Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:09:09.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 11 - Remembering Pozières

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2015

Christopher Wray
Get access

Summary

On 21 July 1920 Charles Monaghan, who had served as a stretcher-bearer with the 8th Field Ambulance, wrote to ‘My beloved Em’:

Aye full well this is a week of anniversaries. In addition to the wonderful days of my homecoming, it is also the 4th Anniversary of the days a hundred thousand of us Digger soldiers first smelt war’s gunpowder and received our baptism of fire. Last Monday the 19th was the anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles when the 5th Division got horribly shot up, then tomorrow the 22nd, 4 years ago saw the big stint of Pozières launched. Shall I ever forget this night then, the eve of battle, we were – the stretcher-bearers, mobilised in a village about 7 miles [11 kilometres] behind the line. Darkness fell and each man was ordered to stand by to be ready to move off at a moment’s notice. The preliminary bombardment had already started and we could hear the shattering roar of the big guns posted in the rear not far from where we were (at midnight)…the…order came to move forward…At daybreak we had reached the area immediately behind the front trenches and were immediately in the thick of it. The next few hours I have only a nightmarish remembrance of.

Charles Monaghan would not have been the only person remembering the anniversary of the battle and the nightmarish scenes that had confronted him. Many other survivors would have looked back on the events of four years before, as they would continue to do for the rest of their lives. The survivors of Pozières, in common with others who fought in the war, were marked by an experience that those who had not undergone the trial of blood and fire could never comprehend.

Type
Chapter
Information
Pozières
Echoes of a Distant Battle
 , pp. 200 - 210
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×