Description
Mr. Ganong gives a brief description of his service in Europe with emphasis on Vimy. In particular, he discusses the weather and the barrage preceding the Vimy assault.
Whitfield Ganong
Whitfield Ganong was born August 1, 1895 at Snider Mountain, New Brunswick. A second cousin to the Ganong chocolatiers of nearby Saint Stephen, he and his family lived on a mixed farm. Mr. Ganong enlisted in the 64th New Brunswick Battalion, having been accepted despite a bad leg and transferred to the 104th Battalion. He then joined the 26th Battalion as a Private and Lance-Corporal, and saw action in three major battles: Vimy, Hill 70 and Passchendaele. Mr. Ganong later worked as a teacher, shopkeeper and accountant, and married Katherine Ellen Herbert in 1924. He took part in a pilgrimage to France, and was shocked by the number of graves, yet awed by the work of the War Graves Commission. Mr. Ganong died on January 5th, 1989.
Transcript
In the winter of ‘17, we were holding the front near Vimy. It was a quiet time. We got there in October and there wasn’t any, much action. In the place called (inaudible) we were going over the tapes preparing for Vimy day. And Vimy day was at 5:30 in the morning of April the 9th when the barrage started and such a noise I’ve never heard and hope I never will again. It snowed that night. We didn’t even have our great coats. We left our great coats out on the line. We were in a little hole that night I remember with another soldier. And he got wounded and I didn’t, I was there alone when it happened. Boy, it was cold, it was awful cold that night. But what effected me was the noise when the barrage broke out. You couldn’t hear anybody within a hundred, ten feet of you. It just started like this, all at once and nothing first. Terrible, I went over, you see. And the Battle of Vimy came over and it was quite successful, you see. And then after the Battle of Vimy we were stayed around there. And then the next battle was Hill 70 which wasn’t too far away, that was in August 1917. And then after that, we went up to Belgium and prepared for the Passchendaele battle in November 1917. Then after that, I was appointed company clerk. They thought I shouldn’t march so much. And then I had looking after the mail. And boy, those men. You know the comradeship was just simply wonderful, you know, and I used to sometimes take the mail up to them and I had more praise from those soldiers in the 26th and I had the role of looking after them, you see.