"When the nozzles were lighted, they threw out a roaring hissing flame, swelling at the end to an oily rose. Under the protection of these hideous weapons, the enemy surrounded the advanced pillbox and stormed it.
At my feet, two unlucky creatures rolled the floor in misery. Their clothes and hands, their entire bodies were on fire. They were living torches! The following day, they were so unrecognisably mutilated, we could not decide on their identities. Their skin was black entirely. One of them died that same night in a fit of insanity.
Some grenadiers returned with ghastly wounds, hair and eyebrows singed, almost not human anymore! Black creatures with bewildered eyes. Numerous people, still young and filled with hope, had to lay down their lives here. Their mortal remains were decomposing somewhere in between trenches, in mass graves, at cemeteries. All sense of humanity had disappeared a distinction was no longer made." - Cpl. Louis Barthas, 296th Infantry Regiment, Verdun, France, 1916 describing being on the receiving end of a German flamethrower attack. #stayzero #zerofoxtrot #ww1 #reality #war #flamethrower #military