Read Letters From the Trenches: A Soldier of the Great War for Free Online

Experiencing the front line for the first time, he had to learn to cope with the horrific conditions. There was no alternative. For the first
time, he writes to both Jack and Kate after seeing and experiencing at first hand the horror of the front line. The two letters were written on the same day, but each has a slightly different
emphasis.
    June 2/6/1917
    Dear Jack
    Very pleased to receive a letter from you and to hear you are going on all right. We have had a very rough time lately the Germans were only about 40yds away from us, we
     had a very trying time for the first, but I don’t care so long that I keep alright. It will be a good job when the war is over. Ethel tells me they are alright at home but Willie as got a
     cough. Hope will soon be better. I hear Connie has started school and that she likes it. I hope that she gets on alright. I have not received a letter from Kate yet but expect one any time.
     this is my address 32507 9th Batt York and Lancs, C Company, 11 platoon in B.E.F. [British Expeditionary Force; he later transferred to 12 Platoon] France. I think I am going in for a
     Lewis Gunner. I don’t know yet I will let you know next time I write we are having a bit of a practice this last day or two we have been out of the trenches. We get plenty of tobacco but
     little bread out here. Write to me when you receive this letter and let me know all you can. I am glad to receive a letter.
    With Best Love from
    Harry
    Harry doesn’t sound too impressed with his new environment. After a few days he’s very keen for the war to be over. The German front-line trench seems to be incredibly close, less
than the width of a football pitch. Since a standard-issue rifle in the hands of a modestly competent marksman can easily pick off a man at 200 yards, this is not a situation for the
faint-hearted!
    The Lewis gun was the standard light machine gun used by the British infantry. It was an air-cooled, gas-operated weapon equipped with a circular drum magazine on top of the barrel, usually
holding forty-seven rounds of 0.303-inch ammunition – the same round as that used in the standard-issue rifle, the famous Short Magazine Lee-Enfield. Each platoon would have a machine-gun
section with one Lewis gunner, the ‘number one’, who aimed and fired the weapon, a ‘number two’ who handled the replacement of magazines and assisted if the weapon jammed,
and seven others to give covering rifle fire and to carry spare magazines. Each member of the section would carry, in addition to his kit and his own rifle and ammunition, eight charged Lewis
magazines, each weighing 4.5 pounds (2kg). All members of the section were trained to take over if the number one or two became a casualty. And, of course, a Lewis gun in action would rapidly
become a priority target for the enemy’s fire. From his letter to Jack, however, it sounds as though Harry volunteered for this special role.
    Part of a Lewis-gun section of the York and Lancaster Regiment (although not the 9th Battalion). The number one is cleaning the receiver ready to accept the magazine; in the
    background, the number two is loading rounds into one of the circular drum magazines.
    The principle parts of the Lewis light machine gun, from a contemporary encyclopedia. Harry spent all his active service as a member of a Lewis-gun section. In one of his
    letters, Harry asks Jack to send him ‘a small book on the Lewis Gun’.
    Harry’s letter to Kate on the same day makes no mention of the Lewis-gun section, nor of anything else that might have been considered dangerous.
    2nd June 1917
    Dear Kate,
    I received your letter. I am pleased to hear you are going on alright they all seem to be getting on all right at home which is something to be thankful for. The weather here is lovely
     and we have had a fine time this last fortnight. We are still out of the trenches but we might go back anytime. Jack has wrote me telling me he has had to leave his lodging and go to the