"The Red Watch": With the First Canadian Division in Flanders

by John Allister Currie

As Captain Cory was on his way back to his position one of his men was hit with a machine gun bullet and they called for a stretcher. I started to go down the line to where he was, but was told he was all right, that it was one of his men that had been wounded.

My signallers reported to me that all night long the fighting had continued in front of St. Julien, the Germans trying to force an entrance at the northwesterly side between the village and the wood. The village had been shelled continually. During the night several limbers of artillery came clattering down the road, dodging shell holes, dead horses and men, followed by the wakeful German guns, as the gunners knew that these limbers held ammunition for the Canadian artillery in the first line. The Germans seemed to have a weird sense of what was going on on our roads. The 10th Battery under Major King was at the cross roads at Kersselaere. During the night Major King gallantly ran one gun by hand well forward on the left of the Royal Highlanders to try and stop the advance of the victorious Huns. It was Major King's ammunition that came rattling down the ruined streets of St. Julien during the night, and when the "coal boxes" fell at the concrete bridge over the Hannebeek creek where it crossed the road not far from the ruined St. Julien church, the horses and several of the riders fell to rise no more. Nothing daunted, the non-commissioned officer in charge returned for help to man-handle his precious load down to the guns at the trenches. Captain D.S. Gardner of the 7th took a squad of about thirty men and they manned the limbers, and amidst a perfect hail of shells and bullets drew the ammunition down to Major King, who lost no time in firing it point blank into the Germans that were advancing on Kersselaere cross roads. They were mowed down in heaps by the shrapnel. The German advance was stopped at this point and the gun was later taken out safely.

Throughout the battle no Canadian guns were lost.

As usual with the morning sun, there came from the east two large German aeroplanes with the ominous black crosses on their stiff outspread wings. They flew low and seemed particularly interested in our breakfast bill of fare. The warning whistle was blown as they approached and everyone lay down in the trenches as still as death. The Germans seemed to satisfy themselves that there was nothing in our trenches, for after they returned to their own lines they stopped shelling the church and graveyard close by which up till then had been their favorite target. When they stopped shelling the church and graveyard the scene was dreadful. The walls of the church and rafters were torn to pieces. But it was the cemetery that presented the most grewsome sight. Graves, ancient and modern, were torn open and coffins and corpses were strewn in all directions. Our dead had been disinterred a second time. I set a party to work under Sergt. Lewis to repair this damage.

We learned in the morning that some British troops had been sent to the assistance of our severely pressed left flank. This detachment was under the command of Colonel Geddes and consisted of the remnants of seven mixed battalions from the 27th and 28th divisions that had held the southern face of the salient. They were detachments of the 3rd Middlesex, the 2nd East Kents, the 1st South Lancasters, the 2nd East Yorks, the 9th Royal Scots, the 5th R. Lancasters, the 2nd D. of C. Light Infantry. The 5th Lancasters and Royal Scots were Territorials, the rest of the detachment were regulars. This brigade went to the assistance of the French remnant left at Pilken, and they helped to reconstitute the line after a gallant charge in which the French and Canadians joined, closing up a gap at this point.

Along towards noon, Colonel Loomis, who had his headquarters west of the village of St. Julien, sent for Captain Alexander. I told Alexander to take a couple of men with him in case anything happened to him as the shelling in the village was very heavy. He did so, and was gone about an hour. He returned alone looking very grave, and I asked him what was the matter. He told me that on the way out his men had fallen at his side, killed by a shell.

About eleven o'clock we noticed very heavy shelling and gas fumes rising in the direction of our front trenches east of Kersselaere. There was a pretty stiff breeze blowing, and shortly after we saw the gas our guns began firing and there was a terrific burst of rifle fire. We recognized the "chop" of the Ross rifle and knew that our men were in action at the extreme angle of the salient. Major Marshall telephoned me from his headquarters that the Germans were gassing and that they were following up the gas with an attack.

I was very anxious but soon learned that the German attack had been beaten off, for their artillery as usual began working off their spite on the farm houses in our rear. I also learned that although the shelling was very heavy we had escaped so far with very few casualties. About noon I began to realize that I had not eaten anything since breakfast the previous morning, when my meal had been disturbed by the German shells and the tragic death of the sentry at our headquarters. Some one handed me a tin of "bully beef," and I ripped the top off with the trusty hunting knife which had been my faithful companion on every expedition I had made into the unknown wilds of Canada for the past twenty years, and I finished that tin of beef with apologies to "Fray Bentos."

In the afternoon I started down for the front line of trenches to see how they were getting along there. Capt. Dansereau accompanied me. At first he insisted that I should not go down into the "devil's corner," as they called it, and said he would go down and look it over and come back and report to me. However, when he saw I was determined to go he got his revolver and insisted on coming along. I bade good-bye to Capt. Alexander and the brave lads that were holding the St. Julien village trenches. Many of them would "return to Lochaber no more."

We made our way down to commandant headquarters. On our way we passed in the rear of the 7th Battalion and noted that the British Columbians knew how to use their shovels and grubbers. They were busy in spite of sniping and shell fire fortifying the line of the Poelcapelle Road for some distance east of the St. Julien and in rear of Kersselaere village. Colonel Hart McHarg was there directing the men. When we got to headquarters we found Major Marshall quite cheerful. Lieutenant Shoenberger wore his customary grim smile as he told me how our men had driven back the attacking Germans a few hours before. The Germans had "gassed" them twice, but the wind was too high and it blew the deadly fumes over the parapets. The men waited till the Germans emerged from their trenches three or four deep to charge. Then our whistles blew, and hundreds of them were cut down and piled on top of each other before they broke and ran back to their trenches. One machine gun got about 200 of them.