The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1918-07-18
AIKEN CO. BOY IN FIGHT
THRILLING DESCRIPTION BY
LIEUTENANT TYLER.
Although Badly Wounded He Man.
ages to Save Himself From the
Huns.-Interesting Letter.

The following interesting letter
was written from France by Lieut..
Gerald Tyler, of Aiken, to his mother:
American Red Cross Hospital,
Paris, June 3rd, 191s.-Dear Mama:
Have been wanting to write for sew
eral days but have been changed
about a great deal and had fever
part of the time. I'm getting along
first rate now. Was wounded six
days ago by rife bullet which
passed through my right thigh. Have
been in five different hospitals, as we
have to go through certain chain of
them on our way to the rear. Am in
Paris now but only stay here day
or two longer. Then they will send
me to a base hospital somewhere.
This one is a splendid place, very
large and more like a palace than a
hospital. American nurses and doc
tors. Many of my friends are right
here with me all wounded the same
day that was. My fever has about
left me and the surgeon tells me that
it will not be long before l will go
back to my company. Am sorry l
cannot tell all the circumstances that
led to my getting hit with bullet
but censorship rules forbid. The
last two weeks have meant much to
my regiment. We had a tour in the
trenches in a very active sector,
where the German lines made a
salient and dipped into our lines. OF
course our lines dipped back and we
made an ugly salient. Right in the
point of the salient was a ruined
town, held by the Germans. We were
in this sector about a week when it
was decided to let our regiment at
tack and we made all our prepara-
tions accordingly. Well, it happened
that just twenty-four hours before
our regiment was to go over thetop,
Fritz decided to pull raid on the
very spot. Lieutenant Daniels and
myself were walking along Che is
another officer from my company,
we call him cracker because he is
from Georgia. while we were walk
ing along communication trench a
she'll exploded quite near, then an
other and another. Then they began
hitting everywhere. No such thing
as dugout in the sector, so we lay
like Lizards in the bottom Of the
trenches. The awful explosions
would come, the ground would rock,
then dirt would fall in on US. Things
were getting embarrassing. looked
at Daniels and said, "This is no place
for u.s." So we got up and dashed
around to the next fire bay and hit
the bottom of the trenches. Hardly
had we done so when a 105 hit the
place we had just left and blew it OF
the map. Shells were falling thick
and fast, the ground parting all
around. Our faces were blackened
with smoke and we weqe getting
quite enough of the straflng. Our
communicating trench led On for
about $50 yards to a front line
so we decided to break for that
company. This minute I do not
know how on earth we ever got there
falling down over picks and shovels,
knocking off corners of traverses and
firebags, part of the time was turn
ing over and over. When we reached
the front line we found that things
were in much the same shape. Two
privates attached themselves to us
and we huddled ourselves up in the
bottom of the trench. Finally mes
sage came down that Germans were
coming across just to our left. We
could tell that the barrage was lift
ing a little but here a steady hail
of machine gun bullets which combed
our parapet. So we laid out good
supply of hand grenades in a handy
place, got rifles and bayonets and
simply waited for Fritz to come over.
I was trusting great to my Colts
automatic. Meantime this was just
what some other Americans 200
yards to our left were doing and
when so of the Huns came across
they just knocked the little part for
a fare-you-well. The Boche didn't
come over where we were; where
he'd come over to the most of his
number were killed; two we're cap
tured but they captured some of the
Americans. When everything was
quiet we disentangled ourselves
from the bottom of the trench. l