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Updated: May 12, 2025
Beastly things those gas-shells!... Kent, too, got one through the shoulder from a sniper, and he's gone to England. The colonel was with him at the O.P., and tried to get the sniper afterwards with a rifle." "How is the colonel?" I asked. "Oh, he's going very strong; active as ever. Colonel is back from leave and doing C.R.A. now. We're under the th Division at the moment."
The 33d Division lost six thousand men in an advance against uncut wire in the wood, which they were told was already captured. Hundreds of men were vomiting from the effect of gas-shells, choking and blinded. Behind, the transport wagons and horses were smashed to bits. The divisional staffs were often ignorant of what was happening to the fighting-men when the attack was launched.
Where they struck, the ground looked like Resurrection Day with the dead elbowing their way into daylight and forcing back the earth from their eyes. There were actually many dead just beneath the surface and, as the ground was ploughed up, the smell of corruption became distinctly unpleasant. Presently the shells began to go dud; we realised that they were gas-shells.
The journey to Fonquevillers, where we were going, was not without interference from the enemy. Hitherto I had had great luck in escaping being shelled on the roads at night, but to-night my luck was out. As we moved back along the road to Essarts the doctor and I at the end of the column a number of gas-shells were dropped on the windward side of the road.
The last night we were in these quarters a number of gas-shells were fired round the batteries and B.H.Q. They made the atmosphere very unpleasant; and though they were not thick enough to necessitate wearing the respirator, I suffered, especially the following night, from their effects.
We went along the road all the way from Potijze to Ypres. We were literally chased by gas-shells; we had to run in respirators as fast as we could go; we came round by the Menin Gate and got back into the Ramparts, safe and sound, about 4.45, very thankful that nobody in our party had got hurt. Other battalions out on working parties had had a good many casualties.
It was the 2d Brigade of Guards, including Grenadiers, Welsh and Scots Guards, which was to lead the assault, while the 1st Brigade on the left maintained a holding position and the 3d Brigade was in support, immediately behind. As soon as the Guards started to attack they were met by a heavy storm of gas-shells.
The colonel studied his wall-map with intentness, and put a forefinger on the rd Brigade gun positions. A runner came in from C Battery, with whom we had had no communication for nearly two hours. The Huns seemed to know their position, and had put over a regular fusilade of 4·2's and 5·9's and gas-shells.
He had long coveted the Kidney Bean, and instinct told him that he would never have a better opportunity of capturing it than now. Accordingly, two hours before dawn, the Redoubt was subjected to a sudden, simultaneous, and converging fire from all the German artillery for many miles round, the whole being topped up with a rain of those crowning instruments of demoralisation, gas-shells.
Into Ypres as well large quantities of 'Yellow Cross' shells, cleverly mixed up with high-explosive, were fired with nocturnal frequency. The long range of the enemy's field-guns made the effect of these subtle gas-shells, whose flight and explosion were almost noiseless amid the din of our own artillery, especially widespread.
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