Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-09-16
Harold Wilkinson With the
Rainbow Division Writes
of Big Allied Summer
Drive. Il
HAS NoTCHEs on GUN
Tells of Other Hamilton
County Men Partici-
pating in Drive.

The following letter from Harold
Wilkinson of Williams, written Aug
ust 18th from somewhere in France
is taken from the Williams Enterprise
Dear Father, Mother and Sister =
Well, it has been long time since l
have written you, but again it was a
case of being in the trenches and going
over the top We were in the tren-
ches for over - months on the western
front and then we were in the big drive
that is now going on. Our division,
with many other American and French
divisions, started the "allied" drive and
am mighty proud to say that we drove
further than any of the other divisions,
also captured more prisoners, cannon
and materials of war. We sure did
have the Boche on. the run and they
are still driving them.
Before / tell you> any more about
our drive, will say that at present we
are in what is called rest sector"
am writing this letter by electric light,
so you can judge it is a pretty quiet
front. Well, to 90 on with the drive,
we started out early in the morning
with drum fire barrage in front of
u.s. then it changed into wandering
barrage. Frenchmen tell us the drum
fire was the heaviest ever put up by
either side. Well, that first day was
pickings, we captured an awful bunch
of Boche and killed good many more.
Their only defense was machine guns,
but they sure can put up stiff fire
with them. My best pal, Sergeant
Hyde, got killed about one hour after
we left the trenches to go over. 1t
seems mighty lonesome now without
him. He was like father to me, ked D.
ing me out of trouble a good many
times.
Second Day.
Well, the second morning we started
out again, but found opposition little
sitter. We pulled off some great ma
neuvering, though, and kept advancing
steadily. Our second battalion lost
pretty heavily this day. Our objective
was double tracked railway and we
reached it about s o'clock that evening.
They always have an objective and we
have never yet failed to reach ours,
though it has been pretty hard some
times. DO not think we were actually
fighting the Boche hand to hand. No,
it was the awful machine gun fire that
made it hard advancing, as those devils
would fire their machine guns until we
got within 20 feet of them, them they
would come out of their holes and
shout, "Kamerad.' Well, you can bet
we were good and sore, so the Kane,
rad stuff didn't go. Will say that
have several nOtches on my gun and
would like to get a few more. There
is one big fellow in my company that l
know must have killed 20 Dutchmen
and captured several machine guns. He
is recommended for a distinguished
service cross" l sure hope he gets it.
We started out again the third day,
crossed railroads and advanced about
. kilometers Machine gun fire was
not so heavy this day but artillery was
mighty strong. 4 saw bunch Of fel-
lows fall that day. Had fellows fall
on both sides of me many time and
had my blouse busted two or three
times with machine gun bullets, but
don't you know we were getting used
to it and never even thought OF getting
hit.