The Suicide battalion

First World War Audio Archive

The Suicide battalion

Transcript

And every time they took us on a test march like that, we carried

Mr. Huckerby in his uniform, posing for a photograph inside a crest.

pretty well everything we owned. You know, our blankets and our greatcoat, all that was packed in a pack on our back and it weighed about 40 pounds. You didn’t march too far until that started to bother you a little bit. Most of the time it was from twenty to thirty miles. I just took the regular training with the battalion. Because we were in a reserve unit there, there was more than one battalion in that reserve. In fact, we had a double reserve there with four battalions in each one. We didn’t have much choice in the matter. They didn’t ask us if we wanted to go. It was, we were detailed to go to this particular unit. We had four units there, but they chose different ones for different

A Photograph of an older Mr. Huckerby wearing a suit and tie.

units. Well, I would say in September that they started preparing the draft to go to France and as far as I can recall there was about two hundred of us went at that time to the 46th. Of course, others went to other units at the same time.

Mr.Huckerby with his wife later in life.

Passchendaele wasn’t quite finished when we left England. I didn’t know anything about Passchendaele until we got over to, we didn’t join our unit right away either when we got over there, you see. We were put in the camp over there and we worked

Sitting down at the dinner table for some birthday cake.

work parties and what have you. They took us to (inaudible) and from there I went on two special courses before I joined the battalion. One was on musketry and one was on physical training

Mr.Huckerby and his wife sitting down for a photograph.

and bayonet fighting and I qualified as an instructor. And that’s how they used me, as an instructor in physical training and bayonet fighting till the close of the war whenever we were out of the line. Corporal was as high as I got. Acting sergeant a lot of the time without pay. If I had had a preference I might have went to the 5th Battalion because I knew a lot of people that was in the 5th Battalion, that went over ahead of me, you know, from around home. But the 46th being a Moose Jaw battalion kind of gave me a little drawing card there, you know. There was something to attract me to it. But I was quite pleased with the 46th. When we found out it was a suicide battalion, it kind of changed our picture a little bit. But it gave us some consolation to feel that we belonged to one of the better units, more famous units, you know, with a famous name like.

Description

Mr. Huckerby describes the allocation of troops to different battalions, and talks about his experiences as a bayonet and physical training instructor.

John Arthur Huckerby

John Arthur Huckerby was born on February 8, 1898, in Golden Plain, North West Territory, (now a part of Saskatchewan). Prior to enlistment, Mr. Huckerby worked as a farm laborer. His sense of patriotic duty led him to enlist in the 217th Battalion at Broadview, Saskatchewan, on March 8, 1916, shortly after his 18th birthday. Mr. Huckerby’s basic training was interrupted when he fell ill with diphtheria. Although not fully recovered when the 217th was deployed to Britain, his officer interceded and took him as a convalescent. He was quarantined at Bramshott Camp for a time and then served as an instructor in bayonet drill and physical training. Mr. Huckerby joined the 46th Battalion, C Company and saw action at Lens, Amiens, Drocourt-Queant, and Canal du Nord. Although there is no record of his having been wounded, he was gassed during a night raid at Lens. He was discharged at the rank of corporal. After returning to Canada, he received a farm from the Soldier Settlement Board and later joined the Saskatchewan Civil Service. Mr. Huckerby enlisted for the Second World War, attaining the rank of sergeant. There is, at present, no record of his service in that conflict. On January 12, 1921, he married Katherine Anne MacDougall and had one son. Mr. Huckerby died on September 16, 1993.

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