“You were scared, but you just had to do it. They were depending on you. I played my company over the bloody top, right into the German trenches. It was stupid as hell.

Men falling all around me. Falling dead…it was bloody horrible. I just played whatever came into my head, but I was worried about tripping on the uneven ground, which interrupted my playing.

The enemy fire was murderous, the men were falling all around me. I was lucky to survive. Hearing the pipes gave the troops courage. We stood in full view of the German lines, marching through no-man’s-land without any sort of ammunition, no cutting devices when we reached any sort of barbed wire.”
– Harry Lunan, 5th Gordon Highlanders. Battle of the Somme, July 14th 1916.
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As we always say here at Battles and Beers (TM) Every soldier has a story, and every story deserves to be told.