 |
||
|
Tizzard’s Harbour June 22nd 1931 Dear Sir:- Rec’d your letter some time ago asking me to write a statement of what I went through in the N.F.L.D Regt; I will do so to the best of my knowledge although, I’m not much of a writer and first of all its hard for me to sit down & write for what I endured, in the war. I joined the N.F.L.D. Regt., in Feb 1915 and was attached to D Co, & sailed from St. Johns, in March & was one of the first that landed in the dardenell’s in our Regt, that wonderful day in August or the 1st Sep. Just before day break & in charge of our Co, Capt March who was liked by all of his men. At day light the Turk’s started to shell us where a good many of our men where killed & wounded spent some time there & in Suez where we had it very hard both places in 1916 we were in France & in June 29th 1916 I was one of the 50 men who took part in the raid that was made on the German Trenches at Beaumont Hamel with Capt. Butler in charge that terrible night when we beat our way to the German front line, where we put up a wonderful fight. I heard the screams from the German’s when they first heard us. And on July 1st was more then I could stand bullets was flying everywhere & with in a couple of hundred yards from the Germans lines I got a bullet throw my right lung, & thought all was up & was a bomber at that time, with twenty miles bombs on me & was down, & bullets flying around me, it was a hard sight, anyway I keep my head & the first thing that I did was to get clear the bombs which I rolled from my neck & by that time I was bleeding a lot, most of all the blood came out of my mouth on account of my breathing & then I knew if I stead there I would die. So I started to get back, & hawling myself along with one arm, for my right I could not move, & bullets sticking in the ground around me everywhere & sometime that day I got back to our trenches & just as I was rolling in over Capt. Summers came to my rescue & there in our trenches was full of dead wounded soldiers & Capt. Summer helped me in our trench & got behind me & put his hands up under my arms & helped me to a dug out where the red cross attended me I knew nothing more until day light the following morning. I was on my way to the Hospital in Roughn, for twelve days I was on the pervious list more dead then alive. & when I was of the pervious list I was sent to England to Wandsworth Hospital where the doctor told me I just escaped, with the bullet on either side from where it went. In Feb 1917 I went to the front again where I spent a terrible hard time & in April 14th I was taken prisoners & its little a year ago that I wrote a statement about that, & I guess if you would like to see that you could get it from the Justice Department. Hoping this will help you in your good work. I remain yours truly, Arthur F. Osmond.
Source: The Rooms, Provincial
Archives, St. John's, NL |
||
|
The Regiment The Battle Soldier/Family Stories Commemoration Additional Information |
||