Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1919-02-07
ALDEN ILLEGAL WRITES
FROM FRANCE

Howard illegal received the follow
ing interesting letter Friday from hi
son. Alden, who has seen considerable
fighting ovesseas.
II Jan 6, 1915
fDear Father and all,
/ will now answer your letter o
Dec. 18th. This will make about tel
letters or more that | have written tt
you and haven't received an answer
from any of them. And you say you
you haven't any of them but my safe
arrival card. What do you think ha.
become of my mail? | know our mai
is awful slow about coming over here
| will try to tell you of my experiences
here
EDuripg my experience on the front
line [ was under shell fire for forty
three days 1t wasn't twenty-five
caliber shells neither, some of them
were eleven inches in diameter anC
about three feet long When one of
them dropped near a man he didn't fee
very happy Then they had ten, eight,
six and three inch and the Austrian n
which was about the same as an Amer
lean three inch howitzer.
The Germans would shoot straight at
a man with them. All man could hear
from them was whiz and then the ex-
plosion and they were so close together
that man didn't have time to duck
his head before they had already
bursted.
| On Sunday, November 3rd my COM
pany lost forty6ve men before six in
the early morning sunshine. They
We're mostly men that | soldiered with
in E taso Texas. They were corp
orals or old regulars who never got to
be non commissioned officers All very
nice boys ylwa>~.
The best soldiers get killed any way
by some accident or other 1t seemed
as though the good boys got killed and
the poor soldiers still live. But guess
| it was the Lords will so we cannot
] complain.
We were relieved that same Sunday
the tenth, at nlne O'Clock and went
back WAYS for fest and got ordered
back there on Sunday the tenth so we
had to hike thirty miles with out hard
| " thing to eat and not much rest.
| We started hiking at two O'Clock Sun
day morning the tenth and hiked until
| five in the afternoon of the same day
So you can imagine how tired we all
we're. The worst of it was we were
supposed to go over the top when we
reached there but our company COM
mander refused to take US over the
top.
The next morning being the eleventh
we were supposed to 60 over the top
about six O'Clock but as the Armistice
talk was so strong our Captain refused
again, One of the other compa anies, B
went over the top ABOUT nine O'Clock
losing sixteen enstwo killed and four
teen wounded The Germans lost
heavily also for they hated to fight
knowing that all was to be over soon
| myself couldn't believe the Armistice
was signed
/ had charge of two posts four men
during the morning
At eleven O'Clock sharp the German
soldiers got the news and started to
boiler and blow bugles. | did not
know what they were going TO do. We
were On top of hill which was woody
50 we couldn't see very far My first
thoughts were that they were going to
make an attack on US. SO went from
post to post and instructed my men to
put their rifles over the parapet and to
stand alert and watch. [ then went
back to my own post, layed my own
rifle over the parapet and waited for
orders to hold my own at any cost. But
such an order never came. My 1t.
came around and told me not to allow
my men to make much noise and not
to go over to the German lines
I That time when my superior told me
| firing had ceased | was the happiest
man on earth. spoke to two German
soldiers the next morning Who came
over to bury their dead that had been
killed the morning before the Armis-
tice was signed.
: One of them had wife and seven
children at home and he had been in
the war since the war started. He
said if the German people knew that
the Kaiser caused the war 10 last SO
/ long they would have killed him long
ago.N He was sure some military sold
ier.'f
| Since then have been made q pri-
vate again and | am not in the Infantry
any more because / wanted to get into
branch of service where | wouldn' t
have to work day and night. So | am
cooking again for the time being in the
Motor Supply Train. It is the easist
branch of service in the army. j don't