Canadian Infantry WW1

This is just a quick follow-up video to my last one. I had managed to forget to put one or two items on and then I found a few more. The main one I'd forgotten to do was this. This, at the beginning of the war when the British were looking for a steel helmet, this was one of the designs that they were looked at. They found it a bit too flimsy, too weak, but the Portuguese used this. This is an original. I think it's got this original paintwork on. It's got its original liner in. The chinstrap's come a bit loose there but it just wants resewing again. The Portuguese did use Brody helmets as well later on but they did use a lot of those. Just yesterday I went to a military fair not far from me and there's a chap there selling these. These are original First World War postcards and he was selling them separately. There's about 100 in there, just over 100, and I thought I'd just make him an offer for the whole book and I got it at a really good price. They're all French ones, they're French postcards from the First World War, real ones, and a few more dug up items. That is a horse's bit. It's got a brass badge on the side there. It's got two cross cannons and a flaming grenade. That's French, that's for the French artillery. Then I bought this a while back. This is a German bayonet found on the Somme and this is a fuse off an artillery shell. That's a Russian one. If you look there, that little blob on there, that shows it's a Russian one. Also during the First World War, the Germans experimented with these. This is a hand grenade, it's called a turtle grenade. Because the ordinary stick grenades and the British mills grenades had a timer, if you threw it into an enemy trench they did have time to throw it back. The Germans came up with this idea. Those little plungers there, when it hit anything it went off, but there was a problem because if the Germans were throwing it and it slipped out of the hand so I don't think they were used very much after the First World War. This is one of the iconic items. It's the Christmas Merry Christmas tin that was sent out to all the troops. It was inaugurated by Princess Mary. It was her idea and she was going to fund it herself out of her own money, but there was going to be that many soldiers to give it to. A committee was set up and inside there'd be a card. That one's actually dated 1915 because it was just too late to get them all out for the first Christmas. There's a little note in there, it says with best wishes for a victorious new year from the Princess Mary and friends at home. This one's got its actual original content, that's a packet of tobacco and some cigarettes. There's a few gone but there's some still left in there, that's still all complete. Princess Mary got that idea from Queen Victoria in the Boer War. She sent chocolate out to all her troops on the new year of 1900 and the chocolate, they asked the chocolate making companies in England at the time to supply the chocolate and they were J.S. Ryan Sons, the Cadbury Brothers and the Roundtree Company. But all the owners of those companies were Quakers so they didn't want to make profit from the war so they donated all the chocolate for free. Then we've got another item, all British soldiers will have a first aid dressing pouch, that's an original one, it's dated 1916, it's never been used. Then also with the Christmas New Year gift there was these bullet pencils, they were originally issued to the Royal Navy then they were issued to the soldiers as well. The case is actually, they're all made from an actual case that was used somewhere in France, they got that. Then this, and no it's not for scooping out honey, every French soldier in the First World War would have one of these, it's actually a sewing kit. All around those grooves there, there would be different coloured threads for repairing the uniform, unscrew this, there's a brad all there, that's for making holes in your leather equipment if that needed repairing. And also, screwed on the bottom, got needles in there to repair your uniform, so every French soldier would have one of those. Then also we've got this, this is another iconic item for the British Army, this is the rum ration jar. The SRD stands for Supply Reserve Depot, but knowing the British soldiers, they had nicknames for it, one of them was Seldom Reaches Destination. And finally we have this, this is a collapsible trench lantern, I think it's a French made one, you open it up and get it right, how does it work now, away we go, it's a bit complicated, give us a minute, cut that there, and that all clicks into place, there's a candle in there, the first thing is to open you've got a trench lantern, but then you can fold it up and put it in your backpack and take it away. So there you go, this is just another quick uniform video, this is going to be, the Canadian one that follows this is the last one in the First World War series, after that I'm going on to the Second World War. Now in the British Army, pistols were normally just only issued to officers, but others could be issued with them as well, non-commissioned officers would have them, tank crew and machine gunners. This outfit is made up what a machine gunner may have looked like, the leather jerkin that came in in the First World War usually kept them warm, it had a blanket lining inside for the cold winters, and they were used in the Second World War as well and beyond, and they would wear an up and top holster with the revolver in, and the little leather ammunition pouch on the left hand side of the picture, that belonged to my great uncle, he was killed on the 30th of April 1918, and we did a bit of a history of him, and we found out that about two months before he was killed, he was trained to be a Lewis machine gunner, so we believe he may have looked something like this. There are a lot of impressive monuments to the First World War in France and Belgium, but oh my goodness, this must be one of the most impressive, it's the Canadian War Memorial on top of Vimy Ridge, it stands on hill 145, which is the highest point on the ridge, and it commemorates 60,000 Canadian soldiers who died in the First World War. It was designed by a chap called Walter S. Alward, he was a Canadian artist and sculptor, and it was made from special limestone brought in from what is now Croatia, it stands nearly 89 feet tall, that's 27 meters to all you young folk out there, well we have to change that, if those measurements were good enough for those people in those days, it should be good enough for us, and on the walls are the names of 11,285 Canadians who have no known grave, and also on the monument there are 20 large carved figures all around it, each one was carved in position from just one piece of stone, they put temporary covers over the tops so the men could work on them, and the work started in 1925 and it was unveiled in July 1936 by King Edward VIII during his very short reign. At the start of the war the Canadians had developed a set of leather equipment, this was known as the Oliver 1916 pattern, but during training they realised it wasn't going to be suitable for the Western Front, so when the Canadian army set sail in 1916 they left all this equipment behind, and when they got to France they were issued with the 08 pattern cotton equipment, so this leather equipment was never actually used in in France or Belgium. Now the first item I bought from this was the leather belt, I found this on eBay a few years ago, and when it was delivered I messaged the seller to see if he had original leather ammunition pouches to go with it, and surprisingly enough he said yes I do actually, and he also had some reproduction leather shoulder straps, so we agreed a price and it turned out we don't live that far apart from each other, we're about 20 minutes away, so he said he would come down and bring them and save on the postage. So when we met up it turns out that he's a collector as well, this is all First World War as well, he has a very impressive collection of German pickle horbs and British medal groupings, his name's Mike, and later on as well a few years, well just earlier this year, he asked did I want to buy this Canadian tunic as well, it is original, it's badged up to a sergeant, and if you look on the left sleeve it has two wound stripes, it did have some coloured cloth arm badge as well, but they were reproduction so I've left those off for now because I just wanted to keep this as a fully original uniform, and also Mike has a Canadian Ross rifle which I don't have, so he's very kindly offered to let me make a film of it and I'll put on the end of the video to show you the rifle, and also during the First World War the Canadians wore the usual cap like that, it was a stiffened top, stiffened peak, this was actually made after the First World War, it's what's known as the 22 pattern, the only difference being the peak on this one is slightly larger than the ones from the First World War. Around the back you can see the broad leather yoke around the shoulders for the shoulder straps, then the water bottle, that's original but the leather carrying case that's a replica, then on the left hand side we have the bayonet for the Ross rifle. In early April 1917 the Allies were planning for the Battle of Arras, and part of the offensive they needed to take the German positions on top of Vimy Ridge, this job was given to the Canadians, there were four Canadian divisions and one British division, they were under the command of Field Marshal Bing, who was known by his friends as Bungo, and he knew that a lot of the officers would either be killed or wounded, so there was extensive training so all the NCOs and all the men knew exactly where they were going and what had to be done, and two weeks before the offensive started the Canadian artillery bombarded the German positions to try and destroy as much as possible, then on the 9th of April, which turned out to be very cold with sleet and snow, at 5.30am in the morning the Canadian artillery opened fire, 30 seconds later several mines were detonated underneath the German strong points, and then the troops set off under a creeping barrage, and by 6.25am that day the first objective was captured, but it wasn't all easy going, there was a lot of toing and froing, the Germans counter-attacked, and like Bing predicted a lot of the officers were killed, but the NCOs carried on and moved the men forward, and sometimes the men would even go forward on their own, because of all the training everybody knew where they were going and what had to be done, but eventually by 6pm on the 12th of April the final objective was taken, this was to become a defining moment for Canada and her army, and that's why they chose Bimmy Ridge for their memorial. A number of problems with it, far too long, it's far longer than the standard British infantry rifle of the first world war, and indeed far longer than the German infantry rifle of the first world war, unlike the British rifle it only has a five round magazine, the British SMLE was 10 rounds, and the box magazine that you can see here which is integral, although reinforced on later marks, was an early flimsy version which could be dented and stop the rounds from feeding. It was made of very very high tolerances, so there were numerous problems, not least the problems of dirt, if the weapon wasn't cleaned properly, if there was excess dirt around the mechanism it wouldn't cycle around in or out of the breech, there was a spring weakness in the magazine itself and initially a flaw in the ejection of the bolt, if it was assembled the wrong way it could potentially be hazardous to the operator. Its main advantage was that it was what's called a straight pull, in as much as you don't have to cycle the bolt you just have to pull it backwards, that would cycle it forward, that would take a round into the breech. Because of its poor performance on the western front it was decided that by early 1916 all of them should be withdrawn and they should be replaced by the short magazine Lee-Enfield, however they were retained as sniper rifles because of their inherent accuracy, and numerous ones were sent to Russia in the 1920s and again they were reissued for use by the Home Guard during the Second World War, this is a rare survivor. As most service rifles were issued with a bayonet the Ross was no exception, because of its overall length it was felt unnecessary to issue a weapon that was similar to the British short magazine Lee-Enfield 1907 pattern bayonet with an 18 inch blade, consequently this small knife bayonet was developed for use with the Ross rifle. As you can see it is around a 12 inch blade and is engaged on the bayonet lug and onto the barrel to give an overall length which is well over six feet long. When the weapon was withdrawn in 1916 there was clearly no real use for a bayonet for a rifle that was no longer going to be used as a frontline service weapon, so many of these had their locking catches removed and their upper surfaces ground sharp and they were issued as fighting knives and that indeed is how you will see many of them for sale at military ashores.