Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1918-04-18
HEARS FROM BROTHER
WinOOski Girl Gets Letter Telling Of
Devastation in France.

Miss Rose Galuska, has received a let
ter from her brother. Edward. who is in
France, and which follows, in part.
Somewhere in France, 3-12-1s.
my Dear Sister:
ut must be at least six weeks since I've
written line to anyone and IL you recol-
lect in my last letter home l mentioned
the fact that we would soon be on our
way to the lines, we're here at last, been
here almost five weeks, made the trip in
our three-ton trucks taking three days
and on our route we would stop in some
big town over night. sleeping in the Tor
ries.' Tho first night on the road we
stopped in a large town and about $50 a.
M. one of the trucks of the train caught
fire and burned about two hours You
see it was supply truck loaded with
gasoline and oil, big 40 gallon drums. and
it was quite sight The cans all ex
ploded. but the last one that went off
was corker, sent q big red Aan;e about
q hundred feet in the air. No one was
hurt, but the truck was total loss. Have
been to the lines with ammunition couple
OF times. We are in what is called the
advanced area about IL or Is miles from
the first line trenches, and when the ar
tilery is in action, we can hear the guns
quite plainly and at night we can see the
flashes and during a heavy fire the roar Is
terrific even back here. The night we
went to the lines a couple of our trucks
got lost, took a wrong road and the first
thing we knew we were near the first line
trenches, about 500 yards. We turned
around. but the truck got stuck so hard
that we had to unload and return empty
and went back the next day with two Ave-
horse wagons and brought 1t back. We
Travelled through an awful waste Of coun-
try, up where we were the ground for
miles was blown to atoms. Nothing was
left but big shell holes, in which you could
put our barn Tin some of them) and 1t
would almost disappear. l can't begin to
tell you the awful waste to land and pro-
perty this war has caused. Its beyond
me to write it down. All along the
line where the Germans were driven
back. Villages and towns are in ruins,
some totally gone and others almost
nothing but walls left standing. Had
to stop writing at the last line because
Il bunch Of German aeroplanes were
making a raid over this vicinity and
the whole of us had 20 duck for the
caves. They have been coming over
the lines for the past five nights now
and last night three punches OF them
passed over here on their way to Paris.
To days paper said that there were
60 planes over Paris and they brought
down one. Last night l was on a hill
watching them go over. It's quite a
sight at night. AS soon as they come
over the lines about a dozen or more
big search lights begin to playing the
sky and tho anti-aircraft guns begin
to shoot up at them. You can see the
sheels explode away up In the air, but
to- night as soon as we heard the guns
a bunch of Us STEPPED out In the back
yard and were watching the lights and
fire works when suddenly something
siz-Z-z-ed in the air close at hand, you
ought to see us make dive for the
shack and grab or helmits and beat
he for the caves. 1t lasted about Is
minutes. Those bombs they drop sure
raise the dust when they hit. During
a clear day the air Is full of machines,
mostly French. and once in a while a
'boche' comes over. Then we see the
sky spotted with white puffs of smoke
where the shells explode in the air from
these anti-guns. On my birthday we
saw an air fight between two French
and IA German plane. They shot him
down from n height of 5000 feet and
he fell about five miles from here. Some
of the men went over to see the wreck
and they say IT sure was sight, killed
both of the men. flattened 'em right
out. Most every day we see an air
fight. We expect to pull out soon, so
probably my next letter Will be from
some other point. Have seen quite
bits of France and will see whole lot
more before we go back. Tell mother
I'm feeling fine In the best OF health.
but am longing for one of her good
dinners Gee. when ! get home. tell
mother to have a feed for dosen mon.
(I'll be the dozen) and plenty of coffee
with milk. Am sending picture Of
myself taken at an aviation field near
a broken French plane. The flier and
his helper fell 500 feet, killing him
self and wounding the helper. Was.
there shortly after the accident hap
pened. Captain Stanley isn't with us
any more. Try and send me pound Of
maple sugar.
Your big brother Edward.