Carthage courier. (Carthage, Tenn.) 1913-current, 1918-12-19
BILL JELLICORSE WRITES
OF THRILLING EXPERIENCES

OF THRILLING EXPERIENCES
Mr.. and Mrs. John Jellicorse of Elm
wood recently received letter from
heir son, viii Jellicorse, in which he
relates some thrilling experiences Of
he last battles of the war In the
Argonre sector, from where Mr.. Jel-
icorse was writing, was some Of the
iercest fighting of the war. This
sector was in charge of our own boys
md, in the battles referred to in the
etter, there were 100000 American.
soldiers taking part. Following is
: Mr.. Jellicorse's interesting letter: e
France, November 18th.
Dear Papa and Mama Now that
he war is finished find time again to
10 little writing. l don't mind tell
ng you, now that it is over, that I
vent through more hardships the last
thirty days of the war than all the
rest of my life. Thirty minutes after
| wrote you the last letter (Oct,tDl
We were moving up on the ArgonTie
'front.' and weren't from under shell fire
any more until the end. Our hardest
light of the war was the morning of
Oct. 18th, when we met the Prussian
.Iuard and lost more men in an hour
md half than in all the rest of the
.hirty days put together. They sure
lad the artillery to back them and put
over the worst barage i ever saw.
ton't think could ever have gone
through another like it and been as
-ncky as / was. A shrapnel bullet
went through my pants leg and a ma
chine gun bullet through my pack,
There was no one who went through IL
Who did not have some narrow es-
capes. l saw John Ray from Kemp
lille. He had made it through without
getting hurt, but had his coat cut
~ machine gun bullets. Ivy Wright
was wounded. In fact, out of six
smith county boys in this regiment,
four of them have been wounded. /
nave been slightly gassed twice but
lot enough to go TO the hospital Ex-
oosure was worse than fighting. II
was raining nearly all the while and
some of us did not have a rain coat
One time we heard the Germans were
going to counter attack. 1t was about
IL o'clock at night. / got orders to
1rop back about two hundred yards to
some high ground. was in command
of 81 m. m. gun and crew. We drop
ped back On little hill and worked till
| a. m, fortifying a big shell hole
the best we could, leaving loop holes
to shoot through. It was raining one
of those cold rains and we were soak
ed to the skin. The next 20 hours
were awful. AS long as we worked, we
did not feel it much but we lay there
in water till the next night; the Aus
TRAN SSs coming over to beat the
band, throwing mud on top of the mud
which was all over u.s. Only one
struck the edge of our fort. Fortunate
ly it was dud. We fought on two
different sections of this front and
stayed 10 days on the first; then drop
ped back in some woods for a few DAYS
which was as bad as the front, being
shelled all the time Here we got six
or eight hundred new men-about half
what we needed. Many of them didn't
know how to fire a gun. Every one
thought we would be relieved but in
an hour or so we were back at the
front. Here is where the 7th Engi-
neers did some splendid work bridging
| the river and canal. We had one
company cut off a whole day between
the river and canal. They tried to
communicate by runners. Only one
tpassed and he was shot. The first
bridge was destroyed; then two more
were thrown across. The company
that was cut off got a platoon across
the canal and charged a machine gun
with the bayonet, which was not more
than forty yards from the bank Of the
canal. They only lost one man wound
ed. If we had been in the German
position they could never have driven
US out of it. BY the time we were all
across the Mouse very little was said
of relief. A runner stated we would
not be relieved anymore till the end
of the war. He happened to be right.
| There was little said but, no doubt,
every one was wondering how he was
going to stand the pace. Even at the
end there was no cheering. Il was
felt too deep for words but the Red,
White and Blue rockets have not fully
quit going up at night yet. ] have al
ways believed could stand more
hRrdships than the average man, but
| began to see there was limit to my
strength. went for three days and
nights with only one meal, about half
dozen crackers and a little canned
beef, was hungry after eating. IL was
the first time canned Willie tasted
good to me. The mud was knee deep
in places. Only Ia of my gun crew
was left, SO you can imagine what
time we had trying TO keep UP with
the retreating Germans.
With Love