Limbers

First World War Audio Archive

Limbers

Transcript

We had lost several of our guns, that was the Lewis guns,

Picture of young soldier.

you know, in that battle, two day battle we had. I was in front of Arras and I’m not sure the name of the town that you mentioned Dury, was it? It could have been. I’m not sure, in front of Arras I don’t remember the town that we captured the second day there, but anyway we were getting relieved the next night. And when we got relieved they used to send some of these transport limbers up fairly close to the front line to take our guns out. A couple of fellows was always detailed to go along with them but you walk behind you know, ordinarily. But, like I say, we had lost quite a few of our guns at that time. We didn’t have so many so we piled them all in the front limber. Those limbers, they wouldn’t have the same thing, of course, when you were in the army, but probably somebody described them to you. It was a kind of a box built on the wheels, on the front wheels and another box on the hind wheels and they just hooked together with a short pole. They called them limbers so we just had to load our guns in these limbers and start out. As soon as we started we rode right away from the guys in the battalion, we jumped in the back limber. And we had four mules on these limbers and the drivers sat on the left hand horse on each team. There is two drivers, a driver for each team and they ride the left hand horse. In this case, it was mules, of course. And the road, of course, they’d been shelling it all that day and they were shelling it that night because they knew they’d be moving stuff up - reinforcements and supplies and one thing or another and the gunners had the range of the road. They couldn’t see anything moving but they just shelled it under general purposes. And they used a kind of a system there, when they shelled any road like that they bracketed it, you know. They’d fire one solid one then another one ahead. And the next one they centred them. So we just got nicely out of town going down the road and this road was full of shell holes. They’d been shelling it, you know, and broken down limbers and trucks and everything else; dead horses, dead mules. It sure was some road, alright and it was pitch black dark. We just nicely got started down there and one of these batteries opened up there and the first one lit about 150 yards or so ahead and the next one lit about 100 yards behind us and the skinners started to lay on the whip. They knew where the next one was going to light.

Picture of Veteran.

After it lit, they didn’t even know where the whip was. They didn’t hit us but it was just close enough that there was shrapnel whistled all around us. Them mules were belly to the ground and gone. They couldn’t stand shell fire, anyway. You know, horses got used to shell fire but mules never did. They just went frantic if they got them up where there was shellfire. So for about a half a mile or so, I tell you, we had the wildest ride I ever had in my life while that limber hit. One thing, they were really heavy. It was pretty hard to capsize it. I was hitting these shell holes and going this way and that way. I says to old Webb, “Shall we jump out?” and he says, “No, no, stay with it!”

Description

Mr. Stevenson describes the mule driven limber, a wheeled vehicle used to transport artillery to and from the front. He describes a shelling incident and its impact on the mules

Donald Robert Stevenson

Donald Robert Stevenson was born in Bracebridge, Ontario, on October 28, 1897. His family moved to Saskatchewan where he worked with his father, a farmer. Mr. Stevenson felt duty bound to support the British Empire and enlisted on February 3, 1916, in the 217th Battalion. He took his basic training at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. He went overseas in May 1917, going to Bramshott where he joined the 46th Battalion. Mr. Stevenson’s service saw him in action at the Oppy Front, the Somme, and Canal du Nord. He was wounded in the neck and back, and returned to Canada to his family’s farm and then received a homestead through the Veterans Land Act, farming on his own at Fir Mountain, Manitoba. He married his wife, Elizabeth Helen, on November 7, 1923. He worked for Public Works in Winnipeg, and finally joined the railroad as a yardman, retiring in 1952. He then joined the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires. Mr Stevenson died on June 27, 1985.

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