1915-04-27uu

A letter was received from a Hamilton soldier at the front in which he noted that soldiers on leave from duty were in need of sports equipment to help them pass the time before they were required to return to the trenches:

The letter was from a member of the Fourth Field Battery, a unit which had been under fire in Flanders for two months:

“By the way, I see they are getting up a fund for the soldiers in Hamilton, so I wish someone would call their attention to the only unit that so far have come from Hamilton. Some of our English friends have sent packages to us, but so far we have never received anything from Hamilton, outside of our individual families. Some articles were sent at Christmas, but we never got them, and most of the English regiments get footballs, and all sorts of presents regularly. We have had to buy all of ours, and at present we are playing baseball with a ball made out of binder twine, which we doubt ‘pinched’ from some farmer. It makes us feel rather cheap at time. For instance we never had a football when we were playing the Royal Horse Artillery Battery the other day. Their ball broke, but they had several others.”¹

¹ “Want Football and Baseball : Hamilton Soldier Writes a Complaint from Flanders.”

Hamilton Times.   April 27, 1915