The Battle of Ypres (and Weapons)

May 22, 1915    

Dear Mary,

                I want to let you know about my first experience of actual warfare. Practically living in the trenches, many unimaginably horrible things have happened, too many that I’ve witnessed myself. It is a completely different world here. 

 

                When I picture myself back home with you and Sammy, it almost feels like a dream. It pains me a lot; how much I miss you guys. I pray that you are both doing well. So in April, we moved to Belgium to battle the Germans over the town of Ypres. During the battle, we discovered that the Germans had come up with a horrifying strategy in order to defeat us. Sure, we have our own weapons too like the Ross rifle and the Lee-Enfield, as we call them. The Ross rifle is more effective when it comes to accurately shooting from a long range. But it easily jams so a lot of us use the Lee-Enfield instead. Still, they bombarded us, along with our French and British allies to our left and right then used chlorine gas that crept along the wind and reached our allied forces. The poisoned died from having liquid fill up in their lungs and the gas even caused blindness. I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to lose this vivid memory of the horrid expressions that were plastered on the dead men. I don't even want to imagine the tremendous amount of pain they felt inside their bodies and couldn’t control. A lot of other soldiers, mostly the French forces just ran from it. Either that or they prepared for an inevitable death. Our shooting skills, machine guns, mortars, shrapnel shells, sharp bayonets and grenades were all useless against this inescapable and fatal gas. 

                I blame the Germans if anything. They managed to destroy four miles worth in our line of defense that we had to make up. Fortunately, we were able to come up with an effective bu t not-so-amazing way to counter it, covering our noses and mouths with urine-soaked cloths. Yeah… I warned you. But because of this, I’m still alive. Sadly, several other men in my unit have been killed so I’m one of the lucky ones in a sense. I’m actually well recognized for my physical and mental strength now. I mean even some of my closer pals have broken down from the stressful conditions and harsh sights. I would too if I didn’t have the confidence or will to win and see you guys again. I don’t want to burden you too much with details of the bloodshed but we tragically lost 2000 Canadians in this battle with thousands more wounded. I promise I’ll continue to update you from time to time. Focus on taking care of the both of you for me, will you?

                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                           Love always, James Carter

(Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_warfare#Weapons_of_World_War_I_trench_warfare
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Canada_during_World_War_I
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Ypres#Gas_attack_on_Gravenstafel)