The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-09-27
Somewhere in France.

homes of the French people. We
are here after a two months siege
on the greet baltic front, being there
about two months under continuous
shell fire. Had begun to think we
were going to the country near Paris
or to some largo city for q long rest
and a good time, but contrary to our
expectations we Loaded in large
French trucks, and after an all-night
ride without anything to eat or drink
we arrived in small ancient village
and proceeded for hike thru the
country near the firing line. After
many kilometres we halted in a beau
| tiful woods on the side of small
mountain and pitched tent for feed
and rest. After short respite with
out anything to eat the bugle sound
ed and we were aroused and packed
up again and resumed our hike many
miles towards the battlefront. There
were thousands of soldiers from the
| different allied countries to be seen,
going back and forth with trucks,
wagons, tanks end many interesting
looking vehicles, with fighting ma
terial of all kinds for the great drive
to be made the following morning.
| We arrived in largo scope of woods
only a few hundred yards from the
front line. There VIC tried to get
rest, sleep, food, water without sue
cess, and after many hours of hard
ships the only thing we received was
plenty of ammunition and fighting
weapons. Tho morning dawned on
many-mile battlefront. The allies
were ready. The hour Yves 4:21
July IS, 1918, and the day l can
| never forget as long as l live. He'll
turned loose with the boom of thou
sands of ellied guns fired ct the Ger
mans. Tho great allied attack was
begun and l was one of the advan-
cling soldiers, fearing nothing and
going over the top to kill or die for
loved ones and native country.
We advanced thru thousands of acres
of wheat fields and small rivers and
woods, and when the Germano OPEN
ed their cannon and machine gun
fire upon us we began to realize that
we were in the great war. But think
of the thousands of allied guns
pounding away on the advancing
enemy, whilo their shells were fall
ing near us and the machine gun
bullets singing around us. Many
waves of allied soldiers behind us
were ready to take the front line
places if any of us should get too
weak too stand. Hundreds of air
planes above were doing their duty.
Advancing thru a large wheat field
and open space were Thousands of
allied soldiers as far as you could
see. 1t seemed to me we had ad-
vanced only few steps until we met
our first Germanc, and, believe me,
we he'd some time capturing the ma
chine gun cmplaccments and duck
ing bullets too. Some Germans
would fight to finish and come were
taken prisoner. l was in the ad-
vancing front line where all the
fighting too place end prisoners were
captured. They came with hands up
begging for mercy and uttcring
"kamarad," some wounded and try
ing to talk. We captured an en-
placement of machine guns near
Amiens road and four enemy can
mons. With the retreating enemy |
running thru the wheat fields we
turned the captured guns around |
and began to shoot at him with his |
vance on the Germans, with nothing |
to eat, no rest or sleep, in mud and |
rain, we came to German dugouts |
just captured, and feeling weak and |
hungry two soldiers and myself stop |
ped in dugout to sec if we could |
fine something to eat or drink One |
of the soldiers went in first and with |
the others / followed. The dugout |
was full of feather beds, cloth blank |
cts, etc. One of the soldiers felt |
something by his side move, and UNI
der some cloth and feather beds was
a German officer about twenty-four
years old. We told him to come out |
and he did. He could speak fairly |
good English. We captured him and
searched him, took his watch, ring,
empty pistol and all the souvenirs
we could find on him. He was sur
prised to know that we were Ameri-
can soldiers and so many. The first |
thing he said was: "How do the
Americans treat the prisoners of
war;"
have many German Souvenirs
watch, rings, photos and many other
things. We found something to eat
and drink, some German bread and