Alberta Huts

First World War Audio Archive

Alberta Huts

Transcript

When we first got there, they put us at going up behind the line

Soldiers putting up barbed wire.

and putting up barbed wire, you know. We were at Alberta Huts, back of Vimy Ridge, that’s where we were stationed, just below the Vimy Ridge. We used to have to go and put up wire at nights. Take us in these little trains you know, light steel light gauge.

Railway tracks being layed down.

They’d lay the track just up and downhill where ever it went you’d have to get out and push up the hill and then they wouldn’t wait for you when you got down below. They’d have to stop and

Steam engine travelling down the tracks.

wait until you all got on again. Then we’d have to help push the doggone train up the hill, this light steel. Then we’d get there, we were putting up wire, putting up these big wire fences, you know along this . . . then you’d get the odd shell dropping

Soldiers crawling under barbed wire.

over. We had odd fellas got wounded. Well, they were just way

Flares in the sky.

behind the lines putting up this wire. But we used to have to go

Artillery being fired in the night sky.

out on night patrols. Take a bunch of men, about twelve of us,

Soldiers climbing out of a trench then leopard crawling on the ground.

go out at night up and down no man’s land and old Fritz would put these flares up, you know. They’d have these flare guns and

Tracer rounds, flares and artillery at night.

they’d put these flares up and he’d be straining his eyes looking We’d try to hold our head down, keep your eyes... soon as the

Soldiers running under under a fence line.

flare goes out, you could see them quite quicker than they could see you because he would be watching this light and his eyes would be all aflame from the light. They’d go way up in the air and come down. And if you're caught in one of them, if your arm’s

Lone flare in the sky as soldiers cross a barbed wire fence.

up or down, just stays that way. Especially if your around the bush at all. But you’d be walking along and pass the word along if you stumbled over anything rough. Pass the word back - rough under feet or wire under foot if you get tangled in a piece of wire or something. Wire under foot or anything overhead, wire overhead. Sometimes you’re going through where there’s been an

Soldiers huddled together on side of a hill after crossing wire fence.

old trench or something. But they have tangled, sometimes, the two patrols. Like the German patrols and the others have

Soldiers blowing up a machine gun bunker.

tangled. But all this is going on and a way back over here a few

Captured German soldier.

miles away all you see is the sky lit up because there is a

Several explosions

regular fight going on, shelling. Just shells going back and forth. You see the sky all lit up for miles back there. Yeah, well we were qualified snipers. If you were a thousand

Crawling up a hill.

yards apart you’d go out in no man’s land and snipe. You know, you’d go out and get in a shell hole or something or dig a little

Rifleman getting ready to take a shot.

place there, fix up a place for yourself there with a shovel. You got to do that at nights. You know what I mean, you bury

Rifleman in trench looking down at enemy soldier.

yourself as best as you could. Otherwise you’d get swatted with the airplanes. You camouflaged yourself with everything the best way you can - with plants and stick them in the dirt which you’d

Shot fired and another soldier is seen looking down with binoculars.

move, weeds. But, I didn’t get too much sniping, but I did some.

Description

Mr. Featherstone describes going from the mundane tasks of laying barbed wire and patrols, to his specialty, sniping.

John Stephen “Jack” Featherstone

John Stephen “Jack” Featherstone was born in Oxridge, England, on September 29, 1898. His mother was unable to care for him, so he emigrated to Wolsley, Saskatchewan, at the age of twelve. He was a farm labourer and enlisted March 1, 1916, but being committed to care for the local preacher’s farm, couldn’t report until fall. Mr. Featherstone arrived at Bramshott camp in England, where he was selected for the shooting team. He won a marksmanship competition at Aldershot in June, 1917, and joined the 46th Battalion in November 1917, following Passchendaele. Mr. Featherstone describes action at Vimy and Amiens. Following the war, he returned to farming until 1922, when he joined the Canadian Pacific Railway as a fireman. Forty years later, Mr. Featherstone retired as an engineer and resided in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Meta Data