we had another spell of trench duty, until taken away from the Somme
and moved up to Belgium to participate in the Paschendale offensive in
June, 1917. Of all the fronts I was ever on, Paschendale was the worst.
The front included the Ypres salient where fighting had been going on
almost incessantly from October, 1914. Neither side made much progress,
and during these three years the ground had changed hands many times
and was mostly shell-holes. In fact, for miles it was difficult to
find a few square yards untouched by shells, and I think that more men
were killed in the Ypres salient than any other place of its size in
the world. It was impossible to build trenches on this front, and the
system of defense was to fortify shell-holes with sand bags, two or
three men to a shell-hole. I was in one advance which we made under
cover of the biggest barrage thrown over at that time, and when our
objective was reached, we manned the shell-holes until relieved.
In September, 1917, I was sent to a bombing school, and went through
a course which I passed, and was then qualified to act as a bombing
instructor when I arrived back to the battalion. The course lasted one
month, and in that time I learned all there was to know about bombs,
especially the deadly Mills bomb, with its three and a half to five
seconds time fuse. I found bombing more interesting than any other
kind of warfare I had yet taken up, and the fact that it was possible
to kill or wound a number of Germans with one well-aimed bomb greatly
appealed to me. When I returned to the line my rifle was placed as
second favorite, the bombs always holding first place in my estimation.
When I arrived back to the battalion, they were at Ploegstreet, or
"Plug-street," as we called it, and this front being rather quick,
we had a picnic, in comparison to some of the previous places. The
trenches at Ploegstreet were well constructed, and fairly dry, and were
always considered the best on the British front.
The Germans were 1,300 yards away and a small river ran between
their lines and ours. Owing to the great distance between the lines,
patrols were always out at night, so as to prevent a surprise attack.
Our patrols consisted of a non-commissioned officer and two men, but
sometimes a fighting patrol of ten men with a Lewis gun were sent out.
As the Germans always had patrols out as well, this was a ticklish
business, as it was quite common for the patrols to meet and then
there would be a little dirty work. On these occasions I always had
a good supply of bombs, and one night when near a bridge of planks,
which crossed the river, I heard the creaking and knew that a German
patrol was crossing. The night being pitch dark, made it impossible
for me to see them, so I whispered to the two privates to creep back
to the bushes, which were a few yards away, and there we would wait
for them. This we did in a few seconds. I could hear the German patrol
walking through the grass toward us, and when I judged they were about
twenty-five yards away I quickly removed the safety pin from the bomb
and threw it in their direction.
By the time the first one burst, I had the pin removed from another
one, and as the place was lit up by the flash of the bomb, I had a good
view of the German fighting patrol, and so consequently the second bomb
which I threw fell in the middle of them, as they were beating it for
the bridge, and evidently some of them were hit, as they squealed like
most Germans do when wounded. Knowing that the survivors would open
fire in our direction as soon as they were over the bridge, we ran for
cover to a bunch of trees, and there lay down for a few minutes until
the firing had died down.
Telling my two chums to remain under cover until I returned, I crawled
back to see if the Germans had returned for any of their wounded.
Carefully maneuvering, I could hear the low moans of a wounded German,
so I went to see what damage I had done. One German was dead and the
other who was moaning was severely wounded in the legs, several pieces
of the bomb hitting him in different places.
Seeing that he needed immediate assistance, and wishing to get him back
to our lines for information purposes, I crawled back to my chums and
told them to come back with me to the wounded German. When we reached
him I told one of them to go down to the bridge and watch in case the
Germans would return. The first thing I did was to kick the German's
rifle out of the way, in case he wanted to use it when our backs were
turned, and then proceeded to bandage his wounds. Then walking down
to the bridge, I told my chum that everything was ready to carry the
prisoner back, and after stumbling and carrying him for over a thousand
yards, we reached our lines, and then handed him over to the stretcher
bearers, who took him to the dressing station.
After a few weeks at Ploegstreet, we were again shifted to
Passchendale, and as the winter was now on, things were much worse
than on our previous visit. The first time we went to the front line
we experienced on this occasion something new. Previously, in the
trenches, we always had ration parties go back to the rear at night for
supplies, and always received rations daily and a lot of rum in the
morning.
The shell-fire being so bad made it too costly at Passchendale to send
men back every night, so before we went up the line, we were served
with three days' rations and a gasoline can full of water. In addition
to this, every man had to carry 250 rounds of ammunition, several
bombs, gas mask, trench coat and waterproof sheet, rifle, bayonet and
grubber, sand bags, trench helmet and a shovel. I shall never forget
the six miles march up to the front line with all the equipment. The
shovel which I had tied to the middle of my back kept banging against
my legs, and I was always scared of losing my can of water. Several
men, while crossing the duck-boards fell off, and went up to their
necks in mud, and if curses would have killed the Kaiser, he would have
died that night.
At last we reached the front line and relieved the Devons, who had been
up there three days--three days in a shell-hole, half full of water,
bully beef, biscuits and cold water, tainted with gasoline for our
rations, shell-fire continuously and occasionally a cloud of gas.
I do not think it possible for a person who has never experienced it
to have the slightest imagination what suffering and torture we had to
undergo on the Passchendale front. Many a wounded man, while staggering
back over the duck-board, slipped off and was drowned, not having the
strength to pull himself out of the mud.
Fatigue parties were working every night to keep the duck-board
paths in repair, as shells were continuously hitting them, and every
hit meant a few duck-boards smashed to splinters. The dump where
new supplies of duck-boards were kept was five miles from the front
line, and if new ones were required it meant a five-mile hike with a
duck-board on our shoulders, and a five-mile hike back. We lost thirty
men out of a fatigue party one night by shell-fire, and the casualties
were so heavy that there was a continuous stream of motor ambulances
along the roads in the rear.
This was my fourth winter in the trenches, and the constant strain was
beginning to tell on me, and I fell sick with pneumonia and developed
trench feet. This time I was sent to England, and when I came out of
the hospital I obtained convalescent leave to see my people, who were
living in Winnipeg, Canada.
My health not improving, I was discharged from the army in May, 1918,
after having served fifteen years as a regular soldier and was three
years and two months in France.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
All original spellings, including names of people and places, have been
retained. Hyphenation has been made consistent except that the use of
both water-proof and waterproof has been retained.
The illustration on page 147 was oriented vertically in the original
but is oriented horizontally here.
Minor punctuation errors corrected on pages 5, 110, and 119. The
following typographical errors were corrected:
Page 3, "Dardenelles" changed to "Dardanelles." (The "Dardanelles"
Campaign)
Page 8, "Shell-shock" changed to "Shell-shocked." (Shell-shocked and
gassed at Chateau-Thierry.)
Page 11, "EXERIENCE" changed to "EXPERIENCE." (MY EXPERIENCE AS A
DISPATCHER)
Page 80, "stay" changed to "say." (I might say that was in the month...)
Page 88, "litle" changed to "little." (After having a little battle...)
Page 103, "commision" changed to "commission." (...shoulder put out of
commission.)
Page 116, "starve" changed to "starved." (...none of them looked
starved to death.)
Page 146, "litle" changed to "little." (...tell of one or two little
experiences...)
Page 173, "strecher" changed to "stretcher." (...carrying the other end
of the stretcher...)