In a striking moment from Martin Gilbert's "The Second World War: the 2,174 Days that Changed the World," the author describes a haunting experience witnessed by an officer. After a bomb struck and killed a horse, the officer returned to the site only to find the horse's skeleton, as the flesh had been stripped away by local residents, illustrating the desperation and stark brutality of survival during war.

This scene serves as a grim reminder of the harsh realities faced by individuals in times of conflict. The transformation of a living creature into a mere carcass, consumed by those in need, reflects the breakdown of normalcy and the extreme measures people resort to when survival is at stake.