Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

PRIVATE KITSON WRITES THE EDITOR.
29 Sep 1917

Prívate W. M. Kitson, of the 44th Battalion, has favored the editor of the
"Albany Advertiser"' with a letter, dated July 7, and written in hospital
at Cambridge (England):- "No doubt you have heard of me being wounded,
and, being an Albany lad, I thought it would be no harm dropping you a few
lines to put in your valuable little paper if you could find space. Well, I am
going to give you a few details of the Battle of Messines, which I hope will
be interesting, and by which I took part myself. Well, it was early morning.
All our battalion being in reserve to ?? their brigade were just behind the
lines taking a sleep as we were expecting to be called at any moment to take
a trip up to the shell-swept zone. We awakened with a terrible start. Some
jumped up and others had their heads up in the air, as if their last hour had
come. It was not many minutes before we got wind of what had happened.
It was the miners blowing up Messines Ridge. Assured on that point we went
to sleep again. A little later we were pulled out of bed for breakfast, which
consisted of a piece of bacon, about 2in. square, and bread and jam. We enjoyed
it at all costs. After breakfast orders were given to be ready to go off at a
minute's notice. Well, we waited all day long, but nothing came, except a
stream of Hun prisoners, which the boys had taken. As the battle was in
full swing now, we were getting restless and wanted to get a move on, as
we could see our other battalion climbing the ridge from the hill where we
were stationed. They were going on behind our artillery barrage. Thank
our gunners for the fine work they did. It got dark again and we went to bed,
but not for long as we got the order we were waiting so anxiously for. It
came in the middle of the night. Every man was ready in a few minutes. Of
course, we slept fully dressed. Then came the order to march off. We got
into the trenches and it was no joke scrambling along the duck boards in
pitch darkness. Everything was going well until we were half-way to our old
front line, but then old Fritz dropped a few gas shells near us. Then it was
a trying time with gas helmets on, feeling our way along the trench. It was
not long before we got the order to take them off. Well, we got out of the
trench and crossed 'no-man's-land' that used to be, but we found the Huns'
trenches had been all battered in, so we continued overland, and yet we
never had a man hit. We got up to the brigade we were in reserve for, and it
was just breaking day and Fritz was sending some heavies over. We exchanged a few words with them. Then we found we had to go on about 500 yards
and dig in. Off we went and all of a sudden an officer was toppled over, sniped through the head. He never moved, and not many minutes later a stretcher
bearer got the same thing. It began to get serious, we thought, so we rushed up to where we had to dig in, peeled off and started working like slaves. Well, we got down about four feet, and with the dirt thrown in front, we hadabout a six feet covering. Then old Fritz started knocking it about with his shells and sending shrapnel over. I had to take a few messages back to headquarters, as being a runner that was my job. After taking a message they gave another fellow a run. On his first run he got the Hun who sniped the officer and stretcher bearer. He was lying among a heap of dead Huns. The runner (Finlay, by name) got the captain's revolver and was going to put an end to him, but he was stopped and
had to take him prisoner. Well, the poor fellow was not back very long when he got hit with shrapnel, the same shell that hit me. He died of wounds and I lost my left leg, so that is all I know of that stunt as I was put in a shell-hole and had to stop there until next afternoon before the stretcher bearers came to take me to the dressing station. And here I am in bed, but getting on fine. I hope to be back in dear little Albany again. I must close now, as I am lying on my back writing
this and my arm is very tired."