1915-05-08ww

When a Hamiltonian read the name Louis Burgoyne in the casualty listed printed in the Hamilton Times of May 8, 1915, he thought that readers of the paper might be interested in the letter he had only recently received from that soldier. He took the letter to the Times office and the very it appeared in that newspaper as follows:

                                                “Somewhere in France, April 14, 1915.

“Dear Bill – Suppose you will be kind of surprised to get this letter from me, but you and I were pretty good pals when I worked with you, and I thought you might want to get some word of affairs over here.

“I may never return to Canada after the war, but I think I will, because I liked it. Well, Bill, old man. I suppose you would like to know something about what we are doing. I mean the members of the Fourth Field Battery.

“We have done a lot of fighting, though it is not anything like I thought it would be. I thought we would see a crowd of Germans, point our guns at them and, bang !, no Germans left. But that is not it. We get behind a hill and shoot at them three miles away. My duty is to carry the shells to the gun, and we have to haul them a long distance some times.

“We see shells shooting at us at times. They go mighty fast, just like a streak of lightning, and sometimes a shell falls near us. Several of our fellows have been hit. I mean by our fellows, those on the gun I am with.

“You know the soldiers don’t go a hospital every time they are hit. If it is only a minor wound, they say nothing about it. Many Hamilton boys here are slightly wounded, but few know of it.

“About three hundred yards away from us are more guns. I went over there last night for a walk. We float about some at night to stretch ourselves. One of their fellows was killed. He lived about for two hours after being hit, but was not moved to a field hospital because he was torn to pieces. He was conscious for some time before he died. He laughed and joked with his mates on the gun. He made one of them say he would kill fifteen Germans because of his own death. And he laughed when he said he was letting them down. He was a sport, Bill, and the whole German army is not worth what his life was.

“I have heard of others being killed too, but I can’t say much about them. We don’t get much time for that kind of thing. We have to change our position regularly because the Germans get our range by their air ships, though I have not seen any of them yet.

“All of us have heard a lot about the Germans and their actions in Belgium. We have not been there yet, but hope to call on Belgium after we have marched through Germany and plastered a few shells at the Kaiser’s palace. Hope he is in bed when we do it. We will blow him to the spot where his pal, Old Nick, is.

“Say, Bill, what they did in Belgium was awful. Girls and women suffered terribly. I tell you that the Germans must be made to pay for all this. Stuprum was the most common crime of all They’re not game, Bill, or they would not attack women and children.

“Of course, we don’t get up close enough to them to see how great they are. The infantry can tell, though, but we seldom get a chance to talk with an infantryman. But from what I hear, they are as weak individually as their beer is. I’ll never drink German beer again, nor any other – until I get out of this. But I do miss my beer.

“I’m not trying to mention any places we have passed through. The officer that passes our letters would only mark it out, so it is not any use putting it in. But you should write me a letter for I don’t get many, and all of us like to have letters. It breaks monotony and sometimes we go for days without firing a shell.

“Well, Bill, remember me to Pete, Frank and the Wop, and tell them I think of them often. If they come over here to fight, I may meet them, and if we all get killed, we might meet still, so, good-bye.”¹

¹ “Women and Girls Are Belgium’s Sufferers : Hamilton Soldier, In Descriptive Letter, Tells of Germans Dastardly Work”

Hamilton Times. May 8, 1915.