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my pleasure! I haven't had time for a really good look yet , but have read some of the diaries , first hand accounts.... desperately moving, here adding one piece I have just read....
Memoirs & Diaries: Trenches At Vimy Ridge
Updated - Sunday, 23 September, 2001
by Harold Saunders
"During training I was aware only of the glamour of War. I prepared myself for it with enthusiasm, and bayoneted and clubbed the stuffed sacks representing the enemy with a sort of exalted ferocity. I was as jealous of my regiment as I used to be of my school.
The journey from Southampton to Havre in an ancient paddle-boat and on from there by train in a cattle-truck to the mysterious destination called the Front seemed a fitting prelude to the adventure. It was tedious and uncomfortable, but we told each other this was war. We became better acquainted with tedium and discomfort later.
When I made my debut in the line I had a cheerful conviction that nothing would hit me. And I remember standing on the fire-step for the first time and saying to myself exultantly: "You're in it at last! You're in it! The greatest thing that's ever happened!"
Lice and wind-up came into my life about the same time. At stand-to one morning a flight of whizz-bangs skimmed the top of the trench. The man next to me went down with a scream and half his face gone. The sand-bag in front of me was ripped open and I was blinded and half-choked with its contents.
This was in the summer of 1916. In the plain on our right the flash and rumble of guns was unceasing. It was the beginning of the Somme offensive we learnt afterwards, but even if we had known one of the big battles of the War was in progress at our elbows I doubt if we should have been deeply stirred. To every private in the line the War was confined to his own immediate front.
My first spell in the line lasted three weeks. Water was scarce, and even the tea ration was so short there was none left over for shaving. I had a nine days' growth of beard when we went down to rest. Some of us looked like Crimean veterans and we all began to feel like it. My socks were embedded in my feet with caked mud and filth and had to be removed with a knife.
Lack of rest became a torment. Undisturbed sleep seemed more desirable than heaven and much more remote. This is why two occasions stand out like beacons in my memory. One was when I found myself in bed in a field hospital for the first time.
The other was when I dropped among the straw in a rat-ridden barn after a long march down the line, tired beyond words and exquisitely drunk on a bottle of Sauterne. As I dropped into forgetfulness I felt I had achieved bliss.
I have slept on the march like a somnambulist and I have slept standing up like a horse. Sleeping at the post was a court-martial affair, with death or field punishment and a long term of imprisonment as the penalty. But, try as I would not to fall asleep, I often woke from a delectable dream with a start to find myself confronted with No Man's Land.
Once I was caught. It happened soon after dawn near the end of my spell. I had been watching a spot in No Man's Land where we suspected a sniper was operating. Suddenly I became aware of a voice saying, "The man's asleep," and knew it referred to me. Giving myself up for lost I sniffed loudly and changed my position as a sort of despairing protest.
Out of the tail of my eye I saw a Staff officer talking to the corporal. To my inexpressible relief, the corporal answered with one of the most ingenious lies I ever heard.
"He can't be, sir," he said. "He lent me this pencil only a second before you came." The officer was rather disinclined to accept the pencil as proof of my wakefulness, but, as I was then manifestly quite alert, he presently went his way."
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Thanks Rose , saving this
Lulli x
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Great site Rose...I have added to my favourites.
Many thanks...
Linda
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Rose thanks for the link, as you say a great site, which i have not yet fully explored.
Nice to have all this info in one place
George
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Rose,
Thanks for the link. I have just been looking at battle field maps of Mesopotamia 1917 - following my Dad along the River Tigris! Wonderful resource.
Elisabeth
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Thanks for this Rose. I've bookmarked the site. Looks fascinating.
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http://www.firstworldwar.com/index.htm
Stumbled across this website whilst looking for WW1 song lyrics ...thought it might be of interest with regard to ancestors who served in the 'War to end all wars'.
It has diaries and letters, details of the battles, photographs of the battlefields then and now , memorials ....
For example:
16th Irish Division Memorial, Wytschaete (Ypres Salient)
18th Div Memorial, Clapham Junction (Ypres Salient)
18th Div Memorial, Thiepval (Somme)
This is an incredible web site in its scope from the brief look I have had thus far.
Rose x
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