Monday, December 1, 2008

Entry 4 - Gas Attack

Today was just another day after the Battle of The Somme, we had a gas attack from the Germans, it started off as a greenish, yellowish cloud coming towards us, blown by the wind. One of the members of the machine gun crew saw it, and started banging an empty shell case with his bayonet, everybody heard it and everybody got into a mad scramble for the gas masks. I luckily got on to one of then as I was near the Tommies, soldiers who always had a bag of gas masks on him, even when he was sleeping. For some of the others, it was too late, I saw one of the men near me, he clutched his throat, fell down to the ground and twisted around, then he died. We all waited for the gas to disperse for a few hours then we took our masks off, it felt so good to have cold air in your lungs.

Entry 3 - "The Battle of The Somme"

It is July 1st, 1916, the start of the Battle of the Somme, we had to go out of the trenches and walk into No-Man's-Land and through the French river in the north called the Somme. The aim of this battle is to draw German forces away from Battle of Verdun, where the French forces are suffering severe losses. We are going to get out of the trenches and charge to the enemies. I hope that our machine gunners hold the Germans off, as it is not a good idea to be overwhelmed and taken out by the Germans. I heard from the Commander that we were going to shell the German dugouts. When the whistles blew, we rushed out through the ladders, some of the men in our platoon were shot down just as the climbed up the ladders, it was a really horrible sight, seeing so many men die in just a few seconds. My diarist, who was walking within a meter with me, was shot in the arm, where he immediately fell down so I helped him back down to the trench so the medics could bandage him up.
Battles like this continued, it started to wear me and the other men down. Throughout the 4 months in the battle, we pushed on forward like this, it really is starting to wear me down, it made me really regret joining the army.

At last, the battle ended on 18th November, with 5800 troops (a third) killed on the first day. Our total losses were 420000, the French had 200000 casualties, while the Germans had 500000. I did not think that the battle was a success, even though we won. We lost too much men and it wasn't very rewarding.
It was not worth the effort and the casualties.