Muddy Conditions for Guns

Heroes Remember

Muddy Conditions for Guns

Transcript

I think if I remember right it took us about four nights moving up the line. We had to move under cover of darkness of course and the conditions were terrible with mud. Mud over your, halfway to your knees you see. And it was rainy weather and snow, snow and rain. Start a snow storm there and it ends up rain. So it was just, the weather conditions were just terrible. But it had to go ahead. We moved our guns with caterpillar tractors, known as caterpillars. They'd just roll through a fence and right along. They laid down their own track as it were you see. It was all infested with barbed wire entanglements and we had to destroy those by shell fire. You see we'd go into position, move one night and we'd fire the next day in that position and you'd have to get out that night again because he'd concentrate on that you see.

Description

Mr. Boyce describes the difficulty of moving guns because of the mud and the necessity of blowing holes through German barbed wire while constantly repositioning to avoid counter fire.

Harry Boyce

Harry Boyce was born in Bonshaw, Prince Edward Island on September 4, 1893. After moving to Regina to work as an architect, he returned to P.E.I. to enlist with the 8th Canadian Siege Battery. He trained in Charlottetown then went overseas and continued his training at Aldershot, England, where he specialized on the 8-inch siege gun, which fired a 200 pound shell. In the autumn of 1915 he was sent to France and served during the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Le Preol. He was gassed and repatriated to Canada.

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