Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1919-02-03
CORPORAL DAVIS HAS
UNIQUE EXPERIENCES
Was Wounded During Second
harne Battle And Spent 3
Months L Hospital.


the American army of occupation
writes an interesting letter from Dun
genheim, Germany, to his friend Gilt
ton Ross, of this city.
Dear friend Clifton. | was rathe
surprised but certainly glad to receiv
your welcome letter and as | have
few minutes to myself l will try AM
answer it now. Your letter only reach
ed me few days ago as it first wen
to the hospital in France and was ther
forwarded to me up here in Germany
l enjoyed it very much as it was very
newsy and the first l have received
from Highland.
As You know | was wounded during
the 2d battle of the Marne. spent al
most three months in the hospital al
Nantes, France, but they fixed me ur
fine and now l consider myself as
good a man as ever. | have small
scar across the pupil of my right eye
but it don t bother me any more and
never notice it any except when |
close my left eye and then | notice
that it is still a little dim. | have
about fifty sears on my body includ-
ing a few on my face but even at
that / consider myself lucky. NV
"bunkie" (" who was standing near me
when the shell hit had both legs blown
off. He died few minutes later. His
home was in Hayward, Cal.
am now in the army of occupation
and we have just finished our long
and historical march to the Rhine. |
have not seen the river Rhine as yet
but we are only few miles from it.
We started at Gironville, France,
which is near Verdun, and have hik-
ed about 225 miles in the last three
weeks. That was certainly long hike
and hard one too, as we carried
heavy packs and most of it was over
the mountains. Sometimes we could see
.our advanced guard miles from us
across some wide canyon winding
along some road en- the mountain side
that hardly looked like a trail to us.
However when we reached that place
ourselves it generally proved to be
good road. During our march we pass
ed through part of Lorraine and also
part of the Duchy of Luxemburg and
then crossed the Mosel river into Ger
many at Remich, Duchy of Luxembourg
From there we have been following the
river down, first on one side and then
on the other. We are now near the
mouth of the Mosel river or where it
flows into the Rhine. You probably
cant locate this town on the map but
1t IS near the city of Coblenz.
All along the Mosel river and es-
peeially in the Duchy of Luxembourg,
the mountains on both sides are COW
cred with grape vineyards. l don't see
how they cultivate or pick them as
sometimes they are on at least fif-
tty per cent grade. | thought that
mad seen lots of grapes in southern
rance, put TINS country has them beat
Tor grapes, believe. This country
seems to raise more fruit than France
does also. A few days ago | had some
apples which were the first that
nave mad on this side.
you would probably like to know
now tne Germans are treating US.
wen they are treating us far better
than we supposed they would. In some
places they seem to almost welcome
tne American troops. They are glad
that tne war IS over and only wish
that the Americans had come in it
sooner 50 that 1t would have ended be-
fore TINS. The people all through this
country sure hate the kaiNer but still
rney thlnk that Hlndenburg is 0. K.
me German government has taken ev-
erything from them that they could
possibly use for war materials.
Ihe scarcity OF horses is especial
" noticeable. All the farmers are plow-
ing and doing all the farm work with
oxen. At the beginning of the war
me government called in all the gold
md silver that was in the possession
If the nnnnln onI rot- 4hn,,,