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Description
Vimy Ridge had been taken, but Mr. Mason didn't think the allies were necessarily winning the war. He goes on to relate an incident that very nearly cost him an arm.
Alfred Mason
Alfred Mason est né à Tangier (Nouvelle-Écosse), le 4 janvier 1895. Une fois ses études terminées, il a travaillé dans les mines d'or de Tangier avant d'accepter un emploi dans la construction de wagons à Trenton (Nouvelle-Écosse), alors qu'il avait 17 ans. Il a aussi travaillé quelque temps à l'aciérie, puis dans les mines de charbon du nord de la Nouvelle-Écosse avant de se rendre à Halifax en 1915 pour s'enrôler. Il s'est joint au 66<sup>e</sup> bataillon, puis a été transféré au 40<sup>e</sup>. Il a reçu un entraînement de base au Québec, puis a été envoyé en Angleterre et, presque immédiatement en France, où il est arrivé au printemps de 1916 en renfort de la 3<sup>e</sup> Division de la 8<sup>e</sup> Brigade du 5<sup>e</sup> Bataillon canadien de fusiliers à cheval.
Transcription
Interviewer: At that stage I take it that you thought that we were winning the war?
Oh at Vimy Ridge. Yeah. Well not, not exactly. In a way it was, taking the ridge was a big thing of course. Because they're up there and they could see everything else going on for miles back, ya know, and they didn't wanna give that up but they had to. And after that it was different. And I remember going over another place they talked about the war, the war started. We started this advance now and we took a place called Monchy, it was a big hill but farmers were all around everybody was building their homes in these, this hill. I mean and they just took it in the morning. So we're standing around there talking and the first thing, word comes through that we had to go take the Hindenburg line.
The Hindenburg line was in front of us and it was on a big hill. This is our own, our own battalion, this is on a hill and a big valley down below ya see. And I was telling the boys about it ya know that we're gonna go over. I was a Sergeant. I was just talking to my own men and there was shell busted oh god a long way back of us and this thing come whistling through the air and I was talking to a fella and I was facing like this. The dug out right there and this piece of shell hit, hit me and took a jump out of my coat and buried itself into a, buried itself into a plank in the, in the dugout. And I, I never just scratched me. If I had of been that way a little bit I'd have lost the arm right there.