Carroll County democrat. (Huntingdon, Tenn.) 188?-1971, 1918-10-04
A Soldier Boys Letter
France. August 10, 1918.

| MY Lear Dau:
Got your letter the other day
and am going to be real smart and
answer at once. / want to get
some of this war stuff out of my
system, and l know you would like
to hear it. You would be surprised
to know how the new men (re-
| placement like to hear one tell of
| it. Nearly all of the old original
company is either killed or wound
ed. OF course we will get lots of
them back.
Well. dad, to begin with, you
asked me what runner is A
runner is just a common soldier
that establishes communication be-
tween Post Commander, where
telephone communications are i'm
possible on account of she'll fire,
and wire tapping. In other words
he is a messenger that has to 90
through lots of barrages. Now, /
haven't been a runner since we
left the quiet sector, only one time,
and that was 10 the big drive. /
asked to do regular duty when we
left the trenches. Ebert was q
runner 10 the June 6 attack. !
was doing regular duty all the way
through that. and was real glad of
il. You also mentioned the fact,
that you didn't suppose we had
been in any more battles as hot as
that one. Well, we have been in
several nearly as hot, and one that
was hotter. That was the Soissons-
Rheims attack.
am going to try to tell you
something about that fight. But,
first, will mention the others, and
you can recall them, although you
haven't seen where the marines
were in it. The censor won't let
a unit be mentioned now. You
have seen all about this Belleau
Wood fighting in the papers, we'll
we did all that. | don't mean that
my company did it all, but were
in for our share. That sure was a
bad place. Neither side knew the
exact position of the line, and the
Germans we're sniping at US with
an So. That is an 50 m. N. she'll,
and it surely was bad. You see
we had part of the woods and they
had the other part. We pulled
our lines back and the artillery
Just forward in the shelter for
couple of hours, and then we went
over. Poor Hinie, the she'll fire
had almost run him crazy, and we
got lots of them before they had
time to come out of the hole. Quite
a few surrendered, others fought,
but the biggest part ran. We just
moved them down. | don't be-
lieve a single one got back alive.
1t kept US busy burying them for
two weeks. The French named
the woods THE Woods Of the
American Marines,
Well, am just now coming to
the real battle. We had been re-
lieyed from the sector and told |
we were going to get a rest, but
they put US in reserve. We kicked
about that. We knew the Ger
mans were going to put on full |
offensive, and we wanted our lib.
erty before it came off. At last it
started. Then we were fooled. |
We were picked up in trucks and
rode all night and day, then put
out and told we we're going to
make a drive the next day, and |
that the 18th marines were making |
one that day. We started hiking
to get up to the line; but, oh, my
goodness, the 5th did 60 some.
thought we never would catch |
up with them. Finally they stop
ped and we went over the follow
ing morning. was runner then.
Lieut.. Wallace, an especially good
friend of mine, was in command
of the company, and he asked me
to be in company headquarters
with him as runner, and did. We
thought the 9th had captured all the
artillery the day before, and they
did capture lots, but the Germans
moved up two divisions to meet US
and all the artillery they could,
although it was not what they US
ually have. Well, you know what
happened. They ran, but we
didn't get to go very far. as we
were bretty weak. The 9TH beat
US; is fact, they went further than
anybody
The French were driving over
on our left. That sure was a vic
tory for the allies, for Germany
expected to reach Paris, and they
got beat at their own game. Wei
were notin their last British drive.
/ am surprised that we missed it,
4 - $ sN - 1 r