France, 22/7/1918

Dear Father,

I received a short note from you today written from Byrock in which you say that you had received word from the Authorities concerning my wound. Ere this no doubt you have also received letters from me describing the nature of the wound and the circumstances. If not, I may state that it was really nothing at all (i.e compared with some I have seen) and I was all right in about 3 weeks. At the time we only had a couple of officers including myself to take charge of the troops and we were going over the top in the morning, and it would have looked cowardly to have gone away on the face of things. Therefore, I argued the point a bit and stayed and as we did not have the “stunt”, things turned out all right. At any other time I should have gone to the C.C.S. It is the custom of the military to keep a record of all cases which go through the dressing station, which fact accounts for all the fuss and stir which seems to have been created through the whole earth. At any rate, I have had enquiries from Belgium, France, England and Australia, from people I know who have seen my name in the casualty list. Please do not worry about it in the slightest as I am quite all right and don’t feel it now.

During the past four months we have been working around the Somme and the Ancre and have done wonders since being here as the papers no doubt inform you all. ln fact I think the Australians have caused the Hun more casualties and trouble generally than any other corps on the British front. The Yanks are already our pals, no doubt because we have fought alongside them and lived with them for some months. There is absolutely no doubt that the Yanks are great fighters and will finish this war successfully providing nothing happens to prevent them being used and trained in large numbers. They are very much like Australians in NZ hats. What I mean to say is that the Yanks are physically similar to the Australians and are dressed like the New Zealanders. They are wonderfully keen and overwhelm us with questions about the line and methods of fighting the Hun etc. Anyone amongst their numbers who has been in the firing line is considered a sort of hero and is treated and feted by his pals. The Hun is beginning to find out how they can fight now and it must be a very good object lesson too.

Most of the Huns we are meeting in the line at present seem to have come from the Russian front and are much more gentle and docile than the old class of Hun who went through three years of Hell on earth during the past big battles on the Western Front. We have often used the white flag here and they have honoured it and vice versa. At one place (Villers-Bretoneaux) after a ‘dust up’, the Huns sent in the pay books of some of our dead. In fact though I loathe the Huns as much as ever, I am beginning to think that it depends on the regiment which we meet in the line as to whether they are as treacherous and dastardly as people who have never seen war try to make out. We Australians are fierce, relentless fighters but we are very fair fighters. I know of more than one instance where the Australians have given a Hun his life simply because the said Hun had put up a good fight and did not surrender when overpowered. At Morlancourt some privates sent a Hun prisoner back with note on his tunic saying that he was a brave man and asked that he might be treated well, etc. which shows that the Aussie recognizes bravery, which is rare in Huns.

I have just done a fortnight’s course at the Army Musketry School and am now musketry officer at this camp which does not entail very much work. The weather has been very good though inclined to be stormy for the past two months, but during the last three days a change has set in and we have had rain every day since. We are living in dugouts built up with turf with a roof made of a tarpaulin about 10ft. square and big enough to hold two or three. Nowadays we never go near a village if we can avoid it and generally camouflage our camps in a wood or build our dugouts as above. For my part I am quite satisfied as it is too much strain on the nerves at night when living in villages. Fritz pays a great deal of attention to billets in the forward area and bombs and shells to his heart’s content. Of course our people do the same only ten times more of it.

I suppose my banking account is beginning to grow somewhat now. My deferred pay is 3/- a day and you should be actually drawing 6/- a day and banking it. You never said anything about being notified of my extra allotment of 3/- a day. I suppose the papers have not gone through yet. I altered my allotment from 3/- a day to 6/- a day last Feb 8th, also I sent 25 pounds home about May to be put to my credit. I am somewhere in the vicinity of leave again but hope to go to Paris before England. We are allowed a limit of 8 days Paris leave under certain conditions so I intend to try my luck shortly when I get enough credit in my paybook.

Well I think I had better close this letter now and hope you will not be bored with it. My letter writing powers are failing me I think a I am generally too bored to apply myself to the task. Everything happens so much the same, day after day, that I find it difficult to select what items should interest you.

With love from

Walter