(to hear the poem recited click here)
Tell me old friend, as we all near the end
And think back to that fog shrouded time.
Could it be fifty years, and millions of tears,
Since that battle we call Herrlisheim?
Not many knew, and survivors were few
Of that winter in Alsace Lorraine,
When we all had our youth and faced up to a truth,
That war is forever insane.
What company went first, and who caught the worst
Seems faded and dimmer with time,
But visions come back of that futile attack
Our attempt to take Herrlisheim.
A bridge knocked out, a tanker's shout
Are not enough to warn,
Good men will die, for Germans Lie
Across the river Zorn.
It takes just one shell, in this damp frozen hell,
To wipe out most of my squad,
If the truth be told for all to behold
I question if there is a God.
Captain Fairbairn's been hit, Sergeant Silvering's dead
Lieutenant Russel says hold until dawn,
Allendoerfer, Molan, Copus, and Best,
Also Tedrowe and Gentry are gone.
From fifty five men we are now only ten
And no relief is in sight
Nine days on the line, I'll write mom I'm fine,
If luck gives me just one more night.
Looking back to that day the record will say
It makes little difference who won,
On that gray frozen plain it all seemed in vain
But we did all that was asked to be done.
Let's think of all those who suffered and froze
And felt the fear and the pain
And if there's once more around where we travel some ground
On another cold and lifeless plain
Will it still be the same kind of horrible game
Where fate is to bless all too few?
Or will it be just a dream where things are to seem
Like they never happened to you?
So say one more prayer for those who died there
On that bleak spot of ground on Alsace.
For you and I know, wherever we go
One of us could have been in their place.
Now tell me old friend, as we all near the end
And think back on that fog shrouded time
Could it be fifty years and million of tears
Since that struggle for old Herrlisheim?
-William Waddington 1990