When Zeppelins Bombarded the
Canadian Camp
From a 1915 clipping from the St. Thomas paper found in the E.D. Mitchell files at EMM
| Signaller Mitchell Tells of Stiring Night at Otterpool HE AND HIS HORSE ESCAPE UNHURT But He Declares Experience Was Most Horrible He Had Ever Undergone in His Life |  |
Introduction to Ephraim
 | E.D. Mitchell, a former St. Thomas boy, writing to his folks at Eden, Ont., from Otterpool Camp, England, gives some very interesting detail of his experience when the Germans bombarded that camp from Zeppelins. Signaller Mitchell was at one time connected with the grocery firms here of Swinn Bros., J.A. McCance, Egan Bros. and Butler Bros., and will be remembered by a large number of friends. For the last five or six years he has travelled for the Swift Canadian Company out of Winnipeg and Nelson, B.C. He enlisted last June at Winnipeg, and is with the Headquarters Staff, Fifth Artillery Brigade, Second Canadian Division, as signaller and dispatch rider. In his letter he writes: |
Chocolate is the Best
“This is a Saturday afternoon and I am off duty for the day, so I am going to write letters all the afternoon. I think you’ll remember me telling you about the horse I had at Sewell, ‘Chocolate’, I call him. Well he has turned out to be about the fastest horse in the whole brigade. I have had several races with other fellows who are supposed to have fast horses, and I always win. Also he is the highest jumper in the bunch. I have put him over the bar at five feet seven inches and I call that some jump.
Took Secrecy Seriously
| “I’m going to tell you what happened to us just a month ago tonight. This is the first time I have mentioned it in a letter because they put it up to our honor not to say anything about it, but I see it has been in nearly all the papers, and you must have seen it, because mother spoke about it in her letter. The Germans thought we were having things too quiet here, so, without any warning, they sent one of their ‘Zepps’ along and dropped eight bombs. |  |
Cannot Describe it
Four of them hit our camp. I cannot describe it, but it was horrible. There were fourteen of our boys killed and about seventeen very seriously wounded. They also killed nineteen of our horses and wounded as many more. Some of both men and horses have since died. I have never put in such a night in all my life. It was about 9:15 when they came and I happened to be in the YMCA tent writing. Lucky thing I was, too, for otherwise I would probably have been at the other end of the camp. The first three bombs dropped in the H.O.S. lines, and the next in the 17th Battery lines.
Close Call - Round Up
“The tent I sleep in is only eighteen yards from where one of the bombs fell, but some of my tent-mates were hurt, and our tent is the only one in our lines that didn’t have shrapnel holes in it. I hurried right back when I heard the noise and there was the greatest confusion I have ever witnessed – pieces of hands and legs here and there, and blood and flesh all over. We had about an hour’s work getting the wounded cared for and away in the ambulances, and to gather together what was left of the poor boys who were killed.
Well, a little later the colonel came and asked the sergeant-major for eight of his best men to saddle up and go out in search of the horses, about a hundred of which had stampeded and were away down the road at a full gallop. I spent from that time until five a.m. in the saddle, covering nearly fifty miles on old ‘Chocolate’.
By the way, Chocolate was tied between two other horses which were blown to pieces and he didn’t get a scratch. We certainly had an exciting time getting a taste of what war really is.”
By the way, Chocolate was tied between two other horses which were blown to pieces and he didn’t get a scratch. We certainly had an exciting time getting a taste of what war really is.”
Epilogue
| Ephraim survived the zeppelin attack and the sickness which put him in hospital where he contracted diphtheria - all of which delayed his deployment to France. After recovering, he trained as an artillery gunner but found his skills as a signaller and dispatch rider were needed more when he finally arrived in France on June 3, 1916. Less than three months later, on September 15, 1916, he was killed - Age 29. |  |
His sacrifice is remembered on the Vimy Memorial.
Excerpt from the Canadian Book of Remembrance
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