Monday, April 22, 2013
WW1 Christmas football match
The famous First World War football match of the Christmas Day truce started after a ball was kicked from the British lines into No Man's Land.
The disclosure emerged in a previously-unseen letter describing the famous match.
Staff sergeant Clement Barker sent the letter home four days after Christmas 1914 when the British and German troops emerged from their trenches in peace.
He described how the truce began after a German messenger walked across No Man's Land on Christmas Eve to broker the temporary cease-fire agreement.
British soldiers went out and recovered 69 dead comrades and buried them.
Sgt Barker said the impromptu football match then broke out between the two sides when a ball was kicked out from the British lines into No Man's Land.
Rodney Barker, 66, found the letter from his uncle when he was going through some old documents following his mother's death.
Sgt Barker wrote to his brother Montague: "...a messenger come over from the German lines and said that if we did not fire Xmas day, they (the Germans) wouldn't do so in the morning (Xmas day).
"A German looked over the trench - no shots - our men did the same, and then a few of our men went out and brought the dead in (69) and buried them and the next thing happened a football kicked out of our Trenches and Germans and English played football.
The disclosure emerged in a previously-unseen letter describing the famous match.
Staff sergeant Clement Barker sent the letter home four days after Christmas 1914 when the British and German troops emerged from their trenches in peace.
He described how the truce began after a German messenger walked across No Man's Land on Christmas Eve to broker the temporary cease-fire agreement.
British soldiers went out and recovered 69 dead comrades and buried them.
Sgt Barker said the impromptu football match then broke out between the two sides when a ball was kicked out from the British lines into No Man's Land.
Rodney Barker, 66, found the letter from his uncle when he was going through some old documents following his mother's death.
Sgt Barker wrote to his brother Montague: "...a messenger come over from the German lines and said that if we did not fire Xmas day, they (the Germans) wouldn't do so in the morning (Xmas day).
"A German looked over the trench - no shots - our men did the same, and then a few of our men went out and brought the dead in (69) and buried them and the next thing happened a football kicked out of our Trenches and Germans and English played football.
