Letters from the front: 'I tried to stop a shell with my right arm'
BRADEN FASTIER / STUFF World War I letters from Platoon Sergeant Godfrey John Hammond during his time in the Middle East as a member of the Canterbury Infantry battalion. They talk about home, family, gratitude for mail or a pair of socks, the weather. Letters from Nelson soldiers at the front lines of conflicts from Gallipoli to Vietnam often don’t or can’t talk too much about the daily horrors of war, although some write, almost casually, of stepping “in front of a bullet”. The letters and diaries, kept in chocolate boxes or rusty tins for decades by family members, reveal the sto...
Source: stuff.co.nz