BX May 28, 1915

Detailed Story of the Fighting At Langemarck – Pte. Wakeling Sends Interesting Account of the Movements of Brantford Boys Dealing Particularly With the Battle in Which the Canadian Casualties were Heaviest

A graphic and first hand picture of the horrors of war and an excellent description from one who went through the thickest part of the recent battle at Ypres and who is alive to tell the tale, is given in a letter received by E.A. Danby of this city, from Private Alfred Wakeling. Private Wakeling who is a member of Balfour Street Church, a teacher in the Sunday school and secretary of the board of managers, enlisted with the Dufferin Rifles in company with his brother, Robert. His family resided at 20 Balfour Street. The letter, which is well worth reading, is as follows:

May 12, 1915

Dear Ernest,

I received your letter of the 26th April, so am answering it right away now that I have the chance. I am pleased to say I am quite well and in the very best of health and spirits and as fit as a fiddle.

We are now having a well earned rest in France. This is eight days we have been here, re-organizing after the severe cutting up we got. I was lucky enough to come through without a scratch and went right through the lot from beginning to finish. It will be a big blow to Canada when they know the casualties.  It is given out 8,288 of all ranks. In my battalion we lost 750, very few were left by the time darkness set in on April 23. I think we totaled 250 men and 5 officers. We lost 700 in the first hour of the fight, making an advance over 1,500 yards of open country. 

Maybe it would be interesting to tell you some of our doings since we have been here. In the first place nearly all our work has been in France, the 2nd and 4th Battalions taking it in turns in the trenches. We used to relieve each other every four days. The battalion out would be the reserves. We used to have plenty of excitement during the night, as soon as it was dusk we used to go out prowling around for anything eatable and wood and coal to make fires. The weather was awful cold and wet when we first landed here. The mud would be up to our knees and we were wet through the whole time. Sleep was out of the question for the four days on account of the cold and wet. We used to get what they call “trench feet,” the feet and legs would get numbed and hardly any use in them. The four days seemed like four weeks.

On April 21 we marched to a place called Vlamertinghe and billeted in a factory on the main road from Ypres to Calais. On the 22nd during the afternoon we heard fierce bombarding and about 5 o’clock the French were retreating both infantry and artillery. It was an awful sight to see the refugees, poor little children, mothers with babies, old men and women. We helped them all we could, putting them in wagons and transports so they could get out of the danger zone of the long range guns. We were told to be in readiness at any time, so laid down to get what rest we could. At midnight we were called out and marched up to the Yser canal. We arrived there just before daybreak and dug ourselves in along the roadway (I guess you are familiar with that phrase. We carry a small shovel and pick “entrenching tool” and dig a hole and make ourselves scarce). At day break the Germans did not look as if they were going to make an attack, so we advanced a little further, under cover. At 5 a.m. we were told to take a trench about 1500 yards away. We had been lying down behind a hedge and we no sooner showed ourselves than a terrible fire was opened up, machine gun, rifle and shrapnel. It came from all directions on our front and both flanks, our boys went over in dozens. There was nothing to do but push forward, and we had only started. One particular spot I noticed was awful. It was a small piece of plowed land with just a little rise in it. A machine gun swept along the ridge of it. Bullets were hitting and whistling everywhere. We could do nothing for our wounded but leave them on the field and trust to providence. Soon we managed to pull into a ditch. (When we advance we are not allowed to carry a man back; I will explain that later.)  It took us just one hour to take the trench the French had lost. Only 250 of us were left and five officers. We lost about 700 men and 20 officers that morning. The colonel was killed, second in command wounded and the adjutant also was killed. Capt. Colquhoun was the only company commander left and he was carried off that night, through the poisonous gases. In my platoon 55 started and only 11 of us reached the trench. 

The worst was yet to come during the day. We had no artillery behind us to back us up, and we had to hold the trench at all costs. Their artillery started shelling us right away, to drive us out. I think we sampled every kind of shell made in Germany. For 14 hours they kept it up continuously, Jack Johnsons, shrapnel, gas shells and coal boxes. The last named are terrors, they hit the ground and explode, throwing out a big black cloud of smoke. It fairly shakes the life out of a fellow. 

If ever anyone prayed for night I did. “It was hell.”  Our wounded we could do nothing for. They just lay there patiently. It must have been awful for them. I never expected to come out alive.

Towards evening our artillery came into action and reinforcements from the British army. It was a grand sight to see them advance. They certainly can fight. Battalion after battalion came up and the French in reserve. That made our position secure. We had been up against big odds and the sacrifice was great but we managed to hold out and gain the day.
That night we rallied together again, Lieutenant T.P. Jones being in command as he was the senior officer left, and a pretty sorry looking bunch we were. There was only a handful left. We started to carry our wounded away. (The dead we left. I don’t know who buried them.)  We were then ordered to take up another position at a different point and so we were kept at it for seven days. We lost another 45 during that time.

On the seventh night, April 30, we went up again and dug trenches, then came back into the reserve for seven days and finally away back here to get re-organized.

I will explain why you are not allowed to carry a wounded man back. Take this last fight as a sample. Suppose every man carried a comrade back, how many would be left to take up the advance?  In that case none at all. It may sound a trifle brutal but when you come to think it over, it is only right.    

Well Ernest, you would hardly believe the sights we see here. The dead were lying everywhere and towns blown to atoms. I came through Vlamertinghe one morning about 4 o’clock. In the doorway of a house a man was lying in a pool of blood. We went over to see if he was dead, and there was a girl about 12 and two other girls about 10 years old, all four dead. It is enough to break a man’s heart. There are dozens of cases similar.

Ypres is the worst place I have been in. Another fellow and I came through there about 1 o’clock on a Sunday morning. The town was in flames, dead horses lay everywhere and there was hardly a house that had not been shelled.

Well Ernest, I hope I have not bored you with this long letter. I had plenty of time and I thought perhaps it would interest you to have a little news first hand. So many things happen here. I believe I could write 50 pages. One very interesting thing is to see the airships having a scrap. I guess all these little stories can keep, so I must thank you for your letter and please give my very best respects to all at home and pray that God will spare us to meet again in the future.

Alfred A. Wakeling

BX July 27, 1915

Was Shot By His Own Men; Shoot First, Then Challenge – Pte. A.A. Wakeling Tells of Experience in the Trenches in France – How Corp. Charlton Met His Death Near Vlamertinghe Through a Bursting of Shrapnel Shell

Two very interesting letters, written by Pte. Alfred A. Wakeling to Ernest A. Danby, of this city, are printed below in detail. The epistles give a first-handed idea of the activities of the Brantford soldiers in the trenches. Pte. Wakeling, who left here with the First Contingent of Dufferin Rifles, describing graphically some of the tactics of the Huns and British. The letters follow:

July 9, 1915
France 
 
Dear Ernest,
 
I would have written before but have not had very much time since I rejoined the regiment. I left La Havre on June 24 and arrived at the battalion headquarters for duty on the 25th. They were then on the right of the British line. I was just in time for one of our busy periods. We marched out the same night for a three nights’ hike to take up a line of trenches in Belgium. We did it in four stages, marching by night and resting during the day. On the last stage we started at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and arrived in the trenches between 11 and 12 pm, covering a distance of 15 miles. A fellow feels pretty tired doing that distance in full marching order.

But, however, the trenches were pretty quiet all night, so we were able to get some rest. We stayed in them for eight days and had quite a time in the way of minor occurrences. I’ll give you some of the little incidents that you hardly ever read about in the paper. 

Blew Both Up

The Germans in one part of the 4th Battalion line were 180 yards from us, and then the line gradually got closer until it was only 75 yards. They started sapping (or mining) so as to get under our trench. They never got very far as our engineers sapped under their mine and blew the two up together. That was the first morning. Two days later our miners had another go and were fairly successful, blowing up a small portion of their trenches. Then it came the Germans’ turn, but they never got in close enough. It was a terrible explosion, but never did the slightest piece of damage. 

Then another night we captured a German officer. He came right up to our barbed wire and the sentry shot him. We got a lot of information in his correspondence. Major Colquhoun has got his rifle and bayonet.

Shot Own Man

One regrettable incident occurred. One of our sergeant-majors went out, and on coming back got killed by one of our own men. It’s a general rule here to shoot first and challenge after. Their snipers were busy all the time. We lost about eight men that way and we determined to give them no rest, so we kept them jumping night and day all the time, firing at their working parties at night and sniping during the day. One morning about 3 am, a German band was playing over in their lines. I don’t think our artillery could locate them; if they had it would have been “good bye band.”

The trenches were in good shape and the communication trenches led right down to a big wood at the back of us. We used to go out during the day and buy things in a town. The place was pretty well battered, but still some of the people lived there. An old lady, 70 years of age, was killed by a shell one afternoon while I was down there. 

Three Graveyards

The wood I mentioned before is a pretty place. When the artillery stops for a little while you can hardly realize there is a war on, everything is so nice and green and the shells have hardly done any damage to the trees.  There are three graveyards, all fixed up by the soldiers and kept in good shape. Every day the crosses get more numerous. (The war claims its toll.)

I believe we are all going to have an eight days’ pass to England – just those who are left of the old battalion and very few of us are here now – mostly killed or wounded.

I believe you had one of my letters in the paper. I never saw it myself, so I don’t know which one it is. I have seen so many published by fellows that have never been within five miles of the firing line, that it fairly makes me sick to read them. That was why I asked you in the first place not to publish any of mine. That was the only reason. All I have written is actual facts and what I have seen myself. 

Well I guess I will have to finish up now. We expect to go back into the trenches again in a couple of days and I have so many to write to so will close with my very best respects to all, and may God bless you all.
 
Yours faithfully,
Alfred A. Wakeling

​July 10, 1915

France 
 
Dear Ernest,
 
I have just received your letter of May 28 so take the pleasure of answering it. We have been here four days and are now packed up ready for another move tonight. I thought we were here for a long rest after eight days in the trenches, but, however, we can’t foresee events and I find it best to take things as they come and plod along night and day.

The Courier was rather boosting me up. That was the first time I had seen the letter. Another one of my letters was published by my cousin in a London paper and also read in one of the schools. Strange to say I received a letter from a lady in London asking me to find out particulars of her brother who was in the Winnipeg Rifles and has been missing for several weeks.

How Charlton Died

As regards to Claude Charlton, I knew him very well and can give you particulars of his death. It was while we were in reserve and suffering from heavy shell fire (it was either April 26, or 27). We were along the Yser Canal, dug in. A shrapnel burst near him and wounded him so badly that he died shortly afterwards. He lies buried in a small town called Vlamertinghe in Belgium. I know the place well. The last time we passed through there, the Red Cross were using the church adjoining the cemetery as a dressing station. The Germans shelled the church so much that they had to get out of it and several of the wounded were killed. That is only one of the tricks they play.

You asked me in your letter my opinion as to how soon the war would be over. It is the general opinion that there will be no winter campaign. I too trust we will be finished before the cold weather comes on. It was bad enough in the months of February and March, up to your knees in mud all the time. We used to do four days in and four out then, but now we do eight or ten at a time. It’s a great strain on a man’s nerves.

Now Ernest, I must thank you very much for your kind offer to send me anything I need. My wants are very small here. I rub along from day to day, sometimes plenty to eat; other times nothing, just according to the circumstances we are in. The government supplies us with an abundance of tobacco, and I find it a good thing in the trenches. It seems to soothe one’s nerves and occupies the mind. 

Well Ernest, I don’t know whether I told you in my last letter, they are giving us eight days’ pass to England. I am not in a hurry to go myself just yet. My mother is very low and I am expecting to get a cable any day calling me to London. She has been an invalid for nearly eight years, and just lately has had two strokes, so I wouldn’t like to go now and when I was wanted not be able to return.

I guess I must now close this letter as we are expecting to move off at any time. I don’t know if we are going back in the trenches again or into billets. We just get the order to move but are never told where. If I were allowed to tell you any names, you would be surprised at the number of places we have been in. I am keeping a diary, so if God spares me to return to Canada we will be able to have an interesting evening together.

Well good bye and God bless you all, and remember me in your prayers. 

I am yours faithfully, 
Alfred A. Wakeling