United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From a prisoner taken the enemy learns what battalions were present at a given fight; he adds up the numbers reported killed and wounded and ascertains what the fight cost the enemy and, in turn, the effect of the fire from his side. But the British public demanded to see the casualty lists and the British Press were allowed to gratify the desire.
An incident of the same fight was a duel between two captains of the opposing forces. In the early parts of the engagement the burghers and the soldiers were so close together that many hand-to-hand encounters took place and many a casualty followed. Captain Scheppers, of the Boer heliographers, desired to make a prisoner of a British captain and asked him to surrender.
We hove and hove until everything cracked again; and I really was afraid at one time that we should either spring the mast or carry its head away altogether, but we succeeded at last in getting her past the point of greatest resistance, without meeting with any casualty, and after that she came down pretty easily.
The enemy fired without aim, and we were fortunate enough to lose only one sepoy; we could not ascertain the amount of casualty amongst them, but from the sudden cessation of any attack upon that part of the line where the artillery was stationed, we concluded that the rounds of grape must have told with considerable effect.
But when you have spent four months in firing dummy cartridges, performing bayonet exercises without bayonets, taking hasty cover from non-existent shell fire, capturing positions held by no enemy, and enacting the part of a "casualty" without having received a scratch, telephoning without a telephone is a comparatively simple operation. All you require is a ball of string and no sense of humour.
The importance of these considerations can hardly be exaggerated when we realise that, at any time, a substance possessing the same strategic value as mustard gas, but much more violent casualty effects, may be discovered. The Germans were certainly aware of these possibilities.
It may have been a casualty of the many incident to alcoholism; at the best it was a result of single combat, which, though it prepared us in a sort for the mediaeval atmosphere of the church, was yet not of the tragic dignity which would have come in the way of a more heroical imagination.
A squadron of fifteen aeroplanes carried out the raid, on June 13, and although they were only over the city for a period of fifteen minutes the casualty list was exceedingly heavy 104 killed and 432 wounded. Many children were among the killed and injured as the result of a bomb which fell upon a Council school.
While the shelling was as nothing compared to bombardments we went through later, still it gave us an opportunity to make the acquaintance of the various kinds of shells from "whizz-bangs" up to something of about eight-inch caliber. The first casualty in the battalion was a scout named Boyer who was killed on his initial trip into No Man's Land the first night in the trenches.
Dr. May recognized it with a burst of incoherent inquiry and exclamation, wringing Tom's hand, and giving no time for an answer; and, indeed, his son attempted none till, calming himself, the Doctor subsided into his arm-chair, and with a deep sigh, exclaimed, 'Now then, Tom, let us hear. Where does this come from? 'From the casualty ward at the Hotel Dieu. 'And from
Word Of The Day