Letter from Alexander, France, to Amy Reid, Tuhikaramea, via Ohaupo, Waikato, New Zealand, dated 3 November 1917, describing behind lines at Passchendaele; belief that papers will have given a glowing account of Passchendaele; difficulty of description; of reading last letter in trench compared to New Zealand conditions; feelings before attack and ominous silence of guns before attack; awful but magnificent scene; bloodlust; feelings of revenge for comrade; and saving the life of a young German soldier from an enraged New Zealand soldier. (holograph; 3 leaves, double-sided)

The following extracts are taken from pages 3, 4 and 5:

[Page 3]

"You may wonder what my thoughts were as I waited for the order to advance. You may ask 'Was I scared'? 'Did I see my past life come before me'? 'Did I repent of many sins committed.' (I am now forgetting how to spell).

As I waited there in the darkness of the hour before dawn on that morning I had a strange feeling of perfect confidence that I would be safe."

[Page 4]

"At 5:55 am the word came 'Get Ready!' Just once I looked at my loaded rifle just once I thought of Home, just once I wondered how the day would go & with a terrific roar that was appalling our massed guns broke out. The scene as we moved forward was awful but magnificent I shall never forget it. Of all that happened then for a while I have only a hazy recollection but I was mad & out to kill. More than one German paid the price of poor old [Willies?] Life that day & it was with a feeling of fiendish joy that I used that rifle & bayonet.

There was one incident that I saw that I will never forget."

[Page 5]

"A Hun of about 19 years of age lay on the ground & one of our boys stood over him with the point of his bayonet on the Huns stomach & he was saying 'I am going to kill you, you'. The look of terror on that boys face was awful & he was screaming for mercy.

I could not see him killed. It was too much like murder. I knocked the N.Z. bayonet aside & dragged the Hun to his feet. That incident I will never to my dying day forget but I suppose it is one of many in this land where Human Life is so cheap."

9155 (Presto content ID)

MS-1992-70-10 (Reference Number)

Manuscripts