Love, Tommy is a poignant collection of letters home from soldiers across a hundred years of British and Commonwealth military history. Collated by noted historian Andrew Roberts, in association with the Imperial War Museum, these letters are revealing, witty, dramatic and often moving; intimate glimpses into life on the front line. Over the next few weeks, we'll be releasing some of these letters on our blog. Here is an extract from the Western Front, 1915.

Spring 1915 brought a rapid return to hostilities with several major battles. This letter by Major Henry Granville Scott describes his involvement in the Ypres area while serving with the 1/4th Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire) Regiment.

6.30am
Tuesday morning
27th April 1915


To Miss Scott,

 

I will now try and give you a more detailed and connected account of what has happened since we left the little village 10½ miles from Ypres where we billeted for 3 days after journeying night and day from England.

On Thursday night at 11pm I was roused. Orders had come for the Brigade to stand by ready to move at a moment’s notice. By 12pm the Battalion was ready to march.

Orders then came cancelling former orders and we went back to billets. At 8am Friday orders again came to be ready to move followed by an order to assemble as quick as possible at a point 2 miles away on the road to Ypres. We did so by about 10am and found the No. 1 Batt. [Battalion] already there. We are No. 2 in seniority of the Brigade. At 11 a long string of motor buses moved us to a point 3½ miles east of Yp. and from there we marched to hutments just outside. The men were all carrying tremendous loads, all they had and extra ammunition – 200 per man.

The roads are bad for the feet where they are most pavé, they are very uneven with large loose stones which turn over when you stand on them – very heavy on [the] ankles when you are carrying a heavy load. The addition of a heavy bundle of maps, double rations etc made officer’s lists heavier than ever. I know we all carry too much, but we do not know yet what to discard. Everything we have seems absolutely necessary.

Well the hutments were an agreeable surprise to us (we never know exactly where we are going until we get there, movements being made in a succession of bounds). We quickly started to make ourselves comfortable, a deafening cannonade was going on and we knew we were well within range of shell fire. We were to have no rest however, as orders came at 8.30pm to move.

My times after this are not to be relied upon as I am trusting to approximation. However they are real enough for a personal narrative. We moved at 2.45am (head of the column) and in the following order – 1, 3, 4, 2 (seniority of Batts in Brigade) in the direction of Y canal and lay down in a field in readiness. We were moved back twice during the next few hours. At 6am I was sent back to hutments on a bicycle to arrange to bring hot tea for the men…

I was wishing I could shed some of my kit but couldn’t risk it. Just as we were lighting fires four shells came right amongst us, fortunately doing only slight damage – six men slightly wounded including Lt. Tugwell. De Legh was there with his stretchers and he quickly got to work. Our four stretchers were sent off to hutments so I lugged Tugwell on to a cook’s cart … and De Legh dressed his wound (slight shell wound on lower leg)…

We reassembled in somewhat open order. The CO [commanding officer] came back with orders to move in the direction of the east of Ypres… We marched in a roundabout way to a point E of Yp., about 6 miles and squatted down again. We were intermingled with all sort of scattered troops, wounded men were continually passing, the deafening artillery fire never ceased for a moment… We received orders that the Bn. had to attack. Well I thought this was pretty sharp for troops that had only been a few days in the
country…

Each Coy [company] formed its own method of formation, but they were mostly in diamond formation in column of platoons. While the CO was making his disposition, I took a careful compass bearing of the line. Off we started.

We were quickly observed and immediately the leading Companies extended into lines and pressed on in short rushes. Nos 3 and 4 acting as supports began to close up and thicken the lines. I have seen our men practice the attack drill and do it very well, but I never saw them do it so well as this. As a drill it would have been fault-less. As an actual action under frightful conditions of modern warfare it was superb…

Men began to drop quicker and quicker. Still we pressed on, taking advantage of every little undulation and there were not many. A man dropped just in front of me. Nevin and I could not see his wound. He said it was in his stomach. We lay on each side of him and tore his clothes apart. We found the wound (a bullet in the back behind his kidneys) put his first field dressing on and left him…

The CO in his anxiety was exposing himself too much, at least I think so, and some of the men told me afterwards that it later worried them. We were getting near to the enemy’s position now and found other troops in front of us, who proved to be the loyal Irish. Suddenly the man lying next to me turned his head towards me and I saw his face from his eyes to his chin was literally blown away. He made a sort of moaning noise and looked at me in a questioning sort of way as if asking me what had happened to him. I rolled over to him, got his field dressing, turned him on his back and put the dressing on, but the pad would not nearly fill the hole. I injected 2 pellets of morphine into his arm and pressed on… I joined our second line about 30 yards ahead. Our front line was forming at 300 yards carefully and systematically…

The CO and I found the CO of the Royal Irish and he told us he had orders from the GOC [general officer commanding] to relieve at dusk as he could not hold the line we had advanced to. It seemed awfully hard to have to give up what we had apparently gained but we are simply pawns in the great game and know nothing more than is necessary and very often, we think, not even that…

That is all up to now. It is 10.45 and I have written this whilst my memory is fresh. I hope you will be able to decipher it. It is only a sketch, I could paint the picture but it would take me a week and I would not be able to see for tears.

Yours as ever