The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-10
DADEVILLE MAN WRITES OF 42D
 DIVISIONS FIGHT


 MT. and MrZ J. J. Smith O. Dadevil.e have received an interesting letter from their son, R. V. Smith, who is in Company H, 167th infantry. He writes;
 Contrisson, France
 December 19, 1918. Dear Mother .,
 will write yo u few lines thla evening. I am well, and hope you all are the same. This is a swell town here where we are, and we nave Young Mems Christian assoclatloh anu A Red Cross hut here, but we are eX- pecting to leave here at any time We are going to Treves, Germany. They say it is a good sized town. We are sure getting plenty to eat here ahd nothing to do.
 Well. mother. as the war is over now and the censor will allow us to wire a little more than before. l Will te.i YOU about some of the battles I've been in. and the different fronts I've been on My division went in the trenches in February up on the Lorraine front. where we stayed for 110 days. That was a quiet sector up there, merely Io get us on to trench warfare. oL course the Huns were dropping 1eW shells over all the time, but they didn't amount to anything. But it was
 
 Each regiment in the division had certain sector to hold and we would be, in the trenches for 10 or 15 days, then get relieved and go back to sma4l town about five miles back of the lines for that long.
 Well. as I said we stayed up thers until some time in June and then we hiked up where they did some tail | fighting We stopped in some bar racks about 20 miles from the Cham pagne front and stayed there week or more. We thought we would get 1 to spend the 4th of July there, but or | ders came in on the 3d of July just about the time we got in bed-I should have said in the hay-to go to the 1 front.
 So we had to make haste and hiked all night until about s o'clock the next morning when we were on the | front again We went up there t9 | make a drive but we found out that the | Huns were fixing up to do the samt I thing, so we decided we would wait | for them and let them do the driving. Welle we lay around up there untu 1 the 18th. The French were with us and the 14th was some kind of a holi- l day for them and they all got drunk 1 and had a good time. So I guess the | Huns decided they swould celebrate | the 15th About 1915 o'clock that 1 night their guns all opened up. We'll l our artillery found out that night tha , they were going to do their dirty work so they opened up on them few min utes before the Huns did and wher l the Hun artillery started it looked like | the whole world was on fire I be- i lieve every gun in Germany was firing | on us at that time. Well, Jess and were sleeping under the same bushe;
 under our dog tent. We knew we never
 would get to the dugout which wa about 100 yards away, so we got ii
 the trench and by that time gas shells and high explosives were bursting ali | around us.
 | We'll Jess and myself and several 1 others lay in the bottom of that trench ! with our gas masks on for seven ! hours. We decided we had better try 1 to make it to the dugout so we did | and when we got in the bottom of tha | dueout I felt like I was at home Big shells would hit on the top of i' and shake the lights out but could not get through It was about 10 feet | deep.
 | The Huns came over about o'clock l the next morning but they didn't stay l long: got to the second line and they
 drove them back that evening and we stayed up there until the 18th and
 went back to a small town for few days I was sick and had to go t.
 the hospital and then my division 1 caught trucks from there and went UT 1 to Chateau 'Thierry and stayed there 1 about two weeks. They then went 1 back for a rest and I came back te l my company They were at town ! Damblain. Well, they didn't stay ther> l but week before we started on I ] short hike of 90 miles up on the You 1 front
 ] We went over the top up there o; 1 September 12. We drove them back | for two days. which was easy to do and then dug in. Each man dug a