At the end of July 1918, Johnston’s 4th Canadian Machine Gun Battalion moved from Vimy, and in early August they participated in the Amiens offensive with the 4th Canadian Division. By August 20, the Canadians had advanced fourteen miles, liberated twenty-seven villages, and captured 9,000 Germans, at a cost of almost 12,000 casualties. September was a month of major attacks and serious casualties for Johnston’s battalion, first on the Drocourt-Quéant Line, to the southeast of Arras, and then in the Battle of Bourlon Wood, near Cambrai. The battalion numbered sixty-one officers and 1,500 other ranks. During September, five officers and forty-eight other ranks were killed, and seventeen officers and approximately 365 other ranks were wounded and missing. On September 28 alone, eighteen men were killed and 141 were wounded.
In mid-October, the battalion advanced across the Canal de la Sensée, north of Cambrai, and at the beginning of November they fought their way through Valenciennes and beyond, where they were when the war ended. In mid-December, they moved into Belgium and occupied billets about twenty-five miles southeast of Brussels, where they remained until spring 1919. In mid-April, Johnston was attached to the 44th Battalion, an infantry unit from New Brunswick, for his return to England and then to Canada.
I think it was about this time [July 30] that we made our next move to the Amiens front. We were all assembled in the morning and ordered to move to a railhead about a mile away. It was a very hot day, I remember, with an awful lot of dust on all the roads around there. We were all loaded on trains headed south: horses, men, equipment and everything. It took most of the day to get things organized and with all the commotion I expected some heavy shell fire or bombing to take place, but it was very quiet.
It was terribly uncomfortable in the small boxcars, which held eight horses and about four men. We were all naturally quite disagreeable over the whole arrangement, when about an hour after dark we were all unloaded and started to march off in the opposite direction. It was one piece of strategy that worked one hundred per cent, as when we arrived at Amiens front about five days later the Germans had no idea whatever where the Canadian Corps was at. At this time the Canadians were being moved from one front to another wherever a drive was to be put on. We travelled until about an hour before sunrise each morning and kept very quiet during the daylight hours. No one was allowed to answer any questions whatever and even smoking at night was out. No lights whatever. After about five nights’ travel we arrived at our destination and had our transports all under cover in a large wooded area. The wood was called Assembly Wood and was ideal for the use as there was water right alongside of the wood. It was the largest assembly of horses, guns, etc. I had seen at any one spot. Things continued about the same, trying to advance and making some very sizable advances, but losses now were heavy on every advance and each time we were relieved our rests seem to be shorter. We seemed to be very short on reserves and we were all getting very tired and jumpy.
We […] moved up towards Cambrai and made our horse lines a short distance from the Arras-Cambrai road and were about three hundred yards from a crossroad. I was scared of the area where we made our lines, as it always turned out that any crossroad was always a prime target for shelling and bombing. This was certainly no exception and it seemed as though some people could not learn. We knew we were going to stay there for at least one night, so as soon as we had our horses tended we started digging our homes. We would dig a hole about six feet long, two feet wide and just deep enough to be below the surface of the ground when we laid down. Just like a young grave. These of course were no protection from above, but it would save us from flying shrapnel along the ground. They were great protection from bombs and it would take almost a direct hit to get a fellow. Right after dark the Germans started bombing and believe me it is an awesome feeling lying in that hole and hearing the bombs drop, perhaps every one hundred feet, and hoping the next one would be on the other side. Each plane at that time only carried about eight bombs and it was a great relief to know when the last one came. You then might have a half-hour of quiet and you would hear another one coming. This seemed to be the hardest part of this kind of fire, the awful waiting. Well, they all missed me that first night, but I was very glad when daylight came. Then the shelling started, but it never seemed to be so bad as the bombs.
The country along the Arras-Cambrai road was mostly farming country and very flat and one could see for miles. I remember very clearly seeing the infantry coming up through the fields in extended order, thousands of them, and there would not be any two men within twenty-five feet of one another. Wave after wave. The shelling was very light, as I suppose the target was hard to concentrate on.
The one thing that makes this day so clear in my mind at the present time was a small matter of one man and a team of horses. They had gotten out in the middle of this mess and for some reason a German battery had opened up on them. The poor fellow must have thought he was a goner the way the shells were falling all around him. He ran the team as fast as he could through the fields and came out in the end without a bad hit. I suppose we were about a half a mile away and had real grandstand seats. There was considerable betting on how long he could last before the shells got him. I’ll bet if he is still alive he has never forgotten that fifteen or twenty minutes.
We stayed at this place for another night and the next morning we went up over the main road to the other side just for a walk and saw about as pitiful a sight as I had seen in the war. There was a trench not too far from the road and from what we could figure out they had been ordered to go over. Through someone’s ignorance, stupidity, lack of information or something, they advanced perhaps fifty feet when the machine guns mowed them down. I did not think there was one of the group got through. They were lying there in almost a perfect line, perhaps two hundred of them. I’m positive it was their first trip in the line and over the top, as every part of their uniforms, equipment, etc. was perfectly new. It gave us all a very depressed feeling, as I do not think one of the boys were over nineteen years and mostly younger. These are the pictures you very seldom see when someone is writing of the glories of war. It is a wonder after seeing things like this that men will take orders to go through with some of the actions they are called on to do.
Horse transport moving through the ruins of Bourlon, October 1918. NAC/PA-003332
The next move we made must seem very crude and heartless, but at the time did not seem that way. We opened a lot of their kit bags and saved the rations they carried. About all we took was their rations of bacon and bread. We did not consider this robbing the dead, as we would not touch anything else on them. A person must realize that under certain conditions a lot of our normal actions have to be curtailed, as survival is very necessary to help out the other fellow as well as yourself.
It was about this time that we were advancing one day through very badly destroyed country and drinking water was very scarce. We came to the outskirts of a small town that was shelled to the ground. At the edge of town there were pools of water that I suppose at one time had been a small stream. The water was very stagnant and there were several dead Germans lying around in it, but we still drank the water. This was against regulations, but thirst can be an awful curse. One would almost think this would make men almost as bad as animals, but the same men the next day under different circumstances would quickly revert back to normal beings.
I believe it was about this time on the same front that we got too far advanced with our horses and I got mixed up with an advanced 18-pound field battery. I still do not know how or why we got there. Their team had brought the guns up and gone back, and that is where we should have been. The guns were firing rapid direct fire, point blank, and we were all mixed up with them. It was the first and last time I had ever been with a field battery firing point blank with a team and guess it must have looked pretty foolish to the gunners. Besides getting our heads blown off by German shells, we were lucky our own guns did not make a mess of us. It was certainly the most exciting half hour I had put in for some time, but it was hard on the nerves, as well as the ears. It was harder on us than on the gunners, as they were so busy they had very little time to think of anything except firing.
The part of this experience that stands out so clearly in my mind was right in the middle of all the hubbub, we saw a Salvation Army guy walking around everywhere among the crowd passing out chocolate bars from a basket he had on his arm. He seemed to be about the coolest one of the whole outfit and I know for sure that he was doing more towards winning the war than anyone else there. I never realized how much a chocolate bar could raise the morale of a man as I did that day. A drink of S.R.D. would not have done as much good. The fellow that thought up that idea deserved a medal and I think it must have been an original Salvation Army idea as they always seemed to know what to do at the right time.
At this stage of the last year of the war, after the Germans had made their last big effort, it was mostly a war of movement for us. We never stayed under cover of any kind and not too long in any one place. There was a lot of open country, and someone still had the idea that cavalry could be used. Anyone who had the bright idea at this stage of the war, that cavalry could be used against machine guns, was completely unfit even to be a private in the war. If there was one machine gun left which had not been put out of action, it could destroy all the horses they could put against it. I remember at one place near Cambrai, I believe it was, there was a small wood and the cavalry charged. There was a machine gun left in the woods and not a horse or man got within a hundred yards of the woods. The horses laid there for days.
The eating habits of different people certainly are different in each country. Quite often while in France you would be going along a road and a dead horse would be lying there, and one of the civilians would come along and cut a large hunk of steak out of the hind quarter. I don’t think I could relish it too much, as hungry as we would get.
One time we were pretty well back of the line on rest (I think the name of the town was Hersin) and another fellow and I were looking the town over and we went by a butcher shop and saw some liver which looked very good. We decided we would buy a piece and see if the woman at the house where we were staying would cook it for us. She cooked it that night and it was so tough and strong that we could not eat it. We asked her what kind of liver it was and she said “little donkey.” They had a lot of those small donkeys around there and I never liked the looks of one afterwards.
Of course, we sometimes got a better break than that, such as the time we stopped one night at a small village of about six homes, three estaminets and two stores. A very small place, but not too much to eat. A fellow and I went into one of the houses to see if we could buy a lunch and the woman was frying bread dough in lard or in some kind of grease. It smelled really good and we asked her if we could buy a couple. She sold them to us and we had a great feed of that before we left. We asked her if we could have some more on the following day and she said, sure, come back. Of course, we could not keep our mouths shut that evening, and the next day we went back and she certainly had a thriving business going. She had one of the windows of the house open and selling them as fast as she could cook them. They were lined up at the window and it was a long time before our turn came. We only stayed there about three days and she sold most of the time we were there.
I have been trying to recall an incident we had shortly before going into Charleroi [?]. A bunch of us were up forward on foot and were on our way back out, and I can still remember clearly how tired and fed up we were. It was quite early in the morning as I remember, the sun was just nicely coming up. We were coming along hardly able to drag our feet, when we heard a bagpipe playing and a lone piper in full dress was coming up to meet us. I never before realized what music could do for a tired person, especially the bagpipes. It was not two minutes from the time he met us until we were all marching along as though on parade. I cannot remember why we would be up there, or what our mission was, but I remember very clearly the piper.
At this stage of the advance anything could happen. It must have been very well organized because the advance was going very well, but it seemed badly mixed up to us. The shelling was quite heavy at times and our casualties were quite bad as well. The continuous shelling was hard on the nerves now and, although we had a feeling by now that it was going our way, we could not see where it would stop too soon. Of course, there were rumours of an armistice, but after a couple of false alarms we lost hope of an early end. I remember one evening about dark everything seemed to quiet down all at once and someone said that they had heard that day there would be an armistice that night. The quiet lasted perhaps five minutes and then was as bad as ever.
One night we pulled into a place to stay overnight. It was in a large orchard or what was left of it and there were some real good billets there that Germans had built. They were about half underground with heavy rails and steel over the top of them and covered with a couple of feet of earth. Almost bomb proof except for a direct hit with a very heavy shell. It looked like a trap to me and I guess I was right. We had been there for perhaps a half hour and everything was very quiet, and the cooks had started the field kitchens and things looked OK for a supper and night’s rest. He was waiting for us all right and opened up with all the guns that could reach us. It was the worst mess I had ever seen. We were ordered to get out as quick as possible with the horses, but not to bother with the equipment. It was sure a tangled-up mess. We lost some men and quite a few horses were hit. I almost got clear when a big junk of shrapnel hit my saddle horse in the shoulder but did not put him out of commission, but slowed him down. I certainly felt sorry for the poor thing as he had gone through this before but now could not even see what was going on.
We pulled back perhaps a half a mile and did not bunch up so much this time in case he opened up again. We picked up most of our equipment the next day, but they took my horse back to remount that night to try and patch him up again. This was the first horse I had lost and hoped it was not going to be a habit. I never had a regular team after that, but lost a couple more horses.
Our battery was quite badly disorganized for a while, but managed to keep going, although it made a lot of extra trips for the horses. I have seen horses killed by concussion and there would not be a mark on them except the hooves would be blown off. The same thing would happen to a man and his shoes would be off. It is hard to understand, but these things happen. I had been under shellfire now practically all the time for almost two years and, although one would never get used to it, it seemed I felt as if there could only be one end, so it did not matter too much how it came, but we always hoped it would be a Blighty.
We were getting a superiority in almost all lines now as the Americans were arriving in larger numbers. We did not doubt the outcome. I remember […] watching a bombing raid going over. There were heavy bombers and fighting escorts. It was the first big bombing raid of that size pulled off, but I heard later it was not too much of a success.
We went through Charleroi [?], Denain and some more towns and were soon in sight of Valenciennes. We must have been held down around here for a couple of weeks and the fighting was heavy. I remember the night before we went into Valenciennes [October 31] with our teams. I think that it was the last time I was lost. I was sent away for something during the day and after travelling most of the day and along into the night I had nothing to eat and no feed for the horses, so I unharnessed them, tied them to the limber and had a sleep until morning. About five a.m., I started out again, found my way and was still one of the first teams in Valenciennes, as we had to wait for the engineers to get a temporary bridge across the canal in front of the town.
Valenciennes was badly shelled and was still being shelled heavily. The people had evacuated only a few days before we arrived and I remember we billeted in a hotel and there were all the instruments left there for quite a large brass band. We had to be very careful of anything before we touched it, as the Germans had booby-trapped everything before they left. If you started playing a piano, it would be liable to be blown to pieces.
The first Canadian troops to enter Valenciennes, November 1918. WILLIAM RIDER – RIDER/NAC/PA-003377
We worked out of Valenciennes a few days and on November 9, 1918, my leave came through for England, starting on the thirteenth. They were going to allow us four days to get from Valenciennes to London. There was no planned transportation, except on the boat across the Channel, and if we had bad luck it was going to be a hard walk.
Of all my trips away from the front, I think this was the one that I appreciated more than any other, as I thought I was getting old awful fast. As a matter of fact, I would be twenty-one in December, which was getting to be a ripe old age, that is as a soldier.
Another fellow and I started out and walked for two or three hours in the general direction of the coast, and we came to a railhead and there was a freight train pulling out. It was going to be the last train out of there as they were going to abandon the line. We did not know where it was going, but we piled into an empty boxcar and waited. As it was in November the nights were getting quite cold. There were about a half dozen of us in the car by now, and we started searching around for a way to keep warm and find something to eat. We found an old five-gallon can and some coal, and made a fire in the car, and then we found a field kitchen and brim bed and bought some bread, jam and cheese, so fared very well.
Our only trouble now was to get started and hope we would head somewhere in the general direction of the coast. At last we pulled out and were all quite happy and very comfortable. The old train pounded along until sometime in the night, perhaps two a.m., when it stopped. After a while we started looking around to see what was wrong, and that was as far as they could go as the track was blown up.
It was one of the darkest nights I think I have ever seen. You couldn’t see anything, not a sign of light in any direction. We started scouting around and found what we thought was a road, so we started following along it. It was not too good as it was one of the old battlefields of some months back and not fixed up too good.
We travelled until daylight and could see in the distance another train. We got to it about eight a.m. and it was a train made up with two passenger cars on it. We asked no questions, but climbed into one of the cars. We were only nicely settled when some of the R.R. officials came along and put us out as the cars were for officers only. We did not like this idea too well, so went around and got in the other side. Once more we were kicked off, but we out-waited them, and when it started to pull out we boarded again and away we went.
We had great luck and arrived in a city which I think must have been Arras and that was as far as it went. We started scouting around again and found a freight that was leaving for Le Havre, but the cars were all loaded and locked. When the train started, we all climbed on top of the cars and were on our way again. There was quite a crowd of us now, perhaps fifteen. It was not good transportation at all, as those small boxcars could certainly roll a lot and still stay on the rails. One place we came to and went through a tunnel. It was a very disagreeable experience as the tunnel was not too high from our backs and the cinders and coal were flying quite thick. I was sure we were going to be brushed off by the top of the tunnel, but we were lucky and came out the other end. After the sun came up it warmed up some, so were quite comfortable again.
We pulled into Le Havre about eleven-thirty a.m. and we thought all the Frenchmen were either drunk or crazy as they were all yelling and waving their arms. At last, as we slowed down, we could hear them and they all had the same song, la guerre finis (the war is ended). Of course, after hearing rumours before to the same effect we did not put too much dependence in them. But they were right. The Armistice had been signed at eleven a.m. It was a terrific feeling for us, also kind of an empty feeling, something that cannot be explained. We had been under a strain for so long that it seemed as though something had let go all at once.
We were the first troops from the front since the Armistice and were looked on with odd expressions. We found our way to the embarkation buildings and had our papers checked. A boat was to leave in a few hours, but we were informed that, as this was the eleventh and our leave did not start until the thirteenth, we would have to stay there for two days. There were about a dozen of us in the same mess and believe me I don’t think twelve people ever put up more of an argument or talked any louder than we did. At last they decided that if there was room aboard we could go.
When we pulled out that evening it was the first boat that crossed the Channel with lights on for over four years. Even the lights made us nervous. As there were no restrictions on crossing the Channel now, except possibly mines, we made very good time going over. There was a train at Dover and again it was the first train with lights for a long while.
We pulled into Waterloo Station, London, some time before midnight and I guess all of London was waiting for us. We still did not seem to realize the significance of the day, so were very unprepared for the reception that was there. The station was completely filled and as soon as we got to the main waiting room we were nabbed by two females and it was impossible to get clear of them. For once we were really popular. At last we got through and worked our way to the Maple Leaf Club. We left the girls in the lobby and went out the back way to the street. Of course, we never saw them again. We could not be bothered with girls that night.
J Battery, No. 3 Company, 4th C.M.G. Battalion in Belgium. Johnston stands at the far right of the fourth row. JFC
London was certainly in an uproar. All wheeled traffic was stopped and Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and the Strand were packed solid. I guess no one slept that night. The next day I pulled out for Edinburgh as there was no chance of any rest in London and I needed a couple of days to catch up on sleep. I stayed in Edinburgh for a week and returned to London and spent the rest of my fourteen days there. We returned to France I believe a few days late this time and everything seemed so strange there now.
Two divisions were sent to Germany as occupational troops and our division was billeted a short way outside Brussels, about two miles from Waterloo at Fischermont farm. We had very little drilling now, some picket duty and some lectures. We were very little interested in lectures on the care of horses, etc. now but had to tolerate them. As an example — one afternoon we were all in a large tent with plank seats having a lecture on laminitis and the care of horses’ feet, which was very interesting. It was quite warm and the fellow sitting next to me with a few too many beers in him went to sleep. After a while he woke up partly, looked around, could not remember where he was, but as he heard this old major spouting off, said in good, clear language, “You are full of …” He certainly woke up quickly then as about four MPs grabbed on to him. It just about spoiled the lecture though.
Johnston back home in Notre Dame, 1919. JFC
I chummed with a fellow by the name of Charles Breedon at this time and he was cooking for four officers. Once again, I was on the inside as far as eats went as they certainly were well fed. Each week there would be all kinds of their rations left, including tea, sugar, bully beef, etc. and we used to go to Waterloo about two nights a week and take a sandbag full of this extra with us to get our beer, wine, etc. with. We would sell it to the fellow who ran the restaurant. Of course, civilians were not supposed to buy any army supplies, but we used to sell it cheap.
One night we ran out of beer early in the evening and one of the fellows thought he had a good idea. When we would make our bargain with the owner of the restaurant regarding the price, we would take the bag and put it out in a back room. Well, this schemer went out, around to a back door and brought the same bag in and sold it again. He must have been doing a pretty good business, buying this way, because this same stunt was pulled on him several times and he never seemed to get wise. Of course, he would not lose much as all we got went back into wine, beer, coffee, etc. and it was all pretty cheap stuff.
We spent a very quiet Christmas this year and everyone was getting very restless about getting home. We thought that the ones who had the longer service in France should be given the preference, but I guess it made no difference. On April 13, 1919, I left Lasne and went to the 44th Infantry Battalion at Overische. We had to march seventeen kilometres, but did not mind it too much now as we were supposed to be heading towards home. On April 17, we left Overische with the 44th and landed at Le Havre on the 19th. I left England for Canada on the Empress of Britain and arrived at Quebec on June 3. I went by train to Saint John,
N.B., where we received our discharge on June 6, 1919. I arrived back in Moncton that night.
I was met at the station by Ben Lockhart who took me into Notre Dame where they had a party for me. Mother had a real big dinner for everyone and I guess all were very happy. It was almost three years since I had seen any of the folks and the one thing that surprised me was in the difference of the younger folks. They seemed to have aged so much more than the older people. I believe I came home as well physically as when I went away, but my nerves were not too good and I remember a lot of nights I would get up and when no one else was around have to go for a long walk. After some time this seemed to wear off and soon I was back to a new life again.
