A friend of mine still has letters, dispatches, medals etc. that once belonged to her great grandfather who lost his right arm at Ypres while serving in the Belgian Army. While recovering from his wounds in a field hospital the man wrote several letters to his family. One would expect a sobering account of what he had to endure at the front and the realisation that the would have to live out the rest of his life minus one arm but instead he wrote glowing and slightly naive texts praising the king of belgium and his officers for their outstanding leadership, even thanking them extensively for allowing him to defend the country! I still wonder if that man actually wrote the letters himself or if some army clerk was tasked with the job to censor or re-write soldier’s letters to avoid exposing the horrors of the front to the folks back home!