I was lucky

First World War Audio Archive

I was lucky

Transcript

Well, then that night they threw the heavy stuff over, God.

Photograph of Airman with his spouse.

It was about the only time I think I was really a little bit scared was that heavy stuff coming over. God, if one of those great big heavy naval guns land, shells land, they sure dug a big hole, you had no chance. With a rifle or a machine gun bullet, now there you had a chance, with a flesh wound. That didn’t bother you at all, but those big heavy ones, they come within, very close to one of them. There was a shell landed, a smaller shell landed, oh, to the left of us. We just reached our objectives. Jim Greenblatt and I, we, there was a little shell hole there just big enough, oh, for our heads to get in, you

Airman with his wife and child.

might say. Our legs and rear ends sticking out, we didn’t care about that. This here shell, small shell hole we were in there, and this here big shell landed way over to our left. It was the hunk about the size of a peanut shell, be the size of your little finger nail, close to something about the size of that. This, if I’d been turned a little more, it might have taken the whole face off of me. I was lucky enough just only got a flesh wound in my mouth, on my lip there. You can’t hardly notice it now.

Description

Mr. Skeates describes being wounded during a shelling attack at Dury Mill.

Charles Darwood Skeates

Charles Skeates was born in Ingersoll, Ontario on February 3, 1894. He worked as a barber until his enlistment at Swift Current, Saskatchewan on March 11, 1916 in the 209th Unit, 4th Infantry, despite his original hopes to be called into the cavalry. Arriving overseas in England in October, 1916, he joined the 9th Reserve Brigade at Bramshott and then the 128th at Whitley as a band member. He went into action as a member of the 46th Battalion, 10th Brigade. Mr. Skeates saw action in several major offensives; Passchendaele, Valenciens, Amiens, Drury Mill where he was wounded, and the Oppy Front. Mr. Skeates was a machine gunner during his tour of duty. After the war, he resumed his work as a barber and married Bessie Becker Maitland, on June 13, 1921. During the Second World War, he served as a barber with the RCAF in England, and finished his military service in 1968 after a 13 year stint in the Canadian Army. Mr. Skeates died on December 5, 1982.

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