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A SOBERING THOUGHT
The following is an extract from C. E. W. Bean’s Official History of the
War and records the feelings of an AIF Private about what he finds in a
German dugout:
“ a heap of cake boxes ….of cardboard and sewn in with calico, just as
the parcels come to us from Australia. The addresses were in a child’s
handwriting as were also one or two letters. In another corner was a coat
rolled up. I opened it out and found it stained with blood, and there, right
between the shoulders was a burnt shrapnel hole….The owner of the coat
was a German, and some might say, not entitled to much sympathy.
Perhaps he was not, but I couldn’t help thinking sadly of the little girl or
boy who sent the cakes.”
There were two sides in this horrific Great War.
“Studying history can become addictive!” Robert Neil Bowd
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