Hi my name's Kevin Hicks welcome to my YouTube channel The History Squad. Now what we're doing
today is we're kind of answering some queries I'm often asked so what did these people carry
in their pack, First World War I've been asked before. So what went into their packs? So here I
am I've just done a tour at the Saskatoon Museum of Military Artifacts over here in Saskatoon,
Canada and I thought I'd bring along some of my things uh to show you what either a Canadian or a
British soldier carried in this haversack, in his small sack. Interestingly the Canadians had two.
So this is the one that you will often see in the pictures on the back of soldiers most importantly
he has a sandbag. If every Soldier carries sandbags you can repair the parapet on your trench
and this one, quite a rarity really, because it's an original. So sandbag. Now this little
contraption is uh it's interesting, it's got a cover on it little brass button it's your,
what we would call your mess tins. You can take the lid off
and it becomes a cup for your soup if you need it, but it's what's inside as well
because a soldier can keep things in here this is 'hussif', his housewife this is his sewing kit
and I'm very lucky to have this because this one is an original with all the original
needles and buttons and all those kind of things, so it's his sewing kit. What we
call in the army 'housewife' apparently it was pronounced. Further down here oh oh, naughty.
A game of Crown and Anchor in this bag is dice and money so if he's got a few minutes he can set up
a Crown and Anchor game and make a little bit of money gambling, illegal by the way in the Army,
and of course the bottom part of his pan, is his full mess tin so he can get his stew and whatnot
in there, so before you even open his pack you've got his mess tins, you've got his housewife,
a little bit of a game there. Now, a pair of gloves. This one's interesting this is just a
replica this is iron rations. You open it up, pull it apart one part will have a chocolate
paste and the other half meat paste but most importantly gosh this is old, a can of corned beef
that's part of your rations, one between the two if I remember correctly.
And some cold weather gear this is your comforter it's either a hat or a scarf,
you have a waterproof Poncho here and also a covering for the breach of your rifle.
Now this is all very functional stuff. Oh yeah pair of socks, dry socks, very important. But
I'm going to open up the other pack because that's got some interesting things in it
Now I have one of these in the museum, a commemorative teaspoon
for the king, it's nice to stir your tea isn't it? Now here I have
a lovely find, this is actually a cup from the First World War, a tin cup uh the thing
about these though a nice hot cup of tea you'll burn your lips so do be careful.
Pocket knife
Now I've been told lots of different things about these now don't forget this is from the
First World War so it's a little bit stiff and you can get horses hooves,
stones out of them, you can actually cut the fuse on an artillery shot so I am told,
I'm not an artilleryman so uh I wouldn't know.
Now this is I think what you'd call one of my favorite things. This is a spoon that was
given to me, it was picked up by a farmer on the battlefield of the Somme near Beaumont Hamel,
Hawthorne Ridge there. It's marked with an X and it's worn slightly on the one side and
there's a reason for this and I'll get my mess tin and I'll show you why. Where is he gone?
If you're in a hurry and you're scraping your food, you wear the corner of your spoon out
and I look at this and I think to myself did the poor beggar die as he was charging forward? Was
this blown out of his pack? Or did he have it stuck down in his putties and it simply fell
out? Well I look after it, yeah, an unknown soldier's spoon. It's a treasure to me, to
others just a piece of junk. So, your first field dressing and this should fit in a pocket in your,
on the inside of your tunic where I keep it here for demonstration because if you are wounded,
inside your dressing you have a glass vial of iodine so you must pull out the
um cotton wool, blow out the little glass vial, I haven't got one this is a dummy. Snap off the
end of the ampoule and pour it into your wound or onto the dressing and then dress your wound.
And I can tell you as somebody who's been knocked about in the army it's very hard to
dress your own wound. We've got lots of like a balaclava here to cover your, your ears and
your neck in the cold weather, and this is quite something. I'm going to undo this to show you.
Very very carefully
This is a bar of Sunlight soap, actually from just north of Langermarck onto the Passchendaele Ridge.
It still smells like the old scrubbing soap. Strangely though
this is Australian issue but was taken from a German trench,
so it's uh it's been around a little bit just a bar of soap so I do look after it.
Hardtack biscuits, and they do exactly what it says on the tin, they're hard tack. So
crush them up into crumbs, put some um corned beef into it, heat it up make some rissoles as
they used to call them that's fine, but don't try and eat them on their own not
unless you've got a really good set of teeth because these are rock hard I think triple,
triple baked biscuits. You know one British soldier he'd been on home on leave and his,
his mother didn't believe what he said about hard tack biscuits they are so hard. So he wrote
his mom's address and he put a stamp on it and posted it through the French Postal Service
and it arrived safe and sound at home, a hard tack biscuit. Got some food here
A tin
of McConaughey's pork and beans 1917, that's just a label what's inside it is actually modern food,
but this is what you had and if you were lucky you got McConaughey's, if you were unlucky you got a
little different make which wasn't nice. Souvenir if you've been in the trenches uh Christmas 1914,
you might get yourself some cigarettes or some tobacco a little pencil and the
little gubbins that go inside Princess Mary's Christmas tin. Now as a kid
there were so many of these in old lady's sewing kits yeah, brought home by their sons or husbands.
Oxo cubes. Nothing better, freezing cold, I even did this myself in the Army in the 70s and 80s,
you brought some hot water and Oxo Cube into it nice, beef tea
and what I'm fetching out here is my wash kit.
But it's more than that
Here is a flannel from the day it's nothing like a modern cloth,
it's how they were somebody knitted them. Spare pair of laces.
Knife fork and spoon
Then a toothbrush and this is one of your originals that was found in storage. Hog
bristle I believe it is on bone and it does a good job but they didn't have toothpaste,
I've actually got something to show you.
Unopened from the day, tooth powder,
it's abrasive but it'll clean your teeth. What else have I got in here,
a razor and of course in those days
it's a cutthroat razor. You've got to keep yourself nice and smart
nice and shaved even in the trenches.
And then finally the bull nose. A can opener. Where would you be without your
can opener? You'd have lots of cans but you've got to have one of these to open
it. Far bigger heavier and bulkier than the can openers I had in the 70s. And then you may have
a souvenir
These were given to me by a teacher many many years ago he says my grandfather
found these on the body of a dead German officer when he was in the First World War and he said
would I take them and show them to people. These well over 100 years old, typical souvenir. Soldier
would shove it in his pack, might even use it, and they are still usable to this day.
Another souvenir thing. People call these hate belts, it's basically a
soldier's belt and he's got badges on from the different regiments he served
with this one's got some mainly First World War and some Second World War.
Uh some say hate belt, I prefer to call it a souvenir belt and then finally
in here we have his pay book.
Inside here, letters, photographs, things you shouldn't have.
But I've got an interesting piece that I wanted to show you.
This is a piece of cloth off a tunic of a British soldier that was recovered from Langermarck,
along with seven other men, they were buried in the mud and I was there and
actually found a shoulder sticking up when they recovered them it was a Lewis gun team
and I was handed this by the policeman and he says show it to the kids that you teach.
Show them and tell them that every year my little unit recover at least 80 bodies
from The Passchendaele Ridge area. So that's it. What soldiers carry yeah? Oh one thing I forgot.
You mustn't go into combat unless you have your whistle right?
Well I hope you enjoyed our little film there about the what's in the pack of a
First World War soldier. If you did, like, share and subscribe and don't forget to turn
on the notifications button, the ALL notifications otherwise you won't know
what's coming next but for now, thank you very much for your time, bye-bye.