Cresco plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1913-1945, 1918-11-08
Letter. from Our. r..Soldier Boys.

mother:
''Well mother, am dropping you a
few lines to let you know am still
alive. hate been over the top three
times since wrote to you last The
first time was on the morning of Sept.
18th, at five o'clock, which I will never
forget the longest day l ever live. The
day was nothing but q regular flame
from our heavy artillery fire which
lasted several hours. It rained all
night and We stood in trenches waiting
for the orders TO come. And when it
did come day was just breaking and in
twenty minutes oil you could see was
yanks scampering towards the Hun
lines. Now believe me, we sure went
some. We drove them back three
miles by noon. Lots Of the Huns re.
treated when they saw US coming and
others stayed at their posts when they
(censored.) The place where am
now ten days ago was full of roaring
Huns and now it is full Of Yanks.
Germans had held this secto. ever
since the war broke out. We have one
man in our company who captured four
machine guns alone. He gets q medal
for that. The Huns bombarded our
trenches one night for forty minutes,
the longest forty minutes ever put in.
! have not had my head under roof
for twelve days. I can lay down and
sleep any place. even in shell holes.
They make q pretty good bed some-
times. l layed down in the rain the
other day and went to sleep. Ihave
been wringing wet lots of times and let
the clothes dry right on me. I am not
on the firing line at present l am in re-
serve. but was on the firing line twen-
ty.eight days. The morning ! went
over the top, l throwed every thing
away l had except my rifle, pistol and
ammunition of course. After the bat
tie you could find anything you wanted.
The first thing l looked for was mess
kit and cup 50 could scout around and
get me feed. l found plenty of Ger.
man blankets to make me q good bed.
Some German prisoners had some
bread and honey that they gave US
which tasted pretty good.
About noon that day / received the
money you sent me and l. thank you
many times.
Write just ~ often as you can, l
can not write very often at the pres
ent. =
. l spent one night out in No Mans
Land expecting to get Hun but none
showed up. The only living thing 1
saw was q cat and it was lost for 1
could see where its home had been some
time but now was mess of ruins.
I received eight letters and two
Plain Dealers from you yesterday and
six today. And it sure seemed good to
look over the P. D. once more.
r The Ed Webber family received the
following letter from Will Webber, of
Battery E. 157 F. A. under date of
Sept. 10Th.
I'VE have been on a continuous go
all summer long. and have had some
big battles. I only wish could de-
scribe those to you so that you could
understand just what this is like. am
enclosing in this letter two pieces of
cloth which l cut from two German
aeroplanes that were felled about 500
feet apart. When l cut those from
the wings of the planes there were two
German aviators lying by each machine
just as they fell. These we call ''Good
Germans. Ihave also some shoulder
straps that cut from the uniforms of
dead Germans, and also some that cut
from the uniforms of German prison
ers. l have had many German rifles,
helmets. etc. At present am wearing
German boots, underwear, socks, etc.
You would be surprised at the variety
of stuff there is in Germany that is
American made.
The other day while we were chasing
HI out of the Huns, I met, just lit
tie way back of the fighting line. Dem
mis- Lyons. Believe me, I surely was
glad to see him. and he was the first
and only boy from home I have met in
France. It surely was some place to
meet him and one neither of US will
forget.
l hate the weather we have been hav-
ing. Rain, rain, and more of it. I'm
so caked with clay and mud from the
trenches and roads that can't scratch
through to the fieas and cooties that
are eating me up. Believe me, if you
had few cooties you would have
enough to occupy your days and nights
70. . long time"
ErnestE. Roth, Co. D, l5lst Machine