Name _________________
A Letter from the Trenches
First, read the letter from a WWI soldier on this paper and then imagine you are a young soldier sent to fight
on the Western Front during World War One. Describe your experiences in the trenches in a letter to your
family or friends back home. You should use several of the words listed on this sheet. – You using the
words correctly in context is what I will grade you on. The letter should also address some of the
technology used in the war. Write about life in the trenches, battles, unsanitary conditions, etc… Be detailed
and use your imagination (2 paragraphs, each between 7-12 descriptive and detailed sentences)
Some Key Terms to use:
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Trench
No Man’s Land
Barbed Wire
Mud
Machine Gun
Lice
Flies
Rats
Gas
Gas mask
Rifle
Soldier
Rations
Bombing
Trench Foot
Boredom
Vocabulary that may be useful:
Awful
Hunger
Stench
Gruesome
Boredom
Disease
Horrific
Terrible
Onslaught
Barbarous
Decaying
Petrified
Horrendous
Hopeless
Stale
Squalid
Created by Miss Boughey www.SchoolHistory.co.uk.
Edited and Adopted by Mr. Mizell, Paisley Magnet School
A Letter from a soldier in WWI:
Dear Brother,
A few lines to try and tell you what it is like
out here. I am giving no state secrets away, only
telling bare facts, so I think I can sign my name on
the back. It was impossible to sleep on account of
the noise and the shells kept striking the house and
pieces of it kept falling, so I thought I would leave it
till we got back, for we go back for a day or two, but
work just as hard when we get back, but we get two
or three nights in, so we don’t mind. As you will see
there has been some very heavy fighting round this
way for the last two weeks. You will understand that
when I tell you we keep being moved to the places
where the fighting is going on, at the present time I
have got a splitting headache, owing to the use of
the Gas used against us. During the day we went
across a piece of open ground, and they turned a
machine gun on us but thank God I had the presence
of mind to lay flat down. We have lost a lot of men
this last few weeks, and about twenty horses, rather
a sad thing happened the other night we were out
doing barbed wire in front of the trenches, they had
been warned that we were out there, we had almost
finished when two of our men were shot right
through the head by our own people, but things like
that are not talked of in the papers...
There is a rumor that we are due to launch a
massive attack on the Germans soon. Only last week,
a young lad on sentry duty had his brains blown out
by a sniper. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be
stuck in these trenches for days on end. The main
problem is the rats. There are so many of them, due
to the food supply- all of the dead bodies lying
around! I am keeping my spirits up, however, as the
food isn’t bad and we have plenty of cigarettes. We
all keep each other amused with lots of laughing and
joking the rest of the lads are great.
See you soon,
Charles Knight