letters from wwi: lance sgt. elmer cotton

"The faces of our lads who lay in the open changed colour and presented a gruesome spectacle. Their faces and hands gradually assumed a blue and green colour and their buttons and metal fittings on their uniform were all discoloured. Many lay there with their legs drawn up and clutching their throats. Tongues hanging out and eyes staring - one or two were dead and others beyond human aid, some were coughing up green froth from their lungs - shells were bursting all around.

My respirator fell to pieces with the continual removal and readjustment - the gas closed my eyes and filled them with matter and I could not see. I was left lying in the trench with one other gassed man and various wounded beings and corpses and forced to lie and spit, cough and gasp the whole of the day in that trench - all day hand in hand with death.

A man who could smile and laugh in the face of adversity and in the presence of death was a man of incalculable worth." - Lance Sgt. Elmer Cotton, 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, describing a gas attack during the second Battle of Ypres, Belgium.