Letter from Charles Stewart Alexander to cousin Amy Reid, 10 July 1917

Letter from Alexander, France, to Amy Reid, Tuhikaramea, via Ohaupo, Waikato, New Zealand, dated 10 July 1917, describing Messines battlefield and aircraft in flight. (holograph; 7 leaves)

The following extracts have been taken from pages 3 and 4:

[Page 3]

"... when for the first time I stood on a modern Battlefield & saw the ruin & havoc & desolation caused & still being caused by German & our shells that flew over head some of them landing in crops of wheat & mangolds I realised for the first time the awfulness of war."

[Page 4]

"I could not describe Messines Battlefield to you if I tried for the havoc and ruin baffles all description. Just imagine all those Aspen trees round your place torn smashed & uprooted, not a branch on one of them & of those that stood only a portion of the trunk remaining. Imagine those paddocks round your house for a mile or more on either side so smashed up with shellfire that not a blade of grass is to be seen. Imagine the shell holes to be so close together that it would be impossible for one to stand on a portion of the ground that was not broken by shells.

Imagine broken barbwire entanglement broken trenches & smashed dugouts & here & there a small wooden cross marking the grave of a soldier perhaps as I saw in one or two cases those crosses broken & the grave smashed by shell fire. It seems horrible to think that not even the dead can rest & be untouched by those damnable (pardon my expression) shells."