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Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 49, 27 August 1917, Page 8

Although in the midst of danger and death, soldiers at the front are deeply impressed by accidents caused by circumstances outside of. actual warfare. Gunner W. J. Wilson, writing to his father from France, after referring casually to several casualties, in which he might easily have been the victim, says : —"The sa-udest affair I have ever witnessed happened not far from me the other day. A thunderstorm came on, and 1 was sitting in my tent out of the rain, when suddenly there was a terrific crack, far louder than the sound of any gunfiring or shell-bursting. We rushed outside, and saw that a tree had been struck by lightning about twenty feet from our tent. At the foot of the tree was a cookhouse, in which ten men of the 7th Battery ha.d been sheltering from the rain. Our corporal was the first man to go in, and a sad spectacle confronted him. The whole ten men had been struck by lightning, and lay on the floor, some of them moaning. They were quickly taken out, and everything done to save them. One, Veterinary-Captain Prinmu'r, had been lulled, and most of the others were more or less injured. They %veie removed in motor ambulances, but I have not heard how they got on, although I believe some are all right. The vel-terinary-si'gcon was much liked and inspected by us all, and his case was rendered particularly sad by the fact (.hat Ills wife was inParis ex peeling him to go and see her. The affair created a deep impression- among us all, for it seemed strange that when the enemy's effort* to kill had failed, Nature should tako a hand in tha butiness, with euch tragic remits."