The Bugle and The Passing Bell, Part 1 - Canada answers the call
Stories from those who lived to tell them. This series draws on the testimony of 200 Canadians who fought in WW1, recorded by CBC Radio in 1964. The men's stories are supplemented by letters, war diaries, military reports and poetry. In this episode: Who were the men who rushed to sign up? And how did they feel as they left Canada with their guns and horses to fight the army of the German Kaiser? It was a rough journey to war; filthy troopships and months in rain-soaked tents in England but by January 1915 they were in France in makeshift trenches and taking their first casualties.
August 4, 1914, Canada Enters World War One
When Canada's volunteer soldiers signed up to serve in World War One, many of them felt energized to serve for the British Empire. And they couldn't imagine the horror and death they were about to face. The video below features some of their thoughts, before they boarded ships with their guns and horses to fight the army of the German Kaiser.
The voices in the video belong to the following soldiers: R. Stevens PPCLI (Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry), F.G. Layton LSHG (Lake Superior Horse Guards), F.Dawson of 7th Battalion, and E.J.Owens of 2nd Battalion.
The terrible battles of the first world war turned the green fields of France and Belgium into moonscapes of mud, death and destruction. And even now, a century later, the ground still delivers sharp reminders of that terrible carnage as unexploded weapons - shells, bullets, grenades, and even canisters loaded with poison gas - come to the surface. The farmers fields around the town of Ypres for example yield so much of this so-called "iron harvest" that bomb disposal experts perform two controlled explosions every day. This is a landscape that holds its history – a place of heroism and horror – and a place where many returning soldiers said Canada lost its youth but became a nation.
About the series:
In 1964 – to mark the 50th anniversary of the beginning of world war one, a CBC radio team interviewed over 200 men who fought in the war and lived to tell the tale. From this huge body of eye witness testimony came a 17-hour series called Flanders Fields. The programmes were broadcast once and then stored in the CBC archives. In the summer of 2014 – to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the war - CBC producer Steve Wadhams opened up this remarkable archive to make ten half-hour documentaries called The Bugle and The Passing Bell.
The bugle is a call to action. The passing bell calls us to a funeral.
The interviews with the World War 1 Canadian veterans were recorded by a team led by legendary CBC broadcaster J. Frank Willis. Find the list of soldiers names interviewed in the series here.
The documents and poems were read by Pedro Mendes, Bill Knott, Graham Wright and Chris Berube.
The poems in this episode were the Canadian soldier's poem Goodbye Ma, goodbye Pa and excerpts from The Send-Off by Wilfred Owen and They by Siegfried Sassoon. Both these men were British and both fought in the World War One. Siegfried Sassoon was wounded and Wilfred Owen was killed in action in November 1918 exactly one week before the war ended.
Listen to other episodes in the series:
The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 2 - Baptism of fire and Deadly Stealth
The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 3 - Siege warfare and Newfoundland's day of the dead
The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 4 - The war in the air/Vimy Ridge & Passchendaele
The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 5 - Pushing on the Victory