1. Corporal Bernard John Denore, 1st Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment; 'The Retreat From Mons'
August 23rd 1914
While we were digging the German artillery opened fire. The range was perfect, about six shells at a time bursting in line directly over our heads.
All of us except the company commander fell flat on our faces, frightened, and surprised; but after a while we got up, and looked over the rough parapet we had thrown up; and could not see much. One or two men had been wounded, and one was killed. [...]
We saw the Germans attack on our left in great masses, but they were beaten back by the Coldstream Guards. A squadron of German cavalry crossed our front about 800 yards distant, and we opened fire on them. We hit a few and the fact that we were doing something definite improved our morale immensely, and took away a lot of our nervousness.
The artillery fire from the Germans was very heavy, but was dropping behind us on a British battery. The company officer, who had stayed in the open all the time, had taken a couple of men to help get the wounded away from the battery behind us. He returned about 6.30 p.m., when the firing had died down a bit, and told us the battery had been blown to bits. [...] One man was in a very bad way, and kept shrieking out for somebody to bring a razor and cut his throat, and two others died almost immediately. I was going to move a bundle of hay when someone called out, ‘Look out, chum. There's a bloke in there.’ I saw a leg completely severed from its body, and suddenly felt very sick and tired.
The German rifle-fire started again and an artillery-man to whom I was talking was shot dead. I was sick then. Nothing much happened during the night, except that one man spent the time kissing a string of rosary beads, and another swore practically the whole night.
August 31st
[ ..] Some of the fellows had puttees wrapped round their feet instead of boots; others had soft shoes they had picked up somewhere; others walked in their socks, with their feet all bleeding. My own boots would have disgraced a tramp, but I was too frightened to take them off, and look at my feet.[...]
One man (Ginger Gilmore) found a mouth-organ, and, despite the fact that his feet were bound in blood-soaked rags, he staggered along at the head of the company playing tunes all day. Mostly he played The Irish Emigrant, which is a good marching tune. He reminded me of Captain Oates. An officer asked me if I wanted a turn on his horse, but I looked at the fellow on it, and said, ‘No thanks’. The marching was getting on everyone's nerves, but, as I went I kept saying to myself, ‘If you can, force your heart and nerve and sinew’. Just that, over and over again.
That night we spent the time looking for an Uhlan regiment, but didn't get in touch with them, and every time we stopped we fell asleep; in fact we slept while we were marching, and consequently kept falling over.
2. Private Roy Bealing, MM. 6th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment. The Assault on La Boiselle in July 1916. ‘A soldier's view’
Captain Reid came along the top of the trench – right out in the open! – I suppose it was the only way he could pass the word along the company and he must have had a couple of machine-gun bullets through his water bottle because the water was spouting out of it. He yelled down ‘ Fix your bayonets and get ready to go over when you hear the whistle.’ I was beside a chap called Lucas and he was a bundle of nerves. He was shaking, yes. He was simply shivering and shaking like a leaf. He could hardly hold his rifle, never mind fix his bayonet, the state he was in! So I fixed mine and then I said ‘Here you are Lucas,’ and I fixed his for him. It would have taken him a week to fix his bayonet the state he was in! He wasn’t one of a new draft. He was one of the older ones, and I was right sorry for him.
When the whistle went, I threw my rifle on top of the trench and clambered out of it, grabbed the rifle and started going forward. There were shell-holes everywhere. I hadn’t gone far before I fell in one of them. There were so many shell-holes you couldn’t get round them. But you had to go on so, every time I stumbled and fell in a shell-hole, I just waited a quarter of a minute, had another breath, then out of it and on again. I must of fallen half a dozen times before I got to the first line, and there were lads falling all over the place. You didn’t know whether they were tripping up like me or whether they were going down with bullets in them, because it wasn’t just the shells exploding round about, it was the machine guns hammering out like hell from the third German line because it was on slightly higher ground. Lucas went down. He was killed before he even got to the first trench – the one that was partly in our hands.
3. TRANSCRIPT . EXTRACT FROM DIARY OF SGT COULDREY, 1st/4th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment
'AN EXPERIENCE OF THE ATTACK IN PALESTINE'
“OVER THE TOP”
On November 6th we had a rehearsal [sic] behind the lines early in the morning. A party of A Coy had a stroke of luck, for whilst they were away one of Johnny’s shells knocked their dug-out to pieces. The day went on and we knew we had to go “over” at night and we all looked the bright side of things, not thinking what might happen when we got over there. We also had a COMMUNION SERVICE in the Trenches in the morning which does not brighten you up too much. I can picture us all stood in the Trenches that night, smoking and making as merry? as possible. No doubt some were thinking of home, but what need is there to worry. I used to think of that little saying – ‘If you get slightly wounded well you won’t get a chance to worry about _ fighting for a time if severely wounded – don’t’ worry – you probably have finished _ fighting and if you get killed – why you won’t be able to worry’. We had a good RUM ISSUE and Well we were all prepared – Lewis Guns – Bombs etc and at 10 PM in the pitch dark the Wilts climbed up over the old ladder and got out into Nomansland where we got into waves etc all ready for the fray. The 5th Somersets did likewise on our left. I can remember being laid on the ground (as we all were) looking after a fellow the rum had got the better of – when a runner came along and stuck his bayonet into my left leg which bled profusely and was very stiff and sore for days. So here we are all ready and at 10.30 prompt 81 of our guns opened up on our objective. Outpost Hill. I had a party of 8 bombers with me – so we all rose up and continued to advance – when we neared the 1st Turkish trench the barrage lifted and played on the 2nd Trench and again to the3rd Trench. There did not seem to be many Turks about as we went over the Tops of the Trenches, but the Moppers up (Bombers) killed some and took some prisoners who were down in the Trenches.
Captain Merewether sent me and 3 men to patrol the ground in front of the 3rd Trench and I well remember seeing a party of our men away on the left blown up by shells. I spoke to Sgt Howes half way over, and now shells were pitching all around us It was one mass of light – explosions – and bits flying about and it was quite plain that we were getting up too far under our own barrage. Capt Merewether steadied us and we continued to advance again. We passed the 4th Turkish Trench and continued to the 5th and last. I was again sent with two men to patrol the big Turkish Communication Trench which our Artillery had blown to pieces. It was a creepy job but we got over it and met no-one and came back and reported “All Clear” We now paused in our final trench and got together because you get terribly dis- organised going over I remember A. Read who was next to me having a piece of shell hit him bang in the back - when I heard it hit, I though what a queer noise and I saw that Read was not hurt, so next day he looked to see what it was and a piece had gone through his haversack-plate and into a tin of bully beef where it stopped. Lucky.
Well our work was not finished now for we had to turn our fire-steps and dig Machine Gun Emplacements for the guns to get into position in case of a counter- attack We were working all night and were glad next morning when we shifted over to another part of the Trenches to rest and talk over our first experience of “Over _ the Top”.
4. TRANSCRIPT. EXTRACT FROM DIARY OF SGT. MUNDY 1st/4th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment (2 pages)
VOLUME 2 p12 'A BALLOON BREAKS FROM ITS MOORINGS'
The real object of their journey was to reach a large captive balloon of ours which floated in the sky some ten miles behind the line at Belah and from which our observers could view all Gaza and the Turkish defences and easily see the effect of our gun fire and any movement in strength of the Turkish army. I think at times they did succeed in puncturing the balloon with bombs with usually they were well frustrated by our anti-aircraft guns and also had to look very ‘slippy’ or were surrounded by our planes. However one morning in a stiff breeze it snapped the hawsers and it floated skywards in a very rocky manner – All our guns fired to bring it down but it soon got well up out of their range and then swung away on the Turkish trenches. Here ‘Johnny’ tried his luck – but still no hits and so it proceeded northwards and we heard was eventually brought down at sea by our monitors who were patrolling the Levant. Such were our minutes of excitement and the rest of the time we went steadily on with our many fatigues. All the trenches were named, in order that the men could more easily find their way about, just as the streets and roads of towns – most of these names being connected with the towns of Essex as the regiments of that country originally commenced the trench system in that district. Such names as – ‘Piccadilly Circus’, ‘Harlow Rd’ – ‘Windy Hook’ – etc were used – and all communication trenches were marked ‘K’ with a number – e.g. ‘K. 12’- front line trenches with ‘F’ – and the number of section and fire bay – e.g. F.10.3. (meaning ‘fire trench’ N. 10, sector – N. 3 bay of 10 sector) and support trenches with an ‘S’ and numbered similarly to the fire trench. Communication trenches were also marked either ‘UP’ or ‘DOWN’ – and were always used as such – so that the traffic should all be going the same way and have no congestion. Dug-outs also received favourable names – in many cases the same name as the soldiers home – or others such as – ‘The Abode of Love’ – ‘Moonraker Villa’ – Poverty House – etc – but ours was called ‘Sea View’ – because from it were able to look across the whole system of our trenches to the left out to the sea – and watch the monitors proudly floating up and down – giving the Turk a ‘heavy’ reminder.