Description
Mr. Gleason describes the assault at Vimy Ridge on the fourth day, losing three friends, being wounded, and nearly drowning trying to evade enemy shelling.
Patrick William Gleason
Patrick William Gleason was born in North Dakota, USA, on October 31, 1897. His family moved to Yorkton, Saskatchewan in 1907. Mr. Gleason was a student in Yorkton prior to his enlistment in the 196th Regiment. He was accepted for duty on May 10, 1916, at Brandon, Manitoba, and arrived in France in early 1917 in preparation for the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Mr. Gleason was wounded in the thigh by machine gun fire at Vimy on April 12, 1917. After returning to active duty in France, he spent the remainder of the war hauling munitions to the front lines, and survived a shell explosion and two gas attacks at Amiens. Mr. Gleason was discharged, rank of private, on June 10, 1919. After the war, he farmed for a few years, then taught at several country schools until 1930 when economic and agricultural conditions left the school board with too little money to pay a teacher’s salary. Mr. Gleason then returned to farming in the Yorkton area, and was also employed as postmaster in his hometown of Tonkin from 1950 until he retired in 1973. He was instrumental in organizing sports activities in his community, as well as a Credit Union of which he was secretary treasurer for a number of years. During the 1940s and 1950s, he was also secretary treasurer of the local school board, president of the Saskatchewan Trustees Association, and president of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. Mr. Gleason married Marion Cecilia Robinson in 1925 and had eight children. He died of cancer on June 21, 1978, and is buried in Yorkton.
Transcript
And when that orderly sergeant, or orderly corporal came into our work party, the first names you’d hear was Evans, Freeman, Galloway, Gleason. And we told him he should put it to music - make a song out of it. He repeated it so darned often he should know who we were anyhow. Well that Evans, Freeman, Galloway, Gleason had a rather a scaring effect on me the morning of the 12th of April when we went over the top to attack the Pimple, as it was called. That was the fourth day of the Vimy battle. It was snowing that morning. We went up in single file. And there is several single files, of course, short distance, one from the other. We hadn’t gone very far until the three of us stepped over Evans. He was killed. A little farther on, Freeman got his. We went on another, quite a little distance then and I stepped over Galloway. Well, I said there’s the bunch gone now; Evans, Freeman, Galloway, Gleason will be next. Well, I was next but I didn’t get it like they did. I got a bullet through the right thigh, just above the knee. And I managed to get back to the dressing station. Well, I had a rather harrowing experience first, because I just started on my way back when there was a... one of these big high explosive shells you could hear coming before they got there, and I heard it. I took a dive into what I thought was a shell hole. But it was filled with water and I damn near got drowned in that thing. Anyhow, I managed to get out of it, soaking wet, cold. Started out again and I met a fellow by the name of Stuart. He had gone over with the 196th too, and he said, “Where you going, pal? ” I said, “I am going back to the dressing station.” He said, “Well, you’re heading right to the front line now.” And I said, “You’re hit too!” And he said, “Yeah, I’m hit.” So I turned around and followed him back to the dressing station.