He was crying, scared to death!

Heroes Remember

He was crying, scared to death!

Transcript

It was on the Albert Front, if I remember, and I … oh yes, we went up the line, went up the line as reinforcements to fill in, fill in, to man the trenches. And I remember this was... but I can… I got in as close to the trench as I possibly could, because the Germans were firing high explosives. And I got in right close and all of a sudden there was a young lad, just about a young one, come over. He’d be younger than I, he just come over. He was walking in the trench and he was crying and he was just scared to death, you see. So I went ahead and I said, “Well look, I’ll move my legs.” There was no dugout where you could get under. It was a straight trench. And I laid around the side, facing the enemy, ‘cause everything that was going over wouldn’t catch you there. They would have to come this way. And I remember this young fella. I said, “Well look, I’ll move over. I’ll move over and you lay down here and then put your legs close to the back, the parapet, as close to the front side of the wall and get as close as you can.” And, of course, I moved my legs in, and about, oh, this was at three o’clock, two or three o’clock in the morning. All of a sudden I got hit, just breaking daylight in the morning, just before daylight. The high explosive shrapnel went in there, no, a round ball, just as big as your thumbnail, went in there and stuck there. When I got to the CCS, the station, the doc said, he looked at me, he says, he said, “Do you want me to take that out?” And I said, “Yeah, I want to take it out,” and he took his tweezers on it. He put them on the lead ball that was protruding you see. At first he put it on and he got it like that and all of a sudden it slipped off, you know, because it was, it was lead and it slipped of his forceps. Anyway, after two or three tries, he got it and he wrapped it up in a piece of gauze and I took it home, put it in my kit bag, and took it home with me and give it to my mother. She wanted to get it made into a broach.

Description

Mr. Savage describes the circumstances of his being wounded during a barrage at Albert, and being treated in the Casualty Clearing Station.

Septimus Savage

Septimus Savage was born in East Hartley, England on October 8, 1898. He was the youngest of seven sons. Mr. Savage left school at age fifteen. All of his brothers had enlisted and he felt pressured to do the same. Being too young for active service, he attempted to join his local army canteen committee in 1914, at the age of sixteen. Eventually, he joined the Young Soldiers Battalion in Staffordshire, England. Once old enough, he joined the 10th Yorkshire Battalion, with whom he served in Europe. Mr. Savage fought in the battle at the Somme and was later wounded at Albert. After the war, he immigrated to Canada, first working as a railroad section man and then as a dairy farmer near Edmonton. When the Second World War began, he mobilized with the 19th Alberta Dragoons as a recruit trainer at Camrose, Alberta. He held the highest non-commissioned rank of Regimental Sergeant Major, and later received his Captain’s commission. Mr. Savage married Edith Stanton in England on January 24th, 1920 and had one daughter. At the time of his interview, Mr. Savage was living in Sardis, British Columbia. He died June 17th, 2001.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 2:34
Person Interviewed:: Septimus Savage
War, Conflict or Mission:: First World War
Location/Theatre:: Europe
Battle/Campaign:: Somme
Branch:: Army
Units/Ship:: 10th Yorkshire Regiment
Occupation:: Infantryman

Language selection

He was crying, scared to death!

Heroes Remember