The Belding banner-news. (Belding, Mich.) 1918-1973, 1918-08-28

! 6A fish another batch
@AAZkAG> of these good, short
stories of war. in the light that a
number Of young men from this city
and vicinity see it.
The first letter is from John L.
Driscoll9 of Parnell, written to his
father, Timothy Driscoll. In addi-
tion to the following letter, Mr.. Dris-
coll is also in receipt of card stat
ing that another son, Eugene, had ar
rived safely overseas. The letter is
Co. K. 12sth Inf, Somewhere in
France, July IL, 1913
Dear Mother:
Received your letter and was glad
to hear from you. am well and in
good spirits and hope this finds you
the same.
know it is hard for you after
Gene being called to the colors but
cheer up the war can't last long at
the most. Maybe he will never have
to go over. Let's hope so anyway.
Then it isn't SC bad over here as it
might be. We have been having
pretty fair weather here lately. Not
very much rain. 1t was raining when
we first got up to the trenches this
time but it cleared up after we were
up there few days. 1t was pretty
disagreeable for few days. But
then we made the best of it and got
along fine. We finished up our
hitch in the trenches with fine sun
shinny weather. We had a lot of
rested. up a couple of days you want
to go right back and get another
crack at the boches again We had
plenty cf excitement up there. We
saw German patrol out by our barb
ed wire and we started to heave
hand grenade at them and believe me
you ought to see them Germans beat
it while going was good. We had
that much satisfaction anyway.
The weather is not as changeable
here as it is back in Michigan. We
have had more sunshine here since
we have been in France than we would
have in a year at home.
| suppose you got my last letter
telling you that-I pulled out o. k. be-
fore this. The first time we were in
the trenches we were under heavy
shell fire. 1t sure was some exper-
fence. The French soldiers claim
that we carry horse shoes in our
pockets, we are so lucky. Here's
hoping luck stays with us. Believe
me, we sure get along fine with the
French soldiers. We absorb all the
information they give US about diff
ferent things that will be of help to
us when we are up against the boche.
Well, why shouldn't they. They
have been in the war four years and
they sure know what they are talking
about so we get along fine with them.
l don't take to the French language
very fast, but when / want anything
to eat / always manage to get it.
The other day | saw very interest
ing air battle here. We were just
eating supper and all of sudden we
heard some anti-aircraft gun blazing
away. We started watching the bat
tie: There was French observation
balloon up and there were three
French airplanes sailing around and
all of a sudden we saw a German
plane away up over the observati IN
balloon. The German plane started
bombing the balloon and the fellow
made beautiful drop with the para
chute, with shrapnel dropping all
around him. Then the German plane
got away from the three French
planes and beat it Believe me it
was some sight. We see an air bat
tie real often. You just ought to
see one. S
How are the neighbors How is
Dennie | hope he has good luck
with his crops.
Tell my old friends / miss the card
games at Tony's.
/ must close now. With love from
your son,
Pvt. John l.. Driscoll.
The second letter is from Claude
Broadhead to his parents, Mr.. and
Mrs. Chas. Broadhead of Alderman
street, this city and is as follows:
Camp Mills, Long Island,
July 9, 1918.
Dear Mother and All:
! viii write you a few lines to let
you know that / am in the finest Of
health and hope you are all the same.
Well l am in camp for about 5 or 6
days before we go over sea for SER
vice there.
We left Ft. Stevens June 81 and ar
rived here on Monday, just one week
on the road and it was some trip;
there were four train loads, IL cars
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