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The first poison gas
attack: In 1915 at Ypres

PHOTO: Handout photo, The
Canadian Press
German prisoners
wear gas masks in Ypres, France in an April, 1915 file photo.Gas warfare, which
recently killed hundreds of people in Syria, actually began on a sunny morning
almost a century ago, and among its first victims were hundreds of
Canadians.

Canadian
soldiers - including B.C. brothers Russell and Frank Chaffey - were caught in a
poison gas attack. The bravery they showed is almost beyond
comprehension

by John
Mackie,
Vancouver Sun
Originally published:
May 26, 2014

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It’s timely to remember the first Canadians who had to deal with chemical
weapons — the soldiers of the First Canadian Division in the second battle of
Ypres on April 22-24, 1915.

The Canadians had the bad luck to be situated smack dab in the middle of the
first poison gas attack in history. After several days of intense fighting,
6,000 soldiers — half the Canadian force — were dead, wounded, or taken prisoner
of war. But, against all odds, they had beaten back a vastly bigger German army,
holding their ground in the face of chlorine gas and withering fire.

“It’s a really big battle for the Canadians,” said Tim Cook, author of No
Place To Run (UBC Press, 1999), which examines the Canadian corps and gas
warfare in the First World War.

“It makes their name. All of a sudden they’re not just these colonials,
they’re the guys who withstood the first gas attack and overwhelming German
numbers and shells and held the ground.”

Two brothers from Vancouver were in the battle — Privates Russell and Frank
Chaffey.

Russell’s First World War letters to his cousin Lizzie Geddans were recently
discovered by Don Stewart of MacLeod’s Books at an estate sale.

The letters provide a heartbreaking insight into the epic tragedy of Ypres.
Not because they talk about the horrors of the battle — Russell never discusses
any fighting in detail. The horror in the letters is that Frank goes missing at
Ypres, and is never found.

The letters start off jaunty and filled with optimism: Russell talks about
going to plays and concerts in London, and hopes to be sent to France soon. But
the tone changes after the Canadians are sent to the front. Life in the trenches
is cold, wet and miserable. Russell is soon almost pleading with his his cousin
to send him fresh underwear (“I have worn my present garments ever since leaving
England!!!”), cigarettes and razor blades.

In England, his writing was very elegant and neat; after he’s moved to the
front it becomes progressively more harried and illegible (at one point, he
writes “please excuse the unsteady scribble”).

Russell is with the 7th Battalion of the 2nd Brigade, while Frank is with the
16th Battalion of the 3rd Brigade. The two battalions are located near each
other, and the brothers are able to see each other frequently in March and
April. “Frank seems quite flourishing,” Russell writes on March 18.

But it all changes at 4 p.m. on April 22, when the Germans launch operation
“Disinfection.” A furious bombardment is followed by the release of 160 tons of
chlorine gas from 5,730 canisters. The green-grey gas is spread more than six
kilometres wide and almost a kilometre deep. It hits the French and Algerian
lines first and hardest, and causes instant pandemonium.

“The victims of the gas attack writhed on the ground,” writes Cook in No
Place to Run. “Their bodies turned a strange grass-green as they struggled to
suck oxygen into their corrupted lungs. The chlorine attacked the bronchial
tubes, which caused the membranes to swell into a spongy mass and
ever-increasing amounts of fluid to enter from the bloodstream. The swiftly
congested lungs failed to take in any oxygen, and the victims suffocated as they
drowned in their own fluids.

“Major Andrew McNaughton remembered the Algerians streaming past him, ‘their
eyeballs showing white, and coughing their lungs out. They were literally
coughing their lungs out: glue was coming out of their mouths.’”

Terrified out of their wits, the French and Algerians left the trenches and
ran for their lives, leaving a 1.6-kilometre-long gap in the front line. The
allied force was in danger of being cut off and surrounded by the Germans,
putting 50,000 soldiers at risk.

The Canadians saved the day through one of the First World War’s most
selfless acts of heroism: ignoring the terrifying effects of the gas attack,
they swung around to take up the old French and Algerian positions, and mounted
a furious counter-attack.

“They end up doing a couple of mad assaults, just full-on assaults into
machine-guns,” said Cook. “But they end up scaring the Germans, who think,
‘There’s more guys out there than we thought.’ And really it was just a [bluff]
until the British and French could bring up more troops to cover.”
Two days
later, the Germans mounted a second gas attack directly against the Canadian
front lines.

“The Canadians hold their ground again,” said Cook. “Officers and chemists
have figured out that it is chlorine gas being used against them, and the
officers order their men to urinate on a rag or wet a rag and hold it against
their mouth [to neutralize the chlorine]. That’s what they used to protect
themselves from the gas. They lose a bunch of guys, but they don’t end up
running away like the French do.

“The Canadians had a day or two to absorb the lessons [of the first attack],
but still, you can imagine the bravery that you would have to exhibit to stand
in the face of one of those clouds with no real protection.”

Russell Chaffey’s first letter after the battle is dated April 28, and
contains bad news.

“Frank was wounded in the stomach, I heard from a reliable source, but
suffered no pain and I believe has a good chance of recovery — I am hoping for
the best. I suppose he would be sent to the hospital for Canadians in
England.”

Russell was gassed himself, and then received some unspecified wound,
probably from shrapnel, that left him in hospital May 4. But his thoughts are on
what happened to his brother. On May 20, he writes, “No news of Frank yet —
except that one of the boys is almost sure he saw his name in the list of
wounded Canadians at Cardiff. I suppose you haven’t heard anything? My last
letter from home — May 1st — came today, but they had no news of either of
us.”

Russell is sent back to the front, wounded again, and sent to hospital in
England. On May 27 he writes, “My wound is in the small of the back, caused by a
piece of shrapnel. The muscles were bruised and I cannot use my back much, but
otherwise there is no harm done. I hope Frank is all right — no news is good
news, you know! I suppose we will hear after a while.”

But no news is forthcoming, and the family is starting to fear the worst. On
June 3, Russell writes, “I do wish we could hear from Frank … his fiancee lives
in Monmouth and who I am sure he would communicate with immediately has not
heard a word, and what is more has made repeated enquiries! She is in a frantic
state, and I don’t know what poor mother will do if she doesn’t hear something
soon.

“I am getting well fast and can walk and sit up in a chair a little. I like
the way they dress my wound here better than at the other place, and they do it
twice a day instead of once.”

By June 18, Russell’s early optimism has given way to resignation.

“Poor Frank. I’m afraid the only hope for us now is that he is in a hospital
in Germany. They have evidently taken the statements of Dunlop and McLennan as
their only evidence [about what happened to Frank]. I saw McLennan myself who
although he was quite sure did not actually see Frank taken to the dressing
station. He told me that Lieut. David, a friend of George’s [another Chaffey
brother] helped to carry him out.

“Frank’s most intimate friend seemed to entertain no doubts in the subject,
but still I’m afraid there’s been some mistakes made. Lieut. David was
afterwards wounded, otherwise we might write to him.”

The letters often end with news of a friend dying. “Scotty Dunlop, Frank’s
chum is reported killed — he was such a nice fellow,” Russell writes at one
point. “Poor old Coop is dead — ‘dead of wounds,’ ” he writes at another.

There are harrowing tales of the injured, both physical and psychological.
“Poor [Cyril] Fraser had a nervous collapse about a week ago and the effect is
to partially paralyse his lower parts, although he can walk a little. He is
quite cheerful and I must say one of the pluckiest chaps I have ever known.”

Russell’s July 14 letter hints at the effect Frank’s disappearance is having
on the family.

“Mama seems to be torn between worry and pride for her family. I do hope some
of us will survive for her sake.”

Two days later, he received some replies to some of his enquiries about Frank
— and the news is bleak.

“I have had some more back letters, some two months old. One in answer to an
inquiry about Frank which says he did not pass through Boulogne or Rouen. I have
almost given up hope now of ever seeing him.

“Now that there are only two of us [Russell and George] I feel it necessary
to be more careful, and am thinking seriously of taking a staff job for a few
months. I honestly think there is no immediate need for wounded men to return to
the front, especially if they are not fit! Return amongst us has been made
voluntary so far, and I could give the family a few months’ peace of mind by
doing so.

“This is rather a change from my tone a few weeks ago, but I have not allowed
myself to consider anything but immediate return to the front ’til now. All
these letters I have been getting lately have made me realize what it means to
them to have all the boys over here.”

Nothing was ever heard about what happened to Frank Chaffey. He was listed as
having been killed on the first day of fighting at Ypres on April 22. His
battalion was involved in the suicidal counter-attack against German
machine-guns, so he may well have fallen there. His name is now listed on a
cenotaph with 55,000 unknown soldiers at Ypres whose remains were never found or
identified. He was 24 years old.

Russell Chaffey was sent back to the front and was wounded again at Festubert
on May 20, 1916. He did get a desk job in London for a while, but received a
second-lieutenant’s commission with the 23rd Manchester Regiment and once again
was sent to the front, where he was killed on March 10, 1917. He was 28. He is
buried at Fouquescourt British Cemetery at the Somme.

Two brothers dying was all too common in the First World War. Cook said that
of the 400,000 Canadians who went overseas, an estimated 60,000 were killed and
170,000 wounded.

“It was about a 50-to-60 per cent casualty rate for anyone who went
overseas,” said Cook. “And a lot of the 400,000 never made it out of England, so
the guys who were in France, the casualty rate is pretty high, at least 60 per
cent, maybe two-thirds, 66 per cent.

“If you were a front-line soldier serving from 1914, my guess is that you
wouldn’t have made it through the war without being hit at some point. If you
came in at 1917, you maybe had a 50/50 chance.”

Figures for casualties caused by gas attacks vary widely. Gas wasn’t
necessarily fatal for many soldiers, but rendered them helpless and liable to
being killed by more conventional means.

“Guys would be gassed and would be flopping around on the ground and then
they would get shot by a sniper,” Cook said.

Over all, one million soldiers from are estimated to have been gassed in the
First World War, with 91,000 deaths.

“This is a much lower death rate in comparison to conventional weapons, which
is usually one guy dead to two wounded,” Cook said.

“Gas is not a real lethal killer, it’s more of a psychological weapon. Sort
of like anthrax now. There’s a better way to kill people than to send them an
anthrax letter, but look at the fear that it causes.”

Tags: Vancouver Sun

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