Letter: World War Ii and Letters Sent Home

Dearest Mother, April 8, 1917 I hope all is well at home. Tell everyone that I miss them very much. I managed to find some paper to write on so I can send you this letter. It’s cold and rainy often here and they haven’t blown the whistle in a while. I have been in the trenches for nearly a month with the British troops. It feels like I have been here for years. “I am preparing to go to the front and I am only sorry that I did not see you all before I went but then mother dear do not lose heart, I may come back again. And mother dear, do have courage. I will be alright, there are thousands of other mothers and relatives in the same circumstances and if I do die I will die with a good heart and all your love upon my lips.”1 I’m hungry all the time because food is scarce. Even when we get food, it is awful. The bread is so raw and dry that sometimes I do not even bother eating it. “This is a place to be in, we have to fight like tigers to get our food here soon as ever it comes up… some get a lot and some don’t get any. If we have money it is a hard job to spend it, if you go the coffee shop or canteen, you have to wait about two hours before it is your turn to be served. If I get through this lot, no more for me.”2 War is definitely not what I expected it to be. Death and disease is all around me and the naïve, glorious thoughts I had about war have now disappeared. “Piles of bodies lie next to me at all times, wounded, dead, or even men
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1. Kennedy, Maev. “First World War Soldiers Letters” Thursday, August 29th, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/29/first-world-war-soldiers-letters 2. “An Uncensored Letter Home” August, 14th, 2013. http://jimmythejock.hubpages.com/hub/World-War-1-A-Letter-From-The-Trenches whose minds have been destroyed by all that is going on around them.”3