‘If he starts firing here lad you needn’t be worried’, he said, ‘he’s too near his own trench to have a go’. He had a go. He hit it all right, I remember going down. The explosion. The force of the explosion. I remember the explosion and I remember falling. It was almost a direct hit. (Sid Carroll)

There was these chaps laying there on the grass, all iced frozen grass, laying on groundsheets as yellow as a lemon with their tongues hanging out, gassed, they could never live. What a mess they was in.... (Hawtin Mundy)

I went to another man who was shouting and moaning and he’d got his leg blown off right in the thick part of the thigh and there was only a bit of trouser stopping the leg from falling away... and he sat looking at it. Oh dear, dear , dear. (Frank Gillard)

I said to the corporal, I said, ‘There’s a German, mate, down here’. Course he was dead. I didn’t know. That were the first dead man I’d seen. Old corporal laid him down and put his head on you know, to have a rest. (Harry Blunt)

I was in the first battle of the Somme when the people were mowed down... well, you see them all hanging, hanging over the barbed wires... and see them all coming back wounded and we lost, oh, I don’t know how many, hundreds, thousands, you know, July 1st 1916.( Sid Coles)