Jimmy Ellis talks of his experiences in the infantry

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Take Vimy, I should mention Vimy, that was the first time we had tried, they had tried, not we. I didn't know anything about it. They had tried the, what we called "The Creeping Barrage." And you see, the shell fire would shell a certain portion; we'd be ready to attack, and as soon as it went a few hundred yards more ahead, we were supposed to follow up, but sometimes, you see, they would fall short. And killed quite a few of our own men. But not too much, no, it was a splendid idea. It saved us a lot of lives I think, too, because well, if the machine guns are sometimes knocked out. I think, well, in trench warfare that helped a lot.

Barbed wire was a bad thing, of course. Loads of barbed wire, just in rolls. We were supposed to have it cut before we went across and sometimes we couldn't find a place where it was cut. So the only way we could tackle it was at dawn mostly.

It [the barrage] would knock out some machine guns, and some trench mortars, you know, and they'd be so upset in their line, and they would kill, oh, quite a few killed by the barrage too. But they wouldn't see us coming very much. And the machine guns, they wouldn't be so deadly. Of course then, you see, behind the front line, then we had other lines, like support lines, so we had quite a few. Yes, I thought that was good and sometimes I didn't think the Big Brass had a lot of brains, you know, but that was one very neat thing. Of course when I say the Big Brass didn't have, you know, they didn't have any experience with wars. That was the first big war, of course we had a little bit in the Boer War, but that was the first big war we were in, that was modern. As I compare ourselves with the army today, I mean if I went into the army today, I wouldn't know anything, would I? If I went in today they'd say "that silly old bugger." So the Creeping Barrage was a damn good invention.

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