempt to hack a way through
to Calais, so as to have a very near blow at England. Placed as we were
placed, it was possible to see the battle being fought on three sides,
and this was uncommonly interesting.
We were, of course, in trenches, quite near the Germans, but between
us there ran a ridge which is known as a hogback, so that there was a
somewhat formidable natural barrier between the opposing forces. We
were so near to the famous Hill 60 that we heard the explosion there
and the subsequent battle when we were in billets at Ypres. The hill
had been mined with six or seven tons of dynamite, the explosion of
which was enough to change even the appearance of the hill.
There was a fine smart affair on the night of April 17th, when about
a mile of German trenches was taken, and I saw about 2000 German
prisoners being escorted away. Their uniforms were shabby, and their
equipment was not what it ought to have been, but the men themselves
appeared to be remarkably fit and well cared for.
We had gone into the trenches after marching through Ypres, where the
chimney-pots were tumbling about our ears, and we were expecting very
hot times; but the hogback prevented us from seeing the Germans, and
of course kept us out of their sight. But there were German snipers
everywhere, and they took good care to harass us.
I had charge of a section of bomb-throwers, and we did our best to
hurl these strange but quite legitimate weapons at the enemy. At first
the bombs were homely contrivances, made of jam-tins filled with
explosives; but later they were made under War Office control, and were
far superior to the primitive articles which we manufactured ourselves.
In such a war and in such a place it is not easy to tell of what was
done by individuals, because so many splendid acts are unobserved; but
I call to mind the coolness and resource of my own platoon officer,
Lieutenant McLeod. He was dashing all over the place, encouraging his
men at every point, and doing things all round in fine style. I was
talking to him quite a lot in the thick of things, and was specially
struck by his calmness and the wonderful effect his example had upon
the men.
One outstanding performance of his was to run, in broad daylight, from
battalion headquarters to the trenches--a pretty brave achievement,
when you bear in mind that a running man presents an almost certain
target to snipers.
In this connection, I call to mind the case of a section commander who
was in a trench. He wished that a certain thing should be done, and by
way of indicating his desire he held up his hand, with palm extended.
That must have been a small enough target, in all conscience, but it
was no sooner in the air than it was pierced by five German bullets.
If a hand can be so effectively fired at, what chance to escape has the
body of a man?
This trench warfare was uncommonly exhausting. You never knew what was
going to happen, or what you would be called upon to do; but it was
astonishing to find how soon you could adapt yourself to circumstances.
I recall an occasion when we had been forced to retire at one point and
get into a communication trench; we were taken aback by the discovery
that it was not deep enough. We had to dig ourselves in. That was not
a hard matter for the boys who had their entrenching-tools, but I had
lost mine, and the only thing left to do was to try rabbit tactics.
So I began to dig myself in with my fingers, and I have a distinct
recollection of tearing and scooping at the ground like an animal
scuttling for shelter. Luckily the ground was soft and yielding, or
I should not have had a chance with such poor tools. As it was, my
fingers were torn and bleeding long before the digging-in process was
completed.
I have given you a general understanding of the task that fell to the
Canadian Contingent to accomplish; but as I have said, it is not the
actual fighting that dwells in one’s memory.
We soon settled down to the ordinary ways of war, and took them as a
matter of course. While in training in England we had heard and read a
good deal about the fighting, and had become accustomed to it; while as
for any such discomforts as heavy rain and sodden ground, they did not
trouble us. Not even Flanders could give us worse trials of this sort
than we had known while wintering on Salisbury Plain.
The boys took the fighting and the hardships as part of the day’s work,
and there was neither grumbling nor protesting; but that state of
things was changed like magic when there was sprung upon us the most
cowardly, dastardly, and dirty means of fighting that the world has
ever known. This was the use of poison-gas by the Germans--a device
which instantly put them out of consideration as civilised combatants,
and stamped them for ever as dishonourable soldiers of a dishonoured
country.
This poison-gas came upon us unseen, insidiously, and without the
slightest warning in the one case; and in the other it rolled down upon
us literally as a cloud.
It is hard to speak calmly of this unprecedented form of warfare, but
I will try to tell exactly what happened, and I think I can do that,
because when I was a medical student I particularly interested myself
in chemistry.
It was on Saturday, the 24th, that our Brigade had their first
experience of gas. We had been shelling the German trenches all day,
and were standing to, expecting an attack by the enemy. We naturally
looked for the employment of the usual methods, and were ready to
receive the Germans when they showed themselves. We were strongly
entrenched, and many a keen eye was kept on the hostile ground,
watching for the appearance of the enemy. But not a sight of a German
was to be had; there was no commotion, no excitement, no appearance of
anything uncanny or uncommon, yet there was coming towards us a German
weapon which was neither honest artillery nor small arms--poison-gas.
There was nothing to be seen in the air, yet suddenly, and without any
apparent cause, we were overpowered by a smell exactly like nasturtium,
but infinitely stronger and more pungent. The similarity noticed
is remarkable, for doesn’t nasturtium come from Latin words which
really mean a nose-twister? Anyway, there we were in our trenches,
unexpectedly overpowered by a horrible acrid smell and an invisible gas.
A lot of the boys--fine, splendid, honest fellows, who did not
understand the meaning of any kind of warfare that is not honourable
and aboveboard, were utterly unable to fathom the mystery, and they
seemed to think that it was the kind of pest that had to be taken with
the other discomforts of campaigning in the Low Country.
“What the deuce is it?” they asked.
It was not until the whole unspeakable visitation was over that most
of the men realised what had happened, and that the Germans had tried
to blind us as a preliminary to annihilation. Like so many more of the
German hopes, this did not develop on the lines that had been planned.
This was the first poison-gas attack that we experienced, and I am
thankful to say that on the whole it was a failure; but when you
remember that we were utterly unready for such a filthy form of
fighting, and that we had no means of combating it or nullifying its
effects, you will realise the extreme disadvantage of the contest from
the point of view of the Canadians.
I have said that it was about four o’clock in the afternoon when we had
our first experience of the poison-gas. Now that I am talking of the
thing it strikes me as a strange coincidence that it was at about four
o’clock in the morning when we had our second visitation.
We had got into our stride and settled down to hard hammering and what
you might call routine campaigning. Then came the morning of Saturday,
April 24th, when the sun rose ten minutes before five o’clock, which
means that at about four o’clock day was breaking.
Most of us were asleep; but in war time there is no such thing as
universal rest for men, and our sentries were posted and keeping
watchful eyes upon the German lines. It is said that the darkest hour
comes just before the dawn, and I think there is no doubt that man’s
lowest vitality is reached at that particular period. At any rate, the
Germans probably thought so, for they planned a specially fatal attack
upon us in the grey hours of this April morning.
While looking round in the cheerless dawn one or two of our sentries
saw a yellowish kind of cloud coming towards us, over the hogback, and
travelling pretty fast. The sight was unusual enough to be noticed, but
no one who saw it had the slightest idea what it really was, until we
were enveloped in the filthy folds; then we knew that it was poison-gas.
The cloud rolled on, and as it got quite close to us I noticed that
it was about eight feet or twelve feet high, a deep, dense yellow at
the bottom, and becoming lighter towards the top, so diffuse, indeed,
that it was almost indistinguishable from the atmosphere. It is not
easy exactly to convey an understanding of what the cloud really was,
because few men have ever seen anything like it; but it might well
be described as a moving mass of yellow, fat filth, insufferably
loathsome. The poison-gas, the chief constituent of which I took to
be chlorine, was about twice as heavy as air, and, consequently, it
travelled along the surface of the ground.
I saw the yellow cloud come, I watched it as it enveloped us, and
I observed it as it rolled away behind us and went towards Ypres,
gradually losing force as it was absorbed in the air. In addition
to being so favourably situated, we had just had a rum ration--and
plenty of it. I do not know whether the spirit did us any good, but it
certainly did not do us the least harm, and may have helped to nullify
the effects of the poison-gas.
Our salient, vulnerable and undoubtedly attractive to the Germans, was
rushed by them, and they succeeded in breaking through and occupying
a trench about a hundred yards away from our own and parallel with
it. They came on with wonderful steadiness, advancing just as if they
were on parade, scarcely breaking step at all. They came out of their
trenches about a dozen at a time, formed two long lines, and literally
seemed to walk over into the trench, though we were peppering at them
all the time. They kept up an excellent covering fire, with the result
that a good many of our own men were shot.
This was fair, open fighting, the sort of thing that a soldier expects,
and into the spirit of which he can enter. It gave opportunities, too,
for the display of the best qualities of warfare, and these were shown
by a man I knew very well, Company Sergeant-Major F. W. Hall, of my
company. In spite of a very heavy and at that time fatal fire, the
sergeant-major rushed out from the shelter of his trench to bring in
a wounded man who was lying in the open. He seemed to bear a charmed
life, for he got clear of the trench and was untouched by the fire of
the enemy.
The sergeant-major managed, by good fortune which seemed miraculous,
to get as far as the wounded man; he seized him and started with his
burden for safety. In fact he actually got him as far as the trench,
then, when the worst seemed over and security was just within his
reach, when he was getting over the parapet and men were loudly
cheering him because of his success, he was shot and killed. But the
uncommon courage of the action had been noticed, and later on, to the
real gratification of all the Canadians, and especially those who knew
him, the announcement was made that the dead hero had been awarded the
Victoria Cross. Hall’s men were terribly shattered by the enemy’s rifle
and machine-gun fire; but in spite of it all they held their ground,
and the living remnant won great glory.
It was not long before I dropped. I did not recover till the fight had
swept away to my right. Then I reported to an artillery officer who was
near, and he showed me the way to Ypres, telling me also to go into the
city for hospital treatment.
I cannot close my yarn without mention of Captain Northwood’s
Company--No. 4. The company was not relieved--it could not be, because
of the heavy call on troops--but it fought on doggedly till two
platoons were captured. Yet there were no prisoners made except at a
bitter cost to the Germans.
There were many heroes that day in No. 4 Company. I cannot
name them all, but I must mention two of them who stand out
pre-eminent--“Box-car” Kelly (now a King’s Corporal), and Corporal
Sandford. Kelly did everything in his power to rally some of the
British troops who were near him, while Sandford, a section-commander,
did as much by his example of splendid courage as any officer I know.
That is my story.
If space permitted I might tell of Corporal Degan and his gallant band
of hand-grenaders; how they bravely fought when hemmed in by the enemy;
of Lieutenant Owens, who stood with an automatic pistol in each hand,
cheering and swearing in the same breath, defending his comrades and
destroying the Germans; of Sergeant Nobel (now a captain), who repaired
a telephone-wire under an annihilating cannonade from German guns, and
a score of other splendid fellows who utterly forgot themselves and
their extremity, and risked their all upon the hazard of the glorious
common cause.
[Illustration:
_To face p. 43._
A VIEW OF “V” BEACH, TAKEN FROM THE “RIVER CLYDE.”]