Canal du Nord

First World War Audio Archive

Canal du Nord

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Transcript

Video of Canal du Nord.

The Canal du Nord. We went over the Canal du Nord, I just forget

Picture of young soldier.

the date. I don’t know what date. And we were in the first wave

Quite field.

and I don’t know how far we went. We had to go to Bourlon Wood,

Troops marching and on horseback.

anyways, to the left of it, I think, we was going over. That was our objective. And then the next bunch went through us and we

Troops filing into a trench.

kept going and going until the next night at twelve o’clock. I was a runner going through there. We didn’t know whether there

Soldiers resting on side of a mound.

Troops marching along side canal.

was water in the canal or what it was. We had ropes and pails and that, but anyways it was dry when we got there. And there was these two or three openings that had been blowed up. And me and

Deep revine shown with Soldiers marching in the distance.

this other runner that was with me, we went in pairs. We went in pairs and we kind of guided the rest of them through as much as we could. We got through and we went through the canal and we got to this wood and they were shelling us pretty heavy in from the wood. This officer give us a message to take to a tank.

Artillery fire exploding in battle field and tank rolls in through the smoke.

Of course, we couldn’t get into the tank. We had to hammer at the

Tank in battle.

side of the tank. But they wouldn’t listen to us. My partner,

Dead soldier.

he got killed right alongside of me. Oh, the bullets were just

Soldiers manning a machine gun.

Tank rolling through enemy fire, towards barbed wire.

like hail stones. I don’t know how I got out of it.

Description

Mr. Sully describes Canal du Nord in the Cambrai assault.

Willian John Sully

William John Sully was born in Markham, Ontario, on October 26, 1892, but grew up and lived in Saskatchewan. Prior to his enlistment in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, on January 22, 1916, he had been a farm labourer. He went overseas with the 188th Battalion and later served in France with the 46th Battalion. Mr. Sully saw action on three major fronts; Vimy, Lens, and Canal du Nord. He was wounded on three separate occasions. After the war, Mr. Sully returned to farming and was also employed with Saskatchewan Government Telephones. He married Elizabeth MacDougal on March 21, 1923. Mr. Sully died May 23, 1987.

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