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

by John Allister Currie

I sent a message back that this report was untrue. Our telephone lines and telephone station had been blown up by a "coal box," so we had to depend upon runners to get messages through. One of these, Pte. M.R. Kerr, later on sent me a message from the hospital to the effect that he had taken a message through for me but had been struck by a shell on his way back with the receipt and had to be taken to the hospital. He apologised for not returning to report the message delivered. I recommend him for the D.C.M.

The left flank sections of the 8th had been gassed when the Germans tried to get through between that battalion and ours. Some of their supports had come to their assistance and had driven the enemy back and reconstituted the line. They were supported by a remnant of the gallant 10th. In the early morning of Saturday this undaunted battalion had been withdrawn from St. Julien Wood where they had earned undying glory. After rallying about two hundred and seventy men they marched down to our assistance but were diverted to our right. We heard shortly after noon through runners that two battalions of British troops, the Yorks and Durhams, were on their way down to assist us in a counter attack, but these corps did not arrive until later in the afternoon. They were raw troops only out that day from England. In coming down to Fortuyn they came in open order and the German "curtain of fire" took heavy toll.

The Salient Flattened[ToList]

After the first attack the Germans settled down to a steady diet of shelling and machine gun fire. I noticed men coming back to both flanks of our supporting trenches, so I went over to rally them and put those that were not incapacitated in with the few of our platoons that were left. In the rear of the right flank of the 7th I saw some men gathered behind a ruined house at a place we called Enfiladed crossroads and went over to see who they were. The moment I stepped out of my trench a German machine gunner got after me and I could hear the "swish swish" of the bullets a few feet in front of me. I realized that death was very near, so I stepped short and let him get his range a little ahead of me. His gun followed me for a hundred yards. I found Captain Victor Currie there trying to get the wounded away from the dressing station. Major Odlum, with a few of the remnant of the brave 7th, came along. Some of his men who were gassed were coming back and he was getting a trifle alarmed about his front companies as the enemy were launching attack after attack on St. Julien on his left. I told him to tell his companies to hang on till the last on the left and at the same time to take all the stragglers and put them into the trenches in rear of his left company as support. The ground on his right which I had crossed was badly enfiladed. Lieut.-Colonel Burland came along, having put all the men he could muster into our supporting trenches. He had been struck on the chest with a spent fragment of a "coal box" which had bowled him over, but he was still full of fight. When I started back across the Kerrserlaere Zonnebeke road for our trenches a short distance east, a devilish machine gun again got after me and followed me to the shelter of the dugout in which a number of the wounded had been placed. As I entered the door of the dugout half a dozen bullets pattered on the timber prop of the low doorway not a foot from my head. After seeing to the comfort of the wounded I started back along the trench, and my old friend the "German gunner" again took a crack at me. He certainly had it in for me that day. He caught a sergeant of the Royal Montreals a few feet away from me and he fell, shot in the spine. But a Merciful hand protected me. My hour had not come.

The companies of the 13th, 14th and 7th on our left were hanging on to their trenches like demons. The men in our forward trenches, subjected to a torrent of shot and shell after driving the enemy back and losing half their number, were still fighting valiantly. From a sap at the rim of the ridge I could see our torn trenches still occupied by a few intrepid men. I could hear the "chop chop" of the rifles as they drove off the Germans, who had now resorted to open formation to try and win our forward trench. Six ranks deep the German marines had come on to take our trenches. We did not know at first that we were opposed to the German Navy but we were. The marines had been brought down from the fleet to take our trenches and see some fighting. They paid a good price for their curiosity. One of our machine guns is credited with putting over four hundred of them out of business.

Behind the German position I could see the fields filled with great masses of troops formed up ready to be launched against us. God help the heroes that day in the forward lines! Few of them would return to Toronto or the green plains of Canada. I did not know then that the German Emperor was standing on the slope behind Poelcapelle watching his hosts trying to break through the thin Canadian line. Every time the foe fell back discomfited they turned the full fury of their thousands of guns on our front line. Volleys of shells fell in rapid succession along the thin French parapets. One would think that no human creature could live in the tremendous blasts and the showers of steel fragments from the high explosive shells that flew screaming through the air in every direction like mad things.

But the bond of an iron discipline still held the Canadians, not a sound came from the tortured trenches. When the guns were turned upon the parapets and a perfect deluge of bullets would rip through the sandbags and send the clay clattering down the osiers of the hurdles and willow gabions, there would come no response from the Canadian trenches, not a shot would be fired. Plucking up courage the Huns, with much hesitation, would emerge from their "funk holes," as our men called their trenches, port arms and start across the "devil's strip," hoping that the whirlwind of shells had despatched the last of the "white devils" from Canada. But no! They would only make about ten yards when the "warning whistles" of the dauntless Canadians would sound, and then the roar of rapid fire would rise. It was not for idle pastime our men had practised night and day with dummy cartridges going through the motions of loading and firing. The attacking lines would fall in whole sections, in many cases one bullet killing two or three men. The rifle fire of the Canadian marksmen was exceedingly deadly. Every bullet found a billet. Groans and cries from the dying and wounded Germans would reach us. We could hear distinctly the hoarse shouts of their officers as they ordered "Vorwarts, Vorwarts, Schneller," while the poor unfortunate privates dismayed by the deadly blast would groan "nein, nein." Then we would hear "Wir sollen Ihr lehren Ihre Canadian Schwein! Uns Neuve Chapelle, zu sagen." "We'll teach you Canadian swine to boast about Neuve Chapelle."

Then like one man they would turn and dash madly back to their parapets, leaving the trampled clay of the devil's strip heaped with writhing figures of wounded and dead.