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Alma Russell Letters

Letters of British Columbia men on active service with Canadian and British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1918. Learn more.

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BC Archives MS-1901

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V

say no one is a soldier unless he can growl. I must be due for a first class certificate. We are up at 5 a.m. every morning and do an hours physical drill, such as climbing Caesar’s Hill etc., bayonet drill and rifle drill and lectures take up the rest of the morning till noon. In the afternoon it is usually Squadron Drill or a route march.

The country round about is very rolling and there are many hills. Some of the old thatched houses are most interesting and date away back to the seventeenth century. They look as though they would fall before a good wind. The country pubs are interesting if only for their names, such names as the “Valiant Sailor, White Horse, Daring Soldier, Red Lion,” and others too numerous to mention are to be seen on any of the country roads.

There is an airship shed near here and every day aeroplanes come flying over the camp. There are three airships also near here and they come sailing quite close to the tents. At times it is possible to hit them with a stone they come so close. The control over them is wonderful. The most I have seen at one time in the air is seven (biplanes). We often see them going over to France, rising to a great height first and then shooting across the channel, which is

BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 15 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873-1964. Victoria; librarian. / Letters from Trooper Joseph Shires, 1915-1916.

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