MY EXPERIENCES IN FRANCE WITH THE 10th CANADIAN INFANTRY
BY SGT. HARRY HALL, NO. 19805
WHEN Great Britain declared war on Germany, I considered it my duty as a member of the Canadian Militia to volunteer my services for the Front.
The 106th Winnipeg Light Infantry to which I belonged, was the first infantry regiment to leave Western Canada to join the mobilization camp at Valcartier, Quebec.
Under the new scheme of organization, every regiment lost its identity and we were merged into the 10th Battalion, Second Infantry Brigade.
Early in October we left Canada for England, arriving at Plymouth and were then taken by train to Salisbury Plains, which is noted for mud and rain.
After undergoing training in the winter, we embarked at Avonmouth, Bristol, and sailed for France in a cattle boat, landing at St. Naize in the Bay of Biscay, four days later.
SERGT. HARRY HALL
Then we had two days traveling in a box car up to the Trout, and after a short rest we went to Ploegstreet Woods and went under a system of training with the Dublin Fusileers.
The method of training we went through was excellent in every way, each one of us being posted with one of the Dublins and to do what they did.
When we reached the trenches, I was posted with "Spud Murphy" who was then on sentry go. Spud was a hero of "Mons," having had safely survived up to the present and so we had quite a lot to talk about.
Ploegstreet being a quiet "front," there was nothing very exciting, so we were pleased when we were shifted to the village of Fleurbaix to relieve an English division and to take trenches over on our own.
We were placed on the line near the village of La Boutillerie, where the trenches cut through the walls of a convent.
The Germans were about 150 yards away and seemed to have well-constructed trenches.
During the first night in, one of the Germans shouted over and asked what part of Canada we were from. How they learned that the Canadians were in front of them I have no idea, but as they had plenty of spies in our rear, they must have received the information from them.
The Germans were in happy spirits that night, as they were singing and playing instruments almost until dawn; one of them had a fine baritone voice and sang several songs in English, including "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep." I think they were Saxons, as it was never customary for the Prussians or Bavarians to act in that manner.
Although the trenches were wet and muddy, things were not too bad, as we were allowed to build fires so we could warm our machonichie rations and also make tea.
There was hardly any artillery fire, but the German snipers were very clever in that region and it meant death to show a head. I had one periscope shot out of my hands which will show what their snipers can do.
After three days in, we were taken out for a rest and billeted in a school house in Fleurbaix.
The next time we went to the front line, my platoon was ordered to man a redoubt behind the front trench. The idea of a redoubt is in case the enemy breaks through the front line the men manning it can pour enfilade fire into the enemy while they are passing in their advance to the second line of trenches.
This particular redoubt was a circular sandbagged construction large enough to allow sixty men to fire through the loopholes, and had two lines of entanglements round it with one narrow path through them to enable us to get in or out. This pathway could easily be blocked by a mass of wire called a "Chevaux de Frize," which was kept in the redoubt, and which could be placed in position when we had all entered.
Food which would last a platoon for ten days and a barrel of water was always kept in stock and was only allowed to be used in case the garrison was besieged. Things being quiet at this time, we had permission to use a cottage, which was only a few yards away, to sleep in at nights.
On the second day we remained in the cottage for part of the time, but as we had lit a fire to cook the dinner on, the Germans must have seen smoke coming out of the chimney, and soon got our range with one of their 77MM. field guns. The second shell hit the roof of the cottage, bursting, the shrapnel bullets were scattered in the next room to where I was.
The platoon lieutenant was in the room when the shell burst, and was talking to a sergeant and a corporal; the corporal was hit in thirty-one places down his left side, and was in a terrible mess. The lieutenant was wounded in the arm and the sergeant in the leg. The rest of us picking them up, rushed to the redoubt, another shell hitting the cottage just after we left. This taught us a lesson, and for the next few days we stayed under cover.
We were moved to the Ypres front in April to relieve a French division, marching twenty-two miles from Estaires to Abeele in one day, with full marching order, including 150 rounds of ammunition. The battalion rested at Abeele for a few days and then we marched through Poperinghe and the town of Ypres up to the front line.
At last we were in the dreaded Ypres salient, the worst sector of the front, and on which the Germans had sacrificed thousands of men in an effort to gain Ypres and the roads to the Channel ports. As the French came down one side of the road, we went up the other into the front line, at the part we were on, the trenches cut across the Polccapelle Paschendale Road, where the British Seventh Division cut the Prussian Guards to pieces the previous October.
The next morning we could see hundreds of dead Germans lying beyond our entanglements who had been dead five months, and as there was a light mist which would easily hide us, the German trenches being 800 yards away, a few of us crawled through the wire and went to have a look at them.
By their epaulettes, we could see that they were the 235th Prussian Regiment, and they must have had a terrible list of casualties by the number who were dead. Any German shell which dropped short fell among them and many had heads and legs missing; the stench was so bad that two of our men vomited, and it was a sight that no doctor would recommend for anyone suffering from shattered nerves.
After six days up there in the badly constructed trenches and under continual bombardment, without a hot drink all the time, working like slaves every night, filling sandbags and strengthening the parapets, our appetites spoiled by the sights and stench of the dead "Fritzies," we were at last relieved by our 5th Battalion, and marched into Ypres to the billets, which were in a large mill alongside the Yser Canal.
Ypres at this time was full of the civilian population and Estaminets. Restaurants and the market-place were open, so we had a splendid opportunity to change our diet from the everlasting bully and biscuits.
Two days after we entered Ypres the Germans opened up their great offensive on the 22d of April, where they used their poisonous gases for the first time. They also commenced to shell the town with every sized gun they had, from 18 pounders to their 14-inch Austrian Skoda howitzers, the largest caliber gun used on the western front.
Scores of civilians were killed as they rushed out of the town, and it was pitiful to see the little children lying dead in the streets.
The Germans broke through the Algerians on our left flank under cover of their poisonous gases, which killed thousands of Algerians and our own men in the front line trenches.
Our battalion and the 16th Canadian Scottish were the only reserves in the whole salient, and as the Germans had broken through, things were looking very black for us.
We were instantly summoned to "fall in" and soon we were on our way to fill the gap. We were two thousand men to stop the German divisions in their countless thousands.
An ordinary general would have posted us in a reserve line of trenches until the Germans advanced the next morning, but not so General Alderson, our divisional commander, an English general, who proved himself one of the geniuses of the war. He tried strategy, which was one of the biggest bluffs of the war, and which utterly surprised the Germans.
Instead of waiting for the Germans to swamp us the next morning with their greater superiority of twenty to one man, he ordered us to make a night attack on the Pilkem Woods, where the Germans were massing for their attack.
The attack was made in lines of double companies, 500 men in each of the four lines, A and B Company of our battalion being in the front line and supported by C and D Company, and then the 16th Battalion behind them.
Unsupported by artillery, we advanced shortly after midnight, getting to within thirty yards of the Germans before being discovered.
The Germans at once opened up "rapid fire" with every machine gun and rifle they had, the night air being rent with the cracks of hundreds of rifles and machine guns.
How any man could pass through that hail of lead has always been a mystery to me, but the remnants of us, after a desperate struggle in the dim light, took possession of the wood at the point of the bayonet.
The German garrison was completely demoralized, and our impetuous advance did not cease until we reached the far side of the wood, and there we entrenched.
An hour later, a most formidable concentration of artillery sweeping the wood, as a tropical storm sweeps the forest, made it impossible for us to hold the position.
Instead of retiring, we tried our old tactics of advancing, and attacked the Germans once more, who were digging themselves in about 200 yards in front.
We soon gained an objective and remained there until the next day. Our ranks by this time were sadly depleted. Our colonel was killed and only two officers still remained in the fight.
We were still losing men, owing to the German artillery fire, and our ranks being now so thin, it was inadvisable for us to remain out in that exposed position.
Fifteen hundred men had already fallen, and what could the remaining 500 of us do against the German hordes?
Sick as we were with the gas fumes and the terrific strain we had undergone, we retreated back through the wood to an old line of trenches and there waited for reinforcements.
Our object had been achieved, the Germans were demoralized, and puzzled as to how many men we had.
Their proposed attack was cancelled for a few hours to enable them to re-form and organize, and by the next hour or two our reinforcements would have arrived.
Our first brigade appeared on the scene and the line was strengthened, and then the Buffs, the famous English regiment, came up at the double after having marched miles from another part of the line.
The bluff that we pulled off was therefore entirely successful, and the Germans thought that we had about 20,000 men attacking them.
It never struck their imaginative, cold-blooded and calculating minds that 2,000 men would have the audacity to attack whole German divisions without artillery support.
They certainly have had many lessons showing the difference between spirit and material.
The charge we made stands out as one of the finest achievements of the war, and only equaled, in the estimation of British experts, by the wonderful charge of the Worcestershire Regiment, who with only 500 men charged a division of Prussian Guards at Gheluvelt in October, 1917; also the famous Black Watch and the Scots Greys in their spectacular stirrup at St. Quentin.
It will always be a source of pleasure to me to know that I was in the front line of the first attack made by soldiers from the continent of America and was in the Battle of Ypres, which made the name of Canada ring through the world.
Remaining on Ypres front for several days, the remnants of the battalion were taken to the rear to await for reinforcements. These, in due course, arrived, and we were then sent to Festubert, and on May 17th our remade infantry brigades advanced toward the firing line once more.
On the 21st of May we went "Over the Top" at Festubert, with the object of capturing a strong German redoubt called "Bechill."
My platoon was practically annihilated by machine guns and none of us succeeded in passing the entanglements; over fifty of the men of the platoon, which numbered sixty, being killed or wounded in less than two minutes.
The rest of us, seeing that things were hopeless, retired to an old communication trench and made our way to bomb our way past the barricade which led to the redoubt.
As we threw bombs over the barricade, the Germans retaliated, and I discovered that it is impossible to indulge in the practice of throwing grenades for any length of time without someone getting hurt. At this time a German bomb fell in the bottom of our trench and burst there, wounding three of us, myself getting a piece of shell in the foot.
I was in the hospital only three weeks, and then returned to the battalion, who were on the La Bassee front.
On the third day of my second time in the trenches at Givenchy, the Germans opened up a bombardment with high explosives, and while walking up a communication trench an 8-inch German shrapnel burst in the air, and one piece of shell hit my ammunition pouches, while another passed through my arm and then hit my side.
While in the hospital, gangrene possomy set in and I was sent to Glasgow, Scotland, where I remained for many weeks.
My arm being partly paralyzed, I was returned to Canada and discharged in May, 1916.
Two weeks after I joined the Canadian Active Militia (pay corps), and was promoted to sergeant, but never recovered the full use of my arm, and consequently was unable to return to France.