Seeing Death Before it Happened

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What happens to us after we die?

Do you know?

Death is understandably an uncomfortable subject, one which we may easily avoid dwelling on.

For those men fighting in the midst of the Great War, however, they enjoyed no such luxury.

But while death itself was rampant and indiscriminatory across the frontline trenches, there are instances where some of these men either died or avoided death in ways which were anything but normal.

What they encountered cannot be explained, and so it is entirely up to our own speculation.

Were they merely premonitions or perhaps hallucinations brought on by mental and physical exhaustion?

Or were these men visited, as they themselves believe,

by something supernatural?

Do you believe in ghosts?

What about angels and demons?

All things to consider while listening to these men's stories about seeing death before it happened.

I'm Luke Lamana,

and this is Wartime Stories.

While the average person's experience with death may be attending the funeral of a loved one, for the soldiers who fought and bled on the front lines of the Great War, Death became a daily routine.

Right under their very feet, the earth itself was drenched with the blood of the fallen, their mangled bodies being buried and unburied by the constant churning of the land.

Most assuredly, these men quite literally stared death in the eyes, the many faces of their lifeless comrades.

However, the diary entries of these men seem to suggest that death not only presented itself to them in the physical sense, but also the spiritual.

And as bizarre as it seems, there are cases where something not of this earth interceded, changing their fate, guiding these men away from what would have been certain death.

This first story comes from the memoirs of a Canadian soldier, a man who survived the war, his story later being unearthed by Canadian historian Tim Cook.

A story, Tim said, that is one of the most vivid, supernatural accounts he has ever come across in his 20 years of studying these diaries, letters, and memoirs from men like these,

the frontline soldiers of the Great War.

Get off me.

Despite his best efforts, sleep had continued to elude Will Byrd.

Though the Canadian was now a seasoned soldier, catching shut-eye on the front was an act far easier said than done.

It didn't matter how exhausted the soldier was.

Any attempt to drift away in slumber could be so easily dashed by stray shells, a sudden call to arms, or the blissfully unaware snoring of a comrade.

The rats certainly didn't help matters.

The critters relentlessly pestered the men, nipping at both them and their rations while squeaking away at the sleep-deprived attempts to fend off their tiny assaults.

However, despite all these factors, Will felt his eyes getting heavier and heavier.

His exhaustion, it seemed, would finally win out.

But then.

The entrance of this unwelcome visitor pulled Will from the looming depths of sleep, much to his annoyance.

His mood didn't improve when the man's wet, mud-laden footsteps made their way right over to his cot, pausing by his side.

Thinking that this was a soldier coming to summon him for his shift on the line, Will braced for the inevitable.

Piss off.

What do you want?

It's not my watch for the.

The face that Will saw staring back at him in the dim, flickering light of the dugout was not that of a fellow soldier, at least not one in his unit.

This man, smiling down at him, seemingly amused, was Will's own brother, Steve.

And yet it was this familiarity that chilled Will to his core.

For you see, Steve had been killed in action over two years earlier.

And yet here he was, clear as day, before Will.

How?

How you...

Steve's hand moved swiftly to silence his excited brother, soundlessly indicating with the other that he needed to be quiet.

As they sat there in the silence, Will took note of the warmth of his supposedly dead brother's hand as it muffled his shock.

Steve looked gently into the widening eyes of his bewildered sibling.

Bearing a slight smile, he simply said,

Get your gear and follow me.

And so, without a word and as quietly as possible, Will grabbed his kit, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he hustled to catch up with his brother.

Steve, wait.

As Will stepped out into the open air, he quickly fell in line behind Steve, who had marched out at a quick pace through the winding network of trenches.

However, the further on they went, the more uneasy Will felt.

Time and time again, he spoke to his brother, prodding him with questions that went completely unacknowledged.

Steve only faced forward, never once turning to answer Will as he marched on with a strangely unnatural rigidity.

After quite some time of following his brother through the trenches, Will saw Steve round a corner mere steps ahead.

Turning to follow his sibling, Will was taken aback by the sight of a now empty trench before him.

Steve?

Steve, it seemed, Steve, had completely vanished.

No trace of the man remained.

Steve!

Will called for his brother, desperate, pained whispers going tragically unanswered in the night.

Indeed, the soldier was now all alone.

Now emotionally and physically exhausted, Will felt the slumber that once proved elusive begin to overtake him like the enveloping embrace of a warm blanket.

For the very first time on the front, Will Bird effortlessly fell asleep.

I'm losing my dear mind.

His mind swirling with the thoughts of the night's encounter, there was little Will could think of to rationalize what he saw, what he felt, with the very tangible, warm palm of his supposedly deceased brother's hand slapped firmly over his mouth.

Could it have all been a bizarre, waking dream?

Perhaps some state of psychosis brought on by frayed nerves and looming fatigue.

Whatever the case, Will couldn't afford to dwell on the matter.

The day was young, and war didn't stop for anyone.

Okay.

Okay, gotta go back.

Gotta go back.

He began winding his way through the trenches, back towards his dugout.

The closer closer Will drew to his dugout, however, it became apparent that something was very, very wrong.

The devastating sight that befell Will Byrd was something that once again chilled him to the core.

The very dugout that he had been tucked away in mere hours before was now completely obliterated.

The remains of the structure, as well as the men held within it, were viscerally scattered about the trench and crater that now marked their place.

There were no survivors.

Will looked upon the scene of carnage before him, mortified and dumbfounded.

Someone, or something,

had chosen to save him that night,

a guiding hand reaching from beyond to pull him from the grasp of imminent death.

The face of his fallen brother, faintly lit by the dugout's lantern in the night, was something that would stick with Will Byrd for the rest of his life.

The soldier would lament on the tale many years later in a 1968 memoir aptly titled, Ghosts Have Warm Hands.

As incredible and outlandish as Will Byrd's surreal experience may appear, such apparitions, it seems, were far from uncommon.

If dozens of personal correspondences and official military reports are to be believed, spectral sightings of fallen comrades and deceased family members were a widely experienced phenomenon.

For the soldiers that experienced them, such encounters, chilling as they were, were oddly welcomed.

One last goodbye from a good friend, or, as in Will Bird's case, a sort of guardian angel still watching their buddy's back in the afterlife.

In the bleak, oftentimes hopeless despair of the Great War, soldiers took comfort in such stories.

With many of these men being devout in their respective faiths, the hope of a life beyond death provided them a measure of comfort when surrounded by so much misery.

Still, while most of these encounters were seen as good omens by frontline soldiers, there are a select few tales that say otherwise.

Instead of guiding the hapless men away from danger, some spectral sightings bore a darker, more ominous aura.

I'm out.

Not enough to keep this up.

I hope your bayonet's shy.

Mate, we're bugging if Tommy doesn't get back in with the ammo.

Yeah, well, I'll say it's a pretty big if, bro.

Just keep shooting!

The thin British line had been battered for the better part of the morning.

Though they had succeeded in taking the town a few hours earlier, their heavy casualties in doing so meant that there was little more the remaining soldiers could do but dig in and hold out against the tide of inevitable German counter-attacks.

Thinly strung out amongst the ruins of the town, the British fought stubbornly, fending off the enemy despite their exhaustion.

Through the haze and smoke generated by the persistent fighting, two British soldiers found themselves witnessing a distressing and eerie sight.

Seeming to quite literally appear from nowhere, the unknown woman didn't react to the beckoning soldiers.

She simply stood there, stoic and unfazed by the battle going on around her, as her eyes fixated on the two British soldiers.

The woman's appearance was a stark contrast against the town's drab devastation, wearing a distinct, vibrant blue skirt and bonnet.

She was an older woman, her face appearing weathered.

her eyes looking tired.

The men were perplexed.

Even the Germans, it seemed, had stopped firing.

Stop me, boy.

You lies in it.

Sorry, mate.

I'll take detail.

Say, you know, in frock.

What?

Why?

There's a woman out there, trapped between the lines.

Have a look.

As the soldier now looked out at the woman looming in the haze, his comrades noted a drastic change in his demeanor.

His face grew pale, his eyes widening with fright and confusion.

Trembling, the young soldier began to stand back up and then walk out into the opening, ignoring the protests of his fellow soldiers.

The woman's cold, unyielding stare followed the soldier,

now facing her on open ground.

The young man was unreachable in his trance-like state.

Slowly removing his helmet, he uttered what would be his final, haunting words.

That's my mother.

I think she's come for me.

Tommy!

Tommy!

Through the settling smoke and ash, the two soldiers happened upon the remains of their comrade.

killed mercifully quick by the blast.

The woman in the blue skirt, however, was nowhere to to be found, seemingly carried away by the looming haze that surrounded the battlefield.

As the two soldiers lamented on the surreal experience that befell them, they couldn't help but wonder if their fallen comrade, in some way, had been carried away with her.

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Soldiers have always had a deeply personal relationship with superstitions and those more otherworldly influences on the natural world.

Much like contemporary and past fighting forces, the enlisted ranks of the Great War's armies were largely filled with men of honest, humble means.

They were farmhands, factory workers, miners, and blue-collar men who, though educated, were raised on tales of mythical legends and folklore.

The belief that a world beyond our own influences one's fate was rife amongst the men of the First World War.

And when fate sent you a sign, you damn well listened.

A common example of such superstitions was a soldier having some sort of lucky possession on them at all times.

Trinkets or articles of clothing that made the soldier feel that extra surge of courage needed to hoist themselves over the top and into the fray.

So powerful were the men's belief in such objects that losing one before a major push was seen as a virtual death sentence for the owner.

However, it was sometimes said that fate would reach out personally to the men on the front, bestowing upon them its ominous message, a warning that death was coming.

The letters and diaries of Great War soldiers are littered with tales of comrades foreshadowing their own demise.

The afflicted soldier, normally of cool nerves, would suddenly find an overwhelming feeling of looming dread descend upon him, letting him know that, try as he might, his time was coming.

Whatever befell these men had profound impacts on their everyday conduct.

For a while, they'd seemed detached from reality, lost in the depths of their own mind, until, in many cases, a calm air of acceptance washed over them.

More often than not, it seemed, this sense of lingering death proved eerily and tragically accurate.

Right, mates.

Bag into the

10 meters.

Then we uh

knock off.

Yeah.

Oh, Corporate.

As a member of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, Corporal Albert Davy was no stranger to death.

These engineers, especially trained, were tasked with some of the most nightmarish undertakings of the war.

Digging deep below the battlefields above, the engineers would tunnel their way across no man's land, placing explosives beneath trenches and strongpoints in brazen attempts to blow holes in the enemy's defense.

Working in cramped spaces deep beneath volatile, unstable earth, with the risk of cave-ins and enemy detection ever-present, takes a unique breed of soldier, one with ironhide resolve and icy coolness flowing through their veins.

By all accounts, Corporal Albert Davy was one such soldier.

By October 1918, Davy was a two-year veteran of the war, distinguishing himself on countless missions beneath enemy soil.

Despite the dangerous nature of their tasks, Corporal Davy maintained a steadfast, determined spirit, making him beloved by his men and greatly valued by his commanding officers.

In the twilight days of the Great War, there was little need for tunnelers.

Massive Allied breakthroughs during the Hundred Days Offensive had finally succeeded in breaking the four-year stalemate brought about by trench warfare, thus rendering their specialized task obsolete.

With the fighting now defined by rapid advances and greater freedom of movement, the men of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company found themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder with standard infantry units.

Though there was still much fighting to come, an Allied victory was now all but certain.

With whispers of a supposed armistice making their rounds up and down the line, the highly spirited men now began talking about life after the war, starting families, new careers, opportunities, and adventures abound.

However, it was during these final weeks that Corporal Davy grew eerily sullen and withdrawn, much at odds with his usual personality.

When pressed on the issue by his friends, Davy just couldn't explain what he was feeling, only that it was overpowering and all-encompassing.

Like numerous men before him, Davy was certain that his time was up.

From the post-war writings of the unit's commanding officer, Captain Oliver Holmes Woodward, a peculiar interaction is recalled between himself and Corporal Davy on the cusp of a major push.

The tunnelers would be moving forward with the infantry, tasked with constructing a bridge over the Somme-Beloons Canal for tanks to cross.

It was here, amongst the mustering forces, that Davy approached his CO.

I had often heard cases cited of men having a premonition of impending disaster and will tell you of a case that actually came to my notice.

Corporal Davy, one of my best NCOs, came to me and asked whether I would take care of his personal belongings and post them to his wife should anything happen to him.

I spoke firmly to him, told him not to be foolish.

We all stood that chance and had to keep cool and collected.

He replied, Captain, nothing you can say will remove the conviction that I will be killed.

Will you please do me the favor I ask?

Merely to ease his mind, I consented.

and took charge of his personal effects.

The captain then watched as Corporal Davy moved along with the rest of his comrades, disappearing into a sea of uniforms, moving as one.

Before daylight broke next morning, Corporal Davy had made the supreme sacrifice.

He was killed by a shell while we were lying out waiting for zero.

In temperament, Corporal Davy was of the calm type.

He was a soldier who was as fearless as any soldier can truly be in war, had never failed in carrying out his duties in a most efficient manner,

and inspired the confidence of his men.

There could be no suggestion of fear or panic causing him to act as he did in coming to me.

More than a hundred years has passed since the guns of the Great War have fallen silent, and still many myths and legends spawned from the trenches continue to echo through time, resonating with both historians and storytellers alike.

When interviewed about the war's spectral happenings, many years down the line, these men, now far more seasoned in life and all its wisdom, never once backpedaled or revised their supernatural accounts.

Even in their youth, shattered by the surreal horrors of war, these men were expertly molded soldiers, their minds and senses evolved to meet the many terrors on the front.

Soldiers who, in order to survive, relied on their ability to see, interpret, and react to everything around them to the utmost detail.

So, what do we make of it when these very men, themselves finely tuned weapons of war, see the face of their long-lost comrades staring at them from the darkness?

How do we interpret the prophetic images that plague them in the night, foretelling an inescapable and grisly end?

Regrettably, this incredible generation of men has long since departed, leaving us with only their testimonies, these tales, and unsolved mysteries of the front line.

A line where they not only confronted death, but, quite possibly, saw a glimpse of what lay just beyond it.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive produced by Mr.

Bollin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt.

Written by Jake Howard and myself.

Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Acasio, and Witt Lacascio.

Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham.

Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Production supervision by Jeremy Bone.

Production coordination by Avery Siegel.

Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden.

Artwork by Jessica Cloxon-Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada.

If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me me at info at wartime stories.com.

Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.

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