George Hatch speaks about life in the trenches

George Hatch speaks about life in the trenches

To hear veteran George Hatch click below.

14 400 modem 28 800 modem

Warning: The audio excerpt that follows discusses war and the experience of war in graphic detail. Parents and teachers should be advised that some of the material may not be suitable for everyone. Discretion is advised. Having said that, we felt it critically important that the words of those who fought and sacrificed so much for Canada should be presented to you unaltered and uncensored.

That night, while going into the trenches from this valley about a mile or so walk through the trenches, we were told that there would be a white tape, along the wall of the trench, and to follow that white tape and it would take us to the front lines. What a night that was. We came to a place in the trench where the tape divided, and we didn't know whether to go right or left. But we took the right, and we ended up where there's no trenches.

The shells were falling overhead, bursting, and lo and behold, I was told to pass the word back by my commanding officer in front of me, for the men to, just two and three at a time, to come over this shell hole, which had once been trenches, and it ended up nothing but shell holes. And so we got within 35-40 feet of Germans, and here they were, their heads popped up out of that trench, and they were firing to beat the band.

Naturally, we were lost. And the officer in charge, a bullet hit him under the nose and came out the back of his head. Dead as a doornail. I undone the epaulettes on my tunic and let go of all my heavy equipment- my blanket, and overcoat, and bandolier of ammunition. And I turned around and was crawling from shell hole to shell hole to get back to where I came from, to the best of my ability, and the rest did too. We came to barbed wire, and we started shouting to the boys in the trenches not to fire. And we got back in the trench. I don't know how many was killed but there was an awful lot of the boys killed, and that was our very first experience.

Anyway, the next morning, we were told we were going over the top at 5:06 in the morning. It was September the 15th. A whistle started to blow, daylight was breaking, and the first tanks that ever roamed over No Man's Land came across the trenches. And they blew a whistle, and we had to help one another over the front line trench.

In the meantime, the German artillery got a line on our trenches and they let us have it and all hell broke loose. I saw a man wounded, scream like a horse. I saw blood coming out of their ears, out of their mouth. Now, if you don't think you get scared when that happens. You're scared, and you're scared to death.

We went over the top and we advanced to a place called Thiepeville. And it had been a sugar refinery. The factory was partly standing and partly blown to pieces. There was 1100 yards we had to advance that morning, that was the first time in the entire year we'd ever been, and seen the wide open country by the trenches, by the battles and the trenches where they were. Of course, the trees were shredded, just stubs of trees and leaves and branches knocked down from shell-fire.

We gave the Germans three days of steady, honest artillery fire. The guns were only two or three hundred yards behind us, what they call Whizbang guns, eighteen pounder guns, and they fired for three days and three nights over our head. Anyway, when we got to this refinery, that's where we had to dig-in and make it our trenches for the night before we could advance further.

When daylight broke the very next morning, I remember a young group of Canadian boys, still in their uniforms, as if on parade. They were reinforcements. And I've got my two stripes and I'm now a corporal and I'm standing on top of the trench, watching the boys start digging, to change the trench around somewhat. And a shell came so close that I didn't have time to jump down into the trench where they were digging; I just stood there, and the shrapnel pellets were going all around my feet, and I saw at least 25 of the boys killed right there and then, that just got to the trench, just got to the trench.

Well, the dirt from that explosion on the ground knocked me flat on my face. I put my hand on the back of my neck, and off came skin and hair and everything. When I got down in the trench, everybody didn't know what to do, how to do it, or where to go.

When night time came, I was told that I'd better go back and try to find a medic, where the medics were. And I was told to follow this communications trench and it would take me back to the medical unit. It was very dark, very dark at night, and shells were exploding overhead. The Germans had a direct bead on our lines. I was going through something that I couldn't understand, I was standing in something, every step that I took I went down to my hips, and the suction, and it turned out to be, it was a communications trench full of Australian dead bodies.

And they had been there for a month or so, and the smell was something, if you've ever smelled a human dead body you've never smelled any odor in your life until you have. You've never smelled a badder one.

Anyway, I got maybe 100 yards or 100 feet through that trench, and I came to another trench, and I saw what I thought was cigarette lights, facing one another. And it turned out to be two boys with dirt, squatted down, facing one another to escape the artillery gun fire, shrapnel etc. And I asked them where the medics were, and not one would utter a word. I shook their shoulders, and they wouldn't talk, petrified with fear. Anyway, I left them, and I found the dugout. I couldn't see down in there, I stepped my way down, five or six feet, and I felt some cloth. So, I was scared myself and I layed down and stayed there to escape the shrapnel overhead, and I fell asleep.

When daylight broke the next morning, I'm laying between two dead Germans. And they had their spiked helmets on. They never took their helmets off, they just threw the bodies in there.

[VAC] [Main] [Back]