Letters From the Front

Dated: May 7, 1915

Letters From The Front

W. J. Broughton received the following letter from his son Colin last week:

France, May 7th, 1915.

Dear Dad and Mother:--

I received two letters from you the other day, one dated April 5th and one the 11th, and was pleased to hear you were all well.

I am glad to say I have been through our big battle all safe and sound, although I had plenty of narrow escapes.  We laid out in an open field for four days, and the Germans just rained shrapnel over us all the time, but did very little damage.

The worst thing we had to contend with was the gas, and that was something awful.

We are all anxiously watching the papers to see what our people are going to do about it.

I suppose that your papers are full of our brave (?) deeds, I should just like to see one.

I read Sir Max Aiken's account in  the English papers and it was a dandy.

I can't begin to tell you what actually did happen in this letter, but I shall be able to spin you a good yarn when I come home.  When we went into the trenches this time, we lost everything we had, and just came back with our rifles and ammunition and considered ourselves pretty lucky to get back at all.

The German casualty list must be a big one for our machine guns just simply mowed them down like grass.

When the mail came the other day I got nine letters and a newspaper from New Zealand.

Your loving son,

COLIN