Signaller First World War

Heroes Remember

Signaller First World War

Transcript

I did fairly well in the signalling end, did very well actually. Interviewer: How much training did you have to become a signaller Hmm, several months I would hazard a guess pretty close to yeah maybe 8 or 10 months. However, in retrospect I'm brazen enough to say that I was proficient enough to be selected, be seconded to brigade headquarters for as they call it, duty and discipline. But we stayed in our unit for quarters and rations. Now we're at a place called Seaford in the south of England and there were two camps. A north and a south camp and I can't tell you which one, which ever one we were in, we were seconded to brigade headquarters in the other one to provide them with telephone service or whatever. So I became what might be known in the vernacular as a hello girl on a telephone exchange and that was very good. Then they decided I should be a wireless operator. I did that too, that wireless was pretty limited stuff. What they, the joy of it was we were bad, we were bad little devils, I guess. When we wanted a pass for a weekend or something we'd go to our own orderly room and ask for, "Oh no we couldn't give you, you have to ask brigade headquarters." When you go to ask brigade headquarters for a weekend, "No, we wouldn't, you'd have to ask your own unit." So, because we provided a 24 hour service, we used to do a little prowling in the night and you'd walk through a General's office or staff room and you'd find little pads of passes, railroad warrants and that sort of thing. So we'd purloined a few and we'd make our own passes. Now we also were issued with a blue and white arm band as signallers which we had sort of a posh to everything. You weren't questioned. It had SP on it. I don't know what the SP stood for. I can't recall, but a lot of people thought it was Special Police. So, we would theoretically go AWOL in London on a government pass and rail- road warrant which was literally stolen. And the military police would ignore us because we had this special arm band on. We're on duty if anybody questioned anything well, we're on duty. Interviewer: How many times would you do something like that, do you think? Was that fairly regular? It was regular among the, the few of us in that little group. That was seconded to provide this signalling services which included, as said, telephone or things like that. Personally, I would say probably not more than a dozen times. Interviewer: What would have happened to you if you had have been caught? You and your mates caught doing that? I have no idea. You see, I don't know who would catch us because brigade headquarters weren't really interested only as suppliers of, what shall we say, service. Our own unit weren't interested as we're seconded to brigade headquarters. And so when it came to things like muster parade when everybody's suppose to show up, we deliberately did not show up. Because when we reported, "Where were you?" "Oh, I was on duty, great day at headquarters." And they were not in a position to challenge it or question it. Every brigade headquarters that was a sanctum, sanctorum you know. So we were immune. Interviewer: The men you were with then were very similar to yourself. Oh yes. Interviewer: These men were resourceful? I would say we, we all were otherwise we wouldn't have gotten the job. Interviewer: During the time that you were in England training to become a signaller, that 8 or 10 months and then eventually you were seconded to brigade headquarters. During that time, the Canadian core was involved in France at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele. Right. Very much so. Interviewer: You would follow their progress? Yes, as a matter of fact, on one particular occasion we were not only detail, but equipped and lined up to take part to go to France. Presumably they were getting short of help or something, but they lined us up one night and took us and all. We got, we're at Seaford but we went, where was it now? I think it was Southampton. But that was as far as we got. Interviewer: A decision was made for you to return? Send them back again. We don't need them. You see the casualties in the signal corps were very light. Particularly when you bear in mind that it was divisional signal corps. Do you know the difference? Interviewer: Could you explain it to me? Yes. Within limits. You'll have to bear with me, but if my memory serves me correctly there's four battalions to a division. To a brigade, I'm sorry, four battalions, roughly about 1000 men each, to a brigade and four brigades to a division. So that as a divisional signaller, we provided no services beyond brigade. Brigade was as far advanced as we went, now it was theoretic each brigade controlled 4 battalions at the rear of four battalions you see administrative. Interviewer: So the divisional signallers would be well back (Well back, yeah.) from the front? This is why there was so little demand for us. Interviewer: And you people were being restricted to be replacements for divisional signallers only? Yes and we would not provide service beyond brigade headquarters. A lot of the other battalions would refer to us as the jam brigades. We were all very young so it was quite customary for those who had mothers or relatives you get a, you know send them a jar of jam or something and they go on parade for meals with this jar of jam. The rugged troops would refer to us as the jam brigade and when occasionally we'd go on marches in age during the earlier stages, training stages, a lot of the people who had bees or something would give little jars of honey as little treats. Oh no they were very, very good as far as I was concerned. Very good. Interviewer: Now you had no one sending you jam? No. Interviewer: Did your comrades share what they had? Oh yes. Very good, oh yes. That was, when one got some that was for the tent. You know, we were in tents a lot of the time. So when one got some it was generally shared right around. There was very little selfishness, very little selfishness.

Description

Mr. Connett remembers some of his experiences as a signaller during the First World War.

Fred Connett

Fred Connett was born of April 17, 1897 in London, England. As a boy, he was sent to live with an aunt when his father fell ill. He ran away from his new home several times and, as a result, was moved to an orphanage. While there, he received training in several trades and eventually secured a job in a printing shop. In 1913, at the age of 16, he left the orphanage and came to Canada. He worked on a farm near Ottawa for some time at a wage of $4.00 a month. Planning for his future, he used the money he made on the farm to buy a life insurance policy. A few days before Christmas, 1916, he went into Ottawa and enlisted in the mounted section of the Divisional Signal Corps. He switched to the non-mounted section soon after. When this interview was recorded in West Vancouver during the summer of 1998, Mr. Connett was 101 years old.

Meta Data