Newly discovered WWI graffiti sheds light on soldiers' experience

Feb. 20, 2015: A name engraved on the walls of a former chalk quarry, at the Cite Souterraine, Underground City, in Naours, northern France by HA Deanate, 148th Aero Squadron, USA.(AP Photo/Jeffrey Gusky)

Feb. 20, 2015: Names are engraved in a former chalk quarry, at the Cite Souterraine, Underground City, in Naours, northern France.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Feb. 20, 2015: Names are engraved in a former chalk quarry, at the Cite Souterraine, Underground City, in Naours, northern France.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Feb. 20, 2015: Names engraved on the walls of a former chalk quarry, at the Cite Souterraine, Underground City, in Naours, northern France by 9th Batt Australians, G. Fitzhenry of Paddington, Sydney from 1916 July and Alistair Ross, Lismore, Australia.(AP Photo/Jeffrey Gusky)

NAOURS, France A headlamp cuts through the darkness of a rough-hewn passage 100 feet underground to reveal an inscription: "James Cockburn 8th Durham L.I."

It's cut so clean it could have been left yesterday. Only the date next to it April 1, 1917 roots it in the horrors of World War I.

The piece of graffiti by a soldier in a British infantry unit is just one of nearly 2,000 century-old inscriptions that have recently come to light in Naours, a two-hour drive north of Paris. Many marked a note for posterity in the face of the doom that trench warfare a few dozen miles away would bring to many.

"It shows how soldiers form a sense of place and an understanding of their role in a harsh and hostile environment," said historian Ross Wilson of Chichester University in Britain.

Etchings, even scratched bas-reliefs, were left by many soldiers during the war. But those in Naours "would be one of the highest concentrations of inscriptions on the Western Front" that stretches from Switzerland to the North Sea, said Wilson.

The site's proximity to the Somme battlefields, where more than a million men were killed or wounded, adds to the discovery's importance. "It provides insight into how they found a sense of meaning in the conflict," said Wilson.

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Newly discovered WWI graffiti sheds light on soldiers' experience