Blog 8

Harry Lamin was a soldier in World War I. He is a brother to Kate, Mary, Annie, and Jack. He served in the 9th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment seeing front line action in Flanders and Northern Italy from the end of 1916 to January 1920. He wrote letters during his time in his Battalion about his war experiences, conditions during the war, and keeps in touch on family affairs. His letters allude to many of the rough conditions we know were prevalent in World War I. For example, the short trousers that they had for the summer months, may make sense when thinking it is hot outside, but when you learn what was in the trenches and what they were standing in, often water, mud, remains, long pants would have surely been welcomed. Also,the letter mentions the trenches being a cramped place where bullets were flying and enemies were constantly bombarding. The secondary source about the battle of  Passchendaele talks of mud so deep they had to take six men to carry wounded or dead soldiers off of the battlefield. This specific battle had approximately 250,000 deaths because of the atrocious living conditions. The men were forced to live like barbarians because they were short of food, shelter and had to deal with over three feet deep mud. The summer that year was the rainiest one on record in years which was why the battle was so drawn out. The mud made for impossible battle conditions and it was the most the soldiers could do to stay alive. Harry seems to avoid going into great detail about these moments. I can understand why this particular battle might have been one he would most happily forget, to see such destruction and to be living in such a horrible environment must have been life altering. Therefore he chose to leave out many of the details for the letters he wrote back home about. He shares the simple things that happen more openly and tries to cover sad moments with a nonchalant response. Specifically when talking about his CO dying he called him a good man and did not elaborate more. I would assume that these letters were Harry’s way of keeping a connection to reality and a grip on his sanity. It seemed in his letters when he would ask for news on such trivial things, it was a way for him to have some peace of mind, that not everyone lived as he was at the time, that there was life happening “normally” even in the midst of the war. His style is shirt, friendly and as positive as any soldier could muster I am sure.

One of the picutre of the muddy battle of Passchendaele