a sober reminder of life 90 years ago
July 2007
I’ve just heard an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live
with a gentleman called Bill Lamin who is using
a blog to publish the letters that his
grandfather, Private Harry Lamin, wrote during
World War One. Each letter is being posted 90
years to the day since it was written. Reading
the letters has made me feel very grateful to be
alive, embarrassed about the relatively easy
life that I enjoy, and humbled by the sacrifices
that people made during this atrocious conflict.
The letters are interspersed with occasional entries which help put Harry‘s descriptions in context. Last month, Harry was involved in the Battle of Messines Ridge in France, which he describes in a letter thus:
"We have had another terrible time this week the men here say it was worst than the Somme advance last July. We lost a lot of men but we got where we were asked to take. It was awful I am alright got buried and knocked about but quite well now and hope to remain so. We were praised by the general and all, everybody said we had done well... It is a rum job waiting for the time to come to go over the top without any rum too. The C.O. got killed and our captain, marvellous how we escaped... The little book you sent is very nice it will come in useful I will read it..." [sic]
The accompanying blog entry explains what Harry had just experienced: for 18 days and nights there had been continuous heavy bombardment of the German lines. At 2.50am on 8th June 1917 the bombardment stopped and Harry and his colleagues were ordered to lie down. 20 minutes later and the largest explosion of the war so far blew apart the German front lines at Messines Ridge. 450 tonnes of high explosive, laid in 19 mines, was detonated. The noise of the blast was heard as far away as London and Dublin. Ten thousand German soldiers were killed by the explosion.
Harry’s letters make for sobering reading, but I also found them to be strangely inspiring. The only way to find out whether Harry survived the war is to check the blog regularly to see if his letters have dried up (Bill’s father was born before Harry went to war). Curiously, I now find myself rooting for a man – who I know is no longer alive – to survive a war that ended almost nine decades ago. The only missing pieces of the puzzle are where, when and how he died.
All of this has reminded me of a visit I made with Peter Stewart to some First World War memorials in France a few years ago. We came across the first cemetery at midnight: the haunting image of our vehicle’s headlights illuminating what appeared to be a carpet of white crosses stretching to infinity remains indelibly imprinted on my mind’s eye. I cannot begin to imagine the grief and suffering experienced by the soldiers and citizens on both sides during those five long years.
The letters are interspersed with occasional entries which help put Harry‘s descriptions in context. Last month, Harry was involved in the Battle of Messines Ridge in France, which he describes in a letter thus:
"We have had another terrible time this week the men here say it was worst than the Somme advance last July. We lost a lot of men but we got where we were asked to take. It was awful I am alright got buried and knocked about but quite well now and hope to remain so. We were praised by the general and all, everybody said we had done well... It is a rum job waiting for the time to come to go over the top without any rum too. The C.O. got killed and our captain, marvellous how we escaped... The little book you sent is very nice it will come in useful I will read it..." [sic]
The accompanying blog entry explains what Harry had just experienced: for 18 days and nights there had been continuous heavy bombardment of the German lines. At 2.50am on 8th June 1917 the bombardment stopped and Harry and his colleagues were ordered to lie down. 20 minutes later and the largest explosion of the war so far blew apart the German front lines at Messines Ridge. 450 tonnes of high explosive, laid in 19 mines, was detonated. The noise of the blast was heard as far away as London and Dublin. Ten thousand German soldiers were killed by the explosion.
Harry’s letters make for sobering reading, but I also found them to be strangely inspiring. The only way to find out whether Harry survived the war is to check the blog regularly to see if his letters have dried up (Bill’s father was born before Harry went to war). Curiously, I now find myself rooting for a man – who I know is no longer alive – to survive a war that ended almost nine decades ago. The only missing pieces of the puzzle are where, when and how he died.
All of this has reminded me of a visit I made with Peter Stewart to some First World War memorials in France a few years ago. We came across the first cemetery at midnight: the haunting image of our vehicle’s headlights illuminating what appeared to be a carpet of white crosses stretching to infinity remains indelibly imprinted on my mind’s eye. I cannot begin to imagine the grief and suffering experienced by the soldiers and citizens on both sides during those five long years.