The Big Sandy news. [volume] (Louisa, Ky.) 1885-1929, 1919-02-07

L.atcr--t am In the town OF Toul
awaiting transportation back to my
company | understand my regiment
is attached 10 the army OF occupation,
u Il II suppose we will be along the
German border AT least 10 months
had very severe case of tonsilitis
and the last OF October | had Spanish
influenza Luckily / was located in
nice warm barracks.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we
have the day or and | am going down
and take dinner with Mother" Mother
is French lady about so years old
whom met soon after arriving in
Toul, She has two sons in the French
army one can speak English, and |
seemed to become n favorite of his
mother.
want papa to give the Red Cross a
donation OF ten dollars as soon as you
get this letter. The Red Cross and
Salvation Army are real friends to a
penniless soldier in France.
haven't been paid in four months,
and | haven't any money, ] am sleep
ing at the Red Cross. They also feed
the soldiers and furnish them tobacco.
There are nine nom commissioned
officers with me. ] haven't never been
in Paris except passing through on a
troop train
/ will tell you q few things that
have happened since I've been in
France, We landed at Brest July rs.
Only stayed there I days until we
loaded on troop train and moved to-
ward the front After 40 hours riding
Z L.. .,tfa NJ Al
( as trains could go. The long range
artillery often does great damage as
far MS and 10 miles behind the front
lines, Here we left the trains and be-
gan marching by night (only) toward
town, Chateau Thierry, at that time
held by the Germans. We were equip
ped with gas masks, for Jerry was
( throwing different gases over In great
quantities We had been but about 4
days In the danger zone until my COM
pany was forced to wear the gas masks
for a period of Az hours. My regi-
ment was never directly on the firing
line. as they have done engineering
worl, all the time. most of the time
working on roads and building bridges,
between the light artillery and the
dough boys. The night of August 9Th
my company and company of the
s0Sth Engineers were trying TO erect
n bridge across n small stream. The
German artillery was trying to destroy
the roads and also the bridges which
we were trying to build. They sue
ceeded in destroying II four times in
one night, each time killing few men.
Finally the American artillery destroy
ed the German gun and we succeeded
in erecting the bridge, and the light
artillery passed over the river. About
Sept. i4th we were relieved and came
back, but only stayed back three days
until we were loaded on trains and
transferred to the Verdun section. We
were about Is miles to the left of
Verdun, in the Argonne Forest. This
was one OF the worst struggles the
world ever knew. II started Sept 26.
Here lived four days and nights on
food taken from dead men. This was
caused by the German artillery shell-
ing the roads so heavy that 1t was
impossible to get food up to the boys.
The Americans met heavy resist
ance everywhere they went from Octo-
her 9Th to the 10th. / worked my
piatoon from 5 o'clock In the morning
until 5 at night building roads. Then
as soon as Il was dark, we would load
the mon with rifle and machine guns
ammunition end carry II TO the front
lines. After October 10th until tho
armistico was signed we had II much
caster. only working ~ hours n day.
We never knew when Sunday came.