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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:27,251 --> 00:00:35,585 This film contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting 2 00:00:39,210 --> 00:00:43,544 I gave every part of my youth to do a job 3 00:00:43,544 --> 00:00:47,044 and to go through a savage war. 4 00:00:47,044 --> 00:00:50,544 It was a different war from year to year, and one's reactions 5 00:00:50,544 --> 00:00:52,378 were completely different. 6 00:00:52,378 --> 00:00:57,003 The intensity changed so much that anybody who'd been out in 1914 7 00:00:57,003 --> 00:00:59,045 and went home and came back in 1917, 8 00:00:59,045 --> 00:01:02,378 wouldn't recognise it as the same war. 9 00:01:02,378 --> 00:01:05,129 I can only say one thing, I wouldn't have missed it. 10 00:01:05,129 --> 00:01:08,170 It was terrible at times, but I wouldn't have missed it. 11 00:01:08,170 --> 00:01:11,962 Oh, yes, if I could have my time again, I'd go through it 12 00:01:11,962 --> 00:01:14,629 all over again because I enjoyed the service life. 13 00:01:14,629 --> 00:01:18,588 I could only say that I have never been so excited in my life, 14 00:01:18,588 --> 00:01:22,171 this was like a boy going to the play the first time. 15 00:01:22,171 --> 00:01:25,338 I never realised there was anything unusual about it. 16 00:01:25,338 --> 00:01:28,838 There was a job to be done and you just go on and did it. 17 00:01:28,838 --> 00:01:31,963 We were all instilled with the idea that this was war 18 00:01:31,963 --> 00:01:35,797 and that we've got to kill the Germans, and this is how we looked 19 00:01:35,797 --> 00:01:37,297 at the thing. 20 00:01:37,297 --> 00:01:39,922 I don't regret having experienced it. 21 00:01:39,922 --> 00:01:43,506 I wish I hadn't, but I don't regret it because I'm safe. 22 00:01:43,506 --> 00:01:45,006 HE LAUGHS 23 00:01:45,006 --> 00:01:47,298 There were good times and bad times in France. 24 00:01:47,298 --> 00:01:49,423 But you took the rough with the smooth. 25 00:01:49,423 --> 00:01:53,465 I was twice wounded and gassed, but it was just war and you made 26 00:01:53,465 --> 00:01:55,215 the best of it. 27 00:01:55,215 --> 00:01:57,673 Just took it in its stride, like everybody else. 28 00:01:57,673 --> 00:02:00,548 We were glad to be in it and we expected it to be rough, 29 00:02:00,548 --> 00:02:03,840 and it WAS rough, but we didn't complain. 30 00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:06,215 There was no real excitement about it. 31 00:02:06,215 --> 00:02:09,840 You'd seen death so many times, you'd seen wounded so many times, 32 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:11,466 blood didn't excite you. 33 00:02:11,466 --> 00:02:15,674 We were professionals and to us it was just a job of work. 34 00:02:15,674 --> 00:02:20,258 It would be a fallacy to say that one enjoyed it, 35 00:02:20,258 --> 00:02:23,425 but one got afterwards a nice, warm inner feeling that 36 00:02:23,425 --> 00:02:24,966 one had been some use. 37 00:02:24,966 --> 00:02:27,425 It didn't affect me very much because I wasn't 38 00:02:27,425 --> 00:02:30,217 sufficiently open in the ways of the world, I was only a kid, 39 00:02:30,217 --> 00:02:32,133 like other blokes there. 40 00:02:32,133 --> 00:02:35,258 It was more like a great big game to be enjoyed, 41 00:02:35,258 --> 00:02:38,967 apart from the actual killing and all that sort of thing. 42 00:02:38,967 --> 00:02:40,509 It made me a man. 43 00:02:40,509 --> 00:02:41,926 Yes, it did. 44 00:02:41,926 --> 00:02:44,384 I don't think I should have ever been the man I am if it 45 00:02:44,384 --> 00:02:46,342 hadn't been for having to serve. 46 00:02:46,342 --> 00:02:49,551 You'd learn to look after yourself. 47 00:02:49,551 --> 00:02:53,718 Whereas in your civilian life, your mother did all the chores. 48 00:02:53,718 --> 00:02:56,093 You've got to learn how to cook for yourself, 49 00:02:56,093 --> 00:02:58,760 darn your own socks, sew on your own buttons 50 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:00,552 and all the things like that. 51 00:03:00,552 --> 00:03:02,302 It was just a day's work. 52 00:03:02,302 --> 00:03:05,843 I knew that I was not alone, I knew I wasn't fighting the war 53 00:03:05,843 --> 00:03:09,469 by myself and that what happened to other people might happen to me. 54 00:03:09,469 --> 00:03:11,385 I had no regrets at all. 55 00:03:11,385 --> 00:03:14,136 But, you see, I had no wife, no girl, no nothing. 56 00:03:14,136 --> 00:03:16,427 No regrets, no horrors... 57 00:03:18,219 --> 00:03:21,469 ..because if you survive that, you can survive anything. 58 00:03:32,387 --> 00:03:34,637 We was aware that there was sort of a nasty feeling 59 00:03:34,637 --> 00:03:36,637 between England and Germany. 60 00:03:36,637 --> 00:03:39,512 We knew of the Kaiser's ambition to expand his empire 61 00:03:39,512 --> 00:03:41,970 and all that sort of thing. 62 00:03:41,970 --> 00:03:45,887 During that summer, there was a lot of talk about trouble 63 00:03:45,887 --> 00:03:48,304 going on in the Balkans, but we were a long way 64 00:03:48,304 --> 00:03:51,888 from the Balkans and it didn't worry us at all. 65 00:03:51,888 --> 00:03:54,221 It was that Serbia business, wasn't it? 66 00:03:54,221 --> 00:03:56,596 Serbia, when that chap was shot. 67 00:03:56,596 --> 00:03:59,638 I was paying attention to politics and I realised 68 00:03:59,638 --> 00:04:03,305 that there was going to be trouble between England and Germany. 69 00:04:03,305 --> 00:04:06,638 It was a lovely August the 4th morning. 70 00:04:06,638 --> 00:04:09,805 We were all seated around the table and we were starting 71 00:04:09,805 --> 00:04:12,055 the Rugby football dinner with the German team. 72 00:04:12,055 --> 00:04:14,681 There was a German here, next to him was an Englishman, 73 00:04:14,681 --> 00:04:17,056 and next to him was a German, and so on and so on. 74 00:04:17,056 --> 00:04:20,431 And a runner arrived into the middle of this dinner 75 00:04:20,431 --> 00:04:23,931 with extraordinary news of outbreak of war. 76 00:04:23,931 --> 00:04:26,973 There was a big placard - "War declared on Germany." 77 00:04:26,973 --> 00:04:29,265 We didn't know what we ought to do. 78 00:04:29,265 --> 00:04:31,348 Whether we got to seize a knife off the table 79 00:04:31,348 --> 00:04:34,182 and plunge it into the German or what! 80 00:04:34,182 --> 00:04:37,390 But, after a little bit of discussion, we decided 81 00:04:37,390 --> 00:04:41,349 that as far as we were concerned, the war was going to start tomorrow, 82 00:04:41,349 --> 00:04:43,682 and the party proceeded. 83 00:04:46,766 --> 00:04:49,683 I'm proud of being a British hero. I mean, I think we're as good 84 00:04:49,683 --> 00:04:51,099 a country as any in the world 85 00:04:51,099 --> 00:04:53,724 and you've got to be prepared to fight for that. 86 00:04:53,724 --> 00:04:55,474 There's no doubt about it - 87 00:04:55,474 --> 00:04:59,391 in the First World War, we prepared for war. 88 00:04:59,391 --> 00:05:03,142 The empire was strong, we weren't afraid of anyone. 89 00:05:03,142 --> 00:05:06,392 Everybody bought little buttons and white flags and sang songs, 90 00:05:06,392 --> 00:05:09,475 there was no feeling of despair about it at all. 91 00:05:09,475 --> 00:05:13,100 England couldn't possibly lose, no matter how many Germans pushed 92 00:05:13,100 --> 00:05:15,976 how many Englishmen into the Channel, that they'd get no further. 93 00:05:15,976 --> 00:05:18,226 We couldn't possibly lose. 94 00:05:18,226 --> 00:05:22,476 We were brought up to think that one Englishman was worth ten Germans. 95 00:05:22,476 --> 00:05:26,184 I thought that any enemy of England was an enemy of mine 96 00:05:26,184 --> 00:05:27,893 and I wanted to be in it. 97 00:05:27,893 --> 00:05:30,435 Oh, 6 months or 12 months, it would be all over 98 00:05:30,435 --> 00:05:32,518 and Bob's your uncle. 99 00:05:32,518 --> 00:05:35,018 I went with a friend of mine to Shepherd's Bush Empire 100 00:05:35,018 --> 00:05:37,935 to see the picture show there and they showed the fleet 101 00:05:37,935 --> 00:05:42,019 saving the high seas and played "Britons never shall be slaves", 102 00:05:42,019 --> 00:05:44,644 and one feels that little shiver run up their back and you know 103 00:05:44,644 --> 00:05:46,394 you've got to do something. 104 00:05:46,394 --> 00:05:49,102 A friend of mine said to me, "We're going to join up." 105 00:05:49,102 --> 00:05:51,603 It was from the patriotic point of view, 106 00:05:51,603 --> 00:05:56,728 and from the general excitement of the whole affair, I suppose. 107 00:05:56,728 --> 00:06:00,020 I didn't believe in war to that extent, but I was prepared 108 00:06:00,020 --> 00:06:02,103 to do my part. 109 00:06:02,103 --> 00:06:05,478 You see, in those days, men weren't to think for themselves, 110 00:06:05,478 --> 00:06:09,229 they just had to do what they were told and that's all there was to it. 111 00:06:09,229 --> 00:06:12,479 Oh, my mother was very aggrieved about it. 112 00:06:12,479 --> 00:06:15,896 But, you know, a young man, you decide you're going to go. 113 00:06:15,896 --> 00:06:19,687 At lunchtime, I left the office, went along to Armoury House 114 00:06:19,687 --> 00:06:23,063 and there was a queue of about 1,000 people trying to enlist. 115 00:06:23,063 --> 00:06:25,271 Everybody thought it would be a civilised war 116 00:06:25,271 --> 00:06:27,646 and wanted to be fit enough to go. 117 00:06:27,646 --> 00:06:30,313 Two of us decided to join up together, and when we told 118 00:06:30,313 --> 00:06:32,605 the boss we were going to start training on Monday, 119 00:06:32,605 --> 00:06:33,980 he was very annoyed. 120 00:06:33,980 --> 00:06:36,647 He didn't make any promise at all that our jobs would be there 121 00:06:36,647 --> 00:06:38,063 when we got back. 122 00:06:38,063 --> 00:06:41,522 My mother, she said, "You wait until you're 19." 123 00:06:41,522 --> 00:06:45,064 See, that was the age in those days, 19 to 35. 124 00:06:45,064 --> 00:06:47,397 Well, it was supposed to be. 125 00:06:47,397 --> 00:06:49,314 We were all lads together, you know, 126 00:06:49,314 --> 00:06:50,814 full of excitement 127 00:06:50,814 --> 00:06:52,398 and all this kind of thing. 128 00:06:52,398 --> 00:06:53,814 I mean, I just wanted 129 00:06:53,814 --> 00:06:55,273 to have a go at Jerry. 130 00:06:55,273 --> 00:06:57,981 I just thought that I'd like to go and fight for the country. 131 00:06:57,981 --> 00:07:00,940 This was the thing, you were proud of your country 132 00:07:00,940 --> 00:07:02,690 and you'd do the best you could for it. 133 00:07:02,690 --> 00:07:05,523 And this was what most of the young people thought of doing 134 00:07:05,523 --> 00:07:07,107 in those days. 135 00:07:07,107 --> 00:07:10,524 My mother, she said to me, "Look, we could stop you doing this 136 00:07:10,524 --> 00:07:12,107 "because of your age." 137 00:07:12,107 --> 00:07:15,815 I said, "Yes, I know you could, Mother, but I'm sure you won't." 138 00:07:15,815 --> 00:07:17,566 Which they never did. 139 00:07:17,566 --> 00:07:20,941 I just felt that all the young fellows of that age 140 00:07:20,941 --> 00:07:22,316 were volunteering 141 00:07:22,316 --> 00:07:24,483 and I thought it was my job to do the same. 142 00:07:24,483 --> 00:07:27,358 I was desperately keen and a whole heap of us were. 143 00:07:27,358 --> 00:07:29,275 I said, "Direct enlistment, please." 144 00:07:29,275 --> 00:07:30,775 They were highly delighted 145 00:07:30,775 --> 00:07:33,150 and pushed me in as quick as lightning. 146 00:07:33,150 --> 00:07:35,983 Lots of the lads were joining the local regiments, 147 00:07:35,983 --> 00:07:37,942 like the Bucks and the Middlesex. 148 00:07:37,942 --> 00:07:40,150 Lads that I knew and had been to school with, 149 00:07:40,150 --> 00:07:42,025 played football and cricket with, 150 00:07:42,025 --> 00:07:44,609 we joined up, hoping for the best. 151 00:07:44,609 --> 00:07:47,192 We were good friends, comrades 152 00:07:47,192 --> 00:07:51,359 and it was a relief from rather boring jobs at home, you see. 153 00:07:51,359 --> 00:07:54,609 I was walking down the Camden Town high street, 154 00:07:54,609 --> 00:07:58,818 when two young ladies approached me, "Why aren't you in the Army?" 155 00:07:58,818 --> 00:08:00,693 I said, "I'm only 17." 156 00:08:00,693 --> 00:08:02,610 "Oh, they all say that here." 157 00:08:02,610 --> 00:08:06,193 And to my amazement, she put her hand in her bag 158 00:08:06,193 --> 00:08:09,360 and I put my hand up to sort of safeguard myself, 159 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:13,152 and this white feather finished up my nose. 160 00:08:13,152 --> 00:08:17,444 As we marched to the station, some of the chaps had bowler hats, 161 00:08:17,444 --> 00:08:21,861 some had straw hats, some had the regulation peaked Army cap. 162 00:08:21,861 --> 00:08:24,278 Some would have tunics, some would be dressed 163 00:08:24,278 --> 00:08:27,819 with their ordinary jackets with a pair of Army trousers. 164 00:08:27,819 --> 00:08:30,320 Some had Army boots, some didn't. 165 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:32,986 And we really were a motley throng. 166 00:08:32,986 --> 00:08:35,445 Some of them were obviously chaps who had hoped to live 167 00:08:35,445 --> 00:08:38,320 in some comfort and brought suitcases with clothes with them, 168 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:39,778 which they never saw again. 169 00:08:39,778 --> 00:08:41,695 We had to all get our hair cut. 170 00:08:41,695 --> 00:08:42,987 "How would you like it, sir?" 171 00:08:42,987 --> 00:08:45,279 And you'd say, "Short back and sides." 172 00:08:45,279 --> 00:08:47,571 But the answer was, straight over the top 173 00:08:47,571 --> 00:08:51,487 with horse clippers, and we looked more like convicts than soldiers. 174 00:08:51,487 --> 00:08:53,738 As soon as war broke out, there was a call made 175 00:08:53,738 --> 00:08:55,904 for all ex-soldiers to rejoin, 176 00:08:55,904 --> 00:08:58,654 and they made them sergeants straight away. 177 00:08:58,654 --> 00:09:01,780 So you got a lot of instructors that way. 178 00:09:01,780 --> 00:09:04,946 The people who really carried us through was the old sweats 179 00:09:04,946 --> 00:09:09,280 who'd had previous war experience and gave us a lot of wise advice 180 00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:12,655 as to what to look for and what to dodge. 181 00:09:12,655 --> 00:09:17,072 We were ordered down onto the parade ground and then we were allotted 182 00:09:17,072 --> 00:09:19,614 to different platoons. 183 00:09:19,614 --> 00:09:23,322 When they came to us, they were weedy, sallow, 184 00:09:23,322 --> 00:09:26,656 skinny, frightened children. 185 00:09:26,656 --> 00:09:30,740 The refuse of our industrial system and they were in very poor condition 186 00:09:30,740 --> 00:09:32,990 and had to be made into soldiers. 187 00:09:32,990 --> 00:09:36,990 Many of us had given our wrong ages to join the Army. 188 00:09:36,990 --> 00:09:39,573 The agent walked down the lines and gave an order, 189 00:09:39,573 --> 00:09:45,074 "Every man under the age of 19 should take two paces forward." 190 00:09:45,074 --> 00:09:47,574 Nobody moved. 191 00:09:47,574 --> 00:09:51,532 I was a lad of 17 and they'd probably say I wasn't 19, 192 00:09:51,532 --> 00:09:54,074 which you had to be to join up. 193 00:09:54,074 --> 00:09:57,491 But he says, "How long do you want to sign on for?" 194 00:09:57,491 --> 00:10:00,783 Everyone else was joining up so I called into the recruitment office 195 00:10:00,783 --> 00:10:03,741 and he said to me, "How old are you?" I said, "17, sir." 196 00:10:03,741 --> 00:10:07,075 Well, he said, "Go outside and come back and say you are 18." 197 00:10:07,075 --> 00:10:10,158 So of course, I went outside and said we were 18. 198 00:10:10,158 --> 00:10:12,033 I was straight up there. 199 00:10:12,033 --> 00:10:14,742 The Sergeant said, "How old are you?" 200 00:10:14,742 --> 00:10:16,075 I said, "I'm 18 and one month." 201 00:10:16,075 --> 00:10:18,367 He said, "Do you mean 19 and one month? 202 00:10:18,367 --> 00:10:20,367 So I thought for a moment, I said, "Yes, sir." 203 00:10:20,367 --> 00:10:22,326 He said, "Right, sign here, please." 204 00:10:22,326 --> 00:10:25,951 He asked me how old I was and I said I was 16 in March. 205 00:10:25,951 --> 00:10:27,659 He said, "You're too young, 206 00:10:27,659 --> 00:10:30,284 "you better go outside and have a birthday." 207 00:10:30,284 --> 00:10:33,535 I was 16 years old in 1917 208 00:10:33,535 --> 00:10:38,493 and I was six foot two tall and my father allowed me to go. 209 00:10:38,493 --> 00:10:41,702 So I entered my age as 19 years old, 210 00:10:41,702 --> 00:10:45,202 three years older than what I really was. 211 00:10:45,202 --> 00:10:49,786 I was 15 years, just 2½ years short of 18, 212 00:10:49,786 --> 00:10:53,411 and I got before this medical officer, who said, 213 00:10:53,411 --> 00:10:55,994 "All right, you pass." 214 00:10:55,994 --> 00:10:59,953 I had just turned 17 at the time and I went up to Whitehall 215 00:10:59,953 --> 00:11:02,828 and enlisted in the 16th Lancers. 216 00:11:02,828 --> 00:11:06,245 I was 15 and I thought I'd have a better chance 217 00:11:06,245 --> 00:11:08,037 than when I were 14. 218 00:11:08,037 --> 00:11:11,953 So I walked into the barracks and just said, "I'm 18," 219 00:11:11,953 --> 00:11:13,453 and that was it. 220 00:11:13,453 --> 00:11:16,870 My parents wrote to the commanding officer and asked for me, 221 00:11:16,870 --> 00:11:18,662 as I was underage, to be released. 222 00:11:18,662 --> 00:11:22,579 And he said, "Your parents want you back - do you want to go?" 223 00:11:22,579 --> 00:11:24,079 I said no. 224 00:11:25,537 --> 00:11:28,663 The chaplain asked me my age, and I said I was 16. 225 00:11:28,663 --> 00:11:33,538 He said, "Much too young. Would you like me to pray for you?" 226 00:11:38,705 --> 00:11:42,580 The clothing came piecemeal into the quartermaster stores. 227 00:11:44,622 --> 00:11:47,789 One lad said, "These boots don't fit me." 228 00:11:47,789 --> 00:11:50,581 And the quartermaster said, "There isn't such a thing as boots 229 00:11:50,581 --> 00:11:52,872 "that don't fit in the Army, it's your feet that don't 230 00:11:52,872 --> 00:11:54,247 "fit the boots." 231 00:11:54,247 --> 00:11:58,206 Some men would find a tunic to fit them or perhaps 232 00:11:58,206 --> 00:11:59,706 a pair of trousers. 233 00:11:59,706 --> 00:12:02,956 And so it went on for nearly a fortnight. 234 00:12:02,956 --> 00:12:04,456 Just one uniform. 235 00:12:04,456 --> 00:12:08,665 I was in the Army nearly four years, I only had one uniform. 236 00:12:08,665 --> 00:12:11,540 We were all issued with these famous puttees, 237 00:12:11,540 --> 00:12:14,957 which were news to all of us, and I personally could never quite 238 00:12:14,957 --> 00:12:17,499 master the putting on of puttees. 239 00:12:17,499 --> 00:12:21,707 The main reason for puttees were to support the legs in marching. 240 00:12:21,707 --> 00:12:25,457 I was issued with a kilt but nothing to wear underneath it, 241 00:12:25,457 --> 00:12:27,958 and I was given a slip of paper to say, 242 00:12:27,958 --> 00:12:31,166 "This man has not been issued with underpants." 243 00:12:31,166 --> 00:12:33,750 I was given strict instructions that I couldn't ride on top 244 00:12:33,750 --> 00:12:36,833 of the tram car, had to ride downstairs. 245 00:12:38,750 --> 00:12:42,417 Now, the pack was for everything that you own. 246 00:12:42,417 --> 00:12:46,792 The overcoat had to be folded very, very neatly and tightly. 247 00:12:46,792 --> 00:12:50,167 There was a needle, thread, spare buttons, knife, 248 00:12:50,167 --> 00:12:57,543 fork, spoon, razor, shaving brush, toothbrush and also a half-pint mug. 249 00:12:57,543 --> 00:13:02,959 One spare shirt and one spare pair of socks, and that was your kit. 250 00:13:02,959 --> 00:13:06,501 The Army razor with which we were issued was absolutely useless, 251 00:13:06,501 --> 00:13:09,752 but it came in handy for cutting up meat and so forth. 252 00:13:09,752 --> 00:13:12,877 The toothbrush, that came in handy for cleaning buttons. 253 00:13:12,877 --> 00:13:15,585 But one of the peculiarities about the Army was that, 254 00:13:15,585 --> 00:13:18,335 though it was a crime to have dirty buttons, 255 00:13:18,335 --> 00:13:20,585 you were never issued with the materials to clean 256 00:13:20,585 --> 00:13:23,169 the buttons, you had to buy them yourself. 257 00:13:23,169 --> 00:13:27,211 We were awakened by the bugle, which sounded Reveille. 258 00:13:27,211 --> 00:13:30,128 Wash, shave, pack your bed up and pack your kit. 259 00:13:30,128 --> 00:13:34,628 About half past six, and you would have an hour, PT before breakfast. 260 00:13:34,628 --> 00:13:38,961 Press-ups and physical exercises, arms upward stretch. 261 00:13:38,961 --> 00:13:42,628 They knew you were fresh and they tried to take it by stages, 262 00:13:42,628 --> 00:13:45,545 there wasn't any bullying or anything like that. 263 00:13:45,545 --> 00:13:49,462 Breakfast consisted of bread, butter, 264 00:13:49,462 --> 00:13:52,587 one rasher of Lance Corporal Bacon. 265 00:13:52,587 --> 00:13:55,421 It was streaky bacon, it had one stripe in it. 266 00:13:55,421 --> 00:13:58,212 Well, there was jam and they seemed to make nothing 267 00:13:58,212 --> 00:14:00,171 but plum and apple, you know? 268 00:14:00,171 --> 00:14:03,504 If you got any other kind, it was a celebration event. 269 00:14:05,213 --> 00:14:08,338 There were the Bruce Bairnsfather cartoons depicting that, 270 00:14:08,338 --> 00:14:10,588 handing him a tin of plum and apple jam. 271 00:14:10,588 --> 00:14:12,630 "When the 'ell is it going to be strawberry?" 272 00:14:12,630 --> 00:14:14,547 It was wonderful, that jam. 273 00:14:14,547 --> 00:14:18,130 Tickler's, the jam manufacturers, 274 00:14:18,130 --> 00:14:22,422 they must have made millions of tins of P&A, plum and apple. 275 00:14:22,422 --> 00:14:26,214 # Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war 276 00:14:26,214 --> 00:14:28,964 # What do we want with eggs and ham 277 00:14:28,964 --> 00:14:32,548 # When we've got bags of Tickler's Jam? # 278 00:14:32,548 --> 00:14:36,340 And then it would be parade time and the Sergeant would take over 279 00:14:36,340 --> 00:14:39,506 and you'd have a whole morning of marching 280 00:14:39,506 --> 00:14:41,923 and you would learn all commands, 281 00:14:41,923 --> 00:14:45,173 such as "about turn" and all that sort of thing. 282 00:14:45,173 --> 00:14:48,840 Having been in the Boy Scouts, it was dead easy to me. 283 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:51,215 When you get the order "right dress", 284 00:14:51,215 --> 00:14:54,049 you turn your head only, to the right. 285 00:14:54,049 --> 00:14:56,257 Some of them managed to turn left, 286 00:14:56,257 --> 00:14:59,382 which didn't exactly please the drill Sergeant. 287 00:14:59,382 --> 00:15:01,674 We were all youngsters, we'd come from 288 00:15:01,674 --> 00:15:04,216 fairly sheltered lives and so forth. 289 00:15:04,216 --> 00:15:08,591 This Sergeant of ours was the loudmouth shouting type. 290 00:15:08,591 --> 00:15:13,550 Coming up against military discipline was a shock, 291 00:15:13,550 --> 00:15:17,925 being chased around from pillar to post by disciplinarian NCOs. 292 00:15:17,925 --> 00:15:20,050 Some of the sergeants were shockers. 293 00:15:20,050 --> 00:15:23,425 They would cause a lot of trouble if you were out of step 294 00:15:23,425 --> 00:15:26,384 or if you didn't keep time, or if you didn't handle 295 00:15:26,384 --> 00:15:28,176 your rifle properly. 296 00:15:28,176 --> 00:15:30,551 They were always having a go at you. 297 00:15:30,551 --> 00:15:32,968 Most of them were all right, the shouting meant nothing, 298 00:15:32,968 --> 00:15:34,884 but some of them never lost it. 299 00:15:34,884 --> 00:15:39,926 One night I'd gone to bed and this pot was brought round to my bed 300 00:15:39,926 --> 00:15:43,052 and they said, "Oh, you want to do a piss?" 301 00:15:43,052 --> 00:15:45,302 So I did the business in the pot. 302 00:15:45,302 --> 00:15:47,968 They'd rested this big, huge pot 303 00:15:47,968 --> 00:15:50,969 which contained gallons, on the door. 304 00:15:50,969 --> 00:15:55,344 And when this Sergeant came along to see that everybody 305 00:15:55,344 --> 00:15:57,761 was in bed, this thing turned up and he was drenched 306 00:15:57,761 --> 00:15:59,969 from top to bottom in fluid! 307 00:15:59,969 --> 00:16:02,261 HE LAUGHS 308 00:16:02,261 --> 00:16:05,344 First of all, I was full of enthusiasm. 309 00:16:05,344 --> 00:16:08,428 But after about the first week, I wished I hadn't done it. 310 00:16:08,428 --> 00:16:12,053 Because the discipline was so strict that I was beginning to get 311 00:16:12,053 --> 00:16:15,053 a little bit nervous as to what was in store. 312 00:16:15,053 --> 00:16:17,553 We weren't out dancing, anything like that. 313 00:16:17,553 --> 00:16:19,304 We were getting ready for a war. 314 00:16:19,304 --> 00:16:24,012 The thing was, you were in the Army, you had to do as you were told. 315 00:16:24,012 --> 00:16:28,179 You had one master, or dozens, but you just had to get on with it 316 00:16:28,179 --> 00:16:29,596 and that was it. 317 00:16:29,596 --> 00:16:31,763 I did find that right through the Army, 318 00:16:31,763 --> 00:16:34,596 if you behaved yourself, you'd nothing much to fear. 319 00:16:34,596 --> 00:16:36,596 This was quite a new world to us. 320 00:16:36,596 --> 00:16:39,055 I mean, you can imagine. I came out of civilian life, 321 00:16:39,055 --> 00:16:41,346 like all the others did, and we weren't in a position 322 00:16:41,346 --> 00:16:43,472 to argue or object. 323 00:16:43,472 --> 00:16:46,097 It was just a matter of doing what we were told. 324 00:16:46,097 --> 00:16:47,472 I liked it. 325 00:16:47,472 --> 00:16:51,222 I liked to be told what I had to do because there was a reason 326 00:16:51,222 --> 00:16:55,472 for doing it, and later on I realised that was the best training 327 00:16:55,472 --> 00:16:57,097 you could have. 328 00:16:57,097 --> 00:17:00,472 The first week, our route march would be ten miles, 329 00:17:00,472 --> 00:17:03,598 the second week it would be 12, and so on and so on. 330 00:17:03,598 --> 00:17:08,015 It intensified, because it's of the utmost importance 331 00:17:08,015 --> 00:17:11,848 that the infantry soldiers could march with a full kit. 332 00:17:11,848 --> 00:17:14,765 What you had to carry was 109 lbs. 333 00:17:14,765 --> 00:17:18,390 The marching was easy for me, but quite a lot of chaps 334 00:17:18,390 --> 00:17:22,015 who were in sedentary jobs found it pretty hard. 335 00:17:22,015 --> 00:17:27,349 It numbed and cramped my muscles on my thighs and calves 336 00:17:27,349 --> 00:17:30,349 until they hurt very much indeed. 337 00:17:30,349 --> 00:17:32,516 Oh, those Army boots. 338 00:17:32,516 --> 00:17:34,016 I could have cried. 339 00:17:34,016 --> 00:17:39,600 My feet and ankles with those heavy Army boots after civilian shoes. 340 00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:43,475 So to get your boots made pliable, you used to urinate in them 341 00:17:43,475 --> 00:17:45,600 and leave it overnight. 342 00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:50,350 Quite a lot of men were clerks or they worked in shops, 343 00:17:50,350 --> 00:17:54,725 and the very nature of their calling didn't make for fitness. 344 00:17:54,725 --> 00:17:58,142 Well, they sent me to hospital and they gave me the cure 345 00:17:58,142 --> 00:18:03,309 for hookworm and I found that I could stand the drill after that. 346 00:18:03,309 --> 00:18:06,101 They used to march us all round the West End. 347 00:18:06,101 --> 00:18:10,351 Crowds used to foregather, and some of the poor, deluded ones 348 00:18:10,351 --> 00:18:13,726 fell for the con trick and lined up behind us 349 00:18:13,726 --> 00:18:16,352 and we used to march them all down to Chelsea barracks, 350 00:18:16,352 --> 00:18:17,810 where they got signed up. 351 00:18:20,393 --> 00:18:23,602 Lunch would consist of inedible stew. 352 00:18:23,602 --> 00:18:27,769 Now, you must remember the chaps in the cookhouse were by no means 353 00:18:27,769 --> 00:18:30,311 experienced cooks, but anybody can make a stew, 354 00:18:30,311 --> 00:18:32,144 and that's what they did. 355 00:18:32,144 --> 00:18:37,186 Sometimes we got a bit of plum duff and milk puddings and tapioca rice. 356 00:18:37,186 --> 00:18:39,936 It was the good old-fashioned, plain stuff 357 00:18:39,936 --> 00:18:41,561 that I was brought up on. 358 00:18:41,561 --> 00:18:43,895 I had no complaint about it. 359 00:18:43,895 --> 00:18:49,103 In the afternoon, it could be a lecture on Vickers machine guns. 360 00:18:49,103 --> 00:18:52,604 We used to strip the machinegun right down 361 00:18:52,604 --> 00:18:54,520 and put it together again. 362 00:18:54,520 --> 00:18:58,229 And, luckily, I seemed to cotton on to that quite quickly. 363 00:18:58,229 --> 00:19:01,271 We were always told the man's best friend is his rifle, 364 00:19:01,271 --> 00:19:02,979 and it was. 365 00:19:02,979 --> 00:19:07,521 Our rifle was a short Lee-Enfield, a very good rifle indeed. 366 00:19:07,521 --> 00:19:09,354 A real sturdy rifle. 367 00:19:09,354 --> 00:19:13,646 You had your ammunition pouches on both sides of the chest, 368 00:19:13,646 --> 00:19:15,855 to counterbalance the weight of the pack, 369 00:19:15,855 --> 00:19:20,813 and those pouches carried 150 rounds of .303 ammunition. 370 00:19:20,813 --> 00:19:23,480 We were supposed to hold the rifle up in one hand, 371 00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,064 but I could never hold a rifle properly. 372 00:19:26,064 --> 00:19:28,814 My right wrist wouldn't hold it up. 373 00:19:28,814 --> 00:19:31,814 I'd never fired a rifle in my life, but on the first day we went 374 00:19:31,814 --> 00:19:33,189 onto the rifle range, 375 00:19:33,189 --> 00:19:35,773 and it was amazing the bull's-eyes I was getting. 376 00:19:35,773 --> 00:19:39,564 So, the next thing, I was made a first-class rifleman. 377 00:19:39,564 --> 00:19:42,023 Above all, we learned rapid-fire. 378 00:19:42,023 --> 00:19:45,648 Ten rounds, get those ten rounds onto the target in one minute. 379 00:19:45,648 --> 00:19:47,815 It was known as "the mad minute". 380 00:19:47,815 --> 00:19:51,273 I'd never seen a dead man or anything of that kind, 381 00:19:51,273 --> 00:19:54,024 and I wondered, if it came to my shooting a man, 382 00:19:54,024 --> 00:19:56,065 whether I would be able to do this. 383 00:19:56,065 --> 00:19:59,066 Plunge the bayonet into the sack, shout like hell. 384 00:19:59,066 --> 00:20:01,399 And they would tell you where to put your bayonet. 385 00:20:01,399 --> 00:20:03,899 Either into his left shoulder, his right shoulder, 386 00:20:03,899 --> 00:20:06,024 in the chest or in the body. 387 00:20:06,024 --> 00:20:08,233 We was told to make as much noise as we could. 388 00:20:08,233 --> 00:20:10,399 I think that was to frighten the enemy. 389 00:20:10,399 --> 00:20:14,066 It didn't seem to me to be a likely thing to do, but we used to shout. 390 00:20:14,066 --> 00:20:17,233 When you train as a division, there's 12 battalions, 391 00:20:17,233 --> 00:20:20,358 there's roughly 12,000 men who are on the move, 392 00:20:20,358 --> 00:20:24,275 and you're a very small cog in a big wheel. 393 00:20:24,275 --> 00:20:27,359 Saturday mornings we were let off, but we had to do 394 00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:29,026 sometimes barrack duties. 395 00:20:29,026 --> 00:20:32,484 And then, on Sundays, we were all marched down to church. 396 00:20:32,484 --> 00:20:35,193 It didn't matter what religion you were, you all had to go, 397 00:20:35,193 --> 00:20:36,734 and that was it. 398 00:20:36,734 --> 00:20:39,359 Hardly a day passed without the shout 399 00:20:39,359 --> 00:20:40,651 around the barrack-room, 400 00:20:40,651 --> 00:20:43,026 "Has anybody here had any experience with horses? 401 00:20:43,026 --> 00:20:45,610 "Can anybody here play any musical instruments? 402 00:20:45,610 --> 00:20:48,235 "Anybody had an experience at so and so?" 403 00:20:48,235 --> 00:20:51,860 So gradually, the thousand men who were joined up 404 00:20:51,860 --> 00:20:56,444 as a motley throng, now became a transport man, a bandsman, 405 00:20:56,444 --> 00:20:58,402 signalman and so on. 406 00:20:58,402 --> 00:21:00,527 You didn't want to mess about on the parade ground 407 00:21:00,527 --> 00:21:02,902 with heavy packs on the route marches. 408 00:21:02,902 --> 00:21:06,653 Most of us wanted to go across and do some scrapping. 409 00:21:06,653 --> 00:21:10,278 After good food, fresh air and physical exercise, 410 00:21:10,278 --> 00:21:13,111 they changed so that their mothers wouldn't have recognised them. 411 00:21:13,111 --> 00:21:17,445 They put on an average of one stone in weight and one inch in height. 412 00:21:17,445 --> 00:21:20,820 Although we hated the sight and sound of our disciplinary sergeants, 413 00:21:20,820 --> 00:21:24,612 this reflects greatly to their credit because they knocked us 414 00:21:24,612 --> 00:21:27,320 into shape as regards to marching and foot drills. 415 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:30,821 But far more than that, they were handsome, 416 00:21:30,821 --> 00:21:34,237 ruddy, upstanding, square-shouldered young men 417 00:21:34,237 --> 00:21:36,904 who were afraid of nobody, not even the Sergeant Major. 418 00:21:36,904 --> 00:21:39,529 After the six weeks, we were informed we were going 419 00:21:39,529 --> 00:21:42,030 to be posted overseas. 420 00:21:42,030 --> 00:21:46,113 They said, "You're leaving tomorrow morning for an unknown destination." 421 00:21:46,113 --> 00:21:48,655 You were never told where you were heading for. 422 00:21:48,655 --> 00:21:51,863 I just wanted to fight the Germans, and as far as that was concerned, 423 00:21:51,863 --> 00:21:54,655 it didn't matter tuppence to me where we went. 424 00:21:54,655 --> 00:21:57,697 And when we pushed them through this crash programme 425 00:21:57,697 --> 00:21:59,489 of military training, 426 00:21:59,489 --> 00:22:01,572 they were pushed off to France in batches. 427 00:22:01,572 --> 00:22:04,739 Before we left, the officer said, "well, you haven't had time 428 00:22:04,739 --> 00:22:08,239 "to be made sergeants, so we'll give you a couple of stripes." 429 00:22:08,239 --> 00:22:11,948 So they made us corporals, and in less than no time 430 00:22:11,948 --> 00:22:14,906 we were marched down to the station. 431 00:22:14,906 --> 00:22:18,115 In my mind I wondered, "Shall I ever come back?" 432 00:22:18,115 --> 00:22:20,198 I didn't think I would at the time. 433 00:22:20,198 --> 00:22:22,490 I didn't worry about it. 434 00:22:22,490 --> 00:22:26,199 Oh, they were all full of euphoria, they were all glad they were going. 435 00:22:26,199 --> 00:22:28,032 Nobody was crying. 436 00:22:28,032 --> 00:22:30,240 I wrote a postcard when I was in the train 437 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,157 and chucked it out of the window, hoping that it would be delivered 438 00:22:33,157 --> 00:22:34,574 to my family. 439 00:22:34,574 --> 00:22:37,408 We arrived at Folkestone in the evening. 440 00:22:37,408 --> 00:22:41,074 We embarked on one of the old Thames pleasure boats. 441 00:22:41,074 --> 00:22:45,241 Well, pretty crowded, but of course there's only 21 mile 442 00:22:45,241 --> 00:22:47,866 from Dover to Calais on the boat. 443 00:22:47,866 --> 00:22:50,908 There were talks by officers to us as to how to behave ourselves 444 00:22:50,908 --> 00:22:54,033 on foreign soil, and that we've got to respect other people's 445 00:22:54,033 --> 00:22:56,242 modes of conduct. 446 00:22:56,242 --> 00:23:00,034 The biggest number of casualties were NCOs, 447 00:23:00,034 --> 00:23:02,492 and we weren't all too keen about this. 448 00:23:02,492 --> 00:23:06,076 So I went into the lavatory and my stripes came off 449 00:23:06,076 --> 00:23:08,701 and they disappeared through the porthole. 450 00:23:08,701 --> 00:23:11,784 And with that, I went back on deck as a private. 451 00:23:15,701 --> 00:23:17,743 As our horses were brought down the gangways, 452 00:23:17,743 --> 00:23:20,702 I noticed the expression on the men's faces. 453 00:23:20,702 --> 00:23:23,535 There were no cheerful, smiling faces coming down 454 00:23:23,535 --> 00:23:25,118 that gangway at all. 455 00:23:27,369 --> 00:23:29,744 It was beautiful weather, very warm, 456 00:23:29,744 --> 00:23:33,494 and every village and town we went through, people rushed out, 457 00:23:33,494 --> 00:23:36,744 bottles of wine, yards of French bread, flowers. 458 00:23:36,744 --> 00:23:39,369 The land flowed in every single aspect. 459 00:23:39,369 --> 00:23:41,536 There were farmers going about their business, 460 00:23:41,536 --> 00:23:43,411 the most lovely country. 461 00:23:45,620 --> 00:23:48,370 If we passed a field of carrots, we used to raid the field 462 00:23:48,370 --> 00:23:51,828 and walk along munching the carrots and turnips. 463 00:23:55,995 --> 00:23:58,162 I was dead scared that the war would be over 464 00:23:58,162 --> 00:23:59,579 before I got out to it. 465 00:23:59,579 --> 00:24:01,204 When I got out to France, 466 00:24:01,204 --> 00:24:03,787 I was terribly pleased, really keen. 467 00:24:06,496 --> 00:24:09,454 You just marched and marched until roughly 20 miles 468 00:24:09,454 --> 00:24:11,163 from the trenches. 469 00:24:11,163 --> 00:24:13,871 We knew we were getting close to the line because the gunfire 470 00:24:13,871 --> 00:24:16,038 was becoming more noisy. 471 00:24:16,038 --> 00:24:18,705 I remember the first shell, I was delighted. 472 00:24:21,455 --> 00:24:25,205 We went through towns, villages that were absolutely derelict. 473 00:24:25,205 --> 00:24:28,705 So we never knew where we were, except that we were in Belgium. 474 00:24:31,372 --> 00:24:34,664 The devastation was something I never could have imagined. 475 00:24:34,664 --> 00:24:37,622 The whole place gave one the most eerie sensation. 476 00:24:41,414 --> 00:24:45,123 There was stunted trees, torn to shreds with shellfire 477 00:24:45,123 --> 00:24:49,040 and there was shell holes all over the place. 478 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:51,957 We were relieving men of the 28th division, 479 00:24:51,957 --> 00:24:55,373 and as they passed us, we would say, "What's it like up there?" 480 00:24:55,373 --> 00:24:58,749 The reply invariably came back, "Bloody awful, mate." 481 00:24:58,749 --> 00:25:02,290 The old sweats coming back got their tails up all right, 482 00:25:02,290 --> 00:25:06,082 but I didn't know what to expect, just hadn't a clue. 483 00:25:06,082 --> 00:25:09,541 It was deadly warfare, you were facing the Germans. 484 00:25:13,791 --> 00:25:15,249 Follow me. 485 00:25:17,916 --> 00:25:19,541 You got the order, "load". 486 00:25:19,541 --> 00:25:23,500 You put nine in your magazine and one up the spout 487 00:25:23,500 --> 00:25:25,250 and you put the safety catch on, 488 00:25:25,250 --> 00:25:28,000 and you always went into the line prepared to use 489 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:29,625 your rifle immediately. 490 00:25:31,459 --> 00:25:34,209 That's when you got rigid orders, no talking whatsoever, 491 00:25:34,209 --> 00:25:35,834 keep your head down. 492 00:25:35,834 --> 00:25:37,876 Single file, no smoking. 493 00:25:37,876 --> 00:25:41,168 The captain would then direct you right to the front trenches. 494 00:25:44,668 --> 00:25:47,210 Before a man goes into the trenches, he usually carries 495 00:25:47,210 --> 00:25:51,960 a roll of barbed wire or a bag of bombs, besides his own equipment. 496 00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,668 That's the way to get the stuff up to the front line. 497 00:25:54,668 --> 00:25:57,460 Now, a guide would always be sent out. 498 00:25:57,460 --> 00:26:00,169 Extend this part of the trench over there. 499 00:26:00,169 --> 00:26:01,669 What, that way? That's it. 500 00:26:01,669 --> 00:26:03,419 The trenches in France were a maze. 501 00:26:03,419 --> 00:26:06,127 If you didn't have a guide, you could very soon get lost. 502 00:26:06,127 --> 00:26:08,836 Smile, so your mother thinks I'm looking after you. 503 00:26:11,419 --> 00:26:13,211 Coming up, coming up! 504 00:26:17,670 --> 00:26:19,711 The trenches weren't in one straight line. 505 00:26:19,711 --> 00:26:23,212 They were built on what they call a Travis System. 506 00:26:23,212 --> 00:26:26,128 The Travis would break up the shellfire 507 00:26:26,128 --> 00:26:29,462 and stop it spreading right along the trench. 508 00:26:29,462 --> 00:26:31,212 There was a front line of trenches 509 00:26:31,212 --> 00:26:33,587 and then there was a second line of trenches. 510 00:26:33,587 --> 00:26:37,921 The support line would be about 50 yards or more behind the front line. 511 00:26:37,921 --> 00:26:40,587 In between, there would be communication trenches 512 00:26:40,587 --> 00:26:43,004 so that they could move through if the front line 513 00:26:43,004 --> 00:26:44,754 was under jeopardy. 514 00:26:44,754 --> 00:26:48,130 First impression I got of the trenches was they were 515 00:26:48,130 --> 00:26:50,171 very much lived in. 516 00:26:50,171 --> 00:26:52,171 We had to take them as we found them. 517 00:26:52,171 --> 00:26:55,838 You would see an overcoat hanging from a wooden peg. 518 00:26:55,838 --> 00:26:59,547 You would see a mess tin with some tea in it. 519 00:26:59,547 --> 00:27:02,672 A dugout, which had a piece of blanket in it, 520 00:27:02,672 --> 00:27:04,839 a bed made of sandbags. 521 00:27:04,839 --> 00:27:07,922 Our world was divided by no-man's-land, 522 00:27:07,922 --> 00:27:09,714 a sort of Iron Curtain, 523 00:27:09,714 --> 00:27:13,631 beyond which were bogey men who would kill you if they ever saw you. 524 00:27:13,631 --> 00:27:16,798 As you look through your periscope, all you could see were hundreds 525 00:27:16,798 --> 00:27:21,756 of shell holes, your barbed wire and the German barbed wire. 526 00:27:21,756 --> 00:27:24,673 You could see dead bodies hanging on the barbed wire 527 00:27:24,673 --> 00:27:27,715 and they may have been there for a long, long time. 528 00:27:27,715 --> 00:27:30,757 It was one of the most desolate looking places in the world. 529 00:27:30,757 --> 00:27:35,174 You never saw a sign of life, and yet you knew very well that, 530 00:27:35,174 --> 00:27:39,632 within shouting range, there were hundreds and hundreds of men. 531 00:27:39,632 --> 00:27:42,341 A platoon of about 50 men would have about 100 yards 532 00:27:42,341 --> 00:27:45,841 of front line trenches as their responsibility. 533 00:27:45,841 --> 00:27:48,091 There were signs all over the trenches, 534 00:27:48,091 --> 00:27:51,675 Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street and all that sort of thing, 535 00:27:51,675 --> 00:27:53,425 telling you where water points were 536 00:27:53,425 --> 00:27:55,967 and which was the most dangerous part of the land 537 00:27:55,967 --> 00:27:58,133 with regard to snipers. 538 00:27:58,133 --> 00:28:00,800 You had to be extremely careful because a bullet could go 539 00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,592 through one layer of sandbags quite easily. 540 00:28:03,592 --> 00:28:06,176 I was talking to a bloke one day and, pop, 541 00:28:06,176 --> 00:28:08,426 his head was bashed in like an egg. 542 00:28:08,426 --> 00:28:11,717 He just happened to be in a place where a sniper could get an aim. 543 00:28:13,134 --> 00:28:15,884 We used to do a four-day stint in a line. 544 00:28:15,884 --> 00:28:20,385 We took with us sufficient food to last the four days. 545 00:28:21,843 --> 00:28:23,718 Go on, lads, give our love to Jerry. 546 00:28:23,718 --> 00:28:25,177 Mind yourselves out there. 547 00:28:25,177 --> 00:28:29,302 Your day would start before dawn when NCOs would go round 548 00:28:29,302 --> 00:28:32,344 this 100 yards and make sure everybody was alive. 549 00:28:32,344 --> 00:28:35,969 Of a day in the trenches, you had two hours on, four off. 550 00:28:35,969 --> 00:28:38,136 A third of the people were on sentry duty, 551 00:28:38,136 --> 00:28:40,969 a third working and a third sleeping. 552 00:28:40,969 --> 00:28:42,761 We just slept where we were. 553 00:28:42,761 --> 00:28:45,386 No beds, just flopped down on the ground. 554 00:28:45,386 --> 00:28:47,969 Been to the pictures, mate! 555 00:28:47,969 --> 00:28:51,136 The trench was very wet and, wherever possible, we would try 556 00:28:51,136 --> 00:28:52,720 and get above the water. 557 00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:55,387 We were able to dig out the side of the trench 558 00:28:55,387 --> 00:28:57,928 and that was when we used to steal our sleep 559 00:28:57,928 --> 00:29:00,428 on the two-on and four-off stretch. 560 00:29:00,428 --> 00:29:03,345 And then you'd have your couple of hours on the parapet 561 00:29:03,345 --> 00:29:05,137 and then rest again. 562 00:29:05,137 --> 00:29:08,304 If nothing untoward happened, there would be perhaps 563 00:29:08,304 --> 00:29:11,971 two or three sentry groups in the whole company's front. 564 00:29:11,971 --> 00:29:14,138 EXPLOSIONS BOOM IN DISTANCE 565 00:29:23,638 --> 00:29:25,388 It was a job to keep awake. 566 00:29:25,388 --> 00:29:28,347 Woe betide you if you were caught asleep. 567 00:29:28,347 --> 00:29:31,472 If you are so tired, you can sleep standing up, 568 00:29:31,472 --> 00:29:33,264 which I've done many times. 569 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:39,889 The first thing you did when you got into the line was to have a brew-up. 570 00:29:39,889 --> 00:29:42,264 There was one thing about the Vickers gun, 571 00:29:42,264 --> 00:29:44,056 it being a water-cooled weapon, 572 00:29:44,056 --> 00:29:46,514 if you were continuously firing, you'd find that the water 573 00:29:46,514 --> 00:29:49,389 would be boiling. You could disconnect the tube 574 00:29:49,389 --> 00:29:50,890 and make a cup of tea. 575 00:29:50,890 --> 00:29:53,806 The water came up in two-gallon petrol cans. 576 00:29:53,806 --> 00:29:56,265 And we could taste the petrol in it because they couldn't 577 00:29:56,265 --> 00:29:58,140 wash it completely out. 578 00:30:01,098 --> 00:30:03,349 In every bay was a little fireplace. 579 00:30:03,349 --> 00:30:07,807 You used tiny slivers of wood because if you made smoke 580 00:30:07,807 --> 00:30:09,891 in the front line, over would come a shell. 581 00:30:09,891 --> 00:30:11,141 I fancy a brew. 582 00:30:11,141 --> 00:30:13,599 But save a drop of that tea to shave with. 583 00:30:13,599 --> 00:30:16,058 Because we had to shave in the front line. 584 00:30:16,058 --> 00:30:18,849 We used to put a lot of tins out on the parapet 585 00:30:18,849 --> 00:30:22,266 if it rained. You daren't touch any of the other water. 586 00:30:22,266 --> 00:30:25,100 We were scooping water out of shell holes, 587 00:30:25,100 --> 00:30:27,183 there might have been dead bodies underneath. 588 00:30:27,183 --> 00:30:29,267 We thought as long as we boiled it for a long time, 589 00:30:29,267 --> 00:30:31,392 all the green stuff would come off the top. 590 00:30:31,392 --> 00:30:34,100 Nice and gentle. Anyway, we'd made tea with it. 591 00:30:34,100 --> 00:30:36,475 That's how I got my dose of dysentery. 592 00:30:36,475 --> 00:30:39,059 Of course, there was no sanitary arrangements. 593 00:30:39,059 --> 00:30:41,309 They'd dig a trench and stick a pole across, 594 00:30:41,309 --> 00:30:45,059 and you'd get about seven or eight chaps on the pole. 595 00:30:45,059 --> 00:30:47,268 God, to have a clear-out was terrible. 596 00:30:47,268 --> 00:30:48,893 FLIES BUZZ 597 00:30:48,893 --> 00:30:51,351 People used to go to the toilet with no privacy. 598 00:30:51,351 --> 00:30:54,768 Being rather a shy nature, if I had pissed with somebody, 599 00:30:54,768 --> 00:30:56,226 I felt a bit nervous. 600 00:30:56,226 --> 00:30:59,185 But when you were in the Army, you got quite used to it. 601 00:30:59,185 --> 00:31:01,852 Of course, it didn't matter a damn because there was no women 602 00:31:01,852 --> 00:31:03,269 or anything like that. 603 00:31:03,269 --> 00:31:05,894 The flies used to crawl over your bottom. 604 00:31:05,894 --> 00:31:07,227 Most unpleasant. 605 00:31:07,227 --> 00:31:09,102 And no such thing as toilet rolls. 606 00:31:09,102 --> 00:31:11,269 You had to wipe your behind with your hand. 607 00:31:11,269 --> 00:31:13,769 Your hands might have been in all sorts of things, 608 00:31:13,769 --> 00:31:15,436 but you never washed. 609 00:31:15,436 --> 00:31:17,103 Well, you heard a terrific shout... 610 00:31:17,103 --> 00:31:18,769 MEN SHOUT AND YELL, LOUD THUD 611 00:31:18,769 --> 00:31:21,686 ..and the pole had snapped and the poor men 612 00:31:21,686 --> 00:31:24,103 who were sitting on the bar fell down in the muck! 613 00:31:24,103 --> 00:31:25,936 MEN LAUGH 614 00:31:25,936 --> 00:31:28,937 There was always the humorous side of the war. 615 00:31:28,937 --> 00:31:32,062 We had to put rifles down for them to hang onto, 616 00:31:32,062 --> 00:31:36,937 and they came out like slimy rabbits and nobody wanted to go near them. 617 00:31:39,395 --> 00:31:42,354 We had no spare clothes at all and you were living for weeks 618 00:31:42,354 --> 00:31:45,312 without washing or getting a bath. 619 00:31:45,312 --> 00:31:49,354 I personally became really badly infested and chatty, 620 00:31:49,354 --> 00:31:52,021 as we used to call it, with these lice. 621 00:31:52,021 --> 00:31:54,480 Oh, lice was a dreadful problem. 622 00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:58,022 They were funny little things, like little monster sort of things, 623 00:31:58,022 --> 00:32:01,105 with six legs, and they used to feed ten times a day. 624 00:32:01,105 --> 00:32:02,772 You had to kill the bloody things. 625 00:32:02,772 --> 00:32:05,147 My favourite way was burning them. 626 00:32:05,147 --> 00:32:08,105 You would run the seams over the lighted candle 627 00:32:08,105 --> 00:32:10,731 and you could hear the eggs going pop, pop, pop, pop. 628 00:32:10,731 --> 00:32:12,439 POPPING 629 00:32:12,439 --> 00:32:15,064 The sooner you got the shirt back again, the heat of the body 630 00:32:15,064 --> 00:32:16,981 hatched the eggs that you'd missed. 631 00:32:18,398 --> 00:32:21,023 And we was just as lousy the next day. 632 00:32:23,773 --> 00:32:27,106 Each man prepared his own breakfast. 633 00:32:27,106 --> 00:32:30,940 Bread and jam was about 16 men to a loaf of bread. 634 00:32:32,648 --> 00:32:34,982 There'd be a little bit of bacon which would suffice 635 00:32:34,982 --> 00:32:37,107 for half a dozen men. 636 00:32:37,107 --> 00:32:40,440 You'd put your rasher of bacon in your mess tin lid, 637 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,982 put a few more sticks on your fire and you would fry your bacon. 638 00:32:44,982 --> 00:32:47,983 And then soak up the fat with a piece of biscuit 639 00:32:47,983 --> 00:32:50,108 and then there you are with the breakfast. 640 00:32:50,108 --> 00:32:52,816 Dinner time was mostly bully beef cut up and stewed, 641 00:32:52,816 --> 00:32:55,858 along with all sorts of vegetables from tins. 642 00:32:55,858 --> 00:32:59,150 Magonoghie's tinned stew was mixed up with the bully beef. 643 00:32:59,150 --> 00:33:02,608 I've gone into French dugouts and eaten biscuits 644 00:33:02,608 --> 00:33:05,275 which had been left by the troops two years previously, 645 00:33:05,275 --> 00:33:09,609 and tasted the green mould in them, but it didn't do me any harm. 646 00:33:09,609 --> 00:33:13,026 This was how it was. Anything's good, you know, when you're hungry. 647 00:33:13,026 --> 00:33:15,442 And you were always hungry. HE LAUGHS 648 00:33:16,734 --> 00:33:19,526 But any given moment, we could expect to be shelled. 649 00:33:19,526 --> 00:33:21,651 SHELL WHIZZES AND BANGS 650 00:33:21,651 --> 00:33:24,026 You had very little protection against that. 651 00:33:24,026 --> 00:33:27,860 One would hear a mild pop as the gun fired five miles away. 652 00:33:30,110 --> 00:33:32,860 And in the five or six seconds it took to come, 653 00:33:32,860 --> 00:33:36,152 you can pass through quite a number of psychological changes. 654 00:33:42,111 --> 00:33:44,736 I can't remember anything more nerve-racking 655 00:33:44,736 --> 00:33:48,694 than the continuous shelling, without stop, went on day and night. 656 00:33:48,694 --> 00:33:52,111 But we were always told that you never heard the shell that hit you 657 00:33:52,111 --> 00:33:55,070 because most of them travelled faster than sound. 658 00:33:55,070 --> 00:33:59,320 But you could literally feel your heart pounding against the ground. 659 00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,903 The emotional strain was absolutely terrific. 660 00:34:01,903 --> 00:34:04,195 Although a shell might burst 50 yards away, 661 00:34:04,195 --> 00:34:06,987 you might find a fragment of jagged iron, 662 00:34:06,987 --> 00:34:09,112 really red hot and weighing half a pound, 663 00:34:09,112 --> 00:34:11,362 arriving in your trench. 664 00:34:11,362 --> 00:34:13,862 You see people blown to little bits. 665 00:34:13,862 --> 00:34:16,237 I've actually had to put a man in a sandbag. 666 00:34:16,237 --> 00:34:18,446 Every now and again, there would be a great roar 667 00:34:18,446 --> 00:34:20,529 like an aeroplane coming in to land... 668 00:34:20,529 --> 00:34:21,779 LOUD BANG 669 00:34:21,779 --> 00:34:24,280 ..and in a fifth of a second, your resolution would break 670 00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:26,155 and you'd throw yourself down into the mud 671 00:34:26,155 --> 00:34:28,446 and the other ones would laugh at you. 672 00:34:28,446 --> 00:34:31,363 The shrapnel shell would burst in the air and spray bullets 673 00:34:31,363 --> 00:34:32,947 on the troops below. 674 00:34:34,780 --> 00:34:36,197 As if they were from a shotgun. 675 00:34:38,114 --> 00:34:41,655 The bullets came down, whistling like all the hobs of hell. 676 00:34:45,489 --> 00:34:48,364 Another one of the annoyances we had was the Germans 677 00:34:48,364 --> 00:34:49,989 were very active with mining. 678 00:34:51,989 --> 00:34:54,073 We crouched down underneath the front parapet 679 00:34:54,073 --> 00:34:55,573 to dodge the debris falling, 680 00:34:55,573 --> 00:34:59,323 and I got the men to open up rapid fire to prevent the Germans 681 00:34:59,323 --> 00:35:02,907 from getting into that crater where they could bomb us. 682 00:35:02,907 --> 00:35:05,823 If the front line gets damaged, it's got to be repaired. 683 00:35:05,823 --> 00:35:07,532 Well, the people who are in the line, 684 00:35:07,532 --> 00:35:09,282 they've got to get on with it. 685 00:35:09,282 --> 00:35:13,741 I had in my mind that we expected big gunfire to light amongst 686 00:35:13,741 --> 00:35:17,074 all us cavalry and absolutely swipe us off the face of the Earth. 687 00:35:20,949 --> 00:35:22,866 I shouted, "Gallop!" like that. 688 00:35:22,866 --> 00:35:25,158 They dropped 'em all at once, the horses. 689 00:35:26,491 --> 00:35:28,741 Oh, a heck of a mess. 690 00:35:28,741 --> 00:35:31,742 The horses were laying down, with their intestines hanging out, 691 00:35:31,742 --> 00:35:34,783 and men with matter hanging out of theirs. 692 00:35:34,783 --> 00:35:37,283 "And that, boys," they said, "the bloody Germans!" 693 00:35:37,283 --> 00:35:40,284 To lose a horse was like losing a friend. 694 00:35:40,284 --> 00:35:43,075 The Brigadier turned to our captain and he says, 695 00:35:43,075 --> 00:35:45,076 "See that the boy has two or three days' rest. 696 00:35:45,076 --> 00:35:46,701 "When a boy likes an animal like that, 697 00:35:46,701 --> 00:35:49,159 "there's not a lot wrong with him." 698 00:35:49,159 --> 00:35:51,784 Over the whole of the front line, there was a smell. 699 00:35:51,784 --> 00:35:54,034 It wasn't a complicated smell, 700 00:35:54,034 --> 00:35:57,076 it was the smell of decaying corpses. 701 00:35:57,076 --> 00:35:59,285 Nasty, sickly smell. 702 00:35:59,285 --> 00:36:00,868 You never forgot that smell. 703 00:36:00,868 --> 00:36:03,452 FLIES BUZZ 704 00:36:03,452 --> 00:36:05,077 It was the smell of death. 705 00:36:05,077 --> 00:36:09,327 If you've ever smelt a dead mouse, it was like that, but hundreds 706 00:36:09,327 --> 00:36:11,285 and hundreds of times worse. 707 00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:14,619 It seemed to cling to everything. 708 00:36:14,619 --> 00:36:18,286 When you was having your food, you could taste it. 709 00:36:18,286 --> 00:36:23,328 The awful stench and bits of human bodies laying about, 710 00:36:23,328 --> 00:36:25,911 it became an everyday thing. 711 00:36:25,911 --> 00:36:29,120 We thought, well, it'll be you too next, what does it matter? 712 00:36:31,245 --> 00:36:35,453 Wherever there was a grave or a body, there were rats. 713 00:36:35,453 --> 00:36:36,662 They were all big fat ones 714 00:36:36,662 --> 00:36:39,329 and we knew where they got the fat from. 715 00:36:39,329 --> 00:36:44,704 Unpleasant animals, because of the filtration into the graves. 716 00:36:44,704 --> 00:36:48,079 They used to feed on the dead and come in the dugouts, 717 00:36:48,079 --> 00:36:49,621 pick up scraps in there. 718 00:36:49,621 --> 00:36:51,621 I woke up in the bottom of the trench 719 00:36:51,621 --> 00:36:54,079 and felt something warm on my face. 720 00:36:54,079 --> 00:36:57,080 And a little heart going bang, bang, bang. 721 00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:59,746 The devil scratched my face with the claws of his hind feet 722 00:36:59,746 --> 00:37:00,913 as he took off. 723 00:37:00,913 --> 00:37:03,330 We used to try and shoot them, hit them, kill them, 724 00:37:03,330 --> 00:37:04,830 chase them, do anything. 725 00:37:04,830 --> 00:37:06,372 GUNSHOTS AND BANGING, RATS SQUEAK 726 00:37:06,372 --> 00:37:08,413 Then you've got gas. 727 00:37:08,413 --> 00:37:11,539 We saw this green cloud coming towards us. 728 00:37:11,539 --> 00:37:13,580 Just rolling slowly along the ground. 729 00:37:13,580 --> 00:37:15,164 They'd shout "gas"... MEN SHOUT 730 00:37:15,164 --> 00:37:17,372 ..and you had to take your mask out and stick it on 731 00:37:17,372 --> 00:37:18,914 in two, three seconds. 732 00:37:18,914 --> 00:37:23,248 Yes, it was phosgene gas, later on there was mustard gas. 733 00:37:23,248 --> 00:37:25,164 That was very effective. 734 00:37:25,164 --> 00:37:28,331 I never saw a slightly gassed man. 735 00:37:28,331 --> 00:37:31,456 If you couldn't get your gas mask, you were to pee on your handkerchief 736 00:37:31,456 --> 00:37:33,707 and stuff this round your nose and mouth. 737 00:37:33,707 --> 00:37:36,207 I don't mind admitting that I didn't think much of the 738 00:37:36,207 --> 00:37:39,248 urinating on the handkerchief, so I went into one of 739 00:37:39,248 --> 00:37:42,790 the trench's latrines and I stuck my head in a bucket. 740 00:37:42,790 --> 00:37:45,040 But I'll tell you, I couldn't hold my breath any more, 741 00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,041 came up, took a good breath of air, down again. 742 00:37:48,041 --> 00:37:50,207 We were very soon enveloped in this thick, 743 00:37:50,207 --> 00:37:51,999 yellow, filthy cloud. 744 00:37:51,999 --> 00:37:55,291 The more we tried to get rid of the sting in our eyes, 745 00:37:55,291 --> 00:37:56,958 the worse it got. 746 00:37:59,041 --> 00:38:01,250 And I thought deeply of what the effect of blindness 747 00:38:01,250 --> 00:38:02,916 was going to be. 748 00:38:02,916 --> 00:38:06,875 The extraction of clotted blood and the injection of saline 749 00:38:06,875 --> 00:38:09,042 could alleviate a lot of the trouble. 750 00:38:09,042 --> 00:38:12,084 And as I was gassed myself, I can speak from experience. 751 00:38:14,375 --> 00:38:17,084 In the winter time, as the weather deteriorated, 752 00:38:17,084 --> 00:38:20,292 so the trenches got more and more sodden with water 753 00:38:20,292 --> 00:38:22,584 until they just became ditches. 754 00:38:22,584 --> 00:38:25,293 The water was swirling about our feet and rising higher 755 00:38:25,293 --> 00:38:28,751 and higher until it reached our chests. 756 00:38:28,751 --> 00:38:31,668 Our difficulty was frostbite. 757 00:38:31,668 --> 00:38:35,418 Our gumboots filled with water, and in the mornings we could not 758 00:38:35,418 --> 00:38:39,210 split them off because they were frozen to our feet. 759 00:38:39,210 --> 00:38:41,419 When you're talking about trench feet, 760 00:38:41,419 --> 00:38:43,002 you're talking about gangrene. 761 00:38:43,002 --> 00:38:47,336 Send him straight down the line, hack the legs off. 762 00:38:47,336 --> 00:38:49,211 Give us a hand with that, will you? 763 00:38:49,211 --> 00:38:53,378 When the water had soaked into the earth, the floors of the trenches 764 00:38:53,378 --> 00:38:58,294 were just paved with liquid mud, and that became like glue. 765 00:38:58,294 --> 00:39:02,420 It was a curious sucking kind of mud. 766 00:39:02,420 --> 00:39:05,003 Very disgusting indeed, very tenacious. 767 00:39:05,003 --> 00:39:06,670 It stuck to you. 768 00:39:06,670 --> 00:39:10,253 If one had to go to the rear for rations, 769 00:39:10,253 --> 00:39:12,670 well, that was just a nightmare journey. 770 00:39:12,670 --> 00:39:14,420 Slithering about. 771 00:39:14,420 --> 00:39:17,754 When it was pouring with rain and on slippery duck boards, 772 00:39:17,754 --> 00:39:20,212 the language was really edifying. 773 00:39:20,212 --> 00:39:23,004 You heard words that you never dream existed. 774 00:39:23,004 --> 00:39:26,213 And if you slipped off the duck boards, you just sank into the mud 775 00:39:26,213 --> 00:39:29,421 of decomposed bodies of humans and mules, 776 00:39:29,421 --> 00:39:31,755 and that was the end of you. 777 00:39:31,755 --> 00:39:35,130 The boy, he was in the middle of this huge sea of mud, struggling, 778 00:39:35,130 --> 00:39:36,755 and we couldn't do a thing. 779 00:39:36,755 --> 00:39:38,255 There was no hope of getting to him. 780 00:39:38,255 --> 00:39:41,047 The look on the lad's face, and he was a mere boy, 781 00:39:41,047 --> 00:39:43,089 was really pathetic. COUGHING AND SPLUTTERING 782 00:39:43,089 --> 00:39:46,755 I've seen men sinking into the mud and dying in the slime. 783 00:39:46,755 --> 00:39:49,422 I think it absolutely finished me off. 784 00:39:50,964 --> 00:39:53,464 It was supposed to be quiet and then you might get 785 00:39:53,464 --> 00:39:56,381 some drunken German saying, "I'm going to give them hell today," 786 00:39:56,381 --> 00:39:58,048 and opened up with all his batteries 787 00:39:58,048 --> 00:40:00,048 and catch hundreds of people in the line-up. 788 00:40:00,048 --> 00:40:03,590 And that was what they called holding the line. 789 00:40:03,590 --> 00:40:07,382 We were in conditions that isolated us completely from civilisation. 790 00:40:07,382 --> 00:40:11,757 We got so generate, so isolated living in this mud. 791 00:40:11,757 --> 00:40:15,507 And you could sympathise with how a rabbit must feel 792 00:40:15,507 --> 00:40:18,757 because we were hunted by mankind, just the same as a rabbit. 793 00:40:18,757 --> 00:40:21,257 You knew your lives were in one another's hands 794 00:40:21,257 --> 00:40:23,924 and it united you very closely and you didn't let anything 795 00:40:23,924 --> 00:40:25,924 interfere with that. 796 00:40:25,924 --> 00:40:28,341 You knew what was going on within your vision. 797 00:40:28,341 --> 00:40:31,258 Beyond that, you hadn't got a clue. HARMONICA PLAYS 798 00:40:31,258 --> 00:40:34,966 You didn't care how the war was going, whether we were winning. 799 00:40:34,966 --> 00:40:37,008 You weren't bothered with that at all. 800 00:40:37,008 --> 00:40:40,008 You lived like tramps, you didn't polish any buttons, 801 00:40:40,008 --> 00:40:43,717 you wore any uniformed bits that you liked and nobody worried. 802 00:40:43,717 --> 00:40:46,842 All they were concerned with was that you were fit to fight. 803 00:40:46,842 --> 00:40:49,009 If nothing's happening, you chat about life, 804 00:40:49,009 --> 00:40:51,259 where he came from and you came from. 805 00:40:51,259 --> 00:40:52,551 Everything was friendly. 806 00:40:52,551 --> 00:40:54,759 There was a terrific lot of kindness in a way, 807 00:40:54,759 --> 00:40:56,218 to each person. 808 00:40:56,218 --> 00:40:59,218 When the war was not very active, it was really rather fun 809 00:40:59,218 --> 00:41:00,801 to be in the front line. 810 00:41:00,801 --> 00:41:04,260 It was not very dangerous, the sort of outdoor camping holiday 811 00:41:04,260 --> 00:41:09,052 with the boys, with a slight spice of danger to make it interesting. 812 00:41:09,052 --> 00:41:12,760 We used to raid the trenches and get a prisoner if possible. 813 00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,635 And a typical trench raid would be perhaps eight in passing. 814 00:41:18,010 --> 00:41:20,261 If you was going to make a raid, somebody would cut 815 00:41:20,261 --> 00:41:22,511 a passage through the wire at night-time. 816 00:41:25,219 --> 00:41:27,469 The only way to do it was silently... 817 00:41:29,636 --> 00:41:31,886 ..to rush it, and that was the arrangement. 818 00:41:31,886 --> 00:41:34,178 We would bomb and bayonet the Germans coming out 819 00:41:34,178 --> 00:41:36,803 on their hands and knees out the dugout, we'd smack them 820 00:41:36,803 --> 00:41:39,387 over the head and throw in a couple of bombs. 821 00:41:43,929 --> 00:41:46,429 And there were three ways of getting rid of him. 822 00:41:46,429 --> 00:41:49,554 One was to knife him, garrotte him or to bayonet him. 823 00:41:49,554 --> 00:41:52,762 Quietest was the quick wrap around the throat 824 00:41:52,762 --> 00:41:54,262 and knife into the back. 825 00:41:58,263 --> 00:42:00,554 I threw a revolver at poor little Rudolph, 826 00:42:00,554 --> 00:42:01,888 he was only about 18. 827 00:42:01,888 --> 00:42:03,471 I hit him in the face with it. 828 00:42:03,471 --> 00:42:06,138 He screamed and came back at me, and that's when I got him. 829 00:42:06,138 --> 00:42:08,555 Got him with a Very pistol. 830 00:42:08,555 --> 00:42:10,388 Well done, chaps! Good raid! 831 00:42:10,388 --> 00:42:13,013 I always had a full flask and I gave him a drink. 832 00:42:13,013 --> 00:42:14,972 I felt very sorry for him. 833 00:42:14,972 --> 00:42:18,097 He said, "Danke schoen, das ist gut," and died. 834 00:42:25,722 --> 00:42:29,098 And it was a very successful raid, they got two prisoners, I think, 835 00:42:29,098 --> 00:42:31,348 which was all they all wanted. 836 00:42:31,348 --> 00:42:34,265 By the way, the men who were captured on the trench raid 837 00:42:34,265 --> 00:42:39,307 were the first Germans I saw on the Western Front. 838 00:42:39,307 --> 00:42:42,515 A lot of the German troops, they were very good, very friendly. 839 00:42:42,515 --> 00:42:46,349 In fact, some of those Bavarians were dammed good, decent people. 840 00:42:46,349 --> 00:42:48,640 The snipers would fire but not hit anybody, 841 00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:49,849 know what I mean? 842 00:42:51,682 --> 00:42:54,057 They put up a sign - "Gott mit uns." 843 00:42:54,057 --> 00:42:55,807 God is with us. 844 00:42:55,807 --> 00:42:58,891 And we put a sign up in English - "We've got mittens too!" 845 00:42:58,891 --> 00:43:01,516 We don't know if the Germans enjoyed that joke or not. 846 00:43:01,516 --> 00:43:04,641 There was a wounded German, he was a Wartenberger, I think. 847 00:43:04,641 --> 00:43:06,891 We did what we could for him, we gave him a bit of food 848 00:43:06,891 --> 00:43:10,600 and that sort of thing, and he was cursing the Prussians. 849 00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:14,850 The Saxons were in front of us and they gave us the warning 850 00:43:14,850 --> 00:43:18,434 that there were going to be relieved by the Prussians. 851 00:43:18,434 --> 00:43:21,476 And they said to us, "Give them hell." 852 00:43:21,476 --> 00:43:23,684 They hated the Prussians. 853 00:43:23,684 --> 00:43:25,601 The Prussians were cruel bastards. 854 00:43:27,934 --> 00:43:29,893 Hurry up! This way. Schnell, schnell! 855 00:43:29,893 --> 00:43:32,143 Watch yourself. Come along! 856 00:43:32,143 --> 00:43:34,185 The Bavarians or the Saxonians, 857 00:43:34,185 --> 00:43:36,560 they were the more civilised of the Germans. 858 00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:38,351 Part English, if anything. 859 00:43:41,435 --> 00:43:44,518 After a four-day spell in the front line, 860 00:43:44,518 --> 00:43:48,269 we were relieved and we had to march back to the billets 861 00:43:48,269 --> 00:43:50,602 a few miles behind the lines. 862 00:43:50,602 --> 00:43:54,144 We were going for a supposed one-week's rest. 863 00:43:54,144 --> 00:43:56,227 Everybody was dead whacked. 864 00:43:56,227 --> 00:43:58,061 We were all pretty knocked up. 865 00:43:58,061 --> 00:44:00,228 We extricated ourselves from the mud 866 00:44:00,228 --> 00:44:03,269 to what was, somewhat ironically, called rest. 867 00:44:03,269 --> 00:44:06,936 In the front line itself, you didn't criticise people 868 00:44:06,936 --> 00:44:09,561 and if you had a chap who was a bit dicky, 869 00:44:09,561 --> 00:44:12,020 you would keep an eye on him, just like in a family. 870 00:44:12,020 --> 00:44:14,645 But when you got out of the line, you'd want nothing to do 871 00:44:14,645 --> 00:44:16,062 with those people at all. 872 00:44:16,062 --> 00:44:18,270 I mean, you can't call it comradeship exactly, 873 00:44:18,270 --> 00:44:19,729 it was the way you did it. 874 00:44:19,729 --> 00:44:22,562 Come and get your mail! Welcome back! 875 00:44:22,562 --> 00:44:26,437 The thing which always struck me as being absolutely stupid 876 00:44:26,437 --> 00:44:30,896 was the next morning, every man had to be spick and span, 877 00:44:30,896 --> 00:44:32,479 not a trace of mud on him. 878 00:44:34,396 --> 00:44:38,105 You'd brush off clothes or dry them off the best way you could 879 00:44:38,105 --> 00:44:39,563 and clean your boots. 880 00:44:39,563 --> 00:44:42,188 In other words, smarten yourself up. 881 00:44:42,188 --> 00:44:45,272 THEY PLAY It's A Long Way To Tipperary 882 00:44:54,981 --> 00:44:57,481 The men would always appear the same - 883 00:44:57,481 --> 00:45:01,356 cheerful and, in the circumstances, happy as they could be, 884 00:45:01,356 --> 00:45:03,314 making the best of everything. 885 00:45:03,314 --> 00:45:05,856 You know, in true British fashion. 886 00:45:07,065 --> 00:45:11,232 What? The Cockney wit was prevalent and we were all lads together, 887 00:45:11,232 --> 00:45:14,357 you know, we didn't care about it. 888 00:45:14,357 --> 00:45:18,482 We'd make a fuss about nothing, the little things that didn't matter 889 00:45:18,482 --> 00:45:21,732 really, because it was something to fill the time in. 890 00:45:21,732 --> 00:45:24,482 We used to have to make our own amusements. 891 00:45:24,482 --> 00:45:25,774 Bloody bastard! 892 00:45:25,774 --> 00:45:27,441 You laughed at the slightest things. 893 00:45:27,441 --> 00:45:30,691 I think probably it was the general tension of the atmosphere 894 00:45:30,691 --> 00:45:32,858 that used to make us like that, you know? 895 00:45:34,941 --> 00:45:38,525 My mother sent me a parcel with a plum pudding, of all things, 896 00:45:38,525 --> 00:45:41,150 and had no thought of not being able to cook it, 897 00:45:41,150 --> 00:45:42,775 so we used it as a rugby ball. 898 00:45:44,442 --> 00:45:47,359 We had this regimental sports day. 899 00:45:47,359 --> 00:45:49,942 And I won't say I was the only sober one, 900 00:45:49,942 --> 00:45:53,150 but most of them were merry about it. 901 00:45:57,692 --> 00:45:59,609 MEN LAUGH AND SHOUT 902 00:46:01,318 --> 00:46:03,943 I mean, you took part in everything because you had to fill 903 00:46:03,943 --> 00:46:06,318 your time in, you know. 904 00:46:06,318 --> 00:46:08,360 Otherwise all you did was sit about and smoke. 905 00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:10,360 CHILDREN LAUGH 906 00:46:12,485 --> 00:46:16,068 The only time we saw the artillery was when we was out of rest. 907 00:46:16,068 --> 00:46:17,777 Fire! 908 00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:22,902 They would be, say, two miles behind the line. 909 00:46:24,611 --> 00:46:26,861 Fire! 910 00:46:26,861 --> 00:46:29,694 We wanted to neutralise enemy batteries, so we were registering 911 00:46:29,694 --> 00:46:31,528 our batteries on his. Fire! 912 00:46:33,903 --> 00:46:35,903 We used to know the line and elevation 913 00:46:35,903 --> 00:46:37,736 because it was done by aircraft. 914 00:46:40,028 --> 00:46:43,195 It was pretty ghastly, but the idea was to kill as many German gunners 915 00:46:43,195 --> 00:46:44,487 as you could. 916 00:46:44,487 --> 00:46:45,737 Ready! 917 00:46:47,653 --> 00:46:49,320 Fire! 918 00:46:55,821 --> 00:46:58,862 There was no motorised transport for guns. 919 00:46:58,862 --> 00:47:01,613 The guns used to be brought up by horses. 920 00:47:01,613 --> 00:47:03,238 Eight horses to each gun team. 921 00:47:03,238 --> 00:47:04,946 Four horses to each wagon team. 922 00:47:04,946 --> 00:47:06,446 About 60 horses. 923 00:47:07,988 --> 00:47:10,863 The gunners made a filthy noise, jingling and jingling 924 00:47:10,863 --> 00:47:12,863 and the horses making noises both ends. 925 00:47:12,863 --> 00:47:15,030 And it was always of great concern for those of us 926 00:47:15,030 --> 00:47:16,655 who were going into battle. 927 00:47:16,655 --> 00:47:19,364 Heave! MEN GRUNT, HORSES BRAY 928 00:47:20,989 --> 00:47:22,405 Heave! 929 00:47:27,447 --> 00:47:29,697 Each company officer paid his own company. 930 00:47:29,697 --> 00:47:33,323 Now, it was generally the first morning after we were out 931 00:47:33,323 --> 00:47:36,073 of the line, you got five francs. 932 00:47:36,073 --> 00:47:38,906 A franc was worth 10p, so 50p was your pay 933 00:47:38,906 --> 00:47:41,115 for a fortnight, 50p. 934 00:47:41,115 --> 00:47:44,115 Now, that's a week of riotous living. 935 00:47:44,115 --> 00:47:47,532 Every town of any size at all had a brothel 936 00:47:47,532 --> 00:47:51,157 and that was where most of these boys learned a little bit 937 00:47:51,157 --> 00:47:54,657 more about life than they would ever have done in normal civil life. 938 00:47:54,657 --> 00:47:57,574 So although they were young in years, it wasn't long 939 00:47:57,574 --> 00:48:00,199 before they were quite worldly men. 940 00:48:00,199 --> 00:48:02,616 One of the lads said, "Let's go and have a look 941 00:48:02,616 --> 00:48:05,283 "in the White Star. It's like a pub." 942 00:48:05,283 --> 00:48:07,950 I'd led a very sheltered life. 943 00:48:07,950 --> 00:48:11,783 And they were beautiful girls with just a piece of lace on, 944 00:48:11,783 --> 00:48:16,075 and, oh, my word, I'd never seen anything like it before! 945 00:48:16,075 --> 00:48:19,325 There was I, a young lad, knowing nothing about this, and off we go, 946 00:48:19,325 --> 00:48:22,534 and these men were going up to see the girls. 947 00:48:22,534 --> 00:48:24,909 I was very keen. I said to one of these fellas, 948 00:48:24,909 --> 00:48:26,576 "I've only got a sixpence." 949 00:48:26,576 --> 00:48:29,201 He said, "That's no good, it's a shilling." 950 00:48:29,201 --> 00:48:32,034 That was my first experience of a brothel. 951 00:48:32,034 --> 00:48:35,118 Anyway, we looked in there for a couple of minutes, 952 00:48:35,118 --> 00:48:38,118 when four or five naked girls came running down the corridor. 953 00:48:38,118 --> 00:48:40,368 We turned tail and ran! 954 00:48:40,368 --> 00:48:42,493 It was an eye-opener to me. 955 00:48:42,493 --> 00:48:44,868 There she stood, great, big woman, 956 00:48:44,868 --> 00:48:47,410 with this little cane in her hand and she belted my backside 957 00:48:47,410 --> 00:48:48,910 as if I was a little schoolboy. 958 00:48:48,910 --> 00:48:51,244 Pelted Sergeant this and pelted Sergeant the other, 959 00:48:51,244 --> 00:48:52,910 thump, thump, thump, thump, thump! 960 00:48:52,910 --> 00:48:55,327 HE LAUGHS 961 00:48:55,327 --> 00:48:56,869 Oh, gambling? 962 00:48:56,869 --> 00:48:58,494 People were gambling all day long. 963 00:48:58,494 --> 00:49:01,119 The Canadians and the Australians used a gamble terrific 964 00:49:01,119 --> 00:49:02,536 amounts of money. 965 00:49:02,536 --> 00:49:04,161 More money than any of us seen. 966 00:49:07,703 --> 00:49:09,786 The beer was very thin indeed. 967 00:49:09,786 --> 00:49:14,286 It was one and nine stuff - one pint, nine piddles. 968 00:49:14,286 --> 00:49:17,495 Friday was always the issue day for cigarettes 969 00:49:17,495 --> 00:49:20,370 and the cigarettes were Three Witches, 970 00:49:20,370 --> 00:49:23,995 which soon became Three Bitches or Red Hue Tsars. 971 00:49:23,995 --> 00:49:28,204 I think they were made from stable returns. 972 00:49:28,204 --> 00:49:32,162 But generally, in good-sized villages, you could get Woodbines 973 00:49:32,162 --> 00:49:38,413 and Player's, and they were far preferable to the issue cigarettes. 974 00:49:38,413 --> 00:49:41,205 Of course, we were always bartering with the Frenchmen. 975 00:49:41,205 --> 00:49:43,205 We used to barter some of our under-clothing 976 00:49:43,205 --> 00:49:45,288 and get a loaf of bread with it. 977 00:49:45,288 --> 00:49:48,913 We used to swap our British cigarettes for their French wine. 978 00:49:48,913 --> 00:49:52,455 It could be just as tiring out of the line as in the line 979 00:49:52,455 --> 00:49:54,205 and it was sometimes worse. 980 00:49:54,205 --> 00:49:56,164 If you were chosen for fatigue, 981 00:49:56,164 --> 00:49:59,164 you'd have to go on the working party. 982 00:49:59,164 --> 00:50:03,373 You collected stores from a big dump three or four miles back. 983 00:50:03,373 --> 00:50:05,998 Enormous bundles of sandbags, 984 00:50:05,998 --> 00:50:09,581 many made-up duck boards and, worst of all, barbed wire. 985 00:50:10,956 --> 00:50:12,581 It was always hard work. 986 00:50:12,581 --> 00:50:16,123 You were a bonny labouring boy more than you were a fighter. 987 00:50:16,123 --> 00:50:19,207 All the chaps were very tired, but it made no difference. 988 00:50:19,207 --> 00:50:21,123 And they were mentally tired out. 989 00:50:21,123 --> 00:50:23,249 They'd just come out of a trench tour for a rest 990 00:50:23,249 --> 00:50:25,707 and this was the kind of rest they were getting. 991 00:50:27,165 --> 00:50:31,416 You would be carrying stuff up on a light railway. 992 00:50:31,416 --> 00:50:35,374 Yes, they laid a narrow gauge, light railway track. 993 00:50:35,374 --> 00:50:39,208 It was the simplest of things, just platforms on wheels, 994 00:50:39,208 --> 00:50:41,416 driven by light locomotives. 995 00:50:49,542 --> 00:50:51,667 Light railways were always a blooming nuisance 996 00:50:51,667 --> 00:50:54,667 because they were always coming off the track. 997 00:50:54,667 --> 00:50:58,542 And they lost control of this truck going down a slight incline 998 00:50:58,542 --> 00:51:00,792 and it would barge into the one in front, 999 00:51:00,792 --> 00:51:05,126 which scattered the duck boards all over the place. 1000 00:51:05,126 --> 00:51:08,543 We used to take our mess tins up to the engine driver 1001 00:51:08,543 --> 00:51:11,876 and get some boiling water for our brew-up of tea. 1002 00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:16,418 And another. 1003 00:51:18,752 --> 00:51:23,252 The Germans could see the steam and smoke from the steam engine. 1004 00:51:23,252 --> 00:51:25,919 So then it was mostly petrol engines 1005 00:51:25,919 --> 00:51:28,419 which used to run up to the trenches. 1006 00:51:31,294 --> 00:51:34,252 The light railway only went as far as the communication trench, 1007 00:51:34,252 --> 00:51:36,961 and then we had to push the thing along by hand. 1008 00:51:40,878 --> 00:51:43,211 Somebody came along and said, "This is it, we're going 1009 00:51:43,211 --> 00:51:44,795 "to be home by Christmas! 1010 00:51:44,795 --> 00:51:46,461 "We'll just go down the road 1011 00:51:46,461 --> 00:51:48,837 "and look in a field there, you'll see." 1012 00:51:48,837 --> 00:51:51,128 Wouldn't tell us why. Anyway, we went down. 1013 00:51:51,128 --> 00:51:54,462 They were on the roadside covered with tarpaulin sheets. 1014 00:51:54,462 --> 00:51:58,337 You could see nothing except a square outline. 1015 00:51:58,337 --> 00:52:01,212 And then the officer said, "These are supposed to be hush-hush." 1016 00:52:01,212 --> 00:52:04,254 When we asked what it was, the simple reply was "tanks". 1017 00:52:04,254 --> 00:52:08,213 Knowing the shortage of water, we naturally assumed water tanks 1018 00:52:08,213 --> 00:52:10,546 and thought that we were getting reserve supplies. 1019 00:52:10,546 --> 00:52:12,963 It was one of the best-kept secrets. 1020 00:52:12,963 --> 00:52:15,338 We were delighted because these wonderful machines 1021 00:52:15,338 --> 00:52:16,671 were going to win the war. 1022 00:52:18,172 --> 00:52:20,172 Soon everybody would be home again. 1023 00:52:20,172 --> 00:52:22,213 Of course, it didn't happen like that. 1024 00:52:25,005 --> 00:52:29,255 We were taken out of the line and had intensive training. 1025 00:52:29,255 --> 00:52:33,547 Plunge the bayonet into the sack, shout like hell. 1026 00:52:33,547 --> 00:52:37,131 It was to get used to plunging them into somebody's body. 1027 00:52:37,131 --> 00:52:39,881 Then we fired our rifles on the rifle range. 1028 00:52:47,173 --> 00:52:49,715 Firing rifle grenades is a specialist job. 1029 00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:53,423 But they were clumsy. 1030 00:52:54,632 --> 00:52:56,424 I didn't like them much. 1031 00:52:58,007 --> 00:53:02,132 Forced marching, marching without a rest and also a frontal attack, 1032 00:53:02,132 --> 00:53:04,549 right flank attack, left flank attack, 1033 00:53:04,549 --> 00:53:06,883 both flanks attack, night attack, 1034 00:53:06,883 --> 00:53:09,424 and we wondered what the devil all this training was for. 1035 00:53:09,424 --> 00:53:12,341 BAGPIPES PLAY 1036 00:53:12,341 --> 00:53:15,550 The corps commander said that he had just received instructions 1037 00:53:15,550 --> 00:53:19,675 to go ahead with an operation to break through the German lines. 1038 00:53:21,758 --> 00:53:24,508 Suddenly we were called to parade with full marching order, 1039 00:53:24,508 --> 00:53:27,342 and we had to go back up the front, and we'd only been out of the line 1040 00:53:27,342 --> 00:53:28,759 a couple of days. 1041 00:53:28,759 --> 00:53:32,592 We could see streams of supplies, mostly ammunition columns, 1042 00:53:32,592 --> 00:53:34,926 going up toward the front. 1043 00:53:34,926 --> 00:53:37,301 We didn't have a lot of notice, but we knew it was going 1044 00:53:37,301 --> 00:53:38,759 to be a big advance. 1045 00:53:53,135 --> 00:53:54,635 So batteries pushed forward, 1046 00:53:54,635 --> 00:53:56,927 forward positions filled up with ammunition. 1047 00:53:56,927 --> 00:53:59,469 Let's get these ladders up. 1048 00:53:59,469 --> 00:54:03,469 As the great push drew nearer, the line livened up. It began to get 1049 00:54:03,469 --> 00:54:06,136 much more dangerous and not nearly so much fun. 1050 00:54:06,136 --> 00:54:09,011 And we learnt that a bayonet charge was to be made 1051 00:54:09,011 --> 00:54:12,136 on German machine gunners. 1052 00:54:12,136 --> 00:54:15,095 "I wish it to be impressed on all ranks, the importance 1053 00:54:15,095 --> 00:54:17,803 "of the operations about to commence. 1054 00:54:17,803 --> 00:54:20,553 "The Germans are now outnumbered and outgunned 1055 00:54:20,553 --> 00:54:22,803 "and will soon go to pieces if every man goes 1056 00:54:22,803 --> 00:54:24,928 "into the fight determined to get through 1057 00:54:24,928 --> 00:54:27,012 "whatever the local difficulties may be. 1058 00:54:27,012 --> 00:54:30,095 "I am confident that the brigade will distinguish itself in this, 1059 00:54:30,095 --> 00:54:31,512 "its first battle. 1060 00:54:31,512 --> 00:54:35,137 "Let every man remember that all England is watching him." 1061 00:54:35,137 --> 00:54:38,846 We marched all through the night, and it got so bad that officers 1062 00:54:38,846 --> 00:54:42,596 at the side were pushing men back into line who were straggling out, 1063 00:54:42,596 --> 00:54:46,180 and your legs just seemed to go automatically forward. 1064 00:54:46,180 --> 00:54:48,680 I had a feeling that we were walking in our sleep. 1065 00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:50,472 More men were brought into the line, 1066 00:54:50,472 --> 00:54:53,472 regiments were crowded up closer together. 1067 00:54:53,472 --> 00:54:57,597 We were filling up the trenches, packed in like sardines. 1068 00:54:57,597 --> 00:55:01,514 Our captain was a splendid man. He would never bark an order at you, 1069 00:55:01,514 --> 00:55:04,139 he would give an order in a conversational way. 1070 00:55:04,139 --> 00:55:06,264 "We don't know exactly how far this trench is, 1071 00:55:06,264 --> 00:55:09,139 "but between 200 and 300 yards. 1072 00:55:09,139 --> 00:55:12,306 "I will go over with the first wave and you will be in the second wave. 1073 00:55:12,306 --> 00:55:15,765 "And as soon as the curtain fire starts, we'll move. 1074 00:55:15,765 --> 00:55:18,265 "Now, go along and tell your men to be ready." 1075 00:55:18,265 --> 00:55:21,098 And this is the sort of order we got. 1076 00:55:21,098 --> 00:55:24,182 I had two assorted companies, both ignorant of what their conduct 1077 00:55:24,182 --> 00:55:25,890 would be when they got into action. 1078 00:55:25,890 --> 00:55:28,765 So Captain Neville thought it might be helpful if he could furnish 1079 00:55:28,765 --> 00:55:31,515 each platoon with a football and allow them to kick it forward 1080 00:55:31,515 --> 00:55:32,891 and follow it. 1081 00:55:32,891 --> 00:55:35,307 I think myself that it did help them enormously, 1082 00:55:35,307 --> 00:55:37,182 it took their minds off it. 1083 00:55:37,182 --> 00:55:40,474 We had an extra bandolier of ammunition around our necks, 1084 00:55:40,474 --> 00:55:43,058 and if you didn't have a shovel, you had a pick. 1085 00:55:43,058 --> 00:55:46,183 We got in the trenches and we waited for zero hour. 1086 00:55:46,183 --> 00:55:48,933 All the watches were synchronised. 1087 00:55:48,933 --> 00:55:51,308 I was what's called a first bayonet man, 1088 00:55:51,308 --> 00:55:53,642 which meant that I carried the rifle with the bayonet 1089 00:55:53,642 --> 00:55:55,142 in the attacking position, 1090 00:55:55,142 --> 00:55:57,475 and the rest of the men carried bags of bombs. 1091 00:55:59,934 --> 00:56:02,642 And we were warned to be ready to advance at any moment. 1092 00:56:02,642 --> 00:56:05,851 "Any moment" was quite a long time coming and, of course, that added 1093 00:56:05,851 --> 00:56:07,851 to the tension that we were feeling. 1094 00:56:09,976 --> 00:56:13,393 My platoon had been told to go out and test the fire. 1095 00:56:13,393 --> 00:56:16,268 We had to get out and walk towards the enemy. 1096 00:56:16,268 --> 00:56:20,893 We went about 200 yards and then they called us back again. 1097 00:56:20,893 --> 00:56:24,852 There was to be no preliminary bombardment the days beforehand, 1098 00:56:24,852 --> 00:56:28,810 there was only one short, sharp barrage just before the battle. 1099 00:56:30,852 --> 00:56:33,602 You've got to have the artillery preparation 1100 00:56:33,602 --> 00:56:35,352 to smash their wire down. 1101 00:56:35,352 --> 00:56:36,644 Fire! 1102 00:56:36,644 --> 00:56:40,769 I ordered fire on possible enemy assembly and forming-up positions. 1103 00:56:40,769 --> 00:56:45,228 The bombardment started and the ground shook. 1104 00:56:47,061 --> 00:56:51,645 And we could see the hundreds and hundreds of gun flashes. 1105 00:56:52,770 --> 00:56:54,395 Ready, fire! 1106 00:57:03,645 --> 00:57:07,646 As soon as the bombardment started, the German retaliation came. 1107 00:57:11,438 --> 00:57:13,813 For four hours, we had to sit there and take everything 1108 00:57:13,813 --> 00:57:15,479 they slung at us. 1109 00:57:16,896 --> 00:57:19,771 And first of all, a large number of tanks went in. 1110 00:57:19,771 --> 00:57:22,980 We could hear them rumbling and rattling. 1111 00:57:22,980 --> 00:57:25,647 320 tanks crawling along. 1112 00:57:25,647 --> 00:57:28,605 We waited for the signal to move off. 1113 00:57:28,605 --> 00:57:33,439 Already, everybody was anxious to go, but we waited and waited. 1114 00:57:35,481 --> 00:57:37,689 We got no sleep at all that night, owing to the noise 1115 00:57:37,689 --> 00:57:42,439 of our artillery barrage, which was continuous, the whole time. 1116 00:57:42,439 --> 00:57:45,023 We was asked to hand over any personal belongings 1117 00:57:45,023 --> 00:57:48,356 to our company officer, such as photographs and letters 1118 00:57:48,356 --> 00:57:51,023 that we valued. 1119 00:57:51,023 --> 00:57:54,232 I heard soft voices talking to one another quietly, 1120 00:57:54,232 --> 00:57:57,232 and I wondered - how many are going to live to see the sun rise? 1121 00:57:57,232 --> 00:58:00,107 In a man's pay book, there was provision for making a valid will 1122 00:58:00,107 --> 00:58:02,649 if they were going into action for the first time. 1123 00:58:02,649 --> 00:58:05,024 I didn't bother with it, I had nothing to leave anybody. 1124 00:58:05,024 --> 00:58:06,816 HE LAUGHS 1125 00:58:06,816 --> 00:58:09,649 The fellow next to you, he was your best friend. 1126 00:58:09,649 --> 00:58:12,191 You perhaps didn't know him the day before. 1127 00:58:12,191 --> 00:58:14,441 And then an hour to go, they were the longest 1128 00:58:14,441 --> 00:58:17,149 and the shortest hours in life. 1129 00:58:17,149 --> 00:58:19,525 We had unlimited time for thinking, 1130 00:58:19,525 --> 00:58:22,691 and I know I found myself thinking much more deeply 1131 00:58:22,691 --> 00:58:25,400 than I had ever thought before. 1132 00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:27,400 Some people might be incapable of thinking, 1133 00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:29,817 they might have regarded the situation as being such 1134 00:58:29,817 --> 00:58:31,525 that they were incapable of thought. 1135 00:58:31,525 --> 00:58:33,525 I don't think there was any feeling of fear, 1136 00:58:33,525 --> 00:58:35,901 it was just that we were doing a job 1137 00:58:35,901 --> 00:58:38,026 and if it came, it came. 1138 00:58:38,026 --> 00:58:42,609 We realised that, sooner or later, we were going to get the chop. 1139 00:58:42,609 --> 00:58:44,984 You were either going to be killed or wounded. 1140 00:58:44,984 --> 00:58:48,193 I was not in the least frightened being killed, 1141 00:58:48,193 --> 00:58:52,026 but I was terrified lest I should lose an arm or a leg. 1142 00:58:52,026 --> 00:58:55,193 Waiting for an hour for an attack is not a very pleasant thing. 1143 00:58:55,193 --> 00:58:59,443 We sort of chatted away, trying to keep the spirits up, you see. 1144 00:58:59,443 --> 00:59:03,152 We told dirty stories and made crude remarks. 1145 00:59:03,152 --> 00:59:06,027 We had 1,000 guns massed on a mile front behind us. 1146 00:59:06,027 --> 00:59:08,361 Well, you can imagine all this stuff coming over you, 1147 00:59:08,361 --> 00:59:10,402 we had the German stuff coming the other way. 1148 00:59:10,402 --> 00:59:14,361 The noise rose to a crescendo such as I'd never heard before. 1149 00:59:14,361 --> 00:59:16,403 You wouldn't hear a word. 1150 00:59:16,403 --> 00:59:20,528 The shells were passing over you probably three foot, four foot. 1151 00:59:20,528 --> 00:59:24,403 And the air, it was an inferno, and your line was another inferno. 1152 00:59:24,403 --> 00:59:26,695 Reason was completely blasted out of it. 1153 00:59:26,695 --> 00:59:30,070 The bombardment created a sort of hysterical feeling. 1154 00:59:30,070 --> 00:59:32,487 All of a sudden, one of our fellas started crying, 1155 00:59:32,487 --> 00:59:35,404 really screaming and crying. The officer in charge telling 1156 00:59:35,404 --> 00:59:39,154 the Sergeant, "Find that man and shoot him, shoot him!" 1157 00:59:39,154 --> 00:59:41,654 It's difficult to explain the reaction of a man 1158 00:59:41,654 --> 00:59:44,196 when he is in a big bombardment. 1159 00:59:44,196 --> 00:59:47,946 He thought that this man's screaming and crying would be a danger 1160 00:59:47,946 --> 00:59:49,738 to the rest of the men. 1161 00:59:49,738 --> 00:59:52,155 As soon as it was light, we were given a ration of rum, 1162 00:59:52,155 --> 00:59:54,530 any amount of it, as much as you can drink. 1163 00:59:54,530 --> 00:59:56,863 And we got the order to fix bayonets. 1164 00:59:56,863 --> 00:59:58,822 Fix bayonets! Fix bayonets! 1165 00:59:58,822 --> 01:00:00,447 Bayonets fixed! 1166 01:00:00,447 --> 01:00:04,655 It was a beautiful day, the way it dawned after a rainy night. 1167 01:00:04,655 --> 01:00:06,030 A beautiful day. 1168 01:00:06,030 --> 01:00:10,197 Five minutes to go, I remember those lads standing there, dead silent, 1169 01:00:10,197 --> 01:00:11,739 couldn't make a noise. 1170 01:00:11,739 --> 01:00:14,448 I was more frightened sitting, waiting to start. 1171 01:00:14,448 --> 01:00:17,239 I was very frightened then, very frightened indeed. 1172 01:00:17,239 --> 01:00:20,823 And an officer shouted along the line, "Is everybody ready?" 1173 01:00:20,823 --> 01:00:23,823 And I called out, "I can't get my bayonet on my rifle, sir." 1174 01:00:23,823 --> 01:00:26,240 And he said, "Damn you, mate, hurry up." 1175 01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:28,490 I sent back a message to brigade headquarters 1176 01:00:28,490 --> 01:00:29,990 to say we were all ready. 1177 01:00:29,990 --> 01:00:32,324 But unfortunately a slight mistake occurred. 1178 01:00:32,324 --> 01:00:35,365 The first thing they knew was a terrific tremor on the ground. 1179 01:00:35,365 --> 01:00:38,407 We blew a mine, which should have been under the German trenches 1180 01:00:38,407 --> 01:00:40,032 but it wasn't. 1181 01:00:43,449 --> 01:00:46,158 It was in no-man's-land, and that gave the Germans five minutes 1182 01:00:46,158 --> 01:00:48,324 to occupy the crater, which they did. 1183 01:00:51,158 --> 01:00:54,783 Sergeant Moore, he was standing behind the trench with a revolver 1184 01:00:54,783 --> 01:00:57,908 in his hand and he said, "Any boy goes back, I shoot them." 1185 01:00:57,908 --> 01:01:01,283 So that if we didn't go one way, we wouldn't go the other. 1186 01:01:01,283 --> 01:01:03,784 There wasn't a reluctance to go over the top, 1187 01:01:03,784 --> 01:01:05,450 not with people I were with. 1188 01:01:05,450 --> 01:01:07,075 Fire! 1189 01:01:08,826 --> 01:01:10,201 Fire! 1190 01:01:10,201 --> 01:01:13,409 They put a curtain of shells over you and you advanced. 1191 01:01:14,701 --> 01:01:16,534 That was the theory, I think. 1192 01:01:16,534 --> 01:01:18,326 Fire! Fire! 1193 01:01:18,326 --> 01:01:21,243 I realised this was the moment of the assault. 1194 01:01:21,243 --> 01:01:22,951 And then zero hour. 1195 01:01:22,951 --> 01:01:25,993 Somebody shouted, "There they go!" BAGPIPES PLAY 1196 01:01:25,993 --> 01:01:28,660 To the left were the London Scottish, running forward. 1197 01:01:28,660 --> 01:01:31,243 I gave the order of "up the ladders, over the top". 1198 01:01:31,243 --> 01:01:33,452 WHISTLE BLOWS 1199 01:01:34,577 --> 01:01:37,577 And after this, you lived in a world of noise, 1200 01:01:37,577 --> 01:01:39,536 simply noise for hours. 1201 01:01:43,036 --> 01:01:45,744 As soon as you get over the top, fear has left you. 1202 01:01:45,744 --> 01:01:48,703 You didn't run, there was no shouting nor cheering, 1203 01:01:48,703 --> 01:01:50,745 everybody was deadly quiet. 1204 01:01:50,745 --> 01:01:53,870 Just as I stepped into no-man's-land, somebody was shot 1205 01:01:53,870 --> 01:01:57,078 through the head and his skull was splintered. 1206 01:01:57,078 --> 01:01:59,828 It wasn't a good send-off, I can assure you. 1207 01:01:59,828 --> 01:02:05,745 The barrage proceeded into the enemy lines in steps of 100 yards 1208 01:02:05,745 --> 01:02:07,162 at a time. 1209 01:02:07,162 --> 01:02:09,662 Fire! 1210 01:02:09,662 --> 01:02:12,621 The line of British troops, fixed bayonets, walking quite steadily 1211 01:02:12,621 --> 01:02:14,412 behind the barrage. 1212 01:02:14,412 --> 01:02:16,204 It is a sight I shall never forget. 1213 01:02:16,204 --> 01:02:19,288 To start with, we'd had the odd machinegun firing, 1214 01:02:19,288 --> 01:02:22,955 but remarkably little, and it seemed almost too good to be true. 1215 01:02:22,955 --> 01:02:27,080 We then realised the Germans had been containing their fire 1216 01:02:27,080 --> 01:02:30,038 until they saw how far the attack was developing. 1217 01:02:30,038 --> 01:02:33,789 Unknown to us, there was 10 to 20 German machine guns. 1218 01:02:33,789 --> 01:02:36,080 Then all hell broke loose. 1219 01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:39,372 And, my God, he really opened up and he let us have it. 1220 01:02:39,372 --> 01:02:40,997 It just swept us. 1221 01:02:40,997 --> 01:02:42,997 MACHINE-GUNFIRE 1222 01:02:42,997 --> 01:02:45,039 MEN SHOUT 1223 01:02:46,956 --> 01:02:48,748 Keep moving, laddie! 1224 01:02:53,706 --> 01:02:56,581 MEN SCREAM AND SHOUT 1225 01:02:58,415 --> 01:03:01,748 Machinegun bullets came at us like hailstones. 1226 01:03:01,748 --> 01:03:04,915 I didn't realise that it was swish, swish with bullets. 1227 01:03:04,915 --> 01:03:07,707 I looked round and people were dropping all round you. 1228 01:03:07,707 --> 01:03:11,041 I mean, they just faded away on either side of you. 1229 01:03:11,041 --> 01:03:14,707 And I thought, what are they shooting at me for? 1230 01:03:14,707 --> 01:03:18,416 I hadn't gone more than a few yards before I was shot in the thigh. 1231 01:03:18,416 --> 01:03:20,999 There was a captain alongside me with his revolver out 1232 01:03:20,999 --> 01:03:22,750 and, all of a sudden, he dropped. 1233 01:03:22,750 --> 01:03:24,958 And then another chap, he was hit in the leg, 1234 01:03:24,958 --> 01:03:29,792 but he continued with great bounds, hopping on one leg. 1235 01:03:29,792 --> 01:03:33,042 When the bullets hit the tank, the metal flakes were whirling 1236 01:03:33,042 --> 01:03:35,375 around like razor blades inside the tank. 1237 01:03:35,375 --> 01:03:38,000 You could see men dropping, but you didn't take any notice. 1238 01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:40,209 If you didn't get hit, you just carried on. 1239 01:03:40,209 --> 01:03:42,834 I suddenly found myself with a terrible pain in my left hand 1240 01:03:42,834 --> 01:03:45,917 as if someone had caned me, and I found a big hole in it. 1241 01:03:45,917 --> 01:03:49,459 A man was running across the front of me and he was shot to the body 1242 01:03:49,459 --> 01:03:54,085 because the contents of his wallet were flung out forward of me. 1243 01:03:54,085 --> 01:03:56,501 I felt a terrific bang on my right arm 1244 01:03:56,501 --> 01:03:59,543 and the blood started running off the end of my hand. 1245 01:03:59,543 --> 01:04:01,960 I just didn't think that this German machinegun would 1246 01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:04,293 trouble to even fire at me, but the next thing I felt 1247 01:04:04,293 --> 01:04:08,127 a shock of quite a number of bullets hitting the right side of my body. 1248 01:04:08,127 --> 01:04:12,044 A hare crossed my path with eyes bulging in fear, 1249 01:04:12,044 --> 01:04:15,419 but I felt that it couldn't have been half as frightened as I was. 1250 01:04:15,419 --> 01:04:18,003 You could see your mates going down right and left, 1251 01:04:18,003 --> 01:04:20,794 and you were face-to-face with the stark realisation 1252 01:04:20,794 --> 01:04:22,294 that this was the end of it. 1253 01:04:22,294 --> 01:04:25,545 The two in front of me went down wounded in the head and chest. 1254 01:04:25,545 --> 01:04:28,295 Those bloody bullets got me in the leg and blew a great big hole 1255 01:04:28,295 --> 01:04:31,378 in the back. It didn't hurt. 1256 01:04:31,378 --> 01:04:33,628 Life was very, very hazardous indeed 1257 01:04:33,628 --> 01:04:35,879 and we proceeded in this fashion, some getting hit 1258 01:04:35,879 --> 01:04:37,379 and others carrying along. 1259 01:04:37,379 --> 01:04:39,545 You hadn't got time to deliberate upon things. 1260 01:04:39,545 --> 01:04:42,212 Machinegun bullets might be coming over, but they weren't 1261 01:04:42,212 --> 01:04:45,046 hitting you and you just go on. 1262 01:04:45,046 --> 01:04:48,171 They say your past comes up when you think you're going to die, 1263 01:04:48,171 --> 01:04:50,921 but I hadn't got very much past at 19. 1264 01:04:50,921 --> 01:04:53,296 And when I saw these bullets coming along, 1265 01:04:53,296 --> 01:04:55,671 all I thought was - am I going to live? 1266 01:04:55,671 --> 01:04:57,880 Of course, if the thing hits you fair and square 1267 01:04:57,880 --> 01:05:00,547 and you die immediately, you don't feel anything at all, 1268 01:05:00,547 --> 01:05:02,463 nothing to it. 1269 01:05:02,463 --> 01:05:05,213 First wave were all absolutely wiped out. 1270 01:05:05,213 --> 01:05:07,214 Everybody was either killed or wounded. 1271 01:05:07,214 --> 01:05:09,797 There were so many dead laying about, it was hard to avoid 1272 01:05:09,797 --> 01:05:11,172 treading on them. 1273 01:05:11,172 --> 01:05:13,881 I was trying to step over them and the sergeant behind me said, 1274 01:05:13,881 --> 01:05:15,881 "Go on, you mustn't take any notice of that, 1275 01:05:15,881 --> 01:05:17,589 "you keep going." 1276 01:05:17,589 --> 01:05:20,298 And we were literally walking over the dead bodies 1277 01:05:20,298 --> 01:05:21,756 of our comrades. 1278 01:05:21,756 --> 01:05:25,090 The carnage is just indescribable. 1279 01:05:25,090 --> 01:05:28,215 I had in my path about 2,000 dead, British and German. 1280 01:05:28,215 --> 01:05:31,882 An attempt to clear any dead man from our path was impossible 1281 01:05:31,882 --> 01:05:35,798 because of the shelling and we ploughed over the lot. 1282 01:05:35,798 --> 01:05:39,007 Any shell bursting within a few yards of the tank 1283 01:05:39,007 --> 01:05:41,382 seemed to lift it up in the air 1284 01:05:41,382 --> 01:05:45,174 and you felt a tremendous back pressure. 1285 01:05:45,174 --> 01:05:47,841 The noise of battle when you're out in the middle of it 1286 01:05:47,841 --> 01:05:51,424 is so terrific that you don't hear any individual shots even. 1287 01:05:51,424 --> 01:05:54,383 And we had to stop in front of the German wire. 1288 01:05:54,383 --> 01:05:57,216 It was quite impossible to advance any further because of the 1289 01:05:57,216 --> 01:05:59,883 barbed wire and the machinegun posts, which were about 1290 01:05:59,883 --> 01:06:01,342 50 yards further on. 1291 01:06:01,342 --> 01:06:03,633 The wire in front of us was quite uncut, 1292 01:06:03,633 --> 01:06:05,592 despite the intense bombardment. 1293 01:06:05,592 --> 01:06:07,592 You couldn't see anything but this wire, 1294 01:06:07,592 --> 01:06:09,925 it seemed to be acres and acres of it. 1295 01:06:09,925 --> 01:06:12,509 It was just black with rust. 1296 01:06:12,509 --> 01:06:15,134 I don't think a rabbit could have got through it. 1297 01:06:15,134 --> 01:06:18,301 Then our own artillery started dropping shells amongst us. 1298 01:06:21,718 --> 01:06:23,509 SCREAMING 1299 01:06:24,551 --> 01:06:27,051 Obviously they hadn't got their range or they didn't know 1300 01:06:27,051 --> 01:06:29,135 where we were. 1301 01:06:29,135 --> 01:06:32,552 I heard the first shrapnel shell burst above my head. 1302 01:06:32,552 --> 01:06:35,135 There was a terrific whiz, that was the disappearance 1303 01:06:35,135 --> 01:06:37,093 of my steel helmet. 1304 01:06:37,093 --> 01:06:38,969 I never found it again. 1305 01:06:38,969 --> 01:06:42,302 I got a bit off the cheek of my backside, a piece in my hip, 1306 01:06:42,302 --> 01:06:45,636 a piece in my leg, then a piece right through my leg. 1307 01:06:45,636 --> 01:06:48,261 The fellow to my left took the full blast of the shell 1308 01:06:48,261 --> 01:06:50,678 and had half his head blown away. 1309 01:06:50,678 --> 01:06:53,886 Bullets were catching us and shrapnel was coming down overhead 1310 01:06:53,886 --> 01:06:57,095 and we had all the German artillery banging away at us 1311 01:06:57,095 --> 01:06:59,011 and our own artillery going over. 1312 01:06:59,011 --> 01:07:00,886 The shells were exploding all round you 1313 01:07:00,886 --> 01:07:03,637 and it was a real good old battle and it got hold of you, sort of. 1314 01:07:03,637 --> 01:07:06,220 BAGPIPES PLAY 1315 01:07:06,220 --> 01:07:10,470 One had no sanity at all because the inferno was so blasting 1316 01:07:10,470 --> 01:07:12,720 that you had no time to think. 1317 01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:17,887 That din, that numbing din seemed to stop one doing the things 1318 01:07:17,887 --> 01:07:21,471 that one would normally do, no matter how well-intentioned one was. 1319 01:07:23,054 --> 01:07:24,638 You don't look, you see. 1320 01:07:24,638 --> 01:07:26,305 You don't hear, you listen. 1321 01:07:26,305 --> 01:07:28,638 You taste the top of your mouth, your nose is filled 1322 01:07:28,638 --> 01:07:30,388 with fumes and death. 1323 01:07:30,388 --> 01:07:33,722 The veneer of civilisation has dropped away. 1324 01:07:33,722 --> 01:07:37,305 I was literally blown about 12 or 14 yards and all that I could hear 1325 01:07:37,305 --> 01:07:40,014 was the cries and screams from the survivors, 1326 01:07:40,014 --> 01:07:42,639 sometimes in two, sometimes in three parts. 1327 01:07:42,639 --> 01:07:45,347 Legs, arms all strewn all over the place 1328 01:07:45,347 --> 01:07:47,972 and that arid smell of explosion. 1329 01:07:47,972 --> 01:07:52,806 Well, all my romantic ideas of war completely vanished. 1330 01:07:52,806 --> 01:07:56,056 A shell had hit this man, it knocked off his left arm, 1331 01:07:56,056 --> 01:07:57,765 knocked off his left leg, 1332 01:07:57,765 --> 01:08:00,181 his left eye was hanging on his cheek 1333 01:08:00,181 --> 01:08:02,598 and he's calling out for Nanny. 1334 01:08:02,598 --> 01:08:04,807 His bleeding eye was hanging on, pulsing. 1335 01:08:06,348 --> 01:08:08,182 So I shot him. 1336 01:08:08,182 --> 01:08:10,849 I had to, I had to shoot him. 1337 01:08:10,849 --> 01:08:15,057 He'd have died in any case and it put him out of his misery. 1338 01:08:15,057 --> 01:08:16,724 HE SOBS: It hurt me. 1339 01:08:19,016 --> 01:08:20,974 I knew there was no hope of getting any orders 1340 01:08:20,974 --> 01:08:23,183 because there was nobody to give any. 1341 01:08:23,183 --> 01:08:26,808 All officers was killed and wounded, and most of the NCOs. 1342 01:08:26,808 --> 01:08:28,516 I jumped into this big shell hole. 1343 01:08:28,516 --> 01:08:31,391 You dropped down anywhere, shell holes, anywhere at all 1344 01:08:31,391 --> 01:08:34,683 just to take cover until the barrage lifted. 1345 01:08:34,683 --> 01:08:37,725 I'm not one of those heroes who want to take the German army on my own, 1346 01:08:37,725 --> 01:08:40,309 so I went to work and I got down behind the lip 1347 01:08:40,309 --> 01:08:42,392 of a big shell hole. 1348 01:08:42,392 --> 01:08:45,434 Fortunately, I was able to drop into a shell hole. 1349 01:08:45,434 --> 01:08:48,184 Used to call them shell hole droppers, they would drop down 1350 01:08:48,184 --> 01:08:49,767 into a shell hole 1351 01:08:49,767 --> 01:08:52,851 because of the barrage and seeing a few men killed. 1352 01:08:52,851 --> 01:08:55,018 It's a pity they didn't all drop into shell holes. 1353 01:08:55,018 --> 01:08:57,434 Before the barrage lifted, they were dead. 1354 01:08:57,434 --> 01:08:58,935 SCREAMING 1355 01:08:58,935 --> 01:09:02,101 And the bullets were hitting the back of the shell hole where I was. 1356 01:09:02,101 --> 01:09:03,560 It was raining bullets. 1357 01:09:03,560 --> 01:09:05,310 I don't know how I got missed. 1358 01:09:05,310 --> 01:09:08,852 From behind the lip of this shell hole, the dirt was spraying down 1359 01:09:08,852 --> 01:09:10,519 the back of my neck. 1360 01:09:10,519 --> 01:09:13,185 There were three chaps in the shell hole and one of them said, 1361 01:09:13,185 --> 01:09:15,185 "They're firing into a bloody shell hole." 1362 01:09:15,185 --> 01:09:18,144 We looked round to see the bullets go right through his head. 1363 01:09:18,144 --> 01:09:19,602 So that was the end of that. 1364 01:09:19,602 --> 01:09:23,144 A sergeant came down into the shell hole on top of us 1365 01:09:23,144 --> 01:09:25,061 and he was dead, he got it through the neck. 1366 01:09:25,061 --> 01:09:27,978 Anyway, he had a lovely pair of field glasses round his neck 1367 01:09:27,978 --> 01:09:30,645 and I nabbed them. Because things were so scarce, 1368 01:09:30,645 --> 01:09:33,520 if there was anything like that, you'd collar it. 1369 01:09:33,520 --> 01:09:37,853 Jerry slapped shell after shell into us until one shell penetrated 1370 01:09:37,853 --> 01:09:39,728 the forward part of the tank. 1371 01:09:39,728 --> 01:09:42,187 What happened then, I cannot tell you but I believe 1372 01:09:42,187 --> 01:09:43,979 there was an explosion. 1373 01:09:43,979 --> 01:09:47,062 These were fully trained soldiers, we always had the rifles loaded, 1374 01:09:47,062 --> 01:09:49,604 but we stuck in the extra five rounds to make it 1375 01:09:49,604 --> 01:09:51,396 a ten for rapid-fire. 1376 01:09:51,396 --> 01:09:54,646 The Germans got up in their own trenches and fired at us. 1377 01:09:54,646 --> 01:09:58,479 In my opinion, they were very brave, very brave men indeed. 1378 01:09:58,479 --> 01:10:02,146 There was a German standing up on his parapet and flinging bombs. 1379 01:10:02,146 --> 01:10:04,063 So I shot him. 1380 01:10:04,063 --> 01:10:07,147 They officer gave us orders, "Open immediate rapid-fire." 1381 01:10:07,147 --> 01:10:11,105 We all opened up as fast as we could go and continually fired. 1382 01:10:11,105 --> 01:10:13,439 It was a real mad minute, I'll tell you. 1383 01:10:13,439 --> 01:10:15,730 They stood up and I was picking the Germans off 1384 01:10:15,730 --> 01:10:17,939 because I was a sniper. 1385 01:10:17,939 --> 01:10:20,814 I was trying to pick a shot and something hit me 1386 01:10:20,814 --> 01:10:23,439 between the eyes like a sledgehammer. 1387 01:10:23,439 --> 01:10:25,106 I dissolved into unconsciousness 1388 01:10:25,106 --> 01:10:28,064 with no pain, but with millions of golden stars 1389 01:10:28,064 --> 01:10:30,106 in a dark blue heaven. 1390 01:10:30,106 --> 01:10:32,231 After I'd used up a whole lot of bullets, 1391 01:10:32,231 --> 01:10:34,773 I got down, I says, "You have a go, Bill." 1392 01:10:34,773 --> 01:10:38,357 He didn't even fire a shot, he was killed immediately. 1393 01:10:38,357 --> 01:10:39,982 That's how things were. 1394 01:10:39,982 --> 01:10:42,649 You felt aggrieved, it was a pal of yours. 1395 01:10:42,649 --> 01:10:47,399 But you took it casually because I suppose you become battle hardened. 1396 01:10:47,399 --> 01:10:50,607 We kept up rapid-fire there as long as our rifles would work. 1397 01:10:50,607 --> 01:10:52,357 They got too hot to fire any more. 1398 01:10:52,357 --> 01:10:54,774 Fat was pouring out the woodwork of the rifles, 1399 01:10:54,774 --> 01:10:57,066 the muzzles were beginning to extend. 1400 01:10:57,066 --> 01:10:59,650 Then we got an order from the captain, we must make 1401 01:10:59,650 --> 01:11:04,066 a barricade of the dead, the German dead and our own dead. 1402 01:11:04,066 --> 01:11:07,483 My captain, at that time, was anxious to go on and keep it up, 1403 01:11:07,483 --> 01:11:09,775 but I'm afraid he died. 1404 01:11:09,775 --> 01:11:12,025 I had three men loading up these rifles with me 1405 01:11:12,025 --> 01:11:13,609 and I peppered the whole line. 1406 01:11:13,609 --> 01:11:17,734 And judging by the shouts and screams, I took a very good toll. 1407 01:11:17,734 --> 01:11:21,192 There was machinegun spraying on the lip of our shell hole. 1408 01:11:21,192 --> 01:11:23,526 I waited until the belt of that gun had fired 1409 01:11:23,526 --> 01:11:25,901 and immediately carried on the advance. 1410 01:11:25,901 --> 01:11:29,359 The sergeant said, "Follow me." 1411 01:11:29,359 --> 01:11:31,235 I managed to crawl under the wire - 1412 01:11:31,235 --> 01:11:34,110 a lot of us got through in that way - and gathered together 1413 01:11:34,110 --> 01:11:36,402 on the German side of the wire. 1414 01:11:36,402 --> 01:11:39,277 All the shells screamed over our heads onto the German posts 1415 01:11:39,277 --> 01:11:40,735 and then suddenly stopped. 1416 01:11:40,735 --> 01:11:43,152 "Come on, lads, give them hell," and we just got up 1417 01:11:43,152 --> 01:11:44,985 and rushed forward. 1418 01:11:44,985 --> 01:11:47,777 In the bayonet charge, the majority of us always 1419 01:11:47,777 --> 01:11:50,944 had a round up the spout, besides the magazine. 1420 01:11:50,944 --> 01:11:53,611 There was a feeling of exultation that with a rifle, bayonet 1421 01:11:53,611 --> 01:11:56,403 and a couple of Mills bombs in your pocket, we were going to be able 1422 01:11:56,403 --> 01:11:59,153 to get stuck into the bastards that had been killing our mates. 1423 01:11:59,153 --> 01:12:01,736 And we went like hell, straight into the Germans. 1424 01:12:02,820 --> 01:12:05,695 SCREAMING AND RAPID GUNFIRE 1425 01:12:10,278 --> 01:12:12,987 And we fired at anything that moved. 1426 01:12:12,987 --> 01:12:15,195 I dropped down on my knees and the sergeant fired 1427 01:12:15,195 --> 01:12:18,070 over my shoulder and hit the German. 1428 01:12:18,070 --> 01:12:20,279 He was on the ground but still firing, so he went up 1429 01:12:20,279 --> 01:12:21,487 and killed him. 1430 01:12:21,487 --> 01:12:23,946 There was only one method of bayonet fighting, that is to 1431 01:12:23,946 --> 01:12:26,196 shove your bayonet in as hard as you could. 1432 01:12:26,196 --> 01:12:28,779 There was this German on the floor of the trench, 1433 01:12:28,779 --> 01:12:30,321 and the poor bugger was dead scared. 1434 01:12:30,321 --> 01:12:32,780 So one of them wondered whether to stick him or shoot him, 1435 01:12:32,780 --> 01:12:35,238 the German jumped out away to my left, another one 1436 01:12:35,238 --> 01:12:37,822 on the right, so I pinned this German down, then shot 1437 01:12:37,822 --> 01:12:41,197 the German on the left, worked my bolt, put another one 1438 01:12:41,197 --> 01:12:44,280 up the spout, and shot the German who was running away on the right. 1439 01:12:44,280 --> 01:12:47,072 Quite a number of Germans came in a rush and we shot them, 1440 01:12:47,072 --> 01:12:48,614 one by one. 1441 01:12:48,614 --> 01:12:50,197 We probably killed the lot. 1442 01:12:50,197 --> 01:12:54,614 Some chap said, "Poor old Dick got it," and I looked around and saw him 1443 01:12:54,614 --> 01:12:56,864 lying with the top of his head off. 1444 01:12:56,864 --> 01:13:00,198 On their right flank came a German with a canister on his back, 1445 01:13:00,198 --> 01:13:02,781 squirting this liquid fire out of the hose. 1446 01:13:02,781 --> 01:13:05,781 I looked towards jets of flame coming across the trench. 1447 01:13:05,781 --> 01:13:07,531 We'd never heard of flame-throwers. 1448 01:13:07,531 --> 01:13:09,323 Burnt 23 of our chaps to death. 1449 01:13:09,323 --> 01:13:11,823 I plonked one into his chest, but it didn't stop him, 1450 01:13:11,823 --> 01:13:14,532 he must have had an armour-plated waistcoat on. 1451 01:13:14,532 --> 01:13:17,532 I got a bang in the arm and found I was bleeding. 1452 01:13:17,532 --> 01:13:19,740 But I could bomb pretty well with my left arm 1453 01:13:19,740 --> 01:13:21,616 as I could with my right. 1454 01:13:21,616 --> 01:13:24,241 Somebody threw a Mills bomb, and it burst behind him, 1455 01:13:24,241 --> 01:13:26,616 and he wasn't armour-plated behind him, he went down. 1456 01:13:26,616 --> 01:13:28,991 One German came running out of this trench, 1457 01:13:28,991 --> 01:13:31,950 screaming his head off, he nearly knocked me over. 1458 01:13:31,950 --> 01:13:34,533 Three Germans came out with their hands up, 1459 01:13:34,533 --> 01:13:36,866 and they were young chaps about our own age, 1460 01:13:36,866 --> 01:13:38,825 about 19 or 20. 1461 01:13:38,825 --> 01:13:42,200 If Jerries came up with their hands up, we just waved them on, 1462 01:13:42,200 --> 01:13:44,950 we didn't fire at them, obviously. 1463 01:13:44,950 --> 01:13:47,450 Prisoners were a nuisance! 1464 01:13:47,450 --> 01:13:49,742 We were shooing them back, you know, get rid of them. 1465 01:13:49,742 --> 01:13:53,742 The only Germans we were really fighting were the machine gunners. 1466 01:13:53,742 --> 01:13:55,909 They were firing belt after belt after us, 1467 01:13:55,909 --> 01:13:57,493 and they never stopped firing. 1468 01:13:57,493 --> 01:14:00,451 The bloody cartridge cases were piled up in a heap. 1469 01:14:00,451 --> 01:14:02,910 They'd got all their best men on machine guns, 1470 01:14:02,910 --> 01:14:04,451 and they fought to the death. 1471 01:14:04,451 --> 01:14:07,326 The cog opened, and there was three Jerries there in front 1472 01:14:07,326 --> 01:14:09,535 of the machinegun, and of course the bloody gun 1473 01:14:09,535 --> 01:14:13,910 was pointing at me, and I just swung the Lewis gun, I opened fire first. 1474 01:14:15,077 --> 01:14:16,785 It was split-second stuff. 1475 01:14:16,785 --> 01:14:19,202 Thankfully, I moved on. 1476 01:14:19,202 --> 01:14:22,077 As the war progressed, it was inevitable that we developed 1477 01:14:22,077 --> 01:14:24,911 the animal characteristic of killing. 1478 01:14:24,911 --> 01:14:27,078 Well, we've got some young Lincolnshire lads, 1479 01:14:27,078 --> 01:14:28,494 you know, the 18-year-olds. 1480 01:14:28,494 --> 01:14:30,744 The machine gunners were putting their hands up - 1481 01:14:30,744 --> 01:14:32,619 it didn't make any difference. 1482 01:14:32,619 --> 01:14:33,828 They were killed. 1483 01:14:35,620 --> 01:14:38,161 And I'm afraid there was a little bit of slaughter going on, 1484 01:14:38,161 --> 01:14:40,537 until we got in some sort of order. 1485 01:14:40,537 --> 01:14:44,745 Everybody was screaming, laying down, moaning and groaning, 1486 01:14:44,745 --> 01:14:47,870 and eventually there was silence. 1487 01:14:47,870 --> 01:14:50,412 I found a German officer with his lung hanging out. 1488 01:14:50,412 --> 01:14:52,662 He was still alive, but he wasn't conscious. 1489 01:14:52,662 --> 01:14:56,829 You could see his lung was expanding and contracting as he was breathing. 1490 01:14:56,829 --> 01:14:59,871 It was the nearest I ever came to shooting a man point-blank, 1491 01:14:59,871 --> 01:15:02,288 but we had to go on. 1492 01:15:02,288 --> 01:15:04,788 One dead German leaning against a shell wall, 1493 01:15:04,788 --> 01:15:07,705 he was a handsome bloke, he reminded me of my father. 1494 01:15:07,705 --> 01:15:12,455 A shell had dissected him nicely, it had taken the whole of the front 1495 01:15:12,455 --> 01:15:16,414 of his chest down to his stomach, neatly cut aside. 1496 01:15:16,414 --> 01:15:19,497 What a fantastic exhibition of anatomy. 1497 01:15:21,622 --> 01:15:24,664 The real shooting was over in about ten minutes. 1498 01:15:24,664 --> 01:15:28,664 There was about 100 of us coming out, instead of 600 who'd gone over, 1499 01:15:28,664 --> 01:15:30,706 and a band came to meet us. 1500 01:15:30,706 --> 01:15:32,581 It was a wonderful feeling. 1501 01:15:32,581 --> 01:15:34,040 "I've been in a battle! 1502 01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:37,290 "And I'm so very proud about it." 1503 01:15:37,290 --> 01:15:38,748 Hang on. 1504 01:15:41,082 --> 01:15:42,665 You got it? Yeah. 1505 01:15:42,665 --> 01:15:45,040 And if you'd anybody wounded or killed... 1506 01:15:45,040 --> 01:15:46,749 FLIES BUZZ 1507 01:15:46,749 --> 01:15:50,540 ..if you didn't get them out straight away, they went down 1508 01:15:50,540 --> 01:15:53,916 in the soil and disappeared, it was so bad. 1509 01:15:53,916 --> 01:15:55,416 That's it. 1510 01:15:56,874 --> 01:16:01,541 Well, you had to ascertain whether a man was alive or not. 1511 01:16:01,541 --> 01:16:06,875 If he was dead, then he was no trouble - medically. 1512 01:16:06,875 --> 01:16:08,833 I can't put that any clearer! 1513 01:16:09,916 --> 01:16:11,583 Keep him level. 1514 01:16:12,958 --> 01:16:14,583 Give me some room! 1515 01:16:14,583 --> 01:16:17,625 I felt some pain, I suppose about an hour later. 1516 01:16:17,625 --> 01:16:21,417 I'd got these thigh boots on, and the bullet had gone in sideways, 1517 01:16:21,417 --> 01:16:25,126 all the way down the leg, in, out, in, out, and hit the ankle bone 1518 01:16:25,126 --> 01:16:26,626 and turned upside down. 1519 01:16:28,542 --> 01:16:31,043 Oh, God! 1520 01:16:31,043 --> 01:16:32,376 Jesus! 1521 01:16:34,084 --> 01:16:37,418 The Sergeant Major brought me a dixie of hot tea, 1522 01:16:37,418 --> 01:16:41,168 which was just what I needed, it went down beautifully. 1523 01:16:41,168 --> 01:16:44,252 And casualties started coming back, walking casualties, 1524 01:16:44,252 --> 01:16:47,835 men with their arms smashed up, legs trawling, and they got back 1525 01:16:47,835 --> 01:16:50,460 to different dressing stations the best way they could. 1526 01:16:50,460 --> 01:16:53,127 The walking wounded, they were coming down in droves. 1527 01:16:53,127 --> 01:16:56,169 Some were holding one another, and some were walking on their own, 1528 01:16:56,169 --> 01:16:58,794 a light wound in the hand or arm, but some were hobbling along, 1529 01:16:58,794 --> 01:17:00,794 and some were looking quite cheerful as 1530 01:17:00,794 --> 01:17:02,836 they'd been free of something. 1531 01:17:02,836 --> 01:17:04,211 Hello, Mum! 1532 01:17:05,628 --> 01:17:08,003 My officer had said, "Are you all right, Kane?" 1533 01:17:08,003 --> 01:17:10,336 And I said, "Oh, yes, sir, I can still walk." 1534 01:17:10,336 --> 01:17:13,795 And he said, "But you've been hit in the back of the head." 1535 01:17:13,795 --> 01:17:16,753 And he handed me quite a dose of rum. 1536 01:17:18,920 --> 01:17:24,004 The worst cases were those who were shot through the chest. 1537 01:17:24,004 --> 01:17:27,296 Well, the difficulty of breathing, you see, you only had 1538 01:17:27,296 --> 01:17:30,754 field dressings, which every man carried. 1539 01:17:30,754 --> 01:17:32,754 Yeah, we'll have a better look at it. 1540 01:17:32,754 --> 01:17:34,213 Who's waiting, boys? 1541 01:17:34,213 --> 01:17:36,963 You got a bottle of iodine and they'd tip it in the hole. 1542 01:17:36,963 --> 01:17:39,713 Oh, the pain was terrific. 1543 01:17:39,713 --> 01:17:41,088 Well done. 1544 01:17:43,922 --> 01:17:46,838 How about that for luck, chum? Shot right through it. 1545 01:17:50,047 --> 01:17:54,256 I was not in very good shape at all, and I was getting somewhere near 1546 01:17:54,256 --> 01:17:57,547 the end of my tether, I don't think I could go on much longer. 1547 01:17:57,547 --> 01:18:02,006 Every soldier, I suppose, had this breaking strain. 1548 01:18:05,298 --> 01:18:07,631 The medics will be waiting for you. 1549 01:18:07,631 --> 01:18:10,131 Well done, lads, well done. 1550 01:18:10,131 --> 01:18:11,923 That's it. 1551 01:18:11,923 --> 01:18:16,715 We had some remarkable doctors who worked day and night 1552 01:18:16,715 --> 01:18:21,590 in various stations on the British front, looking after the wounded. 1553 01:18:23,132 --> 01:18:24,549 Nice cup of Rosie Lee. 1554 01:18:24,549 --> 01:18:26,174 You all right, Jack? 1555 01:18:26,174 --> 01:18:30,132 They seemed never to need any sleep, so what they hadn't got in numbers 1556 01:18:30,132 --> 01:18:32,091 they made up in effort. 1557 01:18:32,091 --> 01:18:33,966 We need a shell dressing. 1558 01:18:36,049 --> 01:18:40,008 Both my officers, all my sergeants and three quarters of my men 1559 01:18:40,008 --> 01:18:42,341 were killed or wounded. 1560 01:18:42,341 --> 01:18:46,217 Their ranks were made up with lads of 18 from England 1561 01:18:46,217 --> 01:18:48,467 who'd been pushed out of factories. 1562 01:18:48,467 --> 01:18:50,175 Easy, that's it. 1563 01:18:51,342 --> 01:18:52,842 BIRDS SQUAWK 1564 01:18:52,842 --> 01:18:54,967 Bloody birds! Get out of it! 1565 01:18:54,967 --> 01:18:56,384 Go on! 1566 01:18:57,592 --> 01:19:01,634 My mob were helping the battalion to bury these... 1567 01:19:01,634 --> 01:19:05,468 ..only little kids, they were, 17 or 18 years of age. 1568 01:19:05,468 --> 01:19:08,593 In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life 1569 01:19:08,593 --> 01:19:10,385 through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1570 01:19:15,343 --> 01:19:18,010 A lot of those kids, it was their first action, 1571 01:19:18,010 --> 01:19:20,260 and they never knew any more. 1572 01:19:20,260 --> 01:19:23,302 So we'd wrapped them up in blankets, dug a little shallow grave 1573 01:19:23,302 --> 01:19:24,677 and put them in there. 1574 01:19:27,802 --> 01:19:30,886 I was putting a dressing on a German, and he was very shaky 1575 01:19:30,886 --> 01:19:33,719 and fearful of what we were going to do to him. 1576 01:19:33,719 --> 01:19:35,886 But they were more frightened than we were. 1577 01:19:35,886 --> 01:19:38,178 And we were frightened, I don't mind telling you! 1578 01:19:38,178 --> 01:19:41,261 Mostly, they were just boys, as we were. 1579 01:19:41,261 --> 01:19:44,303 They seemed glad to be captured, they were out of it. 1580 01:19:44,303 --> 01:19:45,470 Is this yours? 1581 01:19:45,470 --> 01:19:47,678 Mein. This is his. Ah, it's yours. 1582 01:19:47,678 --> 01:19:49,762 Put it in your pocket. 1583 01:19:49,762 --> 01:19:52,262 There was a little German fella, I gave him a cigarette, 1584 01:19:52,262 --> 01:19:55,512 and he was terrified, and I was very, very sorry for him, 1585 01:19:55,512 --> 01:19:57,887 really, you know. He was only about 16. 1586 01:19:57,887 --> 01:20:00,596 And we had a chinwag, and I just took his pocket watch, 1587 01:20:00,596 --> 01:20:02,221 you know, it was a normal thing. 1588 01:20:02,221 --> 01:20:03,846 We used to rob them, you see? 1589 01:20:03,846 --> 01:20:05,221 Right, let's go. 1590 01:20:06,263 --> 01:20:10,180 Yes, they were underfed, and they were in very poor shape. 1591 01:20:10,180 --> 01:20:11,555 Come on, come on now, lads. 1592 01:20:11,555 --> 01:20:12,930 Pick him up. Come on! 1593 01:20:12,930 --> 01:20:15,722 And funnily enough, five or six German prisoners came along, 1594 01:20:15,722 --> 01:20:19,013 and they helped carry me, and I got another six watches, 1595 01:20:19,013 --> 01:20:22,014 because I robbed these fellas who helped me down. 1596 01:20:22,014 --> 01:20:26,222 Every time we captured prisoners, a number of German prisoners 1597 01:20:26,222 --> 01:20:28,806 would immediately take up stretcher duty. 1598 01:20:28,806 --> 01:20:31,972 Now, I'm sure the Geneva Convention never required them to do that. 1599 01:20:31,972 --> 01:20:33,348 There you go, lads. 1600 01:20:33,348 --> 01:20:35,139 I've got him. Steady. 1601 01:20:36,514 --> 01:20:37,848 You're all right, chum. 1602 01:20:37,848 --> 01:20:39,431 That's it. Keep going. 1603 01:20:39,431 --> 01:20:42,431 I took about a dozen prisoners back with me, 1604 01:20:42,431 --> 01:20:45,015 they were all unarmed and I just had my old gun. 1605 01:20:45,015 --> 01:20:48,348 In some cases, there were a whole lot of Germans without even 1606 01:20:48,348 --> 01:20:50,598 a Tommy with them. 1607 01:20:50,598 --> 01:20:56,432 Oh, they were really cowed, they were, yes, very subdued. 1608 01:20:58,474 --> 01:21:03,474 I slept next to a German man who'd been wounded in the arm, 1609 01:21:03,474 --> 01:21:08,224 and to my amazement he started talking to me in English. 1610 01:21:08,224 --> 01:21:10,600 And he said he'd been a waiter at the Savoy. 1611 01:21:14,308 --> 01:21:18,100 I mean, I don't think the average British soldier ever had 1612 01:21:18,100 --> 01:21:21,433 any deep feelings regarding revenge against the German. 1613 01:21:21,433 --> 01:21:23,225 He admired him and respected him. 1614 01:21:24,392 --> 01:21:25,809 Go on, show him. 1615 01:21:25,809 --> 01:21:28,517 As the war went on, I felt as much sympathy for them 1616 01:21:28,517 --> 01:21:30,434 as I did for myself. 1617 01:21:30,434 --> 01:21:32,976 The German I always thought was a good fighter. 1618 01:21:32,976 --> 01:21:36,059 I'd sooner have him on my side than on the opposite side. 1619 01:21:36,059 --> 01:21:39,018 I think some of the Germans thought we ought to have been fighting 1620 01:21:39,018 --> 01:21:42,768 with them against the French and the Russians, but none of them 1621 01:21:42,768 --> 01:21:44,643 thought we ought to be fighting each other. 1622 01:21:44,643 --> 01:21:46,060 Keep on moving forward! 1623 01:21:46,060 --> 01:21:50,435 You see, the German had been an unknown horde 1624 01:21:50,435 --> 01:21:53,060 with their coal-scuttle helmets, and then we met them. 1625 01:21:53,060 --> 01:21:55,852 Well, the German soldier, he was a very nice fellow as a rule. 1626 01:21:55,852 --> 01:21:58,227 You know, I think he was really a barber or a shopkeeper 1627 01:21:58,227 --> 01:22:01,561 or something, and, the same as us, he was stuck in uniform. 1628 01:22:01,561 --> 01:22:04,769 You're too tall. Get you next time, Jerry! 1629 01:22:04,769 --> 01:22:07,478 We got on very well together, actually, and they used to 1630 01:22:07,478 --> 01:22:08,811 mix in with us. 1631 01:22:08,811 --> 01:22:10,770 Want your hat back? 1632 01:22:10,770 --> 01:22:12,520 Here, give it him back! 1633 01:22:12,520 --> 01:22:15,478 They were decent, sort of family people 1634 01:22:15,478 --> 01:22:18,562 and thought a great deal of their children. 1635 01:22:20,270 --> 01:22:23,645 They didn't seem to bear any malice against us. 1636 01:22:23,645 --> 01:22:26,187 They'd had to do what they were told, like us. 1637 01:22:27,979 --> 01:22:30,062 Go on, go on tracking... 1638 01:22:30,062 --> 01:22:33,062 I couldn't speak German, but some could, and the Germans, 1639 01:22:33,062 --> 01:22:34,771 some of them could speak English. 1640 01:22:34,771 --> 01:22:36,771 Anyhow, we could understand each other. 1641 01:22:36,771 --> 01:22:39,688 The general agreement when we were talking to Germans 1642 01:22:39,688 --> 01:22:44,230 was how useless war was and why did it have to happen. 1643 01:22:47,022 --> 01:22:49,480 When you're passing bodies all day long, 1644 01:22:49,480 --> 01:22:52,897 it's bound to have an effect on whoever it is, isn't it? 1645 01:22:52,897 --> 01:22:54,980 This big fat German was lying in a street... 1646 01:22:54,980 --> 01:22:56,189 FLIES BUZZ 1647 01:22:56,189 --> 01:22:58,647 ..you know, his stomach was all gassed up, 1648 01:22:58,647 --> 01:23:01,439 his intestines lying out on his belly. 1649 01:23:01,439 --> 01:23:04,356 And somebody had stuck a pipe in his mouth! 1650 01:23:04,356 --> 01:23:07,523 Yeah, we all told him to get up! HE CHUCKLES 1651 01:23:08,939 --> 01:23:12,898 German troops were very brave and very stubborn. 1652 01:23:12,898 --> 01:23:16,356 The Germans fought rearguard actions almost back to the Rhine, 1653 01:23:16,356 --> 01:23:20,232 and regiment after regiment was smashed up and cut about. 1654 01:23:20,232 --> 01:23:23,940 We had an idea that they were beginning to crack. 1655 01:23:25,940 --> 01:23:28,732 I would say that they were, if anything, rather despondent. 1656 01:23:28,732 --> 01:23:30,607 They knew they had lost the war. 1657 01:23:30,607 --> 01:23:34,482 We, as front-line soldiers, knew they were giving up. 1658 01:23:34,482 --> 01:23:39,024 Quite frankly, the Germans were fed up with the whole thing. 1659 01:23:39,024 --> 01:23:42,941 And, gradually, that is how the war itself came to an end. 1660 01:23:42,941 --> 01:23:46,108 I got the impression that most of the German soldiers 1661 01:23:46,108 --> 01:23:50,275 couldn't care less who won as long as the war finished. 1662 01:23:50,275 --> 01:23:52,775 Of course, that's what everybody was thinking about then - 1663 01:23:52,775 --> 01:23:54,650 we'd had enough. 1664 01:23:54,650 --> 01:23:58,275 And after a time, perhaps nobody cared. 1665 01:23:58,275 --> 01:24:00,109 All right, boys, here it comes. 1666 01:24:00,109 --> 01:24:01,692 We're in the pictures! 1667 01:24:02,817 --> 01:24:05,442 There was a fella in the war called Rumour, 1668 01:24:05,442 --> 01:24:08,526 he knows everything, you see, and Mr Rumour told us 1669 01:24:08,526 --> 01:24:12,026 that the Germans were also negotiating for an Armistice. 1670 01:24:12,026 --> 01:24:14,068 There was a huge poster, 1671 01:24:14,068 --> 01:24:18,985 "All hostilities will cease on the Western Front at 11 o'clock 1672 01:24:18,985 --> 01:24:22,110 "on the 11th of November 1918." 1673 01:24:22,110 --> 01:24:24,485 So we said to each other, "What day is it?" 1674 01:24:24,485 --> 01:24:28,944 And somebody discovered it was November the 11th! 1675 01:24:28,944 --> 01:24:32,236 And then we had to shine our boots, clean our buttons, 1676 01:24:32,236 --> 01:24:34,902 we knew the war was over then, and we were quite confident 1677 01:24:34,902 --> 01:24:37,319 that we would be there when it ended. 1678 01:24:37,319 --> 01:24:41,736 This proclamation was read out, stating that the hostilities 1679 01:24:41,736 --> 01:24:45,403 would cease from 11 that morning, and actually there wasn't 1680 01:24:45,403 --> 01:24:48,695 a cheer of any kind raised when that was read out. 1681 01:24:48,695 --> 01:24:53,070 At 11 o'clock, the noise of the gunfire just rolled away, 1682 01:24:53,070 --> 01:24:55,362 like a peal of thunder, in the distance. 1683 01:24:55,362 --> 01:24:58,737 SHELLFIRE AND GUNFIRE FADES OUT 1684 01:25:03,446 --> 01:25:06,529 BIRDSONG, SOLDIERS CHATTER 1685 01:25:07,613 --> 01:25:09,321 Never heard it being quiet. 1686 01:25:09,321 --> 01:25:12,238 Now it was dead silent. 1687 01:25:12,238 --> 01:25:15,363 You were so dazed that you could stand up straight and not be shot. 1688 01:25:15,363 --> 01:25:16,863 It was eerie. 1689 01:25:18,780 --> 01:25:21,488 There was a feeling of relief and gladness, 1690 01:25:21,488 --> 01:25:24,113 I suppose, but no celebration. 1691 01:25:24,113 --> 01:25:27,030 The staff officer shut his watch up and said, 1692 01:25:27,030 --> 01:25:29,780 "I wonder what we're all going to do next." 1693 01:25:29,780 --> 01:25:33,406 There was no demonstration of any kind, nobody said a word, 1694 01:25:33,406 --> 01:25:36,072 everybody just slumped away. 1695 01:25:36,072 --> 01:25:38,614 The only way we could have celebrated as regards 1696 01:25:38,614 --> 01:25:42,114 to a liquid would have been tea, that's all. 1697 01:25:42,114 --> 01:25:44,781 It was one of the flattest moments of our lives. 1698 01:25:44,781 --> 01:25:47,115 We just couldn't comprehend it. 1699 01:25:48,823 --> 01:25:51,115 We had that sort of feeling as though we'd been kicked 1700 01:25:51,115 --> 01:25:52,407 out of a job. 1701 01:25:52,407 --> 01:25:55,990 For some of us, it was practically the only life we'd known. 1702 01:25:55,990 --> 01:25:58,157 What was one going to do next? 1703 01:25:58,157 --> 01:26:00,407 It was just like being made redundant. 1704 01:26:00,407 --> 01:26:03,366 That was very much the feeling of everyone. 1705 01:26:03,366 --> 01:26:06,657 We were thoroughly upset, we'd all got no work to go to. 1706 01:26:06,657 --> 01:26:08,699 "I don't want to go back." 1707 01:26:08,699 --> 01:26:13,908 There was no cheering, no singing - we were drained of all emotion. 1708 01:26:13,908 --> 01:26:18,575 We were too far gone, too exhausted to enjoy it. 1709 01:26:18,575 --> 01:26:22,825 All things come to an end, and even a drama can go on too long. 1710 01:26:22,825 --> 01:26:26,117 It didn't end with a whimper, but something very much like one. 1711 01:26:42,451 --> 01:26:45,951 I was very happy to leave. I'd had enough, you know? 1712 01:26:45,951 --> 01:26:49,576 After a time, it begins to wear on one, you know? 1713 01:26:49,576 --> 01:26:52,452 "Thank goodness the bloody thing is over," that was all. 1714 01:26:52,452 --> 01:26:54,743 But so far as I was concerned, I was out of it, 1715 01:26:54,743 --> 01:26:56,827 and now the next step in life. 1716 01:26:56,827 --> 01:26:59,869 The first thing we did was write home, say we were all right, 1717 01:26:59,869 --> 01:27:02,285 making sure we got the date on the envelope right. 1718 01:27:02,285 --> 01:27:05,119 To someone like myself, who was interested in nature, 1719 01:27:05,119 --> 01:27:07,869 after the horrors that man had made of the battlefront, 1720 01:27:07,869 --> 01:27:11,911 I was immensely delighted to find shell holes in which I picked 1721 01:27:11,911 --> 01:27:15,953 lilies of the valley and larkspur, and I pursued Camberwell Beauties 1722 01:27:15,953 --> 01:27:19,786 and swallowtail butterflies along the banks of the Aisne river. 1723 01:27:19,786 --> 01:27:21,662 We went to Boulogne. 1724 01:27:21,662 --> 01:27:23,787 By the way, we came home with full pack, 1725 01:27:23,787 --> 01:27:26,495 the only thing we left behind was the bullets, 1726 01:27:26,495 --> 01:27:28,370 we had to discard those. 1727 01:27:28,370 --> 01:27:30,162 But we still kept our rifle. 1728 01:27:30,162 --> 01:27:35,204 We went over to Folkestone, and there were long trestle tables 1729 01:27:35,204 --> 01:27:38,662 with very kind ladies, and they gave you a sausage roll 1730 01:27:38,662 --> 01:27:43,329 or a bun and a cup of tea, and that was very welcome. 1731 01:27:43,329 --> 01:27:47,496 We entrained to Victoria, and there we broke up. 1732 01:27:47,496 --> 01:27:50,538 We went to the barracks, and we just dumped rifles, 1733 01:27:50,538 --> 01:27:53,288 bayonets and everything, and there were a lot of suits 1734 01:27:53,288 --> 01:27:55,705 on display, hats, shoes. 1735 01:27:55,705 --> 01:27:58,330 You could tell her which one you wanted, style and colour, 1736 01:27:58,330 --> 01:27:59,830 and they measured you. 1737 01:28:01,289 --> 01:28:04,664 I was horrified by what I saw when I came back here 1738 01:28:04,664 --> 01:28:06,581 and when one tried to get a job. 1739 01:28:06,581 --> 01:28:08,872 There was mass unemployment, and I thought, 1740 01:28:08,872 --> 01:28:10,498 "This isn't much of a life." 1741 01:28:10,498 --> 01:28:12,706 It was a most difficult thing to realise you're of 1742 01:28:12,706 --> 01:28:14,123 no commercial value. 1743 01:28:14,123 --> 01:28:16,581 It was a shame, the way ex-servicemen were treated. 1744 01:28:16,581 --> 01:28:17,956 You weren't wanted. 1745 01:28:17,956 --> 01:28:21,373 Some places said, "No ex-servicemen need apply," 1746 01:28:21,373 --> 01:28:24,082 and that was the sort of attitude you were up against. 1747 01:28:24,082 --> 01:28:28,457 One of my pals was killed, and when I went home, the very first thing 1748 01:28:28,457 --> 01:28:30,874 that I did was go to his mother, who, 1749 01:28:30,874 --> 01:28:33,249 if she'd had a frying pan, she'd have hit me. 1750 01:28:33,249 --> 01:28:35,749 Her son had been killed and I'd come back alive. 1751 01:28:35,749 --> 01:28:37,582 She was very bitter. 1752 01:28:37,582 --> 01:28:40,708 The first night I came home, I got into my old bed, 1753 01:28:40,708 --> 01:28:44,083 the first bed I'd laid in since I joined the Army. 1754 01:28:44,083 --> 01:28:46,416 When mother brought my cup of tea up in the morning, 1755 01:28:46,416 --> 01:28:48,583 she found me fast asleep on the floor. 1756 01:28:48,583 --> 01:28:50,500 People never talked about the war. 1757 01:28:50,500 --> 01:28:53,542 It was a thing that had no conversational value at all. 1758 01:28:53,542 --> 01:28:56,417 Most people were absolutely disinterested. 1759 01:28:56,417 --> 01:28:58,708 When I got home, my father and my mother 1760 01:28:58,708 --> 01:29:01,292 didn't seem in the least interested in what had happened, 1761 01:29:01,292 --> 01:29:03,375 they hadn't any conception of what it was like. 1762 01:29:03,375 --> 01:29:04,542 SOLDIER WHISTLES TUNE 1763 01:29:04,542 --> 01:29:06,834 And there was no reason why any one of us millions 1764 01:29:06,834 --> 01:29:09,126 should have been favoured with a thank you very much 1765 01:29:09,126 --> 01:29:13,293 for having got a little bit muddy and out of touch with good manners. 1766 01:29:13,293 --> 01:29:15,709 And on occasions when I did talk about it, 1767 01:29:15,709 --> 01:29:19,460 my father would argue points of fact that he couldn't possibly have known 1768 01:29:19,460 --> 01:29:21,376 about because he wasn't there. 1769 01:29:21,376 --> 01:29:24,210 Every soldier I've spoken to experienced the same thing. 1770 01:29:24,210 --> 01:29:27,168 We were a race apart from the civilians, 1771 01:29:27,168 --> 01:29:29,252 and you could speak to your comrades, 1772 01:29:29,252 --> 01:29:32,085 and they understood, but the civilians, 1773 01:29:32,085 --> 01:29:34,002 it was just a waste of time. 1774 01:29:34,002 --> 01:29:37,877 However nice and sympathetic they were, attempts of 1775 01:29:37,877 --> 01:29:42,253 well-meaning people to sympathise reflected the fact that they 1776 01:29:42,253 --> 01:29:44,419 didn't really understand at all. 1777 01:29:44,419 --> 01:29:48,336 I think the magnitude was just beyond their comprehension, 1778 01:29:48,336 --> 01:29:52,545 they didn't understand that people that you'd known and played football 1779 01:29:52,545 --> 01:29:55,087 with were just killed beside you. 1780 01:29:55,087 --> 01:29:58,837 My friend who enlisted with me, and he just lay there like a sack 1781 01:29:58,837 --> 01:30:03,420 of rags until he went black, before anybody troubled to bury him. 1782 01:30:03,420 --> 01:30:06,296 They knew that people came back covered with mud and lice, 1783 01:30:06,296 --> 01:30:09,546 but they'd no idea of the strain of sitting in a trench 1784 01:30:09,546 --> 01:30:13,004 and waiting for something to drop on one's head. 1785 01:30:13,004 --> 01:30:15,588 You couldn't convey the awful state of things, 1786 01:30:15,588 --> 01:30:19,046 the way you lived like animals and behaved like animals. 1787 01:30:19,046 --> 01:30:24,255 People didn't seem to realise what a terrible thing war was. 1788 01:30:24,255 --> 01:30:28,755 I think they felt that the war was one continual cavalry charge. 1789 01:30:28,755 --> 01:30:31,672 They hadn't any conception - how could they? 1790 01:30:31,672 --> 01:30:33,880 Well, it started off in a reasonable manner, 1791 01:30:33,880 --> 01:30:36,631 it was people fighting on horseback with swords, 1792 01:30:36,631 --> 01:30:38,922 but it developed into something ghastly. 1793 01:30:38,922 --> 01:30:42,339 People don't realise the potential of military equipment. 1794 01:30:42,339 --> 01:30:45,089 A man's life wasn't worth anything at the end of the war. 1795 01:30:45,089 --> 01:30:47,423 We were none of us heroes, you know - we didn't 1796 01:30:47,423 --> 01:30:50,506 like this business of being killed at all. 1797 01:30:50,506 --> 01:30:52,423 When we were talking amongst ourselves, 1798 01:30:52,423 --> 01:30:55,715 we used to say, "Christ, they won't have any more wars like this." 1799 01:30:55,715 --> 01:30:57,340 How did we endure it? 1800 01:30:57,340 --> 01:31:00,298 The answer must be partly the fear of fear, 1801 01:31:00,298 --> 01:31:02,549 the fear of being found afraid. 1802 01:31:02,549 --> 01:31:05,382 Another is belief in human beings, your colleague, 1803 01:31:05,382 --> 01:31:08,007 and there's no letting people down. 1804 01:31:08,007 --> 01:31:12,132 There may be right on both sides, but I think war is horrible. 1805 01:31:12,132 --> 01:31:15,174 Everything should be done to avoid war. 1806 01:31:15,174 --> 01:31:18,174 I still can't see the justification for it. 1807 01:31:18,174 --> 01:31:20,550 It was all really rather horrible. 1808 01:31:20,550 --> 01:31:23,175 I think history will decide, in the end, 1809 01:31:23,175 --> 01:31:25,300 that it was not worthwhile. 1810 01:31:27,800 --> 01:31:31,592 The only thing that really did annoy me was when I went back to work, 1811 01:31:31,592 --> 01:31:34,842 after I'd got demobilised, I went down the stores, 1812 01:31:34,842 --> 01:31:38,051 and the bloke behind the counter was a bloke who I knew. 1813 01:31:38,051 --> 01:31:40,134 He said, "Where have you been? 1814 01:31:40,134 --> 01:31:41,801 "On nights?" 1815 01:32:41,804 --> 01:32:45,804 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous 1816 01:32:45,804 --> 01:32:50,096 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous? 1817 01:32:50,096 --> 01:32:53,971 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres She hasn't been kissed in 40 years 1818 01:32:53,971 --> 01:32:58,222 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1819 01:32:58,222 --> 01:33:02,680 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous 1820 01:33:02,680 --> 01:33:06,639 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous 1821 01:33:06,639 --> 01:33:10,681 # Our top kick in Armentieres broke the spell of 40 years 1822 01:33:10,681 --> 01:33:13,639 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1823 01:33:15,181 --> 01:33:18,931 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous 1824 01:33:18,931 --> 01:33:23,265 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous 1825 01:33:23,265 --> 01:33:27,557 # You didn't have to know her long to know the reason men go wrong 1826 01:33:27,557 --> 01:33:30,432 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1827 01:33:32,015 --> 01:33:35,432 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous 1828 01:33:35,432 --> 01:33:39,682 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres Parlez vous 1829 01:33:39,682 --> 01:33:41,849 # She's the hardest working girl in town 1830 01:33:41,849 --> 01:33:44,057 # She makes her living upside down 1831 01:33:44,057 --> 01:33:46,224 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1832 01:33:52,475 --> 01:33:54,475 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1833 01:33:54,475 --> 01:33:56,266 # Parlez vous 1834 01:33:56,266 --> 01:33:58,767 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1835 01:33:58,767 --> 01:34:00,392 # Parlez vous 1836 01:34:00,392 --> 01:34:01,600 # She sold her kisses 1837 01:34:01,600 --> 01:34:02,808 # For ten francs each 1838 01:34:02,808 --> 01:34:03,892 # Soft and juicy 1839 01:34:03,892 --> 01:34:05,100 # As sweet as a peach 1840 01:34:05,100 --> 01:34:07,517 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1841 01:34:09,017 --> 01:34:11,351 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1842 01:34:11,351 --> 01:34:12,934 # Parlez vous 1843 01:34:12,934 --> 01:34:15,309 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1844 01:34:15,309 --> 01:34:16,893 # Parlez vous 1845 01:34:16,893 --> 01:34:18,976 # Madame, you've got a daughter fair 1846 01:34:18,976 --> 01:34:20,893 # To wash the soldiers' underwear 1847 01:34:20,893 --> 01:34:23,893 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1848 01:34:25,810 --> 01:34:28,143 # I didn't care what came of me 1849 01:34:28,143 --> 01:34:29,310 # Parlez vous 1850 01:34:29,310 --> 01:34:31,768 # I didn't care what came of me 1851 01:34:31,768 --> 01:34:33,268 # Parlez vous 1852 01:34:33,268 --> 01:34:35,352 # I didn't care what came of me 1853 01:34:35,352 --> 01:34:37,727 # So I went and joined the infantry 1854 01:34:37,727 --> 01:34:40,352 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1855 01:35:15,021 --> 01:35:17,229 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1856 01:35:17,229 --> 01:35:18,688 # Parlez vous 1857 01:35:18,688 --> 01:35:21,146 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1858 01:35:21,146 --> 01:35:22,854 # Parlez vous 1859 01:35:22,854 --> 01:35:24,646 # Went in her bed, she sure was fun 1860 01:35:24,646 --> 01:35:25,938 # Working her arse 1861 01:35:25,938 --> 01:35:27,230 # Like a Maxim gun 1862 01:35:27,230 --> 01:35:30,480 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1863 01:35:31,522 --> 01:35:33,688 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1864 01:35:33,688 --> 01:35:35,272 # Parlez vous 1865 01:35:35,272 --> 01:35:37,772 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1866 01:35:37,772 --> 01:35:39,189 # Parlez vous 1867 01:35:39,189 --> 01:35:40,939 # I had more fun than I could tell 1868 01:35:40,939 --> 01:35:43,147 # Beneath the sheets with Mademoiselle 1869 01:35:43,147 --> 01:35:46,022 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1870 01:35:47,981 --> 01:35:51,773 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez vous 1871 01:35:51,773 --> 01:35:55,815 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez vous 1872 01:35:55,815 --> 01:35:57,815 # She did a wink and cried, "Oui, oui! 1873 01:35:57,815 --> 01:36:00,148 # "Let's see what you can do with me" 1874 01:36:00,148 --> 01:36:03,023 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1875 01:36:04,232 --> 01:36:06,607 # They say they mechanised the war 1876 01:36:06,607 --> 01:36:08,149 # Parlez vous 1877 01:36:08,149 --> 01:36:10,524 # They say they mechanised the war 1878 01:36:10,524 --> 01:36:12,149 # Parlez vous 1879 01:36:12,149 --> 01:36:14,357 # They say they mechanised the war 1880 01:36:14,357 --> 01:36:16,607 # So what the hell are we marching for? 1881 01:36:16,607 --> 01:36:19,566 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1882 01:36:37,150 --> 01:36:40,192 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1883 01:36:40,192 --> 01:36:41,317 # Parlez vous 1884 01:36:41,317 --> 01:36:44,026 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1885 01:36:44,026 --> 01:36:45,526 # Parlez vous 1886 01:36:45,526 --> 01:36:47,484 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1887 01:36:47,484 --> 01:36:49,526 # She hasn't been kissed for 40 years 1888 01:36:49,526 --> 01:36:52,109 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1889 01:36:53,568 --> 01:36:56,360 # The officers get all the steak 1890 01:36:56,360 --> 01:36:57,485 # Parlez vous 1891 01:36:57,485 --> 01:37:00,526 # The officers get all the steak 1892 01:37:00,526 --> 01:37:01,777 # Parlez vous 1893 01:37:01,777 --> 01:37:03,902 # The officers get all the steak 1894 01:37:03,902 --> 01:37:05,860 # And all we get is a belly ache 1895 01:37:05,860 --> 01:37:08,860 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1896 01:37:10,069 --> 01:37:11,402 # You might forget 1897 01:37:11,402 --> 01:37:13,694 # The gas and shells, parlez vous 1898 01:37:13,694 --> 01:37:15,277 # You might forget 1899 01:37:15,277 --> 01:37:17,902 # The gas and shells, parlez vous 1900 01:37:17,902 --> 01:37:19,028 # You might forget 1901 01:37:19,028 --> 01:37:20,236 # The groans and yells 1902 01:37:20,236 --> 01:37:21,319 # But you never forget 1903 01:37:21,319 --> 01:37:22,653 # The mademoiselles 1904 01:37:22,653 --> 01:37:25,195 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1905 01:37:43,362 --> 01:37:45,987 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1906 01:37:45,987 --> 01:37:47,112 # Parlez vous 1907 01:37:47,112 --> 01:37:49,863 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1908 01:37:49,863 --> 01:37:50,946 # Parlez vous 1909 01:37:50,946 --> 01:37:52,863 # Many and many a married man 1910 01:37:52,863 --> 01:37:55,071 # Wants to go back to France again 1911 01:37:55,071 --> 01:37:58,196 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1912 01:37:59,571 --> 01:38:02,488 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1913 01:38:02,488 --> 01:38:03,572 # Parlez vous 1914 01:38:03,572 --> 01:38:06,405 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1915 01:38:06,405 --> 01:38:07,488 # Parlez vous 1916 01:38:07,488 --> 01:38:09,822 # Just blow your nose and dry your tears 1917 01:38:09,822 --> 01:38:11,947 # We'll all be back in a few short years 1918 01:38:11,947 --> 01:38:14,739 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1919 01:38:16,239 --> 01:38:18,864 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1920 01:38:18,864 --> 01:38:19,948 # Parlez vous 1921 01:38:19,948 --> 01:38:22,531 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres 1922 01:38:22,531 --> 01:38:23,656 # Parlez vous 1923 01:38:23,656 --> 01:38:26,115 # I fell in love with her at sight 1924 01:38:26,115 --> 01:38:28,240 # Wet myself for half the night 1925 01:38:28,240 --> 01:38:30,823 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1926 01:38:32,490 --> 01:38:36,240 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez vous 1927 01:38:36,240 --> 01:38:40,365 # Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez vous 1928 01:38:40,365 --> 01:38:42,574 # You might forget the gas and shell 1929 01:38:42,574 --> 01:38:44,532 # You never forget the mademoiselles 1930 01:38:44,532 --> 01:38:47,366 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous 1931 01:38:48,782 --> 01:38:50,533 # You might forget the gas and shell 1932 01:38:50,533 --> 01:38:52,866 # But you'll never forget the mademoiselles 1933 01:38:52,866 --> 01:38:54,533 # Hinky dinky, parlez vous. # 254545

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