"The sights and smells are awful, as a good many of the chaps lay just as they fell. There are about a dozen dead horses round about in the mud that were killed by shell fire while bringing up ammunition for the guns.
The fighting was so fierce that there was only time to bury the dead in the sides of the trenches, and now that the trenches have crumpled, one is constantly seeing the bones of men’s legs or their boots, or skulls sticking out from the sides of the trenches...There is a pleasant smell here.
In places, we are only about twenty yards away from Fritz and company. Consequently, the air is fairly full of everything that kills quickly. Thick with bombs, grenades and trench mortars. Pretty hellish sort of toys. On these occasions, we always rely on good many casualties.
The water and mud is over our knees and it is impossible to use the communication trenches at all. We were holding the front line with two platoons. Our platoon was twenty two strong including the Officer. We were digging one night when they let us have it for five hours with gas shells, we had two chaps hit with them and put right out; another eight put out a few minutes after.
Our guns never cease down there, as soon as one section stop, another lot open out so you can tell there is Somme noise." – Private Gilbert Williams,1/6 Seaforth Highlanders, Somme, France, 1916 (He survived the war and want on to fight in WWII as well) #stayzero #ww1 #reality #war