In March, 1915, Sir
John Hendrie, recently-appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, received a
letter from his son Lieutenant Ian-S. Hendrie. The letter, received at Sir John's palatial Hamilton home at the corner of Herkimer street and James street south, was written from a specifically
undisclosed location, at the front in Western Europe. Ian was serving with
the 11th battery, formerly known as the 4th battery, a
unit which Sir John had once commanded.
The letter read:
“Just back from the
front. I went first with the signalers and took over the communication. Our
observing station is away up in front, and we had to take over the telephone
there also. The headquarters is in a cellar about 320 yards from my house, and
my observing station runs just to the front. The fire stations are further in
front, 150 yards, and they have quite exciting times. I went down to my station
next morning; had to do a little crawling. Did not like the look of it, so went
to work finding out how to improve it. The other officers spent the day with
me, and we did some firing. Slept in headquarters, as this is the place to be,
so that if there is an attack we know about it at once, and are able to keep in
touch with the infantry.
“Had the pleasant
experience of falling into a trench while sneaking across the fields to the
trenches. I knew there were some logs in front and went to step over what I
thought was one and lit on my head. I thought I was going to be drowned, as
there was about six inches of mud and water in the bottom. In trying to get
right side up, I rolled over, and I certainly was an awful mess.
“Bill came down the
day before and I had him with me for a day putting him onto to what had to be
done. We went out into the trenches to observe the fire and had quite a time
dodging around. We fooled the Deutschers fine. We wanted to see where the shots
were going, so one held up a periscope, and while they were shooting at it, the
other popped up and had a look around. This worked fine.
“Bill was a funny
sight, running around in his shirt sleeves. It was quite warm dodging around
walls, and I have a decided stoop trying to keep my head down. I came back to
the battery last night; quite a relief to get away from machine guns and
bullets.”1
1 “Letters
from Local Men on Firing Line : Lieut. Hendrie Tells How Germans Were Fooled”
Hamilton
Spectator. March 26, 1915.
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