Heritage

76 heritage for peace and reconciliation | manual for teacherContentspropaganda on them then and now. For example, think of the countless examples ofyoung war volunteers in today’s conflicts in various places in the world.A letter, which recounts the naval battle of Jutland, illustrates just how little the youngsoldiers entering the war actually knew and understood about the dangers of battleand the damage caused to others. In this case it was the 19-year-old British secondlieutenant and his friend, aged 17, who were the unsuspecting children thrown into awar that they barely understood:‘I have been intending to write and tell you all about the 31st, but couldn’t find youraddress and could only remember the number. I’m so awfully sorry you weren’t in it.It was rather terrible but a wonderful experience, and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,but, by Jove! it is not a thing one wants to make a habit of. I must say it’s verydifferent from what I expected. I expected to be excited but was not a bit. It’s hard toexpress what we did feel like, but you know the sort of feeling one has when one goesin to bat at cricket and rather a lot depends upon you doing well and you’re waiting forthe first ball. Well, it’s very much the same as that – do you know what I mean? A sortof tense feeling waiting for the unknown to happen, and not quite knowing what toexpect. One does not feel the slightest bit frightened, and the idea that there’s a chanceof you and your ship being scuppered does not really enter one’s head. There are toomany other things to think about … One expected to be surprised any minute – andeventually we were. We suddenly found ourselves within 1,000 yards of two or threebig Hun cruisers. They switched on their searchlights and started firing like nothingon earth. Then they put their searchlights on us, but for some extraordinary reason didnot fire on us. As, of course, we were going full speed, we’d lost them in a moment,but I must say that I, and I think everybody else, thought that was the end; but onedoes not feel afraid or panicky. I think I felt rather cooler than at any other time. Iasked lots of people afterwards what they felt like and they all said the same thing. Itall happens in a few seconds, one hasn’t got time to think, but never in all my life haveI been so thankful to see daylight again – and I don’t think I ever want to see anothernight like that – it’s such an awful strain; one does not notice it at the time, but it’sthe reaction afterwards.’The Jutland battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea nearJutland, Denmark. (http://www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/jutland.htm – The Jutlandbattle by two who took part in it, London, Bukrup. Mathieson & Sprague, 1916).