Item 04: Walter Bruce Rainsford diary, 3 January 1917-31 December 1917 - Page 68

You are here

Transcription

[Page 68]

about 7.30 pm in motor lorries which took us right up to Ypres. Before reaching the town we passed close to some big gun batteries firing big stuff and belching forth fire & smoke into the night.

On arriving at a viaduct on the outskirts of the town we got out of the lorries with gas helmets at the alert and marched in single file through the shattered ruins of a fine old Belgian city. We finally arrived about 10 pm at some decent dugouts built into a portion of the old ramparts once surrounding Ypres. We got in here for the night and notwithstanding the heavy gunfire in the vicinity, managed to get a sleep before turning out at 4.30 am. The Bearer Sub. Divisions of the 3 Sections & Tent sub-divisions of A & C left immediately for the Advanced Dressing Station about a mile the other side of the town on the Menin Road and not too far from M. Fritz. Our tent sub-div had to await orders at the Ramparts. We were quite close to what was left of the old railway station now a mass of ruins – in fact the whole town was nothing but heaps of stone & brick and shattered walls of various buildings. There is practically nothing left of the Cathedral & the famous

This page has its status set to Completed and is no longer transcribable.