Barbed wire entanglements

First World War Audio Archive

Barbed wire entanglements

Transcript

New Years Eve, 1917, in other words, the 31st of December, 1917

Soldier standing at attention.

and we had been putting up barbed wire entanglements and we had been banging in the posts... We had some screw irons, with eyelets and so on, that we could screw into the ground but we ran out of those and we had to use posts, wooden posts with a sharpened point on them and bang them in with a mallet when you put it, with a sandbag on the top which would deaden the sound. Because the Germans knew exactly what we were doing. And every once in a while I would hear the bzzzz of a rifle shot coming off And we had just left one of these posts and one of them

Three soldiers on bicycles.

ricocheted off and went bzzzz and went all over the place there. And one of the sergeants I was working with, from the Engineers, he said, “That was a close call.” We went on with work, and we had put the main three lines across and were putting on the apron which goes diagonally and then cross ways as well on both sides. So it’s a pretty difficult thing to climb over. In fact, you had to shell them apart in order to get the men through. And I was leaning, I was stooping down on the ground with this heavy reel of wire between my legs, with a pole going through the reel. And all of a sudden, I fell over backwards, and there was a shell hole behind me. And as I said, it was the 31st of December and there was a thin coating of ice on it. And it was filled with

Soldier standing using a cane.

water underneath, of course. I fell through the ice, and the sergeant yelled out, “Man hit!” Well, I scrambled out and I was soaking wet and shivering cold. I said, “Oh shut up, you fool. I’m not hit.” And he said, “Oh yes you are!” So I felt around and I couldn’t feel anything. I was shivering and wet, soaking wet and miserable. I couldn’t find anything. Then I started to straighten my right leg and I said, “Uh-oh, that’s it I guess.” So one of our officers came over, Harold Fedderly, and he was a lieutenant and a marvellous gentlemen. He said, “What’s the matter, Dick?” He remembered me because he had been one of our officers in the (inaudible) in Canada in the first place. I said,

Portrait of Mr. Ellis.

“I guess I’ve got one in the knee, sir.” He said, “Oh, lets have your jack knife.” So I gave him my jack knife and he slit my riding briefs down the side and pulled the backing out of the hole, going right through the patella from side to side. So he detailed a couple of chaps off to help me to a field dressing station. Prior to that, though, he went over and he said, “Where’s your rifle?” I said, “Over there sir, leaning against the apron of the wire.” So he went over and looked at the rifle and opened the breach to make sure it wasn’t a self inflicted wound. See, that’s the duty of an officer when a man gets wounded to make sure it’s not an SIW, as they call it. Some fellas might shoot themselves through the foot in order to get back to Blighty or something like that, you see. The odd one, not very many. But impossible for me to shoot sideways. I mean, so it’s

Photograph of Mr.Ellis wearing a suit.

quite obvious it wasn’t. So, he found it in my breach. The chamber was absolutely full and no problem there. And I was detailed off to... these two chaps were detailed to take me to a field dressing station. And I started to walk on my own, but by the time I had gone fifty yards I was glad to hang on to their shoulders and to gently move on the injured leg. And finally, after a very short time, they got me to a miniature railway line and they put me on one of the little trucks and just pushed me up there. Right at the end of it was the field dressing station, where I got an anti-tetanus shot. Now our

Newspaper article with Mr.Ellis drinking wine with a fellow veteran.

previous secretary of the association had exactly the same wound as I did, well pretty much anyway, and he was about three hours before he got his anti-tetanus shot, and they had to amputate his legs. I was just plain lucky.

Description

Mr. Ellis describes the barbed wire detail in which he’s wounded through the knee, and the self-inflicted wound protocol followed by his officer.

Wilfred Dancy Ellis

Wilfred Dancy “Dick” Ellis was born in Surrey, England, on September 10,1895. Mr. Ellis emigrated to Canada in 1912, joining his parents who had left him in England to finish school. He became active in the local boys club and Home Guard, and finally enlisted in the 4th Division, Canadian Bicycle Battalion, because, in his words, he wanted to preserve his British heritage. This group, nicknamed the “Gas Pipe Cavalry”, was a highly mobile support battalion which could quickly move into reinforcing positions. The events described by Mr. Ellis took place at Vimy. In addition, he was wounded at Lieven on the Lens Front. After the war, Mr. Ellis wrote a Battalion history entitled, Saga of the Cyclists in the Great War, 1914-1918. He was employed with the Bank of Commerce for 48 years and involved with the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires. Mr. Ellis died, aged 100, on August 14, 1996, leaving behind his wife of 75 years, Gladys (nee Loram), and two children.

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