"I set to work digging out the injured while the bombardment was still ongoing. You ask about my own reaction...it was of course very disconcerting to dress wounded while shells were showering debris, and the possibility of being in the same plight as the terribly wounded men I was dressing, occurred to me every now and then.
The whole thing seemed rather unreal. I realized that the killing was being done deliberately and systematically. The Company Commander was laying on his face with the back of his head sheared off. Three other men were killed beside him. The Company Sergeant Major had his leg blown off just above the knee.
One man who had a ghastly wound began pleading with me, amidst the turmoil of explosions, to shoot him.
I reached out to another with a wound in his thigh, blood spurting from a severed femoral. As I put a tourniquet above the wound he moved a little and I saw that the whole side of chest was torn out. He expired in less than a minute.
The enemy bombardment lasted from 1 p.m. until 10 p.m. using 8in armor piercing shells with an explosion occuring every 10 to 15 seconds.
Every soldier who has seen action since knows that it requires the highest type of stamina and bravery for troops to lie in a trench and take a heavy shelling without being demoralized and panic stricken." Captain Bellenden S. Hutcheson, (Victoria Cross Recipient) Canadian. Army Med. Corps, attd. 76th Brigade of Royal Field Artillery, Vimy, France 1917. #ww1 #stayzero #reality #zerofoxtrot