“Hell on Earth”
About midday a German aeroplane, flying the Union Jack and the French colours, came flying down on our positions. We thought it was our own craft, but wherever she dipped the German artillery took range, and as soon as she got up out of our reach they simply poured their shells upon us. Within ten minutes we had five killed and forty-seven wounded, and a number we cannot account for. One shell came blowing my knapsack off my back, and made a hole through my waterproof sheet. It was just like hell on earth: Pte. A. Fricker, 1st Gloucestershire Regiment.