THE Daily Echo gave its readers an insight into the latest developments in modern warfare a century ago this week when the paper printed extracts from a letter received from a Hampshire Regiment officer engaged in fighting at the Front, who described some of the fresh instruments of weaponry.

With great excitement the officer immediately enthuses about one of the newest pieces of equipment to be issued to him and his company; “I have been served out with a wonderful pistol that fires fireballs. The other night I fired several rounds, and they showed up the ground in a wonderful manner.

“We also fired a new kind of bomb at the Germans a couple of days ago, and last night one of our patrols reported twenty or thirty bodies in the place where it fell.”

As well as rhapsodizing about the latest British military appliances, the officer also offered some insight into the fearsome new devices that the Germans were allegedly rolling out into their arsenal.

The officer states that the Germans had now got a land torpedo that would supposedly burrow under the earth before resurfacing and catching one of our boys just about the knee when it explodes.

The officer was quick to admit that he did not know whether this latest intelligence was true, but did remark that the Germans were “remarkably ingenious people!”

The letter concludes with the officer relaying some of the dramatic events that he and his men had witnessed at the Front in recent days.

He explains how two of the men, who had gone out to repair the barbed wire around the trench, had noticed a German sniper digging himself into position. The men immediately stalked him, and suddenly jumped on him and brought him back to the trench praying for mercy.

When the German sniper asked why they did not bayonet him on the spot, the officer explains in his letter that the British captors thought it was “too coldblooded a proceeding”, but added that they “plugged him on the jaw” as he was shouting “Mercy, mercy!” too loud.

The officer signs off his letter by saying, “This is the most extraordinary war, fellows every day in the ordinary course of their duties do things that in any other war they would get V.C.’s for."

  • There are few people still alive who lived through the terrible years of the First World War.

Yet every family has its own memories, stories of fathers, grandfathers, brothers and other relatives serving at the front, or coping with life waiting for news of loved ones.

Those memories have been handed down through the generations, and we want to retell them through the columns of the Daily Echo and our website dailyecho.co.uk.

We want you to get in touch with us and tell us your family memories of the First World War years. You may have photographs, medals, letters from the front or letters sent from home.

If you want to help us build a picture of what times were like 100 years ago for the people of Hampshire, then please send items to David Brine, Features Editor, Southern Daily Echo, Newspaper House, Test Lane, Redbridge, Southampton, SO16 9JX, or email newsdesk@dailyecho.co.uk.