Item 01: Frank Hurley war diary, 21 August-28 October 1917 - Page 80
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 80]
of the new day, with the torn trees & ruins reflected in the placid mirror like moat. Of course everything is so blasted & shelled, that had one not known that before him lay Ypres, it would have been mistaken for a great brick dump.
We took the car via the Menin Gate, & left it a little out of Ypres, as the road was being shelled & unsafe for transport. The way had been shelled the previous night & was littered with broken limbers & horses. In the centre lay a motor lorry almost cut in halves & burnt by a shell hit. The Menin Rd is one of the, if not the, most ghastly approach on the whole front. Accretions of broken limbers, materials & munitions lay in piles on either side, giving the road the appearance of running through a cutting. Any time of the day it may be shelled & it is absolutely impossible owing to the congested traffic