Appendix

A LETTER FROM THE FRONT

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This is one of the letters found among the boxes taken from the Pennsylvania farmhouse by Michael Ross. It was in an envelope containing Christmas cards sent to Suzanne in the 1960s. Wilkins wrote it to his mother two weeks after he arrived at the Western Front.

Headquarters

1st Anzac Army Corps in France

30 August 1917

Dear Mother

Much sooner than expected I have been able to see the intense fighting going on in these districts, and although the conflict is terrible and the conditions in the front lines so awful it is wonderful how intelligent human beings can live through it, things are remarkably peaceful and prosperous in the country districts in Flanders quite close to the front lines.

One can see within seven miles of the enemy trenches, men and women out in the fields carrying on with their harvesting very much as usual. Of course one notices much quite different in the villages and towns which are full of soldiers, and as the Hun have bombed most of them, the number of the civilian population have left, but the country folk still stay on, not withstanding that the Germans sometimes actually shell with their big guns ten or fifteen miles behind where the people are working in the fields.

They are growing very good crops of wheat about where we are, but of course all the farms are small and one sees them carrying on the work with the hoe or the scythe and women and children out gathering the corn by hand in some cases. On the farms they have modern [illegible] but most of them only have one or two horses. They are very fine ones though and it was astonishing to us to see one horse pulling their furrough plough when we used to use six for that. There are no stones in the ground over here though, and it is always very damp.

We have had an awful lot of rain unfortunately since we have been over here and it interferes with us taking pictures. With regard to our work Captain Hurley and I work together as much as possible, but occasionally we go on different jobs. My particular work for the time being is to take pictures of every place where the Australian soldiers have been fighting and this means a lot of travelling of course, particularly along the whole of the Western Front line from end to end. It will give me a rare opportunity of seeing things.

As well as this I keep up with pictures of where the troops are and what they are doing at present and all of my work will be for the official Commonwealth records. Hurley is taking general [illegible] and press work, but of course we often work together on the same things. It is most interesting and sometimes exciting. We have been living for three days with the artillery lately and they are doing wonderfully good work. They were complimented by the Commander-in-Chief the other day. They have a pretty hard time of it too. They get shelled every day by the German big guns and have lost a lot of men, some through gas attacks. We always wear steel helmets near the lines and carry our gas masks. We have smelled both the mustard gas, or blistering gas, and the tear gas, but have not suffered from either.

It is terrible to hear the roar of the guns and see their flashing at night. Just close or within a quarter mile to us the other night were thirty guns sustaining firing which meant twenty-four shots a second and this kept up for ten minutes. You can imagine the noise and the effect. It was pitch dark and raining in torrents. The Germans of course were shelling our position as well, so we had the screams and bursts of their shells as well. It was a wonderful sight. Firing goes on all day and all night without stop. There is not a minute any time of the twenty-four hours that one will not hear guns go off and the enemy keep up the shooting almost as much.

The ground for miles is just like honeycomb — the result of shells — and now after the rain these holes are almost full of water. It would be impossible to walk far without the duckboards, which are a sort of planked roadway. Goodness only knows how they move their guns about. Nearly all the supplies are brought in by horses and mules, for the roads are continually being blown up by shells and it is not possible to take vehicle traffic along them within two miles of the front line. They keep on putting down light railway lines of course on which to bring the wounded in from the front lines, but this is always being knocked about by shell-fire. We were at a place the other day, from which we could see about thirty miles of the fighting front lines. It was an extraordinarily good view. The nearest enemy trench was about five miles away, but later we went up to where we could plainly see the enemy walking along his lines. It is marvellous how calmly the infantry walk amongst the shellfire and hardly seem to take any notice of it. Sometimes if they hear a shell coming right towards them they will lie down — but often [they] keep on walking.

We have met some awfully nice fellows who help in whatever way they can and I can assure you that we are having a most interesting time. I have met General Birdwood and General White. I believe I have heard Tom [Wilkins’ brother] speak of the latter. By the way, if there is anyone over here in any part of the Australian Army, that anyone of you wish me to enquire about or meet, it will always be possible, for I see the whole of the Australian Army in France — infantry, engineers, artillery, flying corps, tunnellers, light horse, etc. But if you mention anyone try and let me know which of the units he is in. There are a fine lot of fellows on our headquarters staff, but I have not met anyone that I know yet.

We have been round to see several of the flying corps squadrons and it makes me feel sorry that I am not a pilot, but the work I am doing is also interesting and exciting, so I am making the best of it.

We live in tents surrounded by earth walls for the Germans sometimes come over and drop bombs, but we have our meals at a first class hotel.

A darkroom has been built for us and fitted up very nicely and we have a car to use just for photographic work. Captain Bean the official correspondent also has one and usually comes with us [so] we get about all over the place. I think I have averaged over fifty miles a day in the motors every day I have been over here and with so much moving about one can’t help seeing a great deal. I go with Captain Bean practically everywhere he goes, so when you see anything mentioned by him I will have seen it too. Of course he does not go every day and then I go with Hurley. We are able to get quite a few good pictures and curios.

Hoping to have a letter from you all soon. Have only had one so far because of the delay and loss of mails no doubt.

I will close with best love from George.