91 France, 3 October 1915
[In the same envelope as letter nr 90]
Valued family!
You will by now have received from the regiment
the deeply sad news about the hero’s death of your dear son “Fritz”.
Please accept my deepest personal condolences.
Please excuse me that I only now have time to
write you some more details.
On the 25th September, in the
morning at around 06:30 hrs, the English attacked our “Prellbock” position with
great superiority, supported by a preliminary gas-attack.
When the thick clouds had drifted over us, the
English, who sneaked up behind it, were in our immediate vicinity. Gunfire
commenced! The cunningly concealed English machineguns fired like mad, and our
machinegun returned fire, thereby revealing its position which was unknown to
the English upto then. Following that the enemy tried to capture the German
machinegun.
It came to a handgrenade fight in which there
were sadly casualties. Fritz, who was positioned there, was mortally wounded by
the explosions, as were many of his comrades. He quietly fell backwards,
suffering no pain or discomfort.
The fight went on. We were victorious thanks to
the heroism of our weakened platoon. The enemy was thrown back suffering
considerable casualties.
In “Fritz” we lose, and miss, an ever faithful,
honest and brave friend and comrade.
His “Hero’s grave”, which is adorned with a
beautiful white cross, is situated in the “Ehrenfriedhof” in Douvrin, amid
those of his fallen comrades.
When we have the opportunity we will gladly
send you a photograph of the grave.
You will have received his personal effects,
which were found with him, from the I.R.M., if not they will arrive within the
next few days.
Please excuse me that I do not have time to
write you more extensively, and can only write you this short message. The last
two weeks have been extremely strenuous, and, as you can well imagine, there is
much to do.
Please accept my heartfelt “condolences”, and I
remain
With warm greetings to your valued family,
Yours sincerely
(was
signed) W. Scheffel
Offz. Stellvertreter
Note: The
words in inverted comma’s “… “ are as
they appear in the original.
The
original letter:
In turn Offz Stellv Walter SCHEFFEL - also from Barmen was reported seriously wounded in the report of December 1915.
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