Horace Heber Haney of Woodstock, Ontario, enlisted on October 23, 1914 and served as a private with the 28th Battalion. In letters to his family he mostly had a cheery tone and discussed little about his experiences. But on October 13, Haney wrote a letter to his friend, Charlie, and described in detail some of his experiences in the trenches.

In one instance, the Germans tunneled underneath the Allie trenches and opened fire. “When they blew it up they opened fire with machine guns, bombs, rifle fire and shrapnel and there was merry hell to pay for a while,” he wrote. Haney was only thirty-two meters away and, luckily, missed most of the fight.

He also wrote about how killing became somewhat of a sport for some soldiers. “There is lots of fun to be had in the trenches too,” Haney wrote. “It’s great sport to watch for German rifle flashes at night and fire about five rounds rapid at them.”

Just two days before he wrote this letter he saw German planes firing at an Allie plane. The Allie plane started to smoke so the pilot shut off the engine and the German pilots stopped firing to watch as the Allie plane nosedived until it was about 180 meters from the ground. The Germans opened fire again and the Allie pilot started his engine and flew away. “We all cheered and the Germans sent over about 20 shrapnel,” Haney wrote.

Haney died April 7, 1916 at age nineteen at the Battle of the St. Eloi Craters.

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