The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1917-09-13
LETTER FROM FRANCE.
Dr. SappingtOu, Formerly at Webster
Mills, Writes TO DR.. SwartzweIder
at Mercersbnrg.
Somewhere in France"

answering it at once, as | may
not get another chance very
soon. | expect to 90 up to the
front line trenches at any time.
| am now with the Army Service
Corps, goth Divisional Train, as
medical Officer The train, which
consists of horse transports (wag-
ons) takes the rationsl Consisting
of fresh beef, canned beef, sar-
dimes, cheese, condensed milk,
tea, sugar, salt, bread, etc. for
the men, and oats and hay for
the horses, from the railroad to
the battalion or artillery lines.
We do this each day. / have a
companies consisting of 800 men
to look after. Until the last two
days they were scattered and |
had to ride about 80 miles a day
to keep in touch with them.
We had a big push here in
Flanders (Belgium) last week.
$3.50 prisoners were captured by
our army corps. We gained about
four miles of ground beyond the
Ypres canal. We would have
continued our push, but big rains
came on, and the mud became
worse than it was on the Somme
last fall. We could not move our
guns forward. This corps suf-
fered only about 1000 casualties
(killed and wounded), although
we expected there would be about
10000. We had, previous to the
push, a bombardment of eight
days. Just before the infantry
advanced, our guns sent over
about 7O0,0 900 gas shells and the
men advanced behind our Bar
rage Curtain of fire). This bar
rage creeps forward, advancing
its distance every three minutes,
and the men stay back about
forty yards. Of course, once in
awhile, man gets too close and
is killed. When the trenches
(Boche) are reached, the bar
rage advances, and we take the
trenches.
In the push, we met with very
little resistance until we reached
the fourth line trenches, as most
of the men were killed in the
three preceding trenches by our
gas. We did not have a man
killed by a machine gun or rifle
bullet, but our casualties came
from the boche shrapnel. | am
sending to you a piece of 3-inch
shell that landed just back of my
tent while | was reading your
letter. | picked up this piece
with many large ones all around.
We all would have been killed, |
probably, had not the ground |
been very soft from recent rains.
The shell went about eight feet |
into the ground before it explod-
ed. The hole which it made when
it exploded was 10 feet in diam
eted and, of course, 8 feet in
depth. This is rather a smaller
hole than those made by other
shells that have been thrown into
our camp. We have had 200
horses and A or 5 men killed here
in the last 10 days-some by
shells, and others by bombs from
airplanes which come sailing
over our camp on moonlight
nights.
We have some very fine horses
in this train mostly Clydesdales
and be have some very fine
riding horses. Our sergeant.ma-
jor (our highest non commission
ed officer), is an ex-cow-puncher
from Montana.
! left the States early in May,
having entered the medical corps
after having taken a physical and
mental examination in April. |
was ordered to proceed to Lon
don where reported to the mill
tary attache of the American En-
bassy. He turned US flour be-
sides myself over to the British
War Office, and three days later
we were sent to France. We
had the distinction of being the
first U. S. army officers to reach
France Except hospital units
which are kept intact back at the
coast).