Dear Mother & Father Fromelles, France
I am alive, but barely. Yesterday, we attacked at Fromelles. It was shambles, we must have lost more than 5,000 to those Fritz. I swear our commanders are bloody idiots. I’m writing to you from a cold, wet trench somewhere in the North of France. But do not worry, Mother, for I am safe, although my best mate, Thommo was killed by artillery. One second he was there, the next second he wasn’t. The war is not what they make it out to be back in Australia. There is no glory in killing other men, in a place you don’t need to be, in a battle you don’t understand, in a country that means nothing to you. We are supposed to have a memorial service tomorrow to commemorate.
Being out here in the trenches has really put into perspective how lucky I am back home in Australia. When we are in the trenches, the mud and water is up to our knees most of the time, with shells raining down on us every couple of minutes. There is no relief at all, and the food that they give us is often wet and cold by the time it gets to us on the front line.
We had just come out of the trenches after 7 days. While we were there, a German walked over and asked for a cigarette, and then walked back again, and no-one shot at him. Both us and the Germans started walking back and forth between the trenches, and …show more content…
We managed to crawl towards the Sugarloaf, and dug our self in for the night. It was quite unpleasant with the German machine gun fire hailing down us every time we made a movement. One of our officers popped his head up to take a look and a sniper nearly took his head off. He was lucky to survive. That night, we received some reinforcements, but it wasn’t enough, the Germans were well prepared, and they caused even more casualties with their machine guns, which cut men down, like a scythe to stalks of
I am alive, but barely. Yesterday, we attacked at Fromelles. It was shambles, we must have lost more than 5,000 to those Fritz. I swear our commanders are bloody idiots. I’m writing to you from a cold, wet trench somewhere in the North of France. But do not worry, Mother, for I am safe, although my best mate, Thommo was killed by artillery. One second he was there, the next second he wasn’t. The war is not what they make it out to be back in Australia. There is no glory in killing other men, in a place you don’t need to be, in a battle you don’t understand, in a country that means nothing to you. We are supposed to have a memorial service tomorrow to commemorate.
Being out here in the trenches has really put into perspective how lucky I am back home in Australia. When we are in the trenches, the mud and water is up to our knees most of the time, with shells raining down on us every couple of minutes. There is no relief at all, and the food that they give us is often wet and cold by the time it gets to us on the front line.
We had just come out of the trenches after 7 days. While we were there, a German walked over and asked for a cigarette, and then walked back again, and no-one shot at him. Both us and the Germans started walking back and forth between the trenches, and …show more content…
We managed to crawl towards the Sugarloaf, and dug our self in for the night. It was quite unpleasant with the German machine gun fire hailing down us every time we made a movement. One of our officers popped his head up to take a look and a sniper nearly took his head off. He was lucky to survive. That night, we received some reinforcements, but it wasn’t enough, the Germans were well prepared, and they caused even more casualties with their machine guns, which cut men down, like a scythe to stalks of