0:00:02 > 0:00:04BBC Four Collections,
0:00:04 > 0:00:07specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10For this collection, Max Hastings has selected interviews
0:00:11 > 0:00:13with Great War veterans, filmed in the 1960s.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four Collections
0:00:17 > 0:00:19are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52I joined my battalion in December 1915,
0:00:52 > 0:00:55in what we used to call verycushy trenches.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58This was the southern part of the British front
0:00:58 > 0:01:01down towardsthe Somme, betweenGommecourtand Serre.
0:01:02 > 0:01:08And I spent the spring of 1916 reallyrather enjoying myself.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12In those days, when the war was not very active,
0:01:12 > 0:01:16it was really rather fun tobe in the front line.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19It was not very exacting and, indeed, it was not very dangerous.
0:01:19 > 0:01:24One was having a sort of out-of-door camping holiday with the boys,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28with a slight spice of danger tomake it interesting.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32The worst there was to it wasthe heavy working parties
0:01:32 > 0:01:36thatone had to do at night,which pursued one all round the front.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40But I, for example, used to do a lot of patrolling in no-man's-land.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Nothing happened, as a rule.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47And these boy-scout operations, in those days
0:01:47 > 0:01:51when I knew no better, I simply regarded rather as fun.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53But as the spring went on,
0:01:53 > 0:01:56we all began to learn that thegreat battle was coming.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00We all knew something about it months before it was announced.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04It was obvious that there was going tobe a great push in the spring,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07and this was to be the greatmoment of our lives.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10And then we knew that thegreat test was coming.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13And as it drew nearer, the line livened up.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16It began to get much more dangerous and not nearly so much fun.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19There was a lot more shelling being thrown about,
0:02:19 > 0:02:22and many guns were brought in tosupport our artillery,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25and enormous dumps wereformed behind.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27And more men were brought into the line
0:02:27 > 0:02:30and regiments were crowded up closer together.
0:02:30 > 0:02:36And we all began to work up tothis great crisis...
0:02:36 > 0:02:42and the war then assumed a different shape.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46And I don't think it was ever the same again afterwards,
0:02:46 > 0:02:50as it had been in these...
0:02:50 > 0:02:52almostromantic days,
0:02:52 > 0:02:54before the Somme
0:02:54 > 0:02:59when, in cushy trenches, you could stillregard it light-heartedly.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12I got up at dawn in the morning,
0:03:12 > 0:03:15I was acting adjutantof my battalion on the morning of 1st July,
0:03:15 > 0:03:18and I went up to take to my command post in the trenches,
0:03:18 > 0:03:23fromwhich we could see over the countrybetween Gommecourt and Serre.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26And when I got there, here weremessages coming in
0:03:26 > 0:03:29from the frontcompanies to say thatthey were allin order
0:03:29 > 0:03:31and that everything was right.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33We tested our lines back to the artillery.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37And I can only say that I have never been so excited in my life.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41This was like a boy goingtothe play for the first time in his life,
0:03:41 > 0:03:44and this is indeed what it was.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48And the noise rose to a crescendo such as I'd never heard before,
0:03:48 > 0:03:52for which we, for the first time, used the word "drumfire",
0:03:52 > 0:03:54which is a great description of it.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59A noise which made all bombardments that we'd heard
0:03:59 > 0:04:01in the previous days seem like nothing at all.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04And the effect of the bombardment
0:04:04 > 0:04:07created a sort of hysterical feeling.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11And...at zero, I sent back a message
0:04:11 > 0:04:14tobrigade headquarters to saywe were all ready
0:04:14 > 0:04:17and we weregoing to deliver our smoke cloud.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20And then, er, at the moment,
0:04:20 > 0:04:25we could see the outburst of smoke and gas from our front line
0:04:25 > 0:04:28driving,blowing in the right direction, towards the Germans,
0:04:28 > 0:04:30and thensomebody shouted, "There they go!"
0:04:30 > 0:04:33And I looked over to the left and here were the London Scottish,
0:04:33 > 0:04:36who were on our left,running forward
0:04:36 > 0:04:40across the 300 or 400 yards of greengrassbetween our village
0:04:40 > 0:04:42and Gommecourt Wood.
0:04:42 > 0:04:43Then they vanished into the smoke
0:04:43 > 0:04:46and then there wasnothing left but noise.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50And after this, we saw nothing and we knew nothing,
0:04:50 > 0:04:52and we lived in a world of noise,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54and simply noise, for hours.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12It could be just as tiring out of the line as in the line,
0:05:12 > 0:05:13and it was sometimes worse.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16When you at last gotout into rest,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19what was somewhat ironically called rest,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22you supposedyou were going to have a quiet timeand some fun,
0:05:22 > 0:05:26but it wasgenerallyspoilt by night working parties.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31Very often, your company will becalled out at night
0:05:31 > 0:05:35to marchup to the line again, in the dark and in silence,
0:05:35 > 0:05:38to carry stores up to thefront line,
0:05:38 > 0:05:41because for the last mile or two towards the trenches,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44everything had to be done by hand.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48You collected stores from a big dump three or four miles back,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51and the nearer you got to the enemy, the more sure it was
0:05:51 > 0:05:54thatithad to be manhandled.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58And although people talk about communication trenches
0:05:58 > 0:06:02and duckboard tracks, they generally weren't there.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04And if they were there, there wasevery probability
0:06:04 > 0:06:08that theenemy were going to shellthemand destroy them.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12The more nice-looking they were, the more dangerous they were,
0:06:12 > 0:06:14because the enemy spotted them.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17Now, what have we got to takeup to the front line?
0:06:17 > 0:06:23We've got to take everything. To beginwith, food and drinking water.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26Secondly, ammunition for the men, rifle ammunition
0:06:26 > 0:06:28and machine-gun ammunition.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31And after that, trench mortar ammunition,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34which was very clumsy, difficult, awkward stuff to handle.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37But the worst thing of all werethe trench stores.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41If you were ever goingtoget your trenches into any degree of comfort,
0:06:41 > 0:06:45you had to carry enormous bundles of sandbags,
0:06:45 > 0:06:48baulks of timber, planks, ready-made-up duckboards.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51Worst of all, coils of barbed wire.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56And barbed wire is the most damnable stuff to handle that you can imagine.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00It was made up in great coils whichweighed, I suppose,
0:07:00 > 0:07:02halfa hundredweight,
0:07:02 > 0:07:06whichwe carriedon a stake over two men's shoulders.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09Now, even in daylight, this is a mostawkward thing to handle
0:07:09 > 0:07:12and youwere very likely to cut yourhandsto pieces
0:07:12 > 0:07:14before you got it there.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18But you had to do it in the dark, in silence,
0:07:18 > 0:07:20and tramping throughthe mud
0:07:20 > 0:07:24and, forthe lastpart of your journey, along a trench.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28And going along a trench meansstumbling along
0:07:28 > 0:07:31a dark,wet ditch with an irregular floor,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35with a kink in it, aright-angled turn every few yards
0:07:35 > 0:07:37so that youcan't see where you're going.
0:07:37 > 0:07:43And to manoeuvre these cursed things round a corner was something
0:07:43 > 0:07:46so fatiguing that it canhardly be described.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49And one has to remember that the menwho did it
0:07:49 > 0:07:53were physically tired out when they started.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56And they were probably, worse than that, mentally tired out,
0:07:57 > 0:07:59because they'd just come outof a trench tour for a rest,
0:07:59 > 0:08:02and this was the kind of rest they were getting.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04Now, there was no escape from this. This had to be done.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08The ammunition had to get there, the barbed wire had to reachthefront
0:08:08 > 0:08:10to protect the soldiers who were fighting.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13And if you were going to get anycomfort at all,
0:08:13 > 0:08:15you had to have the planks and trench boards.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21You go stumbling along in the dark, cursing,
0:08:21 > 0:08:25falling and slipping into holes, tripping over wires.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27And when you trip over a wire,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30that probably means you're breaking the telephone wire to thefront
0:08:30 > 0:08:34bywhich the operationalmessages have got to be sent back.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40And if you make the least noise orattract too much attention,
0:08:40 > 0:08:41the enemy will open fire.
0:08:43 > 0:08:47The worst of all isthe traffic problem,
0:08:47 > 0:08:50because there are several parties of this kind going along the trenches
0:08:50 > 0:08:54and they have to be controlled through a labyrinth of trenches,
0:08:54 > 0:08:55up trenches and down trenches,
0:08:55 > 0:08:59and you can have a trafficjam in old, bad trenches
0:08:59 > 0:09:01as badas a London traffic jam.
0:09:01 > 0:09:06Then the enemy opened fire, or somebody has to get out on top.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10And if you have to get out on top there,you are standing exposed.
0:09:10 > 0:09:15The enemy send up oneof theirflares and you're alone,
0:09:15 > 0:09:22standingwith the impression that the wholeGerman Army is looking at you.
0:09:22 > 0:09:24And perhaps they are.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28Well, then you struggle down again and struggle forward,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31and perhapsyou get your stuff to the front line
0:09:31 > 0:09:33and hand it over without disaster.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36Then you've all got to march home again two or three miles,
0:09:36 > 0:09:38stumbling through the trenches again,
0:09:38 > 0:09:41and then perhaps five or six miles back to your billets,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44and arrive at dawn
0:09:44 > 0:09:49and your next day's rest isn't goingto be very enjoyable.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55Through the long period of fixedtrench warfare,
0:09:55 > 0:10:02our world was divided by a sortof iron curtain, by no-man's-land,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06beyond which was a world into which we could never penetrate,
0:10:06 > 0:10:10about which we knew nothing, which was inhabited by bogeymen.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13People who would kill you if they ever saw you.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17And on our side of the line, our world was quite different.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19On our side, everyone a friend.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22On that side, everybody...
0:10:22 > 0:10:25somethingterrifying,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27almost unreal.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33When you stepped off the leavetrain at Victoria,
0:10:33 > 0:10:35of course,the first effect was just
0:10:35 > 0:10:37thathere you were, home for the holidays.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41But very soon, that beganto wear off.
0:10:41 > 0:10:45And at anyrate, from 1917 onwards,
0:10:45 > 0:10:49onefelt that there was something unreal about leave.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54I'm bound to say that I gotmyself into a state of mind
0:10:54 > 0:10:57where itwas the trenches that wasthe realworld,
0:10:57 > 0:11:02and it was London and my family that was unreal,
0:11:02 > 0:11:08that I couldn't understand or find...oraccustom myself to.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13Now, of course, I was very young. This is a boy's reaction.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18And my view is that it was probably very much worse for a married man.
0:11:20 > 0:11:26This world of the trenches which builtitself up for so long a time,
0:11:26 > 0:11:30which seemed to be going on forever, was the real world,
0:11:30 > 0:11:32and it was entirely a man's world.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36Women had no part in it.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39And when one went on leave, what one did was to escape
0:11:39 > 0:11:42out of the man's world into the woman's world.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46And one found that, erm, however pleasedone was
0:11:46 > 0:11:48to see one's girlfriend -
0:11:48 > 0:11:51and I'm speaking only of the lightemotions of a boy,
0:11:51 > 0:11:57not of the deeperfeelings of a happily married man -
0:11:57 > 0:12:00one could never somehow quite get through.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03However nice and sympathetic they were,
0:12:03 > 0:12:07the girl didn't quite say the right thing.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10And one was curiously upset,
0:12:10 > 0:12:15annoyed by attempts of well-meaningpeople to sympathise,
0:12:15 > 0:12:20whichonly reflected the fact that theydidn't really understand at all.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25And there was even a kind of lastsense of relief
0:12:25 > 0:12:28in which you returned to the boys,
0:12:28 > 0:12:32when one went back into theman's world,
0:12:32 > 0:12:35which seemed the realest thing that could be imagined.
0:12:36 > 0:12:37WOMAN: Cut.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47By the time it got to the battleof Passchendaele,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50I was, as soldierswent, a pretty old soldier.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53I'dalready been through the Somme
0:12:53 > 0:12:57and I'd been through the verybad winterof '16-'17
0:12:57 > 0:13:00which, among other things, was the hardest winter for 20 years
0:13:00 > 0:13:02and was very tough in the trenches.
0:13:02 > 0:13:07And I was not in very goodshape at all in the spring of '17,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10and I feel that even before thisbattle of Passchendaelestarted,
0:13:10 > 0:13:13I was gettingsomewhere near the end of my tether.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16I didn't think I could go on much longer.
0:13:16 > 0:13:21Every soldier, I suppose, had this breaking strain
0:13:21 > 0:13:26and when I lookback on myself,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29erm, I see that
0:13:29 > 0:13:32I was getting near it
0:13:32 > 0:13:35before thisfinal test came.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38And then I got into what proved tobe the toughest assignment
0:13:38 > 0:13:40I ever had in my war service,
0:13:40 > 0:13:44which was the battle of 4thOctober at Passchendaele,
0:13:44 > 0:13:47when I wascommanding a front-line company.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49Well, we advanced,
0:13:49 > 0:13:54just like thosebattles, under an enormousbarrage,
0:13:54 > 0:13:57a much heavier barrage thanI'd ever heard before.
0:13:57 > 0:13:59We ran into a lot of Germans
0:13:59 > 0:14:03and we had a lot of very severe fightingin the first five minutes,
0:14:03 > 0:14:05in which I myself got mixed up
0:14:05 > 0:14:09ina...in a really awkward shooting-outaffair,
0:14:09 > 0:14:13rather like gangstersshooting it out on a Western film.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16However, we shot it out and we won that little battle
0:14:16 > 0:14:17and we got through.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20And I found that all the various sections of my company
0:14:21 > 0:14:24hadall in turn run up against littleparties of Germans like that
0:14:24 > 0:14:28and had fought it out in the shell holes at very, very close range.
0:14:28 > 0:14:30And by the time we gotto our objective,
0:14:30 > 0:14:33I found that my company wascompletely scattered.
0:14:33 > 0:14:38Both my officers, all my sergeants, and three quarters of my men
0:14:38 > 0:14:39were killed or wounded,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42and there was me and the Sergeant Major
0:14:42 > 0:14:46and a scattered handful of men which we had to get together somehow.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49Well, we got them together somehow
0:14:49 > 0:14:53and we settled down on ourobjective in a group of shell holes
0:14:53 > 0:14:55and there we sat for three days.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00And on the second day, it began torain, and rained continuously,
0:15:00 > 0:15:04so that the bog of Passchendaele spread out into a lake.
0:15:04 > 0:15:10And to begin with, we were sitting upto our knees in mud and water
0:15:10 > 0:15:13in rather late autumn,
0:15:13 > 0:15:14very short of sleep,
0:15:14 > 0:15:18and havingjust been through thisvery severemental strain
0:15:18 > 0:15:20of the battle itself.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24And after this, there was nofurther fighting.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27The Germans did not, in fact, counterattack us at that point.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30They were very quick tocounterattack in that battle
0:15:30 > 0:15:32and we had to be on the lookout for it all the time.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34However, they shelled us very scientifically
0:15:34 > 0:15:38and on the secondand the third days, we justsat in the mud,
0:15:38 > 0:15:42being very heavily and very systematically shelled
0:15:42 > 0:15:45with pretty heavy stuff.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49Mostly, the bigshells that they used most,
0:15:49 > 0:15:54from their 150-millimetre guns, which we called five-nines.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56Well, you could hear theseshells coming.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59It took, I suppose - It's verydifficult to say -
0:15:59 > 0:16:02five or six seconds perhaps to come,
0:16:02 > 0:16:05and in five or sixseconds, you can pass through
0:16:05 > 0:16:09quitea number of...psychological changes.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12Your mind can get through various phases.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And...
0:16:15 > 0:16:18I don't knowwhether it is possible to describe
0:16:18 > 0:16:22the mental changes that onewent through.
0:16:22 > 0:16:29All day long, one had nothing to do but to sit in the mud shivering,
0:16:29 > 0:16:34wet and cold, with no hot food, very short of sleep,
0:16:34 > 0:16:37and having been really rather shattered
0:16:37 > 0:16:40by the fighting of the previous day -
0:16:40 > 0:16:42Imean, mentallyshattered by it -
0:16:42 > 0:16:47and triedto keep up appearances in some wayor another
0:16:47 > 0:16:49as the shells arrived.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52They weren't very frequent.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56There wasgenerally one just arriving and another one just beginning.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59And when a shell arrived, it wouldplump into the mud
0:16:59 > 0:17:0110 or20 yards away
0:17:01 > 0:17:02or 50or100 yards away,
0:17:02 > 0:17:04and would throwout...
0:17:04 > 0:17:08It would burst with a shattering shock,
0:17:08 > 0:17:09which always upset me very much.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14I've always been very much upset by noise. I hate noise.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16And the noise of the explosions
0:17:16 > 0:17:20always was a great burden
0:17:20 > 0:17:22and pain to me.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26And after it had burst, the splinters of the shell flew off,
0:17:26 > 0:17:29all of them killing splinters,
0:17:29 > 0:17:33and might fly 20, 30, 50 yards away from the point of impact.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35And they would take another secondor two
0:17:35 > 0:17:37before they'd all settle down in the mud.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40And although a shell hadburst 50 yards away,
0:17:40 > 0:17:43you might find, one second later,
0:17:43 > 0:17:46a fragment of jagged iron,
0:17:46 > 0:17:52nearly red hot, and weighing half a pound, arriving in your shell hole.
0:17:53 > 0:17:58Well, you'd no sooner managed one than the next one began toappear
0:17:58 > 0:18:02andyou'd hearin the distance quite a mild pop
0:18:02 > 0:18:05as the gun fired five miles away.
0:18:05 > 0:18:10And then a humming sound as it approached you through the air,
0:18:10 > 0:18:15witha noise rather like an aeroplane coming, growing louder and louder.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20And as it grew nearer, you begin tocalculate with yourself
0:18:20 > 0:18:23whether this one has got your name on it or not.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26Well, we were always told that you never heard the shell that hit you.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29And I think this is probably true, because most of them
0:18:29 > 0:18:33travelled faster than sound. Therefore, if you heard it,
0:18:33 > 0:18:37it probably wasn't going to be a direct hit on you,
0:18:37 > 0:18:39but it might be going tofall 20 or 30 yards away from you
0:18:39 > 0:18:42and be a great danger.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46We thought...We pretended to get very expert in the sounds of shells,
0:18:46 > 0:18:48and the old soldiers thoughtthey knew
0:18:48 > 0:18:51exactly when they were in great danger and when they weren't.
0:18:51 > 0:18:52But I have really some doubts
0:18:52 > 0:18:55whether they were as clever asthey thought they were.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58I think one could easily bemisled about this.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02The noise wouldgrow into a great crescendo...
0:19:02 > 0:19:04and...
0:19:04 > 0:19:07it would suddenly get louderand louder,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10until itwas like the roar of an aeroplanecoming in to land
0:19:10 > 0:19:12on the Tarmac.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15And at a certain point, your nervewould break
0:19:15 > 0:19:17and you'd throwyourself down in the mud
0:19:18 > 0:19:20and cringein the mud till it was past.
0:19:21 > 0:19:25When you were listening to this sound of the shells coming over,
0:19:25 > 0:19:27every now and again, there would beone
0:19:27 > 0:19:30which you made sure was coming very close indeed.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33The noise would get louderand louder
0:19:33 > 0:19:37and the machine seemed to accelerate until it was making a greatroar
0:19:37 > 0:19:40likean aeroplane coming in toland on the Tarmac.
0:19:41 > 0:19:46And there would come a point atwhich your resolution would break.
0:19:46 > 0:19:48You'd say, "This is one for me."
0:19:48 > 0:19:51And in this flash of time, in a fifth of a second,
0:19:51 > 0:19:53you'ddecide that, "This is the one,"
0:19:53 > 0:19:56and you'd throwyourself down into the mud
0:19:56 > 0:19:58and cringeinto the bottom of the shell hole.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01And then all the other people who werearound would do the same.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05And, well, you may save your life by doing that.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07But sometimes, you miscalculate
0:20:07 > 0:20:08and this is a shell thatisn't for you at all,
0:20:09 > 0:20:10but it goes sailing busily on
0:20:10 > 0:20:13and plunks down on somebody else three or four hundred yards away.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16Then you get up and roar with laughter,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20and the other ones, who laugh at you for having been the first one
0:20:20 > 0:20:23to throw yourself down. And this, of course, is hysterics.
0:20:25 > 0:20:30It becomes a kind of game in whichyou cling on
0:20:30 > 0:20:34and try not to let the tension break.
0:20:34 > 0:20:41And the first person in a group whoshows the sign of fear
0:20:41 > 0:20:44by givingway and taking cover,
0:20:44 > 0:20:47he'slosta point, and it counts against him.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50And the one who holds out longest has gained a point.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53But in what game? What is this for?
0:20:53 > 0:20:58And this is the problem thatI am still unable to solve.
0:20:58 > 0:21:03That after this long time, and after I'd been 18 months in France
0:21:03 > 0:21:06and had been through severalbig battles,
0:21:06 > 0:21:09thatI was still trying to pretend tobebrave,
0:21:09 > 0:21:11and not succeeding very well,
0:21:11 > 0:21:12and so were we all.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18The thing is a social experience, not an individual experience.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22And speaking for myself, I was always very much more frightened
0:21:22 > 0:21:26if I was alone in one of these situations than if I was in a group.
0:21:26 > 0:21:30But I've heard other soldiers say exactly the opposite.
0:21:30 > 0:21:33That would be a matter of individual temperament.
0:21:33 > 0:21:39But I, in trying to reconstruct theseextraordinary experiences,
0:21:39 > 0:21:45I thinkof it always in terms of what onemust call esprit de corps,
0:21:45 > 0:21:47becausethere is no other name for it
0:21:47 > 0:21:49unlessone is to call it "ganging up".
0:21:49 > 0:21:52Here we were, a gang of boys
0:21:52 > 0:21:56whowere committed to this extraordinaryrangeof activities
0:21:56 > 0:21:57and had to gothrough with it.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59And allthe time, one was saying to oneself,
0:21:59 > 0:22:02"Ifthey can take it, I can take it."
0:22:02 > 0:22:07Now, you struggle with thesestresses,
0:22:07 > 0:22:12which are almostoverpowering and which may becomequite overpowering,
0:22:12 > 0:22:15which may breakyou down in hysterics.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17And, of course, everybody whoremembersbattle scenes
0:22:17 > 0:22:20remembersoccasions when someone didgo off
0:22:20 > 0:22:26into a complete mentalbreakdown, into hystericalfits of various sorts
0:22:26 > 0:22:29which thedoctors eventually admitted
0:22:29 > 0:22:32andcalled...described as shell shock.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36But there were ways in which youcould maintain your self-control
0:22:36 > 0:22:42and there is some strange connection between small physical actions...
0:22:44 > 0:22:48If you, erm, hum a little tune to yourself and feel that
0:22:48 > 0:22:53you canquietly getthrough this tune before thenext explosion,
0:22:53 > 0:22:57it givesyou a sortof curious feeling of safety.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01Or you start drummingwith your fingers on your knee
0:23:01 > 0:23:06and have a...quite irrational desire
0:23:06 > 0:23:09to complete this little ritual.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12These minute things
0:23:13 > 0:23:15protectyou from...
0:23:15 > 0:23:20the nervouscollapse which maycome at any moment.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24But then, suddenly, the nervouscollapse does come.
0:23:24 > 0:23:26There comes the moment when a shell is right on top of you,
0:23:26 > 0:23:28and then you break completely...
0:23:29 > 0:23:34..and...and...cringe on the ground
0:23:34 > 0:23:37in a most undignified attitude,
0:23:37 > 0:23:40after which, you've got to pull yourselftogether and start again.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44The awful thing being that this isnot an isolated experience,
0:23:44 > 0:23:47but itgoes on continuously, minuteafterminute,
0:23:47 > 0:23:49and even hour after hour.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53And in this particular experience,
0:23:53 > 0:23:55which was the worst thatI happened to go through,
0:23:55 > 0:23:59it went on pretty wellcontinuously for about 36 hours -
0:23:59 > 0:24:01all day, and notquite so bad at night.
0:24:01 > 0:24:04But then at night, it was very coldand wet
0:24:04 > 0:24:06and you very much wished youwere somewhere else
0:24:06 > 0:24:08than sitting in the dark, in the mud.
0:24:09 > 0:24:15Um...then at last, this rather drasticexperience came to an end
0:24:15 > 0:24:18and somehow or other, we extricatedourselves from the mud
0:24:18 > 0:24:21and drew backto an extremely uncomfortable camp
0:24:21 > 0:24:23on the other side of the canal bank.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26And then we had to count the cost.
0:24:26 > 0:24:28Where do we go from there?
0:24:28 > 0:24:30Now, I suppose I might have said
0:24:30 > 0:24:34this was the point whereI would start a revolution or amutiny
0:24:34 > 0:24:37or decide not to do it again, or something of that kind,
0:24:37 > 0:24:39as theydid in some of the other armies.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41We didn't take it that way at all.
0:24:41 > 0:24:46And we had no sooner withdrawn ourselves from this shambles
0:24:46 > 0:24:48and got together what we could
0:24:48 > 0:24:51thanwe began to build up the regiment again
0:24:51 > 0:24:53and get ready for the next time.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55And this seems to me extremely difficult to explain.
0:24:56 > 0:25:02Now, I had lost both my officers and all my sergeants
0:25:02 > 0:25:05and three...two thirds of my men.
0:25:05 > 0:25:08And here I was,
0:25:08 > 0:25:14I was 20 years old, a young Acting Captain,
0:25:14 > 0:25:17and I had to begin to form a new company. Well, to begin with,
0:25:17 > 0:25:22I was in a state of complete physicaland mental prostration,
0:25:22 > 0:25:24and I think for a few days afterthe battle,
0:25:24 > 0:25:28I was very near having a nervous breakdown.
0:25:28 > 0:25:34But when one is young, physical rest very quickly puts that right,
0:25:34 > 0:25:37and in quite a few days, I was almost as good as ever.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39This seems to me very strange.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43I had to begin by...actuallycollecting
0:25:43 > 0:25:46and organising the men and findingout what had happened
0:25:46 > 0:25:49to thosewho'd been killed and those who'd been wounded.
0:25:49 > 0:25:51I had to write 22 personal letters
0:25:51 > 0:25:56to the wives and mothersof men in my companywho'd been killed.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00I then had to choose privates whom I was going to make into corporals
0:26:00 > 0:26:04and lance corporals who I was going to make into sergeants at one jump
0:26:04 > 0:26:06to start again.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10And then we got a draft of 100very good men up from the base,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13then we started all over again and had a new company.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17And at the end of a month, we were ready to do it again.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20And this seems to me the strangest thing of all, when I look back on it.
0:26:20 > 0:26:22This is one of the things I find hardest to explain.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32In the last year of the war, I was sent home to train recruits.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35And I spent it at a camp in Northumberland
0:26:35 > 0:26:40where we usedto take in what werecalled A4 boys,in batches.
0:26:40 > 0:26:45These were boys who were fit, but underage and untrained,
0:26:45 > 0:26:47who'd been called up underthe Conscription Act
0:26:47 > 0:26:50and had to bemade into soldiers in six months.
0:26:50 > 0:26:52As soon as they were 19 years old and trained,
0:26:53 > 0:26:55they werepushed off to France in batches.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57They didn't... By these days,
0:26:57 > 0:27:00theregimental system had quite broken down -
0:27:00 > 0:27:02they mightcome from any part of England
0:27:02 > 0:27:04and they might be sent to anyregiment.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08I didn't altogether enjoythisexperience.
0:27:08 > 0:27:12I didn't much like being a young, fit man
0:27:13 > 0:27:17and pushing off theseother young,fit men
0:27:17 > 0:27:19to fight instead of me.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22But I suppose somebody had to do it.
0:27:22 > 0:27:24When they came to us,
0:27:24 > 0:27:29they were weedy, sallow, skinny,
0:27:29 > 0:27:31frightened children.
0:27:31 > 0:27:36Erm, the refuse of our industrial system,
0:27:36 > 0:27:38as it was in those days.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42And they were in very poor condition because of wartimeshortages of food.
0:27:44 > 0:27:49But after six months of good food, fresh air and physical exercise,
0:27:49 > 0:27:53they'd changed so that their mothers wouldn't have recognised them.
0:27:53 > 0:27:55We weighed and measured them,
0:27:55 > 0:27:58and they put on an average of onestone in weight
0:27:58 > 0:28:00and one inch in height.
0:28:00 > 0:28:03But far more than that, at the end of six months,
0:28:03 > 0:28:06they were handsome, ruddy,
0:28:06 > 0:28:08upstanding, square-shouldered young men
0:28:08 > 0:28:12who were afraid of nobody, not even the Sergeant Major.
0:28:12 > 0:28:16And when we'd pushed them through this crashprogramme
0:28:16 > 0:28:18of military training,
0:28:18 > 0:28:21out they went to France in batches.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25And I didn'tawfully like to see them go,
0:28:25 > 0:28:30and I often wished that I could have gone with them myself.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33However, go, they went.
0:28:33 > 0:28:37And of the batch that we sentout in September 1918...
0:28:38 > 0:28:42...many were in time to die at thebreaking of the Hindenburg Line.
0:28:44 > 0:28:45WOMAN: Cut.