Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-09-17

( and had a very enjoyable dinner.
Afterward ] flew another plane to
the new piste. AS a landing field it's
pretty good, but can't hand it much
else. And worst of all there is no
water here. For the first time in
| my young life I suffered from thirst.
and finally became so thirsty drank
pinard. which will give you an idea
how / suffered, because its taste is
| so bad l always think of medicine
when drink it. AS my comrade re-
marked, all one can say for 1t is that
| 'it's wet"
WALTER.
Escadrille Spad. Ss,
| Secteur Postal, IL,
| July IS, 1918.
Dear Mother: Will now write you
| another letter, but so many things
have happened that have not the
time to write them down as they oc-
CURED. do know that during the
three nights I was here I have slept
| in as many different places. The first
| night we were to sleep in a room re-
served for us in the village. but owing
to some mistake, we could not find
it and were billeted in a bunch of
| infantry barracks. No sooner had we
picked out one of the numerous beds
! anu IOT Sleep Indn In6To
was terrific roar just back of the
barracks. quickly followed by a
dozen others. We had heard a plane
| overhead, but by the sound of the
| motor it should have been French.
When the bombs dropped however.
we changed our minds. Some of them
| landed pretty doggone close too, but
having been baptized with shrapnel
so often and acquired the fatalistic
i n
you'll get it," also, they didn't worry
me much. Besides having been up a
whole night before, I was too sleepy
10 care much what happened, and
bombs Notwithstanding, crawled into
bed. Not so my American comrade.
/ He just arrived at the escadrille and
this being his first taste of war, he
old not want to miss any thing 1t
was outside for his. No sooner had
ne got out than he saw one coming,
letting a. trail of red fire in its wake,
and made himself as small as pos
slble behind a tree. Fortunately, the
bomb did not drop near him, but two
minutes later one did. hitting some
distance from the barracks with a
terrific roar and clouds of smoke.
The conclusion shook the barracks
and nearly rolled me out of bed.
When l came out to see what was
curious comrade running up the road
towards the pail of smoke to see how
big hole 1t had made. Strange to
say he never found the hole, so 1t
must have landed further away than
we thought.
Judging from the regularity with
which he was bombarded, the newly
arrived American remarked that the
German must have heard of his ar
| rival and ey;x- -;
| ough hazing. 1t certainly would seem
so, for having arrived on the 14th,
we were shelled by heavy artillery
/ all that night and next day, and the
/ next night the Huns raided us. You
will agree it was quite a baptism of
fire. Another strange thing about it
was that this particular region had
never been bombarded before.
Civilians Scared
Believe me the civilian population
was sure scared aplenty. One woman
even dying of fright. The next morn
ing one of the pilots sleeping in town
found the tail of one of the bombs.
AS a souvenir one could ask for
nothing better, but it would be rath-
er unhandy to carry around, being
; some three feet in length. No, 1 am
not collecting souvenirs. Not after
what happened to me lately, for
ASSh ASoAAS Oil IIly DdSBdSe, one OIL
my new uniforms. Two other Ameri-
cans are in the same boat.
Three of us, your see, were staying
in the same room and having packed
| our baggage were sent up to hy' so
we could not tend to it's being haul
ed away. Thus. in the grand scramble
to get out quickly, all our baggage
was forgotten and for two days it lay
there, meanwhile some infantry near
Z MO Fn@ lii
and helped themselves to the con-
tents. When l arrived there yester-
day morning to fly a machine back
to the new piste, all that was left
were some letters scattered around
the floor. Although we made an
awful holler, all the satisfaction we
could get was the cryptic expression:
"C'est la querre." Which may be all
very true, but it didn't get us our
baggage back. And now about all I
own is one pair of shoes, one of
socks. two shirts, a uniform and
necktie. Up to date l haven't been
able to see anything hum orous about
the matter. not only that, but some
chump even swiped my folding bed.
I'll say this much for them, they did
thorough job. Therefore last night
l slept IN tent with two fur coats,
sheet and two blankets for a bed.
nat may SOuHu TaIner BOOQ TO you,
but wait! about midnight a terrific
thunder storm came up and nearly
blew the tent down, aside from
drenching nearly everyone's clothes
in the tent, mine included. Yes,
ma'am, sure am learning what war
is now. Sherman was certainly right,
even the sun is getting as hot as he
said war is.
FIiers Sick with Grippe
With all this, work has been going
on as usual, and many of the pilots
being sick with la grippe, 1 was
kept busy flying, not that I did much,
because the weather has been very
bad of late. Once we started out on
a patrol. but only went half way to
the lines. and then turned back on
account of thunderstorms. We did
not run into any, but one could see
them coming all around us-half a
dozen of them. 1t was quite a sight
indeed, for they looked just the way
1 would imagine a waterspout would
look. We forgot the pictures
queness and novelty of the scene
when we ran into the edge of one
though I understand now why rain
water is called hard Git is, isn't it?)