I am having a great time. I suppose you will not have found my letters very interesting in the past twelve months as one cannot put much in them when they are read by your Platoon Officer so I am writing this one to describe what warfare is really like these times. I get the N.Z. papers occasionally and you get a very poor idea of what it is really like. Of course what I am about to write about I am not going to put in any other letters I write, so anything fit to tell Mum or the girls I will leave to you to tell them as I would not like to put anything in their letter to worry them.

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Don’t thing [think] that I am sick of the game or anything like that from the description I am about to give you.

Well to begin with I joined the Company at the Somme on the 29th of Sept but did not see any fighting there, that is I was not in the firing line. We left there a fortnight after & went to Sailly & Levente front line that is a few miles South of Armentieres. There we remained till the 24th of February when we went to Hill 63, Ploegsteert Wood. It was from there we attacked Messines. While in the Sailly front (winter time) it was very quiet with only slight bombardments & occasional raids but when we went to Hill 63 the trouble commenced. We were [alongside] to a Tommy Division who had the “wind up” & of course Fritz knew it, but when we went there & our constant fire began (blowing up his trenches with trench mortars) he knew there was a change & of course he raided. It was there that I had my first damnable feeling for he strafed us with mines – wherfers (a heavy trench mortar, about the size of an oil-drum with a thin casing & full of high explosives) for an hour & then attempted to enter our trenches. This he found difficult as only one man fell dead into our trench. It was there I lost my mate, Jim Leckie. He was cut to pieces by a shell.

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Now take the Messines battle. We worked all night & slept in the day times to fix our trenches for the attack for several weeks before it took place. Then on the night of the 6th of June we marched to our assembly lines for ... [page torn]... mile, this had to be done with gas masks on. I might mention before this happened all the wire both his & ours had been blown to atoms & his trenches also to say nothing of ours as our artillery did not shell his batteries although they had located them.

This they left till the last moment for had they blown them up previously they would have replaced them & they would not have known their position or range. So we reached our assembly trench about half past two in the morning of the seventh & waited till 3-15 a.m. when the earth began to move, first to the left

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then to the right then up & down & side to side, then the whole of his territory seemed to be on fire. You can’t imagine the feelings wondering if we were going up or him. By this time there were hundreds or rather thousands of guns barking.

Then our O.C. a chap called Tilsley, no doubt you heard of him, he has risen from the ranks to a Captain with a DCM & as for a gentleman well words wont express my meaning he puts more time with the men than the Officers & gives cigarettes away galore, shouted we are winning this these times & then we left our trench. Then there was men falling around me, cries for help which we must ignore... [paper disintegrated]... your trench you don’t stop till you reach your objective unless your [you’re] shot.

Well I need not tell you anything blood-thirsty about it but I never lost my reasoning throughout of it. There were piteous sights of the enemy. One such as this I saw a small dog lying alongside of two bodies which were more or less mutilated & barked viciously at us as we passed. On reaching our objective about a half of a mile past what was once the town of Messines we dug in & remained there for eighty hours, this time was occupied by carrying trench stores etc to the various companies (overland of course)

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From there on the first day the Australians passed us & dug in further on. Well, so much for Messines. The next time we went into the trenches (eight days) ... [paper disintegrated]...expecting to be relieved but instead of that we got orders at nine o’clock at night that our whole company & eight out of another company were to raid to a depth of six hundred yards. This was to take forty minutes. Here is the excitement. We lift over trenches under a heavy barrage of fire from Fritz who was to raid us five minutes after as we learned from his prisoners. We met his men in “No Man’s Land” in shell holes & then there was hand to hand fighting not with bayonets as much as bombs. Of course the bayonets were used also. The greatest surprise I got was when we first

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met them for I was going along calmly when there was a flash of a rifle about five yards in front of me & I noticed one of our men fall that was next to me on my left & saw a figure couching in a shell hole. This of course was all in a second. What followed need not be explained but there was terror in shell hole. Well we reached our objectives & came back but did not bother much of prisoners. Well we started with about 160 men & finished with ninety odd. Well Will this will give you some sort of an idea of what modern warfare is like. I have been in charge of a section for the past ...[paper disintegrated]...the officers that I am going through for stripes but I don’t know whether I will get them or not as there is a corporal joined the Company & keeping his stripes though he came with the 14th Reinforcements. However if I don’t I will stand a chance of getting a good job.

Well Will I must close now as I will have to get ready to catch the train for Scotland. I will write to the others later.

Don’t let Mum see this letter as I will not tell her anything about the war but about my holiday. Kia-Ora.

Your Loving Brother

Harold."