A Yankee in the Trenches

When I found my battalion, the battle of High Wood had pretty well quieted down. We had taken the position we went after, and the fighting was going on to the north and beyond t...

Marching, marching, marching, Always ruddy well marching. Marching all the morning, And marching all the night. Marching, marching, marching, Always ruddy well marching, Roll on...

If you should be fortunate--or unfortunate enough, as the case might be--to be squatting in a front-line trench this fine morning and looking through a periscope, you wouldn't s...

Once, on the Somme in the fall of 1916, when I had been over the top and was being carried back somewhat disfigured but still in the ring, a cockney stretcher bearer shot this q...

I cannot end this book without saying something to those who have boys over there and, what is more to the point, to those boys who may go over there.

Food is a burning issue in the lives of all of us. It is the main consideration with the soldier. His life is simplified to two principal motives, _i.e._, keeping alive himself...

It was all wrong. We had been told after High Wood that we would not have to go into action again in that part of the line but that we would have a month of rest and after that...

This disease is due to remaining for long periods in the wet and mud, to racked nerves, and, I am inclined to think, to sleeping in the foul air of the dug-outs. The chief sympt...

After the strafing we had given Fritz on the raid, he behaved himself reasonably well for quite a while. It was the first raid that had been made on that sector for a long time,...

We left Petite-Saens about nine o'clock Friday night and commenced our march for what we were told would be a short hike. It was pretty warm and muggy. There was a thin, low-lyi...

Blighty meant life,--life and happiness and physical comfort. What we had left behind over there was death and mutilation and bodily and mental suffering. Up from the depths of...

The excitement of getting away from camp and the knowledge that we were soon to get into the thick of the big game pleased most of us. We were glad to go. At least we thought so.

A general cleaning of rifles started, although it was dark. Mine was already in good shape, and I leaned it against the side of the trench and went below for the rest of my equi...

The tanks passed beyond us and half-way up to the first line and stopped. Trapdoors in the decks opened, and the crews poured out and began to pile sandbags in front of the mach...

In the morning the members of the raiding party were taken back a mile or so to the rear and were given instruction and rehearsal. This was the first raid that "Batt" had ever t...

For weeks after our first introduction to the tanks they were the chief topic of conversation in our battalion. And, notwithstanding the fact that we had seen the monsters go in...