13. The writer C. S. Lewis was a victim of friendly fire during World War I
Clive Staples Lewis, who gained enduring fame as a writer using the byline C. S. Lewis, accepted a commission with the British Army in 1917. After initial training in Britain, he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry, arriving in France in November, 1917. He arrived at the front lines near the Somme on his 19th birthday. For the next five months, he endured the miseries of winter in the trenches. Along with the weather-related discomforts, shelling by the Germans, sniper fire, and the always present threat of gas attacks defined each day. German aircraft increased their strafing of the trenches in the late winter, preparatory to the Spring Offensive they launched in March, 1918.
To break up the masses of German troops and equipment, British and French artillery increased their bombardments that spring. On April 15, a British shell fell well short of its intended target, its explosion severely wounding Lewis and killing two of his men. Shell fragments wounded Lewis to the chest, which included a broken rib, his left wrist, and his left leg. Over one month later Lewis was deemed strong enough for evacuation to Britain, where he remained hospitalized until December, at which time he was demobilized from the army. When Lewis wrote to the War Office inquiring about the status of his pension, due to him as a man wounded in combat, the official reply said he was ineligible. They offered no explanation as to why he was not due a pension for the wounds received in battle.
