Vimy Ridge: Canada's Defining Battle Part 2

Most of us see war through the lens of battles and dates, but what if understanding the everyday realities of wartime could change how we remember history forever? In part two of Vimy Ridge: Canada's Defining Battle,  Brian and Wes dive into a riveting exploration of WWI trenches, tank warfare, and the hidden stories buried beneath the mud and water, revealed through authentic artifacts, detailed dioramas, and expert insights. 

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction and call to support the show
00:46 - Historical battlefield models and military layout
01:38 - Tunnelling techniques and explosives used in trench warfare
05:20 - German and British tanks: designs and capabilities
07:26 - Personal collection of WWI tools and their historical significance
10:15 - The importance of wool uniforms and their features
12:50 - Recreating trench life: fire steps, crates, and supplies
14:37 - Innovation in trench design: underground facilities and water drainage
19:02 - Military uniforms and insignias
20:36 - Command structure and stratification between officers and enlisted men
21:20 - Protective equipment: trench alarms and gas masks
25:11 - Reflection on the sacrifices of soldiers, with a focus on the “Roll of Honour”

Our guest, Wes Krause is curator of a renowned South Alberta Light Horse Regimental Museum.  He shares his knowledge of battlefield archaeology, field hospitals, and the personal stories behind the artifacts. His passion for preserving history transforms our understanding of the trenches and the soldiers who fought there. 

The Trench Systems: A Look into the Design
The trench system during World War I was revolutionary, designed for survival amid chaos. But why were trenches so crucial?  They provided soldiers with protection from enemy fire while allowing them to maintain a strategic position.

The Role of Machinery in Warfare
World War I saw the introduction of tanks and other machinery that changed the nature of battle. But how did this technology impact the war? The British Mark V and German A7V tanks were groundbreaking.

The Experience of Soldiers in Battle
The realities of trench warfare were harsh for soldiers. But what were their day-to-day experiences like? Soldiers faced constant threats from enemy fire, harsh weather conditions, and the psychological toll of battle. Their uniforms, often made of wool, were designed to wick moisture away but were still uncomfortable.

Here is a list of Soldiers on the Vimy Memorial with connection to Medicine Hat, though were not lost at Vimy

Pte. Ole Berget: Enlisted in Medicine Hat on May 13, 1916, and was transferred to the 31st Battalion.
He died on May 3, 1917, and is commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte. Henry Lauder: Served with the 10th Battalion (Alberta Regiment) and died on April 28, 1917.
Pte. William John Burns: Enlisted in Medicine Hat and served with the 8th Battalion, dying in
September 1916 (not at Vimy, but served earlier).
Pte. Ernest William Crouch: Died around the same period, commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte. Bernard Roy Tyas: Commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte. Harry Mallory: Commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte. Percy Henry Allen: Commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte. George Nelson Atkinson: Commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte. Clarence Roy Coates: Commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte. John Buttrey: Commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.


Key Details for Visitors to the South Alberta Light Horse Regimental Museum 
Location: 120 Cuyler

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favour. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please, like, share, subscribe. Tell your friends about bring back the porch. So it's it's really interesting when you look at this and you put it into perspective that this is a basically, you know, a good rendition, but it doesn't show really the illustrate the water and the mud and stuff like that. You see the, the shell holes, like the craters are here, advancing across no man's land. You see the barbed wire, how it's funneling towards, and an entrenched, machine gun position, and you see everything that's going on. This is what happened. This is what they did. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. Wes. You have a model here of what a typical battlefield would have look like in World War One. We can see the trenches and the tunnels. Explain how all this came together, how it worked militarily. Well, this is kind of a highlight of the museum. The World War One section. And it is a a trench system that highlights the German trenches on one side, Canadian trenches on the other side. And you can tell if you look closely, they're very accurate, like the, metal corrugated, walls and the timbers on the German side, you have the tanks that are advancing across both the, British or Canadian Mark five and the German A-7, and then you got the artillery located there, the cavalry. And in some cases the cavalry also worked as, not only as reconnaissance but also moving up supplies. And that really helped a lot. We have, all the barbed wire entanglements in there. We've got the survival tree, which is interesting. That came from the Battle of Beaumont Hamel. And the survival tree was basically said, if you advanced across the battlefield, you got to this point, you might survive. Because of the Battle of Beaumont, Hamel was a Newfoundland regiment. And they tried to take, take the German, trench system, and they were basically down to like 4 or 5 or a dozen guys out of 1100 men. It was unbelievable. We were at that battlefield as well too. So everything here is very accurate, including the tunnel system that you see underneath here. Now, the tunnel system is really kind of an interesting thing because both the Canadians and the Germans, they employed employed miners. And these were guys that worked in coal mines, diamond mines, sulfur mines, etc. and what they would do, they would dig from a point on, you know, see the German or Canadians and you dig straight down underneath no man's land until they got to a point that they estimated was beneath the opposing trench system, and they would pack that full of explosives, get out of there and hit the fuze, blow that up. And it would anything that's underneath that position would just be completely vaporized. And they were circumstantial. I mentioned this in our, tours that the officer having a cigaret outside the trench and all the explosives were being hauled in, and he just. Wow. Whatever. He lost count, and they packed this full of explosives. Finally, one of the sergeants said, hey, you know, we've got a lot of stuff in there that goes, boom, it. Well, okay, get out and we'll load it up. Well, when they lit that up, the explosion was so severe that 140 miles across the English Channel, windows in London were shaking from the explosion. And it created a massive crater. We, toured 1 in 2016 called luck in Our Creator. And it's one of those kind of situations where they just kept packing more and more in there. And when it went boom, it created a crater that was both 300ft across, about 200ft deep. You stand at the side of that, you look down to see, oh my God. And it took out a section of German trench that the estimated about 1500 men almost instantly vanished. So that was kind of an interesting thing about the tunneling system. And as I said, both the Germans and Canadians are doing that. And every once in a while, one of the guys officers would stop. He'd have a stethoscope and hold it up on the side of the wall. And if they heard a scratch, scratch, scratch on who their bad guys are on the other side pocket full of explosives. And you know, there. So it's it's really interesting when you look at this and you put it into perspective that this is a basically, you know, a good rendition, but it doesn't show really the illustrate the water and the mud and stuff like that. You see the, the shell holes, like the craters are here, advancing across no man's land. You see the barbed wire, how it's funneling towards, and an entrenched, machine gun position, and you see everything that's going on. This is what happened. This is what they did. I'll mention about the the German A7 v it a massive it's a big box was tracks. They had something like 18 men in that thing, which we think about that. Oh my God, that was huge. But it was also festooned with, with 75 millimeter guns and Spandau machine guns. The British tank, the Merc five that either had the field gun, which was usually about a two pounder or three pounder, or it had machine guns. When you think a tank like today. Yeah. Tanks out there, you fire, you know, your rifle at it, it just bounces off. This wasn't quite the same. It wasn't quite the same some of the times the, you know, even rifle shots would penetrate. Now, here's the other thing. The both of these tanks, they had good engines, you know. Well, not good enough. They're pretty bad. For the time. How can I say. Yeah. Primitive to put say it to the least. The men in the tank. We're sitting here and the engine was right beside them. There's very little exhaust that would, you know, be vented out. So they were having a lot of issues with that. And guys were, you know, employing their if they were operating a machine gun, they'd lean back and they lean against the exhaust manifold. They get burned, you know. So it wasn't exactly the best place to be, however, when they were first in the British tanks, when they're first employed at the battle of the Somme, the Germans only know. What is that? There's a there's a more of a catch phrase that they use. But anyway, but it was really something really, really innovative and absolutely terrifying to both sides. So it, it was really quite, quite the thing. Now, you know, all that barbed wire entanglement. We just earlier talked about the barbed wire and stuff like that. You see on the wall here. And this is the what I mentioned is the screw picket. That was an amazing, amazing innovation that saved lives because as I said, send the guys out after dark and bundle the sticks so they could do this and use the corkscrew. Screw picket. Everything was. Good. Stealth, stealth. And it's kind of interesting because, at my own, my own collection in my private museum, in my house, I've got some of those set up in, in, in, in the basement there. And when the curator of the museum at that time was like, I think it's ten 2010, as you pointed out, that's like, what's that? I explained it to him and he said, well, where can I get those? I just, I just happen to know a place where you can get a home. And, a fellow in Missoula that we got them from. So we ended up getting a, a few of them from there. One of the things that my eye is drawn to is we look at this diorama, are the white crosses. I wonder how many soldiers were just left on the battlefield or buried on site. And never repatriated. That's exactly true. And what it mentioned earlier about the, as you're advancing, if the soldiers slipped into one of these shell holes, you wouldn't find them. And there are circumstances even to within the last 5 to 10 years where they've done excavations and battlefields and the fallen soldiers, there's one that it was on a television program, and they did an excavation, I think it was at the battle of the North Verdun. And they found a French soldier still in his greatcoat. And these. Well, how do you know he was a French soldier? Well, the color of the great coat. It was like a sky blue. That was a typical of the French soldiers. And then the French Adrien helmet as well, too. There were, Allied units that used the same material, the American 91st and 92nd, divisions were black divisions. They used French arms and material, and they went into battle with that. And the Le troops. Look at that. Oh, yeah, that's that's the French troops over there. No, those are our guys. It's kind of humorous in a way. But, there's one thing about, the Canadians and and the Germans, they both their uniforms are really, you know, again, primitive by today's standards, all wool. Some of them had even wool, underwear. Oh, yeah. That we think about that today. That. Oh, that's going to be so uncomfortable. But one of the interesting characteristics about war is that it wicks moisture away. So it doesn't retain moisture as, as much as like a cotton material. So even though all the itchy wool and the, the ever presence of a little critter they called cooties, which were lice, that that it it was a good uniform for what that purpose was at the time. The over time they actually improved it and it changed for different types of material, different types of designs. But, Canadian original Canadian World War one uniforms today are incredibly rare, hard to find. And if you do find them, especially identify two battalions. They are stratospherically expensive. I saw at the Canadian War Museum racks and racks and racks of original World War One uniforms and I'm like, oh my God, that is amazing. But either way, yeah. Plus no. And what are the other things? And we didn't really talk about it. It was the arms of the Canadian Expeditionary Force when they first went over to France and were deployed in 1915, 1915 ish they were armed with a Canadian made Ross rifle that rifle was an incredibly accurate, well-made firearm. And we think of, you know, everybody, in Canada, virtually everybody knows about the Lee-Enfield three three, that that was a British design. Well, actually an American design which was brought by the British. But the Ross rifle made in Canada was a straight pull. So you took the bolt handle, pulled it straight back, pushed it forward to charge the gun and you could fire, like I said, incredibly accurate and very well made. It was horrendous. In the trenches you get a little mud, a little bit of water in it, and it goes from a rifle to a club. It just didn't function. So they started using the, the British Lee-Enfield and that thing you throw into the bottom of a trench, in the mud, in the muck and everything, pick it up, wipe it off, and sure it operating in and it her work. The Canadians really trained their men well and they taught the men how to operate that and reload their arm very rapidly. But not just, you know, just indiscriminate shooting. They taught them how to hit targets. And there's a thing called the mad minute, and that was a Canadian soldier said, there's your target right over there, 200m out. We want to put as many rounds on that target as you can in a minute. And some of these guys were able to fire 20, etc. and that's reloading. And that was training that the men went through. I talked about training for the battle, but they're also trained on how to use their arms. And they did very, very, very well. I think our next stop was would be to go into the trenches. I love it. I think that's great. Looking forward to. Oh yes. We are now in the trenches. This would be a depiction of what it was like in the area that we just saw. If you're in a battlefield and you are entrenched, this was your home. And it was. And this is one of the probably the key features of this, regimental museum and every detail you see in here and I can point out a lot of things and, is what the how the trenches were built, number one was the primary thing is the depth of the trench was we we've designed it in way it was designed is, is a little bit lower than what they were there back then. There some of the trenches were considerably deeper. However, early in the war, the trenches were nothing more than just a shallow depression that the guys were laying and, and they found that didn't work very well. So as they develop time and in this, the Canadians got involved, you'll see the the corrugated metal on the walls. That was something that the Canadians did, and that was all intended to hold up the walls of the trench. That I relate this to the 31st Battalion, which was what, South Alberta later perpetuated when they went into the trenches their first hundred days in the trenches, it rained 75 days. You just imagine that I mentioned that earlier. Imagine what that does to the walls of the trench. It just starts sloughing. So what we did this is, is how they would have been built, including the duck boards that you're standing on, which were basically intended to drain water away. And you'll see the firing step here. So the whole idea is to be under cover. So in order to fire at the bad guys, you'd get up on that firing stuff and you'd fire through the openings there and you'll see some of the crates that are here, like period crates from the for the 3 or 3 ammunition, some rations, corned beef rations. These are all accurate renditions of crates from that period of time. We got the white star, sweetened condensed milk and a lot of the sandbags and stuff like that as well to do. Now you have a periscope here? Yes. You think of that of being on a submarine, but it served a very important purpose in the trench. Incredibly important because, one of the things that, soldiers were taught when they were siting their arms across Norman's land is the profile of the German helmet. That's what we would aim for. So if there is any way that you could avoid putting your head above the edge of the trench, that's what you used. And this was a very well established. This is a design that was quite common, but it was sort of a pseudo permanent design. A lot of them were kind of, you know, cobbled together sort of thing. But there are some that very specific designs that were very compact could be carried on the belt. Some that would, expand like the collapsible, type things. So they were really, really quite an innovation. And it saved, saved soldiers lives. You know, like the officers especially, they would take a look and say, all the bad guys are over there, but they're not over there. So I'm going to send my guys there where the bad guys are. And, that was another thing. You'll see a little bit of the barbed wire. These, these cutouts here were basically intended to provide, cover and a place where a soldier could get out of the wind or the rain or whatever conditions in some of the trenches. They actually dug a large amount of stuff underground. They had field hospitals and offices. They had bedding, you know, so it was quite we think a trench was kind of a primitive thing. But back then, later in the war, they were quite advanced comparatively. And this wasn't a temporary thing for a week or two weeks. Long time, long time. The soldiers would be in these. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. As I said, the 31st there were in the in the trenches for 100 days. That was just a start. And there are some of the cases where they spent six months in trenches now also too, there was a lot of vermin in those in the trenches there, not just the lace but the rats and such like that. And that caused a lot of issues. And and it also spread a lot of disease. In 1918, the Spanish flu epidemic hit and Canadian soldiers and all colonial soldiers and German soldiers, they were absolutely decimated. It was a horrible thing. And they lost thousands of men. So you imagine, Canadian soldier yeah, I'm going to go to war. I'm going to kick the Kaiser and win the war. And he dies because of the flu. That was that was a very unfortunate thing. And the sanitary conditions would have been appalling. And it was horrible. Now, there were actually dedicated sanitary cores within each division that that's what they took care of was two. Number one was the health of the men. So they were involved with hospital cores, but they also took care of, the bodily functions of the men that produced material that needed to be disposed of. They did that as well, too. So it wasn't the case. Okay. You were standing in the trench or. Yeah, trench down there. And they're going to do whatever they do. No. You had to be removed to another area of the, of the trench system where they could take care of their normal functions. And then the food that the they were supplied with was not exactly the best. You know, we have or or Burger King sandwich or, you know, we go to Timmy's and get a double double and and and the, donut and whatever. Yeah. They didn't have that. Yeah. They didn't have that. Well, moving along now, there are some examples of, some of the, uniforms. Yes. This, uniform here is an example of an officer with the third Canadian Mounted Rifles. He is lieutenant colonel. You'll notice how prim and proper that uniform is and how clean it is. That's typical of officers. I'm not going to say that directly, but, they were very utilitarian, but they're also very, regimented. There were specifications of how these uniforms were supposed to appear. So the officers would contract, tailors, usually in London. To manufacture these uniforms for you. So an officer would be given a list? Yeah. Here's six, tailors that will make that uniform for you. So he goes in and gets measured up, gets a tailor made for him, and he would take care of it to the best of his ability. There's other equipment that they use, like, they had, the leaf, bags for map cases and such like that. They had binocular cases and, and, even some of their ration cases that they would carry as well to. But the thing about the officers is that all of that material would be carried offsite, not necessarily to the trench or in the trench, but in the back areas like the holding areas. And they still had access to it, but they didn't bring it right to the front. So the officers, it was really kind of a stratified, environment that the officers didn't, how can I say socialize with the men? That was that was arm's length. They had their, command structure, which was very, very regimented. And, and they had to keep it that way so that it would avoid the, how can I say familiarity. That. Okay. You know, the basic private. Yeah I know Bert, he's he's our commanding officer and he's a good friend of my family. Okay. That, that private got pointed. You know you can't have that. Yeah. Because these guys were sending men into combat that could have technically and theoretically died in service. Yep. Yeah. What is this. That is a trench. Alarm a trench war. Now as I mentioned earlier that both, Canadian and Germans, they employed a lot of poisonous gas and mustard gas, phosgene, chlorine gas and all of those had a very specific signature as in a cloud. Chlorine in general would have been sort of an amber colored cloud. Mustard would have actually been sort of more of a yellowish cloud. Phosgene was kind of a grayish, grayish white. And if they happened to see that cloud, you'd grab that rope and ring that bell as hard as you could and as vigorously as you could. That's just. You know, small example, small example. And that would indicate to everybody in the line to put on their gas mask and, and we've got a sample of that in here. Now, the gas mask, when you think about it, it's not a it's not a supplied air system. It is a filtration system. And basically it was, charged with the, activated carbon and it would nullify the effects of, of the gas. It didn't remove the gas, but it would nullify the effect. When the Canadians went into the trenches, initially they had a gas, what was called a gas hood and basically a wool felt hood that they would wear over their heads. And they had a flapper valve that they would breathe through, and they had two little goggle eyes that they would use those things. They didn't work very well. And once they were exposed to water and rain, all the desiccant material would, compounds would, would vanish. And so they had to recharge them and, how they actually urinated on the, on those hoods. That would help act as a desiccant for the, for those gases. And in the display case here, we have the uniform of an officer, with the 31st Battalion. He was a military cross winner. I believe he may have served in, in Vimy as well, too. And then we have Soldier Trench. Here's our, average soldier. This guy is a corporal. And you'll see, if you look right here, that is the formation patch of the 31st Battalion. Now, there's that's another thing that the Canadian military did. The incorporated formation patches for all the divisions, Red Division, you know, the red was the first Division, blue. This was blue for the second. The third was like a sky blue. The fourth was a green. And what they would do, they'd add a geometric pattern to the top of that formation patch to indicate what battalion that the soldiers were identified to or assigned to. So this guy was assigned to the 31st Battalion. He's got, his basic kit on, which was a pattern 1908, web kit, that include cartridge carriers, which are web cartridge, web cartridge, flat pockets. When the Canadians initially went into the trenches, they were issued with a leather cartridge box, which in the trenches and in all that rain and the environment, that leather just did not last. It was a good but it wasn't suitable for the environment. So they went into the web gear, which was quite, quite a lot, quite an advance. And you can see he's armed with his, you know, his, Lee-Enfield number one, Mark three, with a long bayonet. And, he's ready. He's just taking a break and ready to ready to advance. Whenever duty calls. Exactly, exactly. Once you've given us just a little hint of the flavor of what it was like to be in that battlefield. I'm going to give you another hint, and we'll just walk to the side there and let the camera catch this. What you're going to see on here, these three panels are called the Roll of Honor. And this is for the 31st Battalion. When they were formed here in Canada and they were deployed to France, they had roughly about 1100 men plus officers. You look at the number there. That's 930 that died and died in service. From. Now that's listed alphabetically. Put that into perspective, 930 out of 1100 men that died in service. Now, there were men that, like the 1/75 Battalion had mentioned earlier when they were deployed, they were formed here in Medicine Hat. They were deployed overseas. They got the French or got to England, and they were broken up as a reserve battalion to fill battalions that had been depleted of men. So a lot of those guys, they served with the 50th Battalion, some of them ended up in the 31st Battalion. So they didn't serve as your identified 1/75 Battalion. So this really puts it into a perspective that when the people that have tours that come through and they stand there and they just stare at that and the and then they realize like, that's out of the 1100 men, then it just then it just hits them. And that these guys here, what we do here in the regimental museum is honor the sacrifice of those men. But not only the men that were sacrificed during World War one, but also the men that were sacrificed during World War Two and other actions after that. That's what we do here, and we thank them and we honor them. And the people, if they want to come through here, when can they come and visit? Well, we are open every Wednesday afternoon from 1 to 4 p.m.. If you're unable to, come out during that time, contact me by email at c l h r m curator@gmail.com and I will make arrangements. We've had arrangements to bring groups of tours in. I'm working with the Rotary Club to bring them in and and such like that. I do cadet tours and other historical tours as well. Tours. So we're just we just love to bring people in here and let them know what's going on here. Well, we said in November, lest we forget, but we need to remember that every day. And we do. Thank you. And thank you for coming over here. I hope you had enjoyed it. Oh, I did. Did I'm.