High Wood

"We were sent in to High Wood in broad daylight in the face of heavy machine-gun fire and shell fire, and everywhere there was dead bodies all over the place where previous battalions and regiments had taken part in their previous attacks.

We went in there and we got a terrible bashing there. It was criminal to send men in broad daylight, into machine-gun fire, without any cover of any sort whatsoever. There was no need for it. They could have hung on and made an attack on the flanks somewhere or other, but we had to carry out our orders.

There was one particular place just before we got to High Wood which was a crossroads, and it was really hell there, they shelled it like anything, you couldn't get past it, it was almost impossible. There were men everywhere, heaps of men, not one or two men, but heaps of men everywhere, all dead.

Then afterwards, when our battle was all over, after our attack on High Wood, there was other battalions went up and they got the same! They went on and on. They just seemed to be pushing men in to be killed and no reason. They couldn't possible take the possition, not on a frontal attack. Not at High Wood."

Private W. Hay of The Royal Scotts, told this to Lyn MacDonald, who published his narrative in her book 'Voices and Images from the Great War'.