A folding postcard from a pencil sketch of an unsuccessful Allied gas attack in Flanders.
Erfolgloser feindlicher Gasangriff in FlandernUnsuccessful enemy gas attack in FlandersOutside:FeldpostkarteNachdruck verboten.Field postcardReproduction prohibited.
"If a whiff of gas you smell,Bang your gong like bloody hell,On with your googly, up with your gun—Ready to meet the bloody Hun."
Trench wisdom found by C. S. Owen, commander of a Royal West Kent battalion, at one of his unit's sentry posts. Owen copied and sent it to his commanding officers, recommending it as a 'model of concise Order that men could understand and remember.' The doggerel is recorded in the entry for December 10, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. A gas attack indicated an infantry attack was imminent. On the sounding of the gong, men put on their gas masks — their googlies — and prepared to meet the attack.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 171, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
1915-12-10, 1915, December, Dunn, gas, gasmask, poem, doggerel, poison gas
