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Name _________________ A Letter from the TrenchesFirst, read the letter from a WWI soldier on this paper and then imagine you are a young soldier sent to fight on the Western Front during World War One. Describe your experiences in the trenches in a letter to your family or friends back home. You should use several of the words listed on this sheet. – You using the words correctly in context is what I will grade you on. The letter should also address some of the technology used in the war. Write about life in the trenches, battles, unsanitary conditions, etc… Be detailed and use your imagination (2 paragraphs, each between 7-12 descriptive and detailed sentences)Some Key Terms to use:TrenchNo Man’s LandBarbed WireMudMachine GunLiceFliesRatsGasGas maskRifleSoldierRationsBombingTrench FootBoredomVocabulary that may be useful:Awful Onslaught HungerBarbarous Stench DecayingGruesome Petrified BoredomHorrendous Disease HopelessHorrific StaleTerrible SqualidA Letter from a soldier in WWI:Dear Brother,A few lines to try and tell you what it is like out here. I am giving no state secrets away, only telling bare facts, so I think I can sign my name on the back. It was impossible to sleep on account of the noise and the shells kept striking the house and pieces of it kept falling, so I thought I would leave it till we got back, for we go back for a day or two, but work just as hard when we get back, but we get two or three nights in, so we don’t mind. As you will see there has been some very heavy fighting round this way for the last two weeks. You will understand that when I tell you we keep being moved to the places where the fighting is going on, at the present time I have got a splitting headache, owing to the use of the Gas used against us. During the day we went across a piece of open ground, and they turned a machine gun on us but thank God I had the presence of mind to lay flat down. We have lost a lot of men this last few weeks, and about twenty horses, rather a sad thing happened the other night we were out doing barbed wire in front of the trenches, they had been warned that we were out there, we had almost finished when two of our men were shot right through the head by our own people, but things like that are not talked of in the papers... There is a rumor that we are due to launch a massive attack on the Germans soon. Only last week, a young lad on sentry duty had his brains blown out by a sniper. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be stuck in these trenches for days on end. The main problem is the rats. There are so many of them, due to the food supply- all of the dead bodies lying around! I am keeping my spirits up, however, as the food isn’t bad and we have plenty of cigarettes. We all keep each other amused with lots of laughing and joking the rest of the lads are great. See you soon,Charles Knight ................
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