Civil War Diary Summary

Snipers were sup up in lookout posts and would fire at the enemy and the first sight of movement, you had to keep your head down in the trenches no matter what you were doing for fear of being shot. There is a photo of a sniper in the slideshow above. Sometimes the opponents would play a game with their helmets to see who could hit it with a bullet. This shows that it wasn’t all about the death and killing others in

I have two battalions in the trenches of the first line and the third in relief at rest just behind our trenches. The three rotate. Our boys have had their baptism of fire. They have patrolled No Man 's Land. They have gone on raids and one of my lieutenants has been cited for a decoration…I am very proud of what we 've done and are doing. I put the whole regiment through grenade (live grenade) practice. Nasty, dangerous business. They did it beautifully… The boys keep

Corporal Walter Gordon was sitting up outside of his hole at the top of hill 303 the air was thick with soot and he could barely see twenty feet in front of him. Ringing filled his ears as shells exploded overhead, along with the screams of dying men. The enemy was on his front doorstep. While his comrades fell

All of us are on guard, just waiting for the enemy to attack. Being a soldier is a hard and scary thing to be. We face so many things every day. Some of the soldiers are starting to get trench foot because it's so muddy and wet in these trenches. I'm worried that I'm going to get it sometime. There are rats and lice running around

William, entrenched for months had not gone topside yet. He was in his early twenties, but considered the “old man” in his unit, still inexperienced in the reality of war and was dreading the day he was called to go over the top, into No Man’s Land. He had begun to recognise despair in the eyes of his mates, physically shaking before they climbed the ladders from the trenches, so courageous but yet weak with hunger, there was a constant muttering of “please God save us”. Most barely 15 years’ old when the deadly whistle blew, the order came, “Over the top boys, for Victory, Queen and Country!”.

"Not really, but thanks." We proceeded to crouch run through the trench, past the AA gun and went behind it. We readied our weapons, nodded to each other, stood up quickly, and let rip with our Thompsons. After the 60 rounds were expended into the, now Swiss cheese, gun crew, Sergeant Lewis climbs up out of the trench, hops on the controls and swings the gun around. He motions us over to man the reloading and traverse controls. Lewis lets the guns blaze, lighting up the machine guns nests, larger gun bunkers, and obliterating enemy troop advances. Our men were moving up the field, using the naval bombardment craters as cover from enemy return fire, until Sergeant Lewis pulverized their firing

After the battle of Somme, I was alone. All the men I had signed up with were gone. There was no time to grieve for them; Our division had to meet up with the others at Vimy Ridge. Immediately, we were handed maps of the Ridge. It was odd. We all had our own map to keep and study and we were explained exactly what to do. We even had to go through a scale model to know the lay of the land. Talk about overkill. It was nerve racking because of our tactic called a Creeping Barrage. After firing shells at the Germans for three weeks straight, we slowly aimed higher and higher while we followed the line of fire slowly. That way, the Germans would not be able to leave the trenches until it was too late. In those days that lead to a victory, Canada

We heard approaching footsteps so we hid inside some bushes. Later in the day, we ran into heavy German resistance. We heard a German shouting to us. One of our guys translated the German into English; "YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO SURRENDER OR WE WILL SWEEP THE DITCH FROM BOTH ENDS, AND THERE WILL BE NO CHANCE OF ANYONE SURVIVING." Lt. Bodak gave the order to surrender, but a few of us slipped through a hedgerow and fled towards a barn. As we entered the barn, three German Soldiers were trying to get out of the same door. We grabbed the German Soldiers and pulled them back inside. We had them as prisoners. While the prisoners were being guarded, I slipped away alone to another part of the barn. I pulled up a loose floorboard and stuffed my package which contained General Falley's command post flag, replaced the floorboard and covered it with straw. With our German prisoners as insurance, we left the barn safely. After travelling a few hundred yards, we came face to face with a German Tank, which fired its big gun at us. A shell exploded just behind our group, wounding many. One of the prisoners although bleeding from his wounds jumped up and waved cease-fire gestures to the tank commander. The insurance paid off, the tank commander decided to take prisoners rather than kill us. After being taken prisoner, we walked several miles to a chateau where there were about 250 prisoners, American, British

We waited to receive the orders from the lieutenant, but in my head i was already saying my prayers. He had told us to retrace our steps. I ran with everything I had in me, the proper duckboard made it somewhat easier to run but didn't take away from the fact that i was running with about 50kg of ammunition with me. We ran and arunned until we found the sap, while lieutenant provided shelter fire. We got out of the enemy trenches and crawled through the enemy's barbed wire. In the process of me going through the barbed wire, I cut my eye. Within seconds it was swollen shut and I thought I was in a dream. Maybe all of this was just a nightmare. I was later told i was suffering from extreme blood loss. Soon i felt something pull me i honestly thought i was being taken for german prisoner. But i heard a familiar voice. It was the lieutenant telling me to wake up. With whatever strength i had left and the help of the lieutenant,i staggered across no man's land And made it to our trenches were i was rushed to the infirmary. Not to soon after we arrived to safety, well as close to safety as we could have gotten the germans released fire on us. Although my eye is severely damaged, it couldve been alot worse; I am grateful that i returned all in one piece. I miss you dearly and am waiting to see you. If i do not make it hone in time for your birthday i shall wish your blessings upon you now. I

The food here isn't up to much, but I did receive your package and oh my it was delightful. Thank you dearly. How are you and Norman doing at home? I know that myself and my brothers are doing just fine, aside from healing injures. I do know do much of their field as I am still learning but I know Harry, as a recovering dispatch rider, is doing well. He has healed from his leg wound but they are considering rendering him invalid as he will never have the same movement back required to be the dispatch rider. He cannot be moved to defence as he has no experience but he may soon be at home joining you.

(Drez) They were supposed to secure the valley path that led to Vierville. It was the paved path that also connected to Point du Hoc. The Company’s casualties jumped to almost 66% of their force. Within fifteen minutes of landing, they couldn’t keep fighting. Company C of the 2nd Rangers Battalion, arrived a bit after with 64 men. They were supposed to arrive with Company A and attack the Charlie section of the beach. One of the landing boats was shot up and the other was getting peppered as the Rangers were getting off. When they had managed to get cover at the bottom of the cliffs, they had lost over half their men. Company G was supposed to land in the Dog White section, but they were pushed by the current two sections over to Easy Green. The Germans had started some small bush fires east of the Les Moulins path. One half of Company G easily made it around these with little fire against them. The other half ran into more fire, but they only lost 14 men, and still moved on toward the Les Moulin Valley. But because they were blown off-course, they didn’t know what to do next. Company F landed near the Les Moulin path and charged forward against the German defenses. They were downwind of the small fires, so they weren’t massacred. But some parts of Company F sustained up to 50% casualties. Only 2 boats landed in Easy Red, but they didn’t run into a lot of German defenses. About half of the soldiers

I opened the door to the main deck, the sounds of gunshots near and far. The smell of gunpowder filled my lungs and I found it hard to breathe. I always did. The endless waves of people, coming to face their slaughter, both sides never winning but always losing as the days drew shorter. As the sunset began we knew all our fighting would come to an end as others would take over, for tomorrow at sunrise we would start again. But for now we had about an hour left, “solider come here and help me with this ammunition” it was Sergeant Kirk, he has a fierce reputation on our ship the HMAS Sydney. I hurried over to help him move ammunition under the deck, and then rushed back to my station to meet up with Ryan, a small bloke with black hair, bit of stubble and an olive tan. We both come from the same city and we met on board the ship. We were in charge of the flak cannon on the port side of the ship. A

I’ve gotten hit by one or two bullets but no need to worry. Unfortunately, nearly all my mates, who first enlisted with me, have either been killed or evacuated because they’ve been seriously wounded, luckily the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels (the local Papuans) were there to help carry wounded soldiers.

Oh how time flies when you are fearing for your life! Fill me in on all the town gossip, there's very little conversation about normal, sane things over here. I can't remember the last time a gun, war or preparing for battle front wasn't mentioned in the conversation with my fellow soldiers. Oh I must say I’ve had the biggest appatite this week. We've trained seven hours a day so I took a whole two tins of baked beans with me to sneakily eat. They don't feed us much so I hope they don't see this letter or I'll get in a lot of trouble! My friend Aaron took just an extra banana and he had to do a whole extra hour of training which just so happened to be during dinner so he missed out, poor bugger! They give us potatoes and mush Will. I can't wait to come home and have mum’s sunday night dinners. My mouth is literally drooling at the thought of

98 British soldiers die that day, many from sniper fire. A German plane drops a bomb on Dover, the first air raid in British history. As the day wears on carols and hymns are sung in greater and greater numbers and a gradual exchange in communication and even meetings takes place in some parts of the line. Many of these meetings are to arrange collection of bodies. In other places, firing continues. The battalion officers are unsure how to react but in general they maintain battle order. The night brings the clear still air with a hard frost and then it's Christmas. Church services are held behind the lines and Christmas dinners are taken in barns and shattered buildings but the fraternisation is the big story. Many men record the wonderful and strange events of the day. Many Englishmen exchange tokens or addresses with German soldiers, many of whom speak English. In other areas there is considerable activity, the second grenadier guard suffered losses in a day of heavy fighting for an example and as night fell things grew quiet as men fell back to their