Volume 25 www.legionnl.com 35 Newfoundland Labrador Command We dug our trenches facing West. Around four o'clock we got our baptism of trench mortars following which we saw the enemy attacking on our left, facing south and the part of our trench which lay open to them. The English, being in front of us, started to run back and we had to take the front. From then until well after night fall, things were pretty hot. While carrying back a wounded man over the railway track, we could hear the bullets hitting against the iron so that we were forced to retire about half way down our trench where this railway ran across it. Here we positioned ourselves. All through the night I helped carry the wounded back amidst the bullets and shells. This was April 12, 1918. Towards morning we were relieved and sent back about half a mile where we stayed until four in the afternoon when we received orders to move to the left as the enemy were attacking from that quarter. In the course of bringing back a man who had been hit in the knee by a piece of shell, I was hit by a machine gun bullet. I was wounded in the left foot just bad enough to be sent down from the front line. I managed to pretend the injury was more severe than it was and it was almost a month before I was sent up the line again. I had spent six months midst the shells, bullets and mud and I felt that I deserved the rest. I arrived back with our battalion on May 11 and found that they did not have men enough left to go up the line again. From such circumstances we were assigned to Garrison Duty. We spent a while guarding General Haig and another while at the same time guarding German prisoners until September 13, when we received reinforcements and started back for the firing line once more. We were stationed in front of the town of Ypres, arriving there on September 20. We spent eight days as supports following which we were again sent 'over the top’. The Royal Scotts took the lead and we, the Newfoundlanders, followed as support for them. At one interval that day, owing to the smoke barrage, our platoon strayed from the Company. We were moving along in Artillery Formation, when we began to realize that we were almost up among our own shells. Suddenly a Scotchman said to us, “ye are up in the front line mon, ye are supposed to be in supports arn’t ye?" Then we made a halt for a while and after keeping a little to our right, we saw our Company, “C" Company, through the smoke. We advanced to the top of Passchendaele Ridge whilst yonder we could see the village which for four years had been held by the Germans. Here we halted for the night. That day the enemy had been beaten back a distance of some six miles. As we were halted, our minds went back to the wee hours of the morning, when first the order was given to 'stand to!' We all knew that it meant for us to get ready for what we dreaded, yet longed for. On a moment's notice, at a given time, it was whispered along the trench, "fifteen minutes to go boys". These moments I shall never forget. Oh my! My poor knees, how they would knock and tremble, yet they had to go. Sometimes I would glance at them and say, "if you knew where you had to carry me today, you wouldn't knock like that!" Yet I was not sure that they would take me out of the trench in which I stood; because at any moment a shell was likely to carry or send me into the air where my knees would be useless anyway. Came attendant a further whisper "five minutes to go boys", whereupon our eyes would cast an occasional glance over our shoulder, back toward our rear. Suddenly that gloom of darkness, which always seemed blackest about an hour before dawn, belched a mass of fire, such that I thought was the end of the world! It was the blaze from our big guns which lay concealed about three, four and five miles behind us. In an instant, a wall of fire was bursting out in front of us; this being where the shells were falling midst their overwhelming roar and explosion. At moment appropriate to our Commander, we all left our trench. The last moment had come! We were on the run toward the German trenches, and ran to within some thirty or forty yards of where our shells were projected and exploding. At this time also the German guns opened fire and, on looking behind us, we could see their shells exploding about one hundred yards behind. Thus we had a wall of shells and fire behind us and one in front! Thus began the day of September 28, 1918. As one would come up to where we were resting for the night, here and there a comrade lay cold in death - but our losses for that day were not so very great. After a night spent in bits and pieces of trenches and shell holes, the dawn of the 29th came. About one hour before sunrise, we saw a few airplanes fly in front of us and drop continued ... continued ...
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