{"id":2201,"date":"2015-01-08T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T08:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/?p=2201"},"modified":"2016-06-07T16:53:13","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T23:53:13","slug":"friday-8-january-1915-rain-and-little-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/2015\/01\/08\/friday-8-january-1915-rain-and-little-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday 8 January 1915 \u2013 Rain and little sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2201-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Friday_January_8_1915.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Friday_January_8_1915.mp3\">http:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Friday_January_8_1915.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\nA night of fearful agony passed and morn breaks with a big gun salute from our battery and sniping from the German trenches. About 10 o\u2019clock till dusk there is a horrible hellish bombardment and shells fall into our trenches. Rained heavy and some sun. Cold wet and terribly agonising. In the midst of this bombardment I am wounded by a shell, 11 am. Have to wait until 5:30 pm until I can be attended to. Then I have to put on my marching orders and take my rifle, (blind as I am) to the field dressing station. As we get out of the trench the German snipers keep up a rapid fire at us but luckily miss us. As we pass by the trench occupied by No. 5 platoon we hear the sickening sensation of a man groaning in his agony. He had been shot by a sniper and the bullet had penetrated his abdomen. He died later that night as also did Captain Newton of No. 3 Company who received a similar wound. Bullets were now flying thick around us and several of our men were shot. We reached the road, which was \u201cshot to pieces\u201d by large shells known to the troops as \u201cJack Johnsons\u201d and \u201cBlack Marias\u201d. Not being able to see clearly I naturally found out where the holes were located. When we reached the Village of Groote Vierstraat we found out to our surprise that no-one knew where the dressing station was. So I got a party together and left the offices and made for Dickebush. At two places on the way we asked to be attended to but they refused \u2013 too busy \u2013 so I made for an hotel and had coffee, chops and bread and then reported to the General Hospital at Dickebush where my eye was operated upon and some splinters taken out. I stayed here all night cold wet thro\u2019 and shivering through exposure. I had to walk three miles to get attention; in agony, carrying a Rifle and accoutrements. I had not tasted biscuits nor bread for three days, living on Bully beef and jam.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>*Jack Johnsons and Black Marias \u2013 High explosive shells from German artillery were nicknamed Black Marias or sometimes Jack Johnsons after the black US boxer who at the time was the heavyweight champion of the world. After impact these shells would burst with a large cloud of black smoke.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A night of fearful agony passed and morn breaks with a big gun salute from our battery and sniping from the German trenches. About 10 o\u2019clock till dusk there is a horrible hellish bombardment and shells fall into our trenches. Rained heavy and some sun. Cold wet and terribly agonising. In the midst of this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[648,30],"tags":[674,671,676,669,675,673,340,672,670],"class_list":{"0":"post-2201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-648","7":"category-diary-entries","8":"tag-black-marias","9":"tag-captain-newton","10":"tag-dickebush","11":"tag-german-snipers","12":"tag-groote-vierstraat","13":"tag-jack-johnsons","14":"tag-mp3","15":"tag-no-3-company","16":"tag-no-5-platoon","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2201"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6224,"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201\/revisions\/6224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monova.ca\/greatwarchronicles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}