LIFE AT THE FRONT: SERGEANT STANLEY'S WAR DIARY
Easter Sunday, 1915, Ypres
'Trees crash on the ground, some falling across the trench, trying it seems to crush us. The noise is deafening.
'Nearer and nearer creeps this terrible inferno which only ends in death. May it come quick and mercifully.
'Some poor wretch has the side of his skull blown away and it is obvious nothing can be done for him. Oh the horror of it all.
'Why does it take so long for a man to die?
'We are trapped like rats, we cannot go forward, the way is barred and even if we could, machine guns and rifles are waiting to mow us down like a scythe.
'We cannot go right or left, we cannot go back, we can only wait numbed or stupefied.'
Brother's death, 1918
'My brother is dead. It is no use to moan. Every other soldier wears a black button now.
'Could we return to the happy days of 1914, things can never be the same again, my brother is dead.
'I expected this but my poor mother will never be the same again.'
Friend's death by a sniper
In another haunting passage, Sgt Stanley described in graphic detail his friend being taken out by sniper fire.
He wrote: 'A weird sharp phut! A sound like driving a nail into soft brick, a ghastly moan followed by a gurgling long drawn out groan of pain and the word passes.
'He has it properly in the stomach. I peer through darkness and the look is still there - no hope. He died the next day.'
The sheer loss of life deeply troubled Sgt Stanley who bemoaned 'the same tragic story' repeating itself throughout the course of the barbaric conflict.
He wrote: 'In spite of the wonderful courage and heroism of the troops, the same tragic story recurs.
'Men march up singing and return wounded as fast as lorries can carry them.
'They return huddled together like carcasses of meat.'
Courage of nurses at the front
He wrote: 'There's another class of women whose heroism and courage is deserving of the highest praise but they too appear to be forgotten - the nurses in the front areas where romance and sentiment cease to exist, where life hangs but by a thread, where the work which they are called upon to do is even worse than the shells and aircraft bombs which number them among their victims.
'There is no holding patients' hands in flower bedecked rooms amid romantic surroundings where the gallant Dragoon staggers in with gold braid and a bloodstained bandage around his head.
'No! The work is fast and furious, filthy and bloody, abdominal cases are bad at any time but when the casualty has been snatched from a muddy, gory swamp, hardly recognisable from the wind which is everywhere, as lousy as a cuckoo, and with no control over the lower organs, the smell and the groans, it is a miracle that these women don't lose their reason.'
WW I Diary.
Easter Sunday, 1915, Ypres
'Trees crash on the ground, some falling across the trench, trying it seems to crush us. The noise is deafening.
'Nearer and nearer creeps this terrible inferno which only ends in death. May it come quick and mercifully.
'Some poor wretch has the side of his skull blown away and it is obvious nothing can be done for him. Oh the horror of it all.
'Why does it take so long for a man to die?
'We are trapped like rats, we cannot go forward, the way is barred and even if we could, machine guns and rifles are waiting to mow us down like a scythe.
'We cannot go right or left, we cannot go back, we can only wait numbed or stupefied.'
Brother's death, 1918
'My brother is dead. It is no use to moan. Every other soldier wears a black button now.
'Could we return to the happy days of 1914, things can never be the same again, my brother is dead.
'I expected this but my poor mother will never be the same again.'
Friend's death by a sniper
In another haunting passage, Sgt Stanley described in graphic detail his friend being taken out by sniper fire.
He wrote: 'A weird sharp phut! A sound like driving a nail into soft brick, a ghastly moan followed by a gurgling long drawn out groan of pain and the word passes.
'He has it properly in the stomach. I peer through darkness and the look is still there - no hope. He died the next day.'
The sheer loss of life deeply troubled Sgt Stanley who bemoaned 'the same tragic story' repeating itself throughout the course of the barbaric conflict.
He wrote: 'In spite of the wonderful courage and heroism of the troops, the same tragic story recurs.
'Men march up singing and return wounded as fast as lorries can carry them.
'They return huddled together like carcasses of meat.'
Courage of nurses at the front
He wrote: 'There's another class of women whose heroism and courage is deserving of the highest praise but they too appear to be forgotten - the nurses in the front areas where romance and sentiment cease to exist, where life hangs but by a thread, where the work which they are called upon to do is even worse than the shells and aircraft bombs which number them among their victims.
'There is no holding patients' hands in flower bedecked rooms amid romantic surroundings where the gallant Dragoon staggers in with gold braid and a bloodstained bandage around his head.
'No! The work is fast and furious, filthy and bloody, abdominal cases are bad at any time but when the casualty has been snatched from a muddy, gory swamp, hardly recognisable from the wind which is everywhere, as lousy as a cuckoo, and with no control over the lower organs, the smell and the groans, it is a miracle that these women don't lose their reason.'
WW I Diary.