Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1917-11-19
A LETTER FROM
French front
Major 0. E. Buckley, Whose Wife is a
Guest in This City ut the Home
of Her Parents, Mr.. and
Mrs. g. s. Lane.
HI SAW RUINS EVERYWHERE
Took Two Days Trip to Front in
Charge Of a French Guide, Who
Showed Him About.

Major O. E. Buckley, who is in
charge of the American experiment
al laboratory in France, has written
] Mrs. Buckley, visitor in the home
| of her parents, Mr.. and Mrs. George
S. Lane, in this city, very interesting
accounts of trips to the French and
| British war fronts. Major Buckley
| trip to the French front is described
as follows:
81 left this city, which is our regu-
lar station, the day before yesterday
in the morning, to go for a little in.
spection trip with three others of
our group for the purpose Of ge+ting
in touch with actual conditions. II
was my first opportunity to see any,
thing of the war from technical
standpoint, outside of the laborasor-
les, where l have been doing most
OF my studying to date.
while the trip we took was only a
short one-two days-and was 10
part of the front, which is very quiet,
and though we did not really go with
in less than two mics of the German
line, there was still much of inter
est to us and l saw something's that
would have made me a bit squeam-
ish if / had not been gradually alb
sorbing the atmosphere.
Guide Takes Him About.
"We arrived at our destination on
the train about two in the afternoon
and were met by automobile and
French captain, who took US around
to see the things we wanted to see,
which were of course, all of a tech
meal nature having to do with our
particular part Of the work. On our
railroad journey We passed through
lot of country the Germans had oc-
cupied during the early part Of the
war. In some places shell holes were
as near as ten or fifteen feet together
over considerable areas and there
were graves sprinkled everywhere.
The shell holes are covered with
grass now and the once battlefield is
farm land again. Occasionally we saw
a house that was blown up and in
ruins, but we did not see many of
those from the train.
Hear Guns.
"The first evidences of recent war
fare we saw were when We alighted
from the train and all the glass OF
the station broken from the effects of
aerial torpedoes which had been let
fall at the station but had missed it
a bit. After engaging rooms at ho-
tel we started for a long automobile
ride on the course of which we got
near enough to hear the guns good
and plenty and to thoroughly inspect
the telephone line construction we
were interested in seeing. There was
nothing exciting to tell about that but
We had about finished our work when
we had the pleasure Of seeing Ger
man airplane come over the lines and
be shot at by the French batteries.
That is a very exciting game to see
and we were all standing on our toes
and shouting whenever shell burst
near him. Unfortunately he was not
hit though I should guess that near
ly hundred shells were shot at him.
1t is very interesting to see the little
puffs Of smoke appear in the sky as
the shell bursts. l have no doubt 1t
is much more Interesting to the man
in the plane, though he did not ap-
pear to mind it much.
when we got back to the hotel we
went out for a walk, first having din
ner, and I never saw town of the
size that seemed so dead to the world,
the reason being that it has been the
scene very recently Of several aerial
bombardments by night and SO every
light is put out on the streets and all
the shutters are closed. The idea
of bombs was rather an interesting
one and I think we all felt that we
would like to hear one drop nearby,