Fr Doyle wrote the following letter to his father on 29 May 1917 – 102 years ago today. In this letter he outlines what a “raiding party” is. He firstly gives a humorous example of what a raiding party could be like (using a witty example) followed by a very serious account of an actual raising party he recently witnessed. 

In today’s excerpts we once again see Fr Doyle’s own wit as well as his love for his father in the effort he went to to write out this humorous example of a raiding party.

As you might like to know how the ‘game of raiding your neighbour’ is played, a sort of novelty for your next garden party, I shall give you a few particulars. You dig two trenches about 100 yards apart and fill one with the enemy, who are well provided with hand bombs, machine guns etc. Some night when you think they won’t expect your coming, a party of your men climb over the top of their parapet and start to crawl a là Red Indian towards the foe. It is exciting work for star shells are going up every few minutes and lighting up No Man’s Land, during which time your men lie on their faces motionless, probably cursing the inventor of the said star-shells, or Very Lights, and praying for Egyptian darkness. It is part of the game that if the enemy see you, they promptly paste you with bombs (which hurt) or give you a shower bath of leaden bullets. For this reason, when the game is played at garden parties it is recommended to place husbands in one trench and wives in the other and to oppose P.P.’s or Rev. Mothers by their curates and communities; in this way accuracy of aim is wonderfully improved and the casualties delightfully high, which is a desideratum in these days, when the supper hour arrives.

And becoming more serious Fr Doyle recounts the following episode:

Having reached a certain distance the raiders wait for the artillery barrage to open. That is a sight never to be forgotten. At a fixed moment every gun opens fire simultaneously with a crash that shakes the Heavens and for five minutes the enemy’s trench, from end to end, is a line of fire lit up by the hundreds of bursting shells. Then the barrage lifts like a curtain to the second trench, to keep back reinforcements, while the attackers dash through the cut barbed wire, over into the trench, sometimes to meet a stout opposition in spite of the awful shelling, sometimes only finding the bleeding remains of what was once a brave man. Dug-outs are bombed if their occupants won’t come out, papers and maps secured, prisoners captured if possible, to be questioned later for information, which seems to be freely and foolishly given, and then the raiders, carrying their own dead and wounded get back as quickly as they can to their own lines, for by this time the enemy artillery have opened fire and things are warm and lively.