"Well, we have lost an awful lot of our fellows, and to
those of us who are left it seems just a miracle that any of us came through alive. How I did not get hit I do not know, but I was one of the lucky ones that got through it without a scratch, although I got several bullet holes through my clothes.
About two brigades of Canadians held about five times as many Germans. It would have done you good to see the boys. We held the Germans and charged them back. Shooting, slashing, stabbing, bashing. It all took half an hour as the clock showed afterwards when things had calmed down. There were no more! Only corpses, a few ragged,
dreadfully trembling prisoners, otherwise all dead! Heaps! Heaps! Until they started to use that awful gas. We had to retreat or we would have been cut right
off.
It was just a nightmare, a hell, retreating across the ground, the shrapnel raining down upon us, and the bullets striking everywhere. We could see the boys falling everywhere, and it was just awful to hear them cry out. I have never experienced such a thing, never want to experience it again and will never speak of it again." Fred Adams, Canadian Expeditonary Force,May 2, 1915, Ypres, Belgium. #stayzero #ww1 #reality #war #diaries