Item 06: Letters sent by Robert Christian Wilson to his family, 1918-April 1919 - Page 256
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[Page 256]
us for some time past, I will try and give you a short account of her life history as far as I know it, before formaly introducing you to her. You know that the Jordan valley, or rather plain surrounded as it is by such high mountains, is just like a huge old ampitheatre, and our forces being the aggressive gladiators in this great struggle had to boldly enter the centre of the arena and hold bridge heads accross the river, whilst the turks sat up in their galleries above, and issued us, at their leasure with all sorts of iorn iorn rations.
I think every shell imaginable was thrown at us there; especially when we were on "Mussalabeh" which was on our front line, in the foothills on the west side of the river, and so used to get shelled from north as well as east; everything from high power whiz-bangs to 5.9 coal boxes, which seem like every thunder storm you have ever heard, rolled into one, when they burst any where near you, and from 'Lidite' [Lyddite] shells which were said to be of our make and captured from the Russians, to shrapnel shells with High explosive nose caps which used to go off like a big double bunger - all these and more the turks used to chuck at us, as they felt inclined, and then,