Norwich bulletin., 1918-10-26
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
h the Big Drive.

In the Big Drive.
 Mir. and Mrs. c. A. Fellows have received recently from their son, Inn bert, who is in the 3Sth Infantry, ex- tracts from which are as follows: September IS.
 We, have been on the go for about two weeks. We left our little rest billet one night and hiked all night. As dawn. was breaking we. went into some woods. We stayed there couple of days and then we started toward the front. We would hike til morning and lie hidden all day, starting out again as soon as it Was night Lots of other outfits were doing the same. At one o'clock Thursday morning we were about 10 kiloneters from the front line trenches. At one the great barrage started and it sure seemed good to hear the music of the big guns hurling shells over on Fritz. It was a sort of retaliation for what he gave us on the Marne We kept on till about six o'clock-sIowiy on &C., count of traffic and stopped till nine Then we learned that at five the boys had gone over the top and one of the outfits was the one in which are Ho- Mitchell, Andrew McIlravey-an from Washington, Conn, Andrew got a Croix de Gucrre recently. So we pull ed up stakes and started following up We met all sorts of prisoners coming in. Most of them were Saxons and Bavarians-but two of our old friends that we had met on the Marne-tl1e Sixth Prussian Grenadiers and the 18Tth were also there. These troops were supposed to be among the best the kaiser had. They had been sent over here on a quiet sector to rest up after the rough handling we gave them. There were vast numbers of trenches some of them all concrete, and more barbed wire than I supposed was in all Germany. They had won derfuI dugoHts, forty and fifty feet 1 under the ground and they were equip ped with all sorts of fuy1ries Fine carpeter shops and everything else, | and no wonder for they had been there four years and doubtless intend | ed to hold it forever The country was
 open and fine for the tanks-droves of 1 which. big and little, wont forward with the infa antry-n1ost of them | American, but with a few French The l Germans left whole batteries of big guns and huge quantities of stores Every once in a while dead Arneri- can would be found but the German | uedu were ldlCh6f ana the nunfDer Ol 1 prisoners taken was enormous. In one 1 place there were three Americans l lying in a heap beside the road-about l twenty yards away was an old shel'
 hole with machine gun and two dead | Germans lying in it. The track of a l tank showed where it had plowed down, passed the hole and ridd1ed the 1 Germans Tn one dugout were ten
 Boche probably killed by grenades.
 The towns next to the trenches and through which the trenches ran were nothing but piles of stones but as we | went further into Germany" the towns began to look more as if they l had been occupied once and soon we found refugees if you could call then
 such, old men, women, girls, and ehil-
 dren. who had been prisoners for foul long, hard years.
 The division in which are the Nor l wich boys from Fort Wright was the one in back of us but we never saw them.
 This is the first pleasant day in over week It rains most of the time hert
 now It's cold. wet, mean hiking wher your blanket and shelter half are al
 soaking wet. .
 September g. | We'll, we are behind another iron
 now We are living in small tents il the woods. t has been raining stead
 fly of late.