Celebrating Harry Patch, nobody’s war hero, in his own words

World War I veteran Harry Patch died on 25 July 2009. He was 111 years old. Just as today Gordon Brown and the military chiefs glorify the "good war" in Afghanistan, World War I was justified as the "war to end all war". Harry’s own views of that war must not be hidden by today’s warmongers rushing to celebrate the "heroism" of "the last Tommy".

Between July and November 1917, more than half a million Allied and German soldiers were killed or injured during five months of fighting over a few miles of quagmire, in a pointless battle for the ruined Belgian village of Passchendaele.

Half a million Allied and German soldiers died at Passchendaele

We awaited the order to advance. The bombardment to cover us took your breath away. The noise was ferocious. There was apprehension in everyone's eyes and horror in a few.

Endless torrential rain and an Allied barrage of more than four million shells that preceded the initial assault on July 31, 1917, turned the battlefield into a quagmire that would bog down the offensive.

Before Allied forces finally captured the town in November 1917, many soldiers were sucked under and drowned, and guns, tanks and horses also sank in the mud. On the morning of August 16, Harry's battalion was given the task of launching an assault on the village of Langemarck.

One long nightmare

The ground we had to cover was just shell holes. There were bodies, both our own and German, from the first wave. It was sickening to see your own dead and wounded, some crying for stretcher-bearers, others semi-conscious and others beyond all hope.

There were men who had been ripped to pieces – it wasn't just a case of seeing them with a neat bullet-hole in their tunic. Lots of people were crying for help but you couldn't stop.

It was hellish. Just one long nightmare from the thunder of the guns as the battle began to the sound of the wounded crying out. You could do nothing to help them. You just had to go forward through all that mud and blood. It was absolutely sickening.

I remember one lad from our regiment in particular – the memory has haunted me all my life. He was in a pool of blood, ripped open from his shoulder to his waist by shrapnel. When we got to him he said, 'Shoot me.' But before we could draw a revolver, he was dead.

And the final word he uttered was 'Mother'. It wasn't a cry of despair, it was a cry of surprise and joy. I think – no, I'm sure – that his mother was in the next world to welcome him and he knew it. I've always remembered that cry and that death is not the end – at least I hope that's how it was with my three mates.

The noise, the filth, the uncertainty, the casualties

I didn't want to be there and I never pretended I did. I was conscripted in 1916, by which time the enthusiasm for the war had waned at home. I was nervous but I didn't want to reveal my feelings to the others.

It doesn't matter how much training you've had, you can't prepare for the reality – the noise, the filth, the uncertainty, the casualties. The conditions were awful while we were waiting for the offensive.

It rained and rained. Water flowed along the bottom of the trench. I'd stand on an ammunition box until it sank into the mud, then put another on top and stand on that. There was no sanitation and the place stank. You were filthy. From landing in France in June until coming out in September, I never had a bath nor clean clothes.

I was put in a Lewis gun team with three others. We became very close – it sounds strange, but we had a pact that we wouldn't kill anyone, not if we could help it. We'd fire short, hit them in the legs or fire over their heads, but not kill unless it was them or us.

I gave him his life

We lay down for cover behind a dead German. I had just changed a magazine when one of them came out of the trench and came straight for us with fixed bayonet. He couldn't have had any ammunition, otherwise he would have shot us. I drew my revolver and shot him in the right shoulder.

He dropped his rifle but still came stumbling on. He called out something to me in German – I don't suppose it was complimentary. I had three live rounds left in that revolver and could have killed him with the first. He was only 15 yards away and I couldn't miss, not with a Webley service revolver, not at that range.

I thought, 'What shall I do?' I had four seconds to make up my mind, and I gave him his life. I shot him above the ankle and above the knee and brought him down. He would have been passed back to a PoW camp and rejoined his family after the war. I've often wondered whether he realised I gave him his life. Six weeks later, my three best mates were killed by a German bomb. If that had happened before I met that German, I would have damn well killed him.

The assault by Harry's men was over by mid-morning and the survivors waited all afternoon for a counter-attack that never came.

We were sitting amid a sea of shell holes, up to our knees in gluey, sticky mud. The stench of rotting bodies was terrible. Right across the battlefield, the bodies of the dead and of the wounded would sink out of sight. We fought for a few yards of soil and that cost the lives of so many, including my three best friends. There was no excuse for such slaughter for so little gain.

He returned to England six weeks after that first assault. The German shell that killed his three best friends had also left Harry with horrific shrapnel wounds that were later operated on without anaesthetic.

Anyone who tells you they weren't scared is a damned liar. You were scared all the time. We lived hour by hour. You saw the sun rise, hopefully you'd see it set. If you saw it set, you hoped you'd see it rise. Some men would, some wouldn't.

I went 80 years and never mentioned the war, not even to my family. The memories were too vivid. I bottled it all up for so long. I never even watched a war film.

But the war is something I can now talk about. In 2004 I went back to Flanders for a memorial service and met a German, Charles Kuentz, who had fought against us. We shook hands and agreed on so much about that awful war. A nice old chap, he was. Why he should have been my enemy, I don't know. He told me, 'I fought you because I was told to, and you did the same.' It's sad but true.

What the hell we fought for, I now don't know.

Harry Patch (In memory of) by Radiohead

The band Radiohead have released a track in Harry’s memory, with lyrics inspired by his own words. Harry’s grandson Roger Patch says: "Harry loved music and would be 100 per cent behind Radiohead in raising awareness of the suffering of conflict – not least the futility of it.

Hear Radiohead’s Harry Patch (In memory of) here…