GRIM WAR PICTURES

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9076, 22 June 1915, Page 6

GRIM WAR PICTURES

AWFUL SHELL EFFECTS

GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF SCENES OF DESTRUCTION.

From Our Special Correspondent, LONDON, April 30,

A sergeant of engineers sends a very descriptive letter home. “What is being in a bombardment city like? In the place where I am now all and every particle of glass has ‘gone west,’ and whole houses are blown to atoms. The effect of the large shells is terrific. Going along the streets you hear a funny' whistung. . Then you hold tight, and touch wood. In a second a shell pitches l and then comes a crash that seems to split the world. I have seen a shell burst and send a fragment 300 yards, which in its turn has made another five foot hole in the ground. The actual shell itself makes a nice little hole about the size of our front room at home. The people get absolutely panic-stricken. Yon can see old women of 30 and fine little children being carried off to the hospitals badly hit. By God, if some of the people dn England could see the awful misery, there would never be any more strikes while this war lasts. One shell pitched in a square where several civilians were soiling things to -the troops, and blew seven literally to atoms. There was nothing left of them. Nothing can stand against it, and the noise is deafening. Those who survive the explosion can seen only a smudge, a brick-coloured smudge, whore their home once stood. That is what might have happened in England. Don’t worry about me in the least. This is the real life for me. So lot ’em carry on.” HE COULDN’T GRUMBLE.

Another soldier has sent this little pen-picture: “I was in a firing trench a few days ago which had in turn belonged to the French, the Germans, and the English. In some places in this trench there were showing the feet of both German and French dead. They had been killed and buried where they fell- One Frenchman had been buried about five months' ago. ' His grave was marked by a little cross. A shell came along and blew the Frenchman and his cross in different directions. It wasn’t a nice thing to see; but we don’t take a scrap' of notice now of these things. Why, that mince tart that Flossie sent me was eaten by me in the trenches with my feet on a dead man. I could hot move at the time without being shot. But I am quite happy and fit, and can’t grumble.”