My grandfather’s journal entries after the First Battle of Ypres, January 1915 January 2nd–23rd During the past 20 days it has been the usual give and take of obtaining small patches of land that cost dearly in human lives. Every day we fired at any targets that were presented to us, and then the enemy would return the favor at night. The redoubt was taken and lost many times and each attack resulted in a couple hours of fierce scrapping. Since neither side could hold onto the redoubt, the land between our trenches and the enemy was termed, “no man’s land.” At night the rifle bullets made it rather uncomfortable to sleep. The weather has been very wet and cold; in fact we even received a few heavy snowstorms. Many of the men were coming down with fever. Eventually I got a fever high enough that it caused me to vomit in a bucket, but I was still able to carry on with business. The night attacks were becoming very frequent, although we suffered very few casualties except for a few wounded. We lost more men to sickness than from enemy gun fire. One day during this period I went into Bethune and found a place to take a much needed bath and a change of underclothing. I knew that I was beginning to smell like livestock, so taking a wash must have been a relief to my chums. January 24th During the day the enemy used their eight-inch Howitzers to bombard the docks on the canal and railway line, which was by our observing station. They must have sent over 129 shells, but they did little material damage. One shell fell plumb on the railway line and flung about a 4 foot piece of the rail a thousand yards. It sailed right over our guns, falling a few yards from where I stood. When I heard it coming through the air, I thought it was a shell so I fell to the ground. Later I read about the incident in the papers and smiled to see how much the reports made of it. When it actually happened, we took little or no notice. We were rather more interested in watching the effect of their fire on the canal lock because wagers were pending on their ability to hit their target. January 25th The night passed quietly with less than the usual amount of shooting. Around 7:15 am I received a message from the 25th Battery that a German observer was captured. They found out from him that the Germans were planning a big attack on our front at Givenchy and Cuinchy around 7:30 am. He also revealed that the attack would be preceded by a heavy bombardment. I immediately sent a message to our observing station, and then hurriedly roused the gun detachments and the officers. When the bombardment started it was more horrific than any of the other ones I experienced. The sound of artillery fire was continuous except when they fired their 17 inch guns. The whine of hundreds of shells going through the air mixed with the explosion of both above and ground level shells was deafening. All around me great mounds of earth were uplifted by bursting shells. We replied with rapidly returned gun fire of our own, which added greatly to the unbearable noise. The smoke from gun fire and bursting shells was so heavy that at times we couldn’t see what we were shooting at. The enemy captured our first line of trenches and our infantry fell back towards our observing station. Two out of three of our phone lines were cut by shells. While I attended to the instruments, Collins ran a line to the left gun section. During the process, Collins got knocked on the knee by a shell fragment, while the same shell wounded two men and killed the young officer, Mr. Watkins, who had only joined us 8 days previous. I sent two of my chaps along the observing line but soon after they left, the line to the 25th Battery was broken. I hastily got Collins, who was limping, to attend to the phones while I went along the line to the 25th to try and locate the break. We were being heavily shelled, so I was very uncomfortable while following the line and listening to the shrapnel and bullets striking the ground around me. I found a couple of yards of the line that had been cut by shrapnel. The break occurred where the wire went through a vine that ran along the top of a wall. So I climbed up on the wall but had to drop very quickly when a shell seemed to whiz inches from my head. I noticed that a piece of wire was holding the vine to the wall. I cut the wire and the vine fell, which allowed me to repair the line. I was very glad when I reached the 25th to find that communication was coming through. I took a while recovering my breath before my return to the 40th Battery. On my way back a shell exploded directly in front of me. I had a very clean shave from one of its splinters, but after that the rest of my journey went without mishap. I just arrived when another big shell burst right on the farm, about 20 yards from the building where my chum was sitting. Luckily the shell didn’t do much damage except to the building. Then another shell fell right into the shelter where the telephones for the left section were located, severely wounding one man. All in all I had one horrific morning. The heavy bombardment forced our infantry to retire. Since our battery position was the foremost battery behind their trenches, I knew if our infantry lost the small ridge in front of us, it would be the finish of us and our guns. We were fortunate that our third line stood so we were able to keep up firing at near ground level. Our guns performed splendidly, doing great execution among the masses of advancing Germans. The Guards Brigade, consisting of the London Scottish, Seaforths, Camerons, and Royal Guards, were brought up as reinforcements, stopping the German advance. However, the Germans entrenched themselves behind our original line. In spite of all of our attacks, the Germans, with overwhelming odds against them, held on to the ground they had gained.

January 26th At 7 am our battery put down a fierce bombardment that lasted about 3 hours. Then the Guards made a counter attack to try to regain the ground we had lost the day before. They recovered a little but failed to accomplish their main objective, which was to get back to our old five trenches. We fired feverously and were shelled in return, with one 6 inch shell going right into the cellar of the farm close to the batteries left section. Out of all the shells that fell on or near us, only two men were wounded. The fight went on more or less all day. We failed to get any further forward, but we did manage to repulse an attack from the Germans. In the afternoon, the 1st Serge Battery, which was positioned to our left rear, got it hot when one shell went right into the farm building where they were in action. It set the building ablaze, yet in spite of the heavy shelling, I watched the gunners running to and from the burning barn removing the wounded. After a while they managed to put out the fire even through the persistent shelling. It was grand to watch them, although my view was obscured from time to time from the smoke being emitted by both the shells and fire. They stuck to it grandly and after putting out the fire, they started shooting again with greater intensity, as if they wanted to inflect great in damage on the enemy for those that were putout or wounded. January 27th–28th After two days of attacks and counter attacks, as well as very fierce, severe scrapping, we regained all the lost ground. A large number of prisoners were taken. There were no further casualties at the guns, which was lucky considering the shell fire the enemy was putting over us. The Germans did a great deal of entrenching during the nights, which gave us some good targets to shoot at during the day. Our guns were still working dandy, considering the enormous amount of shooting they had done throughout the campaign. They remained perfectly accurate, which accounted for much of our success. January 29th–February 5th We had a rather quiet period with very little interaction with the enemy. There were times when we would fire and they never replied. Our attacks of the previous week seemed to have quieted them considerably.

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