BX January 12, 1917

Interesting Portrayal of the Engineers – Sapper W. Hunt, 10th Field Co., Writes to St. Jude’s A.Y.P.A. – The Rum Ration – Though Never in a Bar-room in His Life, Sapper Hunt Defends the Issue of Rum to the Men in the Trenches – The Life of an Army Engineer

In sending from France a letter of thanks to the members of St. Jude’s Y.Y.P.A., Sapper Walter James Hunt, of the 10th Field Company, Canadian Engineers, gives a most interesting portrayal of the work of the engineers. A defense of the rum issued to the men is given by Sapper Hunt. If the people here understood conditions at the front they would not be advising celery tea as an alternative, he declares. His letter follows:

I wish to thank you for the most generous Christmas box that you sent me. Whoever thought out the different things that were in it certainly has a good idea of what a soldier wants most and appreciates. We get all the substantial food that we need out here, but it is the little luxuries like those which were in the box that we often long for, but cannot get out here, and things are a bit different than they are in Canada. I received the box all O.K. last night. It could not have arrived at a more convenient time, as we are now on a new part of the line and settled for a while. I received Miss Dawson’s bright and newsy letter about two weeks ago telling me about the box and I hope at the time that we would be settled before it arrived and sure enough we were. We are in pretty swell billets here – nice clean wooden huts with corrugated iron roofs. There are about seventy of us in the hut I am in and we have three stoves in it, so you see we are very fortunate. Then it is all fitted up with nice large bunks. A lower and upper one. They are built on each side of the hut with a wide aisle in the center; the bunks have a double thickness of heavy mesh wire covered with burlap to sleep on and burlap on the ends so we are certainly comfortable.

I guess some of you wonder what the engineer’s work is. Some of them, the army troop companies, do mostly repair work of all kinds behind the lines, but the field companies work consists of laying out and putting in new trenches, repairs to old ones, putting up barbed wire, draining trenches, blowing up strong points or bridges in retreat. The engineers are a force principally for erecting fortifications to resist and deter the enemy and keeping things in the field in order and repair. In more open warfare they build bridges and roads for the army to pass over. Then there is the branch of engineers which puts up telephone and electric wire, overland and through the trenches. However I don’t know much about that line of work, as I am in a field company.

We are treated well out here by our officers and the health of the troops is marvelous. That is because we are well supplied with warm clothing and get proper food and medicine if we need it. In olden days they say that sickness and disease killed more than what the enemy did, but a man seldom leaves his unit now on account of sickness. As you know all the boys have been vaccinated and inoculated for typhoid and all the drinking water we use is always chemically treated to kill any germs or impurities in it. It is a crime to drink any water not passed by the medical officer, unless in cases of emergency, so the health of the army is kept up.
Sometimes we have it a bit tough, as all days and kinds of weather are alike in the army, as the war has to go on. When we are on the move we have it worst. I have been so soaked through that when we got to our billets for the night my shoes were squirting water at every step, so I have taken them off, let the water run out and light a couple of pieces of candle and turn my shoes upside down with the lighted candles burning inside. You ought to see them steam!  Then we wring out our socks and dry our feet and take our socks to bed with us, and they will be fairly dry in the morning. So on the next day and perhaps repeat the performance at night again.

On our way here we passed through a large mining town. We stayed there a couple of days and the manager of the mines informed us that there were large shower baths at the mines for the miners, and kindly invited all the soldiers in town to make use of them. My how we enjoyed that bath. We were all issued with clean underclothes and socks and a large towel before we went in. It was a large building and would hold about 500 bathers at once. There were shower baths with all kinds of hot water and we felt just like kings afterwards. We left most of our equipment in that town and went about seven miles to build a rifle range, at an instruction camp. We were there about a week and came back for our stuff, so I thigh I would have another bath before we left for the lines, so up I goes with towel and soap, but the place was crowded with German prisoners. A line of them was waiting its turn, so I didn’t get my bath. I wish you could have seen some of the prisoners, I’ve seen a lot of them at work behind the lines, and others just as they were taken prisoners and being taken to a cage. Some are pretty husky, but the majority are a pretty scrubby lot of men with ferret eyes and pale faces. Germany has her best against us on the western front. I think her reserves are getting pretty low. Anyway, he is asking for peace.

Well, I guess I will draw to a close and might I state a fact without offending you. I see by the papers that in Canada some people imagine that the army life is apt to make drunkards out of us, and are doing all in their power to bar the soldiers from liquor of any kind. I have never been in a bar-room in my life, so I am not speaking to uphold the liquor people’s interests. People cannot understand the conditions out here. Imagine the boys in the trenches for hours, often in pouring rain and standing in water knee deep, throughout the long dreary night, holding the line and guarding our fair land from the Hun. They are chilled to the bone and often you cannot tell the color of their clothing for mud and slime. They can make no celery tea, as has been suggested by people who cannot conceive what the conditions are, but they stand there on guard, tramping their feet in the water mud trying to keep warm. The little rum that is issued to them is not a drink. It is only a necessary stimulant, scarcely a quarter of a cup. If people could only see what things are they would not talk of celery tea for the trenches. The army is not going to issue anything that is un-needful or harmful for the man. I might add that the rum ration is only issued in winter months. So I will close, again thanking you for the parcel and wishing the A.Y.P.A. every success.

Walter

BX June 1, 1917
 
A Blast From France
 
May 9, 1917,
France
 
To the Editor of the Expositor
 
Sir,

I have just read the newspaper clipping from The Brantford Expositor dated April 7, reporting the Trades and Labor council running down military training in the schools and saying that soldiering is degrading. The low-down cusses. If it wasn’t for the khaki-clad men that they call degenerates, they wouldn’t be going to their beds in peace and safety each night. If Canada did right and had conscription no doubt some of these so-called “men” (?) would be over here and would change their opinion, instead of staying at home and comparing us with Germans by saying soldiering leads to what happened in Belgium and Serbia. The same thing would happen to their wives and sisters if the country depended on “men” (?) like them to uphold its honor and defend it.

It’s too late to start raising an army after all our womanhood has been outraged and mutilated like those who suffered here. If those so-called “men” (?) had the nerve to come over here and see the conditions of modern warfare, and see their comrades lying on the battlefield or hanging over the wire, they would hasten to enlist themselves, instead of staying at home and sowing discord and causing sorrow to soldiers’ dear ones who are bravely carrying on.

My fellow comrades, among whom are many trade unionists, including myself, are more than surprised and disgusted that such statements and “men” (?) are allowed to live undisputed.

God grant that I will never be called upon to make the extreme sacrifice to defend such parasites as these.
 
From one of the so-called degenerates,
 
Sapper W. Hunt, 10th Field Co.,
Canadian Engineers

BX January 9, 1919
 
Furlough of Brantford Boy Spent in Italy – Visited the Catacombs, Naples, Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius – Viewed the Crater
 
Mrs. E. Hunt, 141 Rawdon Street, has recently received letters from her son, Spr. Walter James Hunt, Canadian Engineers, in France, telling how he spent the twenty days’ leave given him in November. Spr. Hunt has been on active service in France since September, 1916, and this his second annual leave proved very welcome to him, judging from the letters written home. The twenty days granted him for his own were spent travelling to Italy by way of Switzerland and viewing the sights of Ancient Rome, Naples and other time-honored parts of Southern Italy. He returned from leave on Nov. 11 and arrived in Paris when the news that the armistice was signed, was received. Needless to say Spr. Hunt rejoiced and demonstrated in Paris just as much as we did in Brantford, but when he reported at his company the next day he was suffering from a severe attack of the “flu.”  Two weeks were spent in the hospital, and at the time of the writing of the following letter he was in a rest camp on the French sea shore.
 
Dear Mother,
 
Did you receive my last letter, telling you how I spent my leave?  I’m not sure whether I told you about my visit to the Catacombs, which are situated nearly five miles from the city of Rome. One day the four Australians, who I was chumming with and myself, decided to go and view the Catacombs, so hiring two carriages we departed for them. Arriving there we secured the services of an old monk, who explained to us that these catacombs were underground galleries that the early Christians built to worship in and buried their dead. Each supplied with wax candles, we descended into the first catacomb, munching some pieces of chocolate purchased from the monk. This particular catacomb had five floors, one below the other. The monk stated that there were over 17,000 Christians buried in it. As we were walking along the passages, he explained how the bodies were entombed. The dead body would be placed on a shelf carved out of the solid rock, then a slab fitted in the mouth, the crevices being tightly sealed with mortar. The bodies lie today untouched and in good condition, except a few that have been taken out and placed in air-tight glass cased.

From Rome the Australians and I went to Naples, which is 240 miles away. After breakfast a guide was found and for the sum of 35 lira each ($7.00) he offered to take us to Mt. Vesuvius and also to the ancient city of Pompeii, 18 miles away. In the agreement he was to pay all car fares, entrance fees and for our lunch. An hour and a half after our departure from Rome, we arrived at Pompeii. This city was destroyed in the year 78 by an eruption from Mt. Vesuvius. First the ashes came, and then the cinders, and the inhabitants began to flee, excepting a few that remained, and the prisoners in the prisons. The ashes covered everything and protected the city from the red hot lava which followed. The once prosperous city was entirely hidden and forgotten till a few years ago it was discovered by some Italian workmen. A pipe line was being laid from the mountain to the towns in the valley. To get the proper grade the workmen were forced to dig through stretches of lava when it crossed their path. One day part of a city was brought to view. The government was notified and sent down experts and laborers with orders to excavate the ruins, and to use the grates care in preserving everything in doing so. It was not long before they found that this was the ruing of ancient Pompeii. The lava had kept everything air-tight and things were found remarkably well preserved. The houses had bathrooms, which contained fountains fed by lead water pipes. In the streets were many fountains, each of which had lead pipes leading to them, which showed that over 2000 years ago man had pumping stations in use to force the water through the pipes. We were shown several bake shops. The old stone grist mill was still in place, and in the adjoining room were the ovens which look like modern bakers ovens, only these are smaller. I would judge they would hold about 300 loaves of bread each. Here and there along the streets were stores with huge serpents painted on the walls. These monstrous and ugly things were supposed to denote poison, and the poison to denote the man of poisons, the druggist. All the houses were profusely decorated with statuary and paintings, all very fine work. In some of the dwellings artists were copying paintings from the walls and selling them to the sightseers. In the roads were deep ruts, worn by chariot wheels, showing how long the city must have been populated before it was destroyed. The floors of the houses are beautiful, all done in mosaic. In the entrance of one house is the picture of a snarling dog done in mosaic, and underneath is the inscription in Latin, “Beware of the Dog.”  Truly the old saying holds good, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

After seeing Pompeii we had lunch, and then took the cars to Vesuvius. Arriving at the bottom of the mountain, we got into an electric pusher, which took us to the steepest part, when we changed into an incline car, which went the rest of the distance. The last part of the ascent was very steep, almost perpendicular. We were just 50 minutes from the time we started at the bottom till we reached the top. Following the guide we walked to the crater, which is two and a half miles across. A heavy smoke smelling strongly of sulphur was rising. We peered down in but could see only vast clouds of smoke, so a couple of others and I with a guide, went about 150 feet into the crater, climbing down by the aid of iron pegs driven into the wall. A terrible sound was coming from below, like artillery fire, or waves washing on the seashore. This, the guide said was the red hot lava washing around below. At last our patience was rewarded, a gust of wind blew the smoke to one side and we were able to see the seething and foaming lava far below. As we were nearly choked by the strong smell of sulphur, we climbed to the top. I brought some lava with me and intend to bring it home when I come as a remembrance of my last leave and the sights I saw when I visited the catacombs and Mt. Vesuvius.