Dear Pals,
I hope that this (brief) letter finds you all in good health and enjoying the Summer. It’s not over yet! I have been over to the old frontline a few times since our May trip, more recently taking the guides from the Arras Tunnels around the battlefields. Also a very enjoyable trip, walking the Arras battlefields with Clive Harris and his ‘Battle Honours’ clients. (great crowd of people)
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After another successful tour, Christopher Quinton has written an epic review of the May 2010 Pilgrimage to The Western Front .
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In a poem Hares of the Somme I speculated as to how these creatures survived the Great War. In “Gas” The Story of the special Brigade (RE) by Major General C.H. Foulkes CB CMG DSO reference is made to the efforts of British gas on pets and wildlife, which appeared in a German newspaper the Frankfurter Zeitung.
Eagwyrt by Kate Wyatt.
“All the pets in the trenches suffer from the gas attacks. The Guinea-Pigs are the first to scent the gas and the cats also complain at once. Many dead rats and mice are found in the trenches after gas attacks. Owls are greatly excited. Behind the front fowls and ducks are said to become restless a quarter of an hour before the gas clouds approached; and the gas kills ants and caterpillars, beetles and butterflies. I found a hedgehog and an adder both killed by gas. The only birds that seem indifferent to gas are the sparrows.”
Foulkes also observes ‘Pigeons too, seem to have been found susceptible, because the Germans kept their carrier pigeons in gas tight boxes which had ordinary respirator drums screwed into one side.
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This site was indexed by Google this morning and now we are including it in Technorati
If you have a Technorati Account please add this site to your account as a favourite. It will help get the word out about Hampstead Pals.
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