Norwich bulletin., 1918-08-10
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS What Eastern Connecticut Boys Are Doing In Various Branches of the Service.
Sees Action on the Front.

Seeing action on the front as mem Der of Company D., 102nd machine gun battalion, Corporal M- L. Shea, a Nor wich boy, writes the following recital of some of his experiences:
 My Dear Miss Bessette:-
 I received your letter of June 6. just as we were ready to leave that part of France. and we have been on the jurtp ever since No I never received that box of candy you sent, but l want to thank you for 1t just the same. 1 SUD- pose someone elong the way enjoyed it, but as the boys Say about every thing that goes wrong Don't notice it" :" Well I would like to tell you of all the things we have done since wrote last but MT. Censor would use his blue pencil so much that you would think this was copy of the ''Blue Book" It was always a case of Out agafn-in-
 again" We would be on the line for couple of weeks and then we would
 come out and rest for about a week and go in again, usually in different
 sector. Of course, when we were on the line we lived in dugouts and were
 glad to have them most of the time, as the Hun kept sending his regards
 in the shape of schrapnel, high ex- plosiEes and gas. In the last place
 we were holding, there was grave
 right outside my dugout with Tn
 connu" on the cross. The last night we were there Fritz opened up with a
 machine gun and riddled that cross, putting. enc bullet hole right between
 each letter and ali on line. It could
 not have been done any better if it
 had been spaced out with dividers and
 bored with a brace and bit. Of course, Mir. Hun was getting his all of the time too. The first day we were in
 that sectoa found several beds Of wild strawberries. decided not to
 pick them until next day when they
 would be quite ripe. That night the
 Hun sent over gas. and when I went
 to the woods for my berries in the morning they were all withered. Next Ftfne will eat them when I find them.
 When we were relieved we hiked about
 twenty kilometers behind the lines where we rested and received our mail. We visited some of the villages around
 there, one of them being the site of a
 big intuition factory, where most of the work was done by women. some of them even working in the foundry. The war has sure been hard on the women of France. Everywhere we go we meet women who have lost their husbands and all of their sons in bat tie and now old and feeble have to make their own living at the hardest kind of work. There are no men left to take care of the fields. The young women are in the cities working in
 the factories. Bh of the farm work
 must be done for the old women and children. Glad this war will be finished. before it had chance to get e-,, xy;J Age had fost at least one member in
 battle. While their we were billited in
 barns. Che morning we were called at three o'clock. We rolled our packs and hiked five kilos. to another village where we had breakfast and then en- trained. We travelled in box cars each about the size of an American ice cart. We rode for about four hundred kilo- meters through the best part of France that we have seen yet The fields were green with wheat and everywhere there were poppies showing red against the green. We passed through some
 big cities and through the outskirts Of one famous city, so close that we could see the tower in the distance Everything is different over this way In the east the houses are all built against each other with three of four
 
 nothing between. Over here the houses are all separate with gardens around them. It is much better country over here. The fighting over here is also different. It is more like open war fare than anything they have had since l the begiuIGng of the war That is
 where the Americans show up best It is better than fighting in the dark l and dying in a hole. At present we are on reserve. We are billeted in 8 village from which the people were 1 driven when the Hun made his biz drive The people left without beins
 able to take anything with them We
 are sleeping on spring beds for the l first time since leaving home. We have tables and chairs and, the walls
 are covered with pictures. Some diff l ferent from life in dugout, yet there are shells passing over us both ways 1 If they drop any here we have bomb proof cellars to duck into. Yes I know | r AfaMohnr h11f ,04 ,s