Ww1 Unit 1 Narrative Report

CHC 2D1
Unit 1 Culminating
A WWI Soldier’s Account

Mrs. Lyrea Lee August 31, 1914
77 Wendell Rd.
London, On
M6T 2W3

Dear Mother, It’s been a week since we arrived at camp in Québec, called Val Cartier. I won’t regret running off against your will; as soon as the call for war came, I felt a sense of fear mixed with excitement, adventure and patriotism, which I’m sure the feelings are mutual within the militia. We know little about the details of the upcoming war; we heard that a force called “Triple Alliance” is what we are up against. The Canadian Expeditionary Force, what they call our division, was supposed to support the Triple Entente, which included Britain, France, and Russia, in their war effort
It’s not surprising as Canada is still under the British monarch. Last week, Colonel Sam Hughes briefed the volunteers (who had women) to hand out the Ross rifles to each division. The conditions here are horrible; it was raining almost every day since we came and the camp was very muddy. Our private quarters had around 10 people each with their own footlockers. Fortunately for me, I was already used to this environment from back there at home. 4 days ago, they began rifle and marching training to prepare us rookies for the upcoming war. We crawled and ran through the muddy terrain. We were taught how to hold, aim, and fire our guns. A lot of men were faced with frustration as our guns kept getting jammed every 7 shots or so. We all had to carry our own equipment: sacks, water bottles, helmets, and shovels; which were fairly heavy and we had to run through the difficult terrain with. Last night, there was transport ships docked at shore. I saw Colonel Hughes discussing with some British officers; at dawn, he declared our trip to another camp in Britain,
We already fought a couple of battles here at the Western Front. In most of those battles, both sides used trench warfare, in which soldiers hide inside deep trenches. These trenches were dug in rows with sandbags lined at the top – side facing the “no-man’s land”. No-man’s land was basically where all the battle happens. The countryside mire was filled with landmines, covered with barbed wires on the surface. Several of my surviving comrades from the previous battle, the Somme, were shell-shocked, probably from the disaster. I still couldn’t forget the ‘Blood Bath’ that happened there. Trench life has been far worse than the life at camp 2 years ago. There was still the awfully wet mud surrounding and the cold air filled our lungs. Our boots were always wet, and we were given whale oil to cover our feet every day. Some people refuse or forget to do it, thus they developed trench foot. It’s a condition where one’s feet are rotting, and more often than not, accompanied by swelling and a painful infection. The trenches were filled with lice and rats which caused diseases, when they sneaked around the supplies. I managed to avoid the lice because I kept the silk you gave, around my torso as an undershirt. Anyways, a few days before the battle, General Arthur Currie made thorough plans for the attack. The planes scouted the enemy front lines and the terrain, and spotted the snipers and machine gun positions. We built a