Item 01: Henry Gordon Simpson letters, 1915-1916 - Page 9

[Page 9]

for a first experience of battle, it was a pretty warm time – in fact I never thought to come out of that night alive – several of our company were wounded & 2 I think killed. This was known as the 'night of the charge', & the days following we were drafted into off into units different trenches in the firing line, & a few more of our crowd were killed & several wounded, but really it is rather difficult now to remember what happened each day, the first was the most fierce fighting; since then an intermittent bombardment has been going on, occasionally a man near you is killed or wounded. Personally I have only been stunned by about 20 sand bags hitting me with much precision & over the right eye to necessitating my going to the field dresser for a time. I turned out that it wasn't the sand bags fault, for they in their turn had been in collision with the deadly 75 & had in fact saved me from being shelled to smithereens – that little incident & a bullet choosing a part of my cap for a target

[Transcribed by Colin Smith for the State Library of New South Wales]