Very few dugouts in front line trenches so some of us have to stay out in rain all night. As I leave a bag where my equipment is, a shell comes along and kills one and the other poor fellow has his head badly shattered… his brains cover his face. Raining hard all day. Pvt Dietz & Pvt Basset are dead.
Dietz lays in pool of blood with right arm blown completely off by 88 mm (whiz bang). My equipment a tangled mess and my bayonet twisted. A most frightful bombardment goes on all afternoon. The 2nd C.M.R. mainly wiped out. Awful Hell. Men running everywhere to escape. A most unmerciful artillery fire. The ground shakes like quagmire at night a hellish din by bombs of all sorts.