From the Fighting Line

14 April 1915

‘Dear Mother. Just received a letter from you dated February 22 and as this is the only opportunity I will have for about another week I am making good use of it. We are in the middle of the fighting here; had two days and nights in the trenches and are spelling for a day or two now.

‘One wants to be in the trenches here to understand what real war is like. We were opposed by the Prussians the other night and by Heavens we shook them up a bit. It is rifle and machine gun fire all the time with a few shells bursting occasionally…The line of trenches runs about three hundred miles long and we are only forty yards away from the Germans. It is funny to see chaps sleeping in the daytime here (not allowed to sleep at night) and shells and rifle bullets bussing all over the place and such an infernal row all the time, and yet we sleep like tops; also sit down and play cards or chew biscuits when we are not on watch.

‘Generally in the daytime it is very quiet as all the troops are asleep but at night the real fighting takes place. We see a good lot of aeroplane duels here every day. There are about a dozen between German and our planes being shot at by air guns….The Germans have been absolute brutes destroying all the fine buildings and churches all the fine old historic places have been blown to atoms.

We had a terrible long march from the trenches the other night, it must have been fully ten miles from there to this place…I thought I would never be able to go another yard, after each step it was cruel. I do not feel scared to go back in the trenches at all and am quite used to living on bully beef and biscuits. Had a bath and clean clothes today so feel happy’.

Two months later the letters from Major Colin Dunmore Fuller were published on the permission of his sister Edith. Colin Fuller was the son of George Laurence Fuller of Dunmore House.

25 June 1915

‘It is not five weeks since we landed and we have made no progress to speak of. The Colonel has not yet returned and I have heard nothing of him; once anyone leaves here either wounded or sick we hear nothing of them until they are returned for duty.

‘The regiment’s casualty list now totals 72 so you can see we are having a rather trying time. The regiment came out of the trenches last Saturday (June 19) for a spell, after doing 28 days straight off. But the spell is not what it is cracked up to be for we have been digging trenches every night since, starting at 8pm and knocking off at 4am. We are putting a new line out in front and while doing it the Turks have pretty well left us alone with the exception of Tuesday night when they made a very faint attack with a small party.

‘We got seven of them killed and I think we must have wounded a fair number and we were extremely lucky only having one wounded. It is surprising the narrow escapes one has. I have had bullets and shrapnel all around me and last Wednesday morning about 10.30am I was sound asleep in my dug out when a big 6 inch shell landed about 10 feet from me but luckily it buried itself well before exploding and all I got was to be pretty well covered with earth and wakened from my sleep. It is funny also how the bursts anywhere close gives you a shock and after that you don’t seem to care, but whenever you start shelling you get a start. 

‘We are getting plenty of bully beef and biscuits and the other day a man managed to buy a pound of butter (Italian and more like axle grease than butter) for 3/6. However, bad and all as it was, is soon disappeared. I also got a case of condensed milk – a frightful price, but we appreciated it all the same. Black tea gets monotonous after a time. One great trouble is to get water, we have to carry it about two miles and it is not very plentiful, two water bottles per day, a lot if it is brought by a steamer from Alexandria.

‘It is getting very hot just like the middle of summer at home, and although right on the sea, we get no sea breeze. We have a swim at night, when we get the chance and we also wash out our clothes in the sea….All our sleeping valises have gone and the only things I possess are a change of underclothing, a spare pair of boots and pants and two rugs…I am splendid myself, and have lost very little condition’. 

Letters provided by: Kiama Independent and Shoalhaven Advertiser newspapers