The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-11-08
Somewhere in France.

Fine, hope. 1 am getting along
fine. Had two letters from you all
to-day. Sure was glad to hear from
you. Wish l could be there to help
| you all eat some of those good wa
termelons you keep telling me about.
l just wrote you a letter two or three
l days ago, but l don't know whether
it was mailed or not, as we moved
the next morning after wrote 1t.
So i am writing again.
Well, you keep. wanting to know
what l am doing, so / will try to
tell you. The first month ! spent
in France, doing some pretty hard
travelling. Then we went to Bel
GUM, where we stayed about two
months; went upon the Ypres front
while we were there and stayed
about seven days. Am now in
France, on the Albert front. Have
had a pretty easy time since I've
been over here, with the exception
of the first month, VIC did some pref
| ty hard drilling. l was the gunner
all the time in my squad up until
about a month ago. My corporal
was sent down in Southern France
to school and 1 have been in charge
of the squad since that time. He
came back day or two ago, and was
made sergeant and l was made cor
poral at the same time.
On Sunday morning, September
20, at daybreak we went over the
top. We sure did have warm scrap
The whole company started out, but
it got so warm the captain sent out
for them to come back in. They
succeeded in getting all of them back
except my squad and the second
squad. We had already gotten so
far they couldn't find us. We were
all with bunch of infantry. We
kept going and captured about one
hundred of the Huns and eleven ma
denberg line. This is where he was
best fortified. He Is now five or
six miles back of this line, and we
are camped on the ground where
we fought on Sunday, Sept. 20. We
only had one man killed in the
company. There were several wound
ed, sbut only three or four of them
severely wounded There wasn't a
man in my squad knocked out. A
piece of shrapnel hit Hewgley on the
leg and bruised it a little, but he
kept on going. Sure am glad they
didn't make us come back, for l
wouldn't take anything for the ex-
perience had. We were all a little
nervous just before we started but
after we were over into it everybody
seemed to be onto the job and as
cool as you please. Quite a number
of the infantry got knocked out, but
1T was due mostly to their own care
lessness. They pushed forward too
fast and got caught in our own ar
tillery barrage. There were several
thousand prisoners captured here on
this front that day. There were
three or four whole divisions in the
drive. Guess you have heard about
Turkeys part of the war being over.
Think Jerry's (Germany's) part of
it will be ended shortly, if we can
just have thirty or forty days more
pretty weather.
We were on the water coming
over about fourteen days. We went
way round and sailed up between
Ireland and Scotland. Went across
England to Dover on the English
channel. Dover is beautiful place.
We spent two nights and one day
there in one of the old forts, built
in the Napoleanic war. 1t was a
grand place. Then we crossed the
English channel and landed in
Calais France. 1t only took about
two and one-hGlf hours to cross the
channel.
Well, must quit, as I guess l
have told you enough and probably
too much for this time. Hope to
hear from you real soon. Love to
Sil
CORP. FOSTER McSPEDDEN.