Carroll County democrat. (Huntingdon, Tenn.) 188?-1971, 1919-01-10
LETTER FROM FRANCE
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Continued from pa2e q
words Of praise for these dear It'll,
girls Of France. / have forgotten
how the rest Of it went except tn,
last part. "But / haven't been taker
! a prisoner yet and won't be until til,
day, ] can carry my colors to lay al
the feet Of the girl from the u. S. A.
In another one of your letters you
ask me to describe the "dugouts" t.
you. That is too big a job, for there
are so many and all are SO different
but generally speaking, a dugout is q
hole in the ground filed with big rats,
coolies and bad smells. | viii attempt
to describe only three; the first one
] was in, another one and the last
one. Mamma, you can just bet if
didn't believe the war would soon be
over, you would never have gotten
this information from me. didn't
intend to let you know what / was
having to so through with until after
ward. have been living in the
trenches and dugouts off and on since
the Bird of July, and ] have only writ
ten you of the things saw and done
while back Of the lines. Now for the
dugouts: They only exist in trench
warfare and in places of highly orga-
nized defences. They are construct
ed for certain amount of safety for
the men while they sleep. When a
man is in the front lines, every time
he goes to sleep, he does so under the
ground.
Well on the night of July 3rd, we
started from a point many miles in
rear, to the front. Our "pie-eating"
days were over and our time to "sol-
der had come. ! shall never forget
the night; it was raining and we had
to hike most all night. 1t was a new
experience for most of us and a dam
gerous one. Our position was in the
"Bois de Mort Mare" dead mans
woods on the Toul front, it gained
its name in 1914 when the French
stopped the first big German drive.
AS we neared our destination we
were met by guides (Frenchmen),
here it was met and made the
acquaintance of the Sergeant l wrote
you about. Well, we entered the
woods and it was as dark night as
] have ever seen and as | have al
ready said it was raining. And the
German artillery was Smelling us with
shrapnel and gases, it was our first
experience under fire and ! am not
the least bit ashamed Of my conduct
that night. We wound around and
around through the woods until our
guide left us for a few minutes with
to lay close to ground,
needless to say, we did. Soon he re-
turned and we started again, in
little while he ushered us into dug
out. 1t was about eight feet under
ground, was lined with steel and on
top was concrete and dirt. Inside
theere was light burning, we saw
before us two nice hunks, with racks
to hang clothes on, a table and chairs,
and our guide told us it was gas
proof. | could not have felt better
if someone had led me into the fin
est hotel in the world. We we're
safe and slept the rest of the night
just as soundly as ! would have in
my bed at home. This was an officers
dugout and ! was occupying it with
my platoon commander wrote you
three or four letters from this place,
guess / must have "camouhaged'' my
home pretty well since you didn't
know ! had been in one. Then there
was another dugout / distinctly re-
This one ! was in some two
months later; it was in the now fam
GUS "Argonne Forest" 1t was dug
by the Germans in 1914. The night
was in it, it happened that it was
after another long hike and it was
raining and had been for three or
four DAYS. There was no floor in it