First Action of a Very Famous World War I Veteran

Site Near Wytschaete South of Ypres Where Our Subject
Fought in 1914 Before These Trenches Were So Elaborate

Letter of 3 November 1914

We swarmed out and chased across the fields to a little farm. To left and right the shrapnel were bursting, and in between the English bullets sang. But we paid no attention. For ten minutes we lay there, and then we were again ordered forward. I was way out in front, ahead of our squad.... The first of our men began to fall. The English had set up machine-guns. We threw ourselves down and crawled slowly forward through a gutter. From time to time a man was hit and couldn't go on, and the whole column was stuck... We ran fifteen or twenty yards, then we came to a big pool of water. One after another we splashed into it, took cover, and caught our breath. But it was no place to lie still. So we dashed out quick, and double-quick, to a forest that lay about a hundred yards ahead of us. There we found each other after a while.... We crawled on our bellies to the edge of the woods. Over us the shells were howling and whistling, splintered tree-trunks and branches flew around us. And then again grenades crashed into the wood, hurling up clouds of stones, earth, and stifling everything in a yellowish-green, stinking, sickening vapour. We couldn't lie there forever, and if we were going to be killed, it was better to be killed outside.

Again we went forward. I jumped up and ran, as fast as I could, across meadows and turnip-fields, jumping over ditches, over wire and living hedges.... A long trench lay before me; a moment later I had jumped into it. Before me, behind me, to the left and right others followed. Beside me were Wurttembergers, under me dead and wounded Englishmen. The Wurttembergers had stormed the trench before us. And now I knew why I had landed so soft when I jumped in. Between 240 and 280 yards to the left of us there were still English trenches; to the right, the road to Leceloire was still in their possession. An unbroken hail of iron was whistling over our trench...

Finally, at ten o'clock, our artillery opened up in the sector. One - two - three - five - and so on. Again and again a shell burst in the English trenches ahead of us. The fellows swarmed out like ants, and then we rushed them. We ran into the fields like lightning, and after bloody hand-to-hand fighting in different places, we threw them out of one trench after another. Many of them raised their hands. Those who wouldn't surrender were knocked down. In this way we cleared trench after trench. For three days we fought on like this, and on the third day the Britishers were finally licked. The fourth evening we marched back to Werwick. Only then did we see what our losses had been. In four days our regiment of thirty-five hundred men had melted away to six hundred. There were only thirty officers left in the whole regiment.

Can you guess the identiy of this notable World War I veteran?  Answer HERE.

Sources: Spartacus-Educational; Wiki Commons