No Man's Land referred to the battle shape between the front line trenches. Soldiers entered No Man's land during major attacks, raids, patrols, barbed wire maintenance details and to bring in casualties. Except for major attacks which usually began at dawn, most of these tasks were done at night to avoid drawing machine gun and artillery fire.
An illumination rocket went up from the enemy trench, bathing the area in a bright light. I dived into a nearby shell hole. It was none too soon, because bullets began to hit the rim of that shell hole, and small stones, bits of rusty wire, wooden splinters and dirt showered down on me from the bullet hits above... The fire then ceased. I had the problem of getting back to our trench without being shot by our men. One does not crawl up to one's trench at night without some sort of announcement: that it, if he wants to live.
Private Donald D. Kyler
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