Trench Raid!

This is coolbert:

"We moderns are extraordinarily unkind to each other in war - and in peace!" - - F. Crozier.

Here with an anecdotal account ["A Brass Hat in No Man's Land"] of a World War One [WW1] trench raid as described by the distinguished English soldier and senior commander Frank P. Crozier:

"All raids are very much alike. Each man knows his part. As we only require one prisoner on each occasion, and as more are a nuisance, all other enemy soldiers encountered must be put to death. What are our weapons? The pistol [.455 Webley], the rifle, the bullet, the bayonet, knuckle-dusters [brass knuckles], hook knives with which to rip up, daggers for the heart, butchers' knives for the throat, the bomb [hand grenade?] for random work, once the prisoner has been extracted and bags of aminal thrown into the dugouts, served up with time fuses, to blow whole companies to smithereens. Tear gas bombs to cause temporary blindness, egg bombs charged with deadly poison to pulverise the lungs and stop the breathing complete the outfit."

This is a drawing by the famous artist and combat soldier Otto Dix - - portraying a trench raid!!

Comments:

* Read here and here about the trench raid.

* The more minimal the amount of equipment as carried by the raiders during a trench raid, the better.

* Aminal [Amatol or Ammonal?] describes field-expedient satchel charges with time fuse left behind by the English raiders. Satchels exploding AFTER the raiders have left, doing further damage.

* An "egg bomb" is a sulphuric-acid type weapon, a hand-grenade the aerosol droplets when breathed in destroying the lungs?

The brutal, savage, and cave-man-like nature of the trench raid was a thing to behold. But NO ONE said WAR was ever easy!!

coolbert.