The War Diaries of Francis James Whiting

March 12
Pay parade – 15 Fr. No word form home yet. This is Sunday. Never given
up hope of getting pass to England.
March 13
Physical jerks before breakfast. Inspection of iron rations and platoon drill
after. Football match after dinner.
March 14
Football match between P.P.s and 49 th over near Dranoutre 3-2 favour of
49 th . Met Wilf Barker. He is leaving signallers and returning to his platoon.
Lovely weather.
March 15
Guard.
March 16
Inspection by Corps Commander [E.A.H.] Alderson. We leave for
somewhere near Hooge shortly. Pretty hot place. Have written Harry
B[eaumont]. making a ghostly compact with him in case I get done in
during this war. 101 No Canadian mail yet. We spend considerable time
these days playing footer and baseball. Good weather continues. Enemy
activity still continues at Verdun. Backbone of attack believed to be broken.
Lots of aeroplanes about these days.
March 17
Although Frank did not make a diary entry on this date, the entry in the
PPCLI War Diary noted that the “C.O. and Adjt. Went to Ypres to inspect
trenches in Sanctuary Wood to be taken over by Bde.” It would be a place
that Frank would soon know and forever remember because of the events
that took place there at the beginning of June 1915.
the battalion “marched to Roukloshille by Mont Noir & Schaexken.” Le Roukloshille, a hamlet
between Méteren and Godewaersvelde to the north, was nearby.
101 Hooge was on the east side of the Ypres Salient and a very dangerous place, so Frank was
anxious about his future. See Sanctuary Wood, Mount Sorrel & Hill 62. Adamson learned
about this move in the Ypres salient on March 11 in a secret memo from General Alderson’s
Chief of Staff, Charles Beatty, who wrote, “I am also to be the bearer of unpleasant tidings, for I
do not imagine any of us who have lived in the salient for long want to go back there.” On March
14, Adamson wrote, “The new line has been settled upon, our Division hold Hooge and behind
the Bellewaerde lake upon which we fell back on the 8 th of May, the 1 st Division on our right at Hill
60 and the 2 nd Division on our left.” Letters of Agar Adamson 1914 to 1919, 161, 162.