By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
THE appended letter was received by Mr H McCann of Berwick from Private W.V Watson, on the battlefront in WWI, and was published in the Dandenong Journal on 27 April, 1916. Mr Watson, of Narre Warren North, was a prominent member of the Berwick Football Club.
LETTER
I received two letters from you some little time ago and feel rather ashamed of myself for not answering them sooner.
We are now back amongst the sand once again.
You have read the account of the evacuation of course.
We got off very well but it seemed hard to leave after all we lost, but I think it was the best thing to do as I am sure we could never have done any good there, and we were losing men every day, mostly through sickness.
And I would certainly have lost heavily if we had to stay on through the winter. We had some terrible weather in November, rain and snow a treat.
I and a good many more were in the trench for about a fortnight without a spell, and during that time we had no water and could not take even our boots off.
It seems strange to say we had no water when it had rained so much, but it was so.
When we got a bit of time we used to gather some snow and melt it, but that did not seem to quench our thirst – it only seemed to make us worse.
I never was so thirsty in my life and I never want to be so again.
I would have given anything to get a good drink. I saw fellows drink what looked like pure mud and indeed I did it myself.
There was a terrible bombardment on November 29.
The snow was still on the ground and had frozen hard but all the same a good many of their big shells failed to explode.
And a good job too, as quite enough of them did explode with terrible results.
A great many were killed by pieces of shell but a great many more lost their lives through being buried.
They tried to seek shelter by getting into dugouts and tunnels and places that, during any ordinary bombardment, would have been quite safe, but they evidently got their big guns up to give us a proper doing, and they succeeded.
They were using 11.2 shells, a battery of them.
I spent a good part of the day helping to dig some of the poor fellows out dead. Our officer and three NCOs all got knocked.
They were stranding together and a ’75 (a high explosive shell) got the four of them.
Killed two and badly wounded the others.
The officer had to have his leg taken off and it is still doubtful if he will recover.
I sincerely hope he does, as he was a fine chap.
I’ll not forget the 29th of Nov as long as I live.
I was very lucky during my four months over there; I did not get a scratch, and did not have a day’s sickness, but was not very sorry to get away from it.
Now, I’ll tell you a little bit about the way we got off.
To begin with we went off in parties called A party, A1 party, B, 31 and B2-parties, C1, 02 and C3 – each party leaving at different times.
A and A1 left a day before us.
They consisted of all the chaps who had been attending the doctor, and a good number there were too.
Then the rest all moved off at their appointed times, until only 03 party was left. In the section that our company had been holding, only eight were left, and I had the honour of being one of them.
I was with the very last party to leave and, when the time came for us to move off, we wasted no time in getting to the beach (about two miles), where a barge was waiting for us.
During the day some of our blankets were torn up and laid in the trenches and saps, and we also had to wrap bits of blanket around our feet to deaden any sound as the Turks were only a few yards away.
We that were left had to try and carry on just the same as we would have done on an ordinary night.
No more sniping and when the time came, we hopped off the parapets and off as hard as we could go.
If the Turks had attacked us we were gone, as eight of us could not have done much, and we had orders that we had to stay there until our time came – 3.30am was the time.
Anyway, we managed it alright.
Then we went to a rest camp and put in three weeks there, where we spent Christmas, and had rather a good time.
Next time I write I’ll give you some of our experiences there.
I must draw … to a close now, with best wishes.
