Answer to Question #263772 in History for Kelsey Jand

Question

Context: Flyboys Film

Question: Beagle’s plane crashes in “No Man’s Land”, the area in between the front lines of the trenches. Describe the environment of this area. List AT LEAST TWO specific examples. 

Answer 1

No man’s land was an actual and a metaphorical space during World War I which separated the front lines of opposing armies and probably the only place where the troops of enemies could meet without fighting. It is a place where opposing troops would unofficially agree to remove their wounded colleagues or sunbathe on the first days of spring. It was one the most terrifying places which held the greatest danger for combatants. Fran Brearton, 2000, stated that this is a place where men drowned in shell-holes already filled with decaying flesh, wounded beyond help from behind the wire, dying over a number of days, crying audibly and also where sappers were buried alive beneath its surface. Wilfred Owen also described it as the face of the moon that was chaotic, crater-ridden, uninhabitable, awful and an abode of madness.

Specific Examples

·        Outside wall of London formerly used as a place of execution.

·        The demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

·        The UN buffer zone that stands between the Greek and Turkish-controlled territories in Cyprus