The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1918-12-27
CRANITEVILLE
Lieut.. Murdoch Campbell Writes of Life
with Army of Occupation.

!
First Lieut.. Murdoch Campbell of
Graniteville writes home from Belgium
and from Luxembourg as follows:
Virteu, Belgium, Nov. Is, l9ls-Am
feeling very good. We are now on the
march, which will carry us through Bel
GUM, Luxembourg and into Germany. : We
will rest in this city two days.
The people through this country have
been under the boche for four and one
half years and are happy to gain their
! freedom. Was surprised to find such
nice city We have fine billets aud it
seems nice after some of the places we
have had to sleep in.
Have just visited a German hospital,
| filled with all nationalities They left
them behind Found Scotchman, an
| Englishman and IA Americans there
Gave them cigarettes. They were glad to
see us, One American had two legs gone.
another lost one.
Food conditions among the Germans
were poor, indeed. Everything is high
The war stopped just in time to save
me. Had an interesting trip to the front
and it was hard to find my company. 1t
| Is long hike, but am glad that | am
making the trip. All men and officers in
| the company are strangers to me, but am
getting along fine just think of what |
landed in-the 9th u. S. infantry regu-
lars. That is one of the oldest regiments
and it has been in many a fight.
| Luxembourg, Nov. 24.-Am writing you
this letter from the border line of Lux
emburg and Germany. The Germans arc
on the other side of the river. We can
see them, but there is no trouble ex-
pected. Soon we will continue our march
into Germany 1t is surely a wonderful
trip.
Luxemburg is a beautiful country and
the people use us fine. There seems to be
| plenty to eat here and we have good bill
lets. The weather has been great We
have been marching since the 18th and
will no doubt eat our Thanksgiving din.
ner on the march. We have to learn
German now. There is no more French
spoken.
One of the most beautiful sights ever
saw was when we marched through the
woods and looked down on the river, val
ley and boundary of Germany The Ger
mans that we have seen are glad that the
war is over. II surely looks great to see
Germans on guard on one side of the riv-
er and Americans on the other and no
fighting. When / get located, viii write
you more in detail about our trip This
march will go down in history and am
! glad to be in it.
Ballendouf, Luxembourg Nov. 27.-To-
morrow is Thanksgiving day and un-
doubtedly we viii spend it here in this
| little burg on the borders of Germany
/ h. l.
this year and the boys over here are GER
tainiy in that spirit. You have read the
papers about our progress toward the
Rhine. We are in the third U. S. army,
called in the papers the army of occupa-
| ton. Our division is the second and 1t
has seen very much service. The third
army is commanded by General Dickman
He was our commander at Fort Ethan
Allen
| We have been resting in this town for
the last four days, waiting until the Ger
mans pull out. At IL noon yesterday the
last of them left and they took their
guard off the bridge. II was very inter
esting to see the Germans leave. Soon
we will follow them on our march to the
i Rhine. II will take us fully two weeks
to land in Coblenz, Germany The peo-
| pie, although Germans, use us very well
| Their language is rough and coarse,
worse than Gaelic. We do not expect
any trouble on the march, but are pre-
pared to meet any emergency. Don't
know how long our stay will be.
Can write most anything now We
were only As hours at Camp Merritt,
N. j., very short stay. We came over
on the German boat Fatherland, now
called Leviathan. We were eight days
! coming For day and night at the
start we had couple of destroyers as
conveys. The first day we had two air
planes and dirigibles Then we had five
| days and nights alone. Saw no other
ships and no submarines. Two DAYS out
from Brest France, five destroyers met
us and escorted us in The weather was
| fine, last two days rather rough. Our
boat was fine enc, the largest in the
world and very fast. Wish you could see
it, The only bad feature about the trip
was the flu" Will tell you more about
| that sometime
We stayed FIVE days in Brest and then
moved to Haute Marine, which is on the
advance zone There we trained for
couple of weeks, when our regiment was
! sent TO lie Mans, France, and broken up
| for replacement troops, We were there
! five DAYS for orders On Nov. Ia / and
seven others from our regiment got ours
and started for the front. We stopped
over night in Paris and saw some of the
city. 1t is surely a beautiful city. AT
night there were no lights and it was
| hard to get around. In one park, called
| the Madeline park, were hundreds of can
non captured from the Germans. Will
never forget some of the cathedrals /
visited there. We got our tickets for st.
| Dizier Then we rode gravel train to
| Verennes. From there we took the mar
row gauge railroad to the ration dump
| Then trucks brought us to division head
quarters. We became separated here.
Only Howe, boy from Bennington, VT,
and ] were left. We had hard time
! finding headquarters, because the drive
was on and they were moving forward
all the time, The ground everywhere
was full of shell holes. All towns were
| in ruins, and in fields and woods were all
kinds of guns, ammunition, etc.
You have read about the Argonne for
est. That was mess Dead horses and
men It looks hard TO see dead on the
| field Well, must cut this shorter. We
were roaming along the front, hunting
| for our company, when the armistice
! was signed. The guns roared until II
a. m. and many men passed beyond few
minutes before II.
/ We found our company men tired after
! the battle-those that were left. If the
war had lasted, was in position to get