Follow the white tape

First World War Audio Archive

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Follow the white tape

Transcript

We marched into a valley called “sausage valley.” Everybody in

Soldier standing "at ease."

the brigade called it that. On the 15th of September, that night we were lined up single file and they give us a drink of rum, our tin cups half full of rum. I didn’t drink, but I took a drink a sip of it and caught my breath. It was too strong for me, it was Jamaica rum. The English always done that and I think our boys was taught to do it too, I don’t know why. But that night, while going into the trenches from this valley, about a mile or so walk through the trenches, we were told that there would be a

Soldier sitting on a chair holding his hat and a baton in each hand.

white tape along the wall of the trench and to follow that white tape and it would take us to the front lines. What a night that was. We came to a place in the trench where the tape divided and we didn’t know whether to go right or left, but we took the right and we ended up, where there’s no trenches. The shells were falling overhead and bursting, and low and behold, I was told to pass the word back by my commanding officer in front of me, for the men to just, two and three at a time, to come over this shell hole, which the (inaudible) trenches and it ended up nothing but shell holes and so we got within 35, 40 feet of Germans and here they were, their heads popped up out of that

Picture of five friends who enlisted together.

trench and they were firing to beat the band. Naturally, we were lost, and the officer in charge, I can’t think of his name, but he’s the biggest man I ever saw, must have been 6' 7". His shoes, up to his knees, came up to his knees, was as tall as I was. A bullet hit him under the nose and come out the back of his head. Dead as a door nail. I undone the epaulettes on my tunic and let go of my heavy equipment, my blanket and overcoat and bandolier of ammunition, and I turned around and was crawling from shell hole to shell hole to get back to where I came from, to the best of my ability and the rest did too. And we come to

Mr. Hatch wearing a suit.

barbed wire and we started shouting to the boys in the trenches not to fire and we got back in the trench.

Description

Mr. Hatch describes getting lost after taking a wrong turn in the trenches at the Somme, his Officer being mortally wounded, and scrambling back to his trench minus his kit.

George Frederick Hatch

George Frederick Hatch was born in Manchester, England, on May 15, 1898. He moved to Colborne, Ontario, with his parents in 1904. After his father was killed in the Boer War, Mr. Hatch worked on the family farm. He ran away to enlist at the age of sixteen, and, with the help of a creative recruiter, was accepted into the 20th Canadian Overseas Infantry Battalion, going overseas in May 1915. He spent Christmas at Ypres, and then saw serious action at the Somme, where he was wounded. Mr. Hatch then joined the Royal Flying Corps, firstly as a “volunteer” machine gunner and then as a fully qualified pilot. He was shot down and, although partially blinded by his own blood, was able to land safely behind his own lines. After the war, Mr. Hatch emigrated to the United States, living in Virginia, then Montana. He and his wife were killed in a car accident on November 26, 1986.

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