The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-05-01
A VACATION IN FRANCE

work which he recently enjoyed.
Writing to his wife he says:
Bordeaux, March %, 1919.
My dear Wife: AS / have a little
time at my disposal will endeavor to
give you a brief account of my va
cation trip, which was full of interest
to me and afforded me an opportunity
of seeing some parts of France that
particularly wanted to see.
In company with Mr.. Fl. G. Rowe, q
friend and former co-worker IN the
hut at ST. Andre, / went to Paris on
the night of the 10th, arriving there
on the morning of the 18th, where
Mr.. Rowe attended to some personal
business matters and / put in the
time sightseeing, going over ground
that / had formerly gone over for
the most part when / was in Paris
upon my arrival in France.
The morning of the 18th we went
up to Rheims. and put in the day go
ing through the city, German and
French trenches and the cathedral.
My feeble pen cannot begin to de-
scribe the impression made upon my
mind by a sight of that devastated
city. 1t seemed to paralyze my
senses. For nearly half an hour l
could not speak to my companion.
There is scarcely square yard in the
whole city that has not been raked by
shot and shell. You must understand
that here in France one does not see
wooden buildings, but they are all
stone or brick. 1t was so in Rheims.
There is nothing left today but the
bare walls reaching up to the sky,
silent sentinels, bearing testimony of
the hell that ragged there in the days
of battle. Cathedral, palace, business
blocks, residences, hut and howell,
have all been pierced through and
through time and again, and the won
der is that men could have lived
through such hell to fight back
such merciless enemy. My recol-
lection is that Germany denied using
the Rheims cathedral as target, but
the evidence is against them, as the
destruction is greater in that region
than any other part of the city.
Rheims is as silent as the grave. No
one is living there except the French
military guard and a few workmen
here and there in small squads, usu-
ally German prisoners, repairing the
streets and cleaning away for the
reconstruction work that must begin
some day.
From the city we went out to the
French trenches about three kilo-
meters distant and examined them
carefully, endeavoring to form in our
minds something of an idea of their
method of defense. That they fought
bravely and sacrificed greatly seems
to be clear. There was evidently no
intention of giving up the struggle,
even if Rheims had been captured, as
one sees evidence of careful prepare
ton to fight all the way back TO the
coast had that been necessary.
Next we visited the German
trenches which were only few yards
distant. One gets the impression that
they had expected to remain en-
trenched there for the balance of
their natural, blood-thirsty, brutal,
villainous lives. Some of the dug
outs ran down into the ground thirty
or thirty-fve feet. One of those we
entered was supported with brick
walls, and the floor was Uttered with
broken looking glasses, indicating
that that particular hole was occupied
by Potsdam officers, who were fond
of looking at their damphool images
and admiring themselves greatly.
They certainly constructed it with a
view of protecting their precious
hides. Their trenches were deeper
than the French. We came upon a
detail of German prisoners engaged
In discovering and exploding German
explosives hidden away in a large
underground ammunition dump. You
will pardon me I am sure when tell
you / had an intense desire to see the
whole shebang blow up and land eve
ry last one of them upside down in
boiling pot of birthstone In the mid
die of hell. That sounds harsh,
doesn't it? But then you are excus-
able. You have not seen Rheims.
We went through Chateau Thierry
on our way out, expecting to stop of
there, but got good view of the city
from the train, and could form a very
good estimate of the damage done,
and, as the trenches were some dis
lance out, we decided to proceed to
Rheims and judging by what / saw l
am sure our decision was a wise one.
We saw one German airplane that
had fallen head-on, but did not dis
cover the aviator. 1t looked as tho
it hit with a dull thud and it may be
that said aviator is still going down.
By the way, / forget to say that /
pulled out hip bone out of the mud
in one of the German trenches, which
said act did not cause me any great
amount of grief. in fact not enough
grief to be noticeable, as / had
pretty good idea what kind of animal
walked around on the said hip bone,
when its marrow was still warm and
drawing its sustenance from sauer
kraut and beer.