Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1919-02-06
SOLDIERS VISIT
HUN DUC-OUTS
AUDUBON BOYS WRITE THEIR
PARENTS ABOUT PLACES OC-
CUPIED BY THE HUNS.
WALTER KESTER WRITES
Toul. France. Jam. ~. 191

WALTER KESTER WRITES
Toul, France, Jan. IL, 1919.
Dear Folks:-Another Sunday has
rolled around and / have nothing in
particular to do except write letters
and read the very few books l have.
/ We do not have much of "Y" in
: this camp, only canteen where they
sell tobacco and cookies. There Is
not even a place to write letters,
much less provide entertainment. So
we have to spend our spare time in
loafing around the barracks or walk
over the country and see the sights.
am going to write to Paris and get
some books from the American Lii
brary Association or from the Y. n.
G. A.
/ We have been spending some of
the evenings in studying French his
tory. I bought the books at Romoran-
tin for francs and l have also been
helping some of the boys with alge-
bra and arithmetic. One of the boys
in the outfit is an American who can
read only little English and can
not write at all. l am going to try
and help him.
just got through with dinner Of
potatoes, meat, gravy, tomatoes, rice,
bread and coffee. II don't care much
] for the coffee but the rest OF the food
tasted good and there was plenty Of
1t. / guess / should tell the rest of
the story of the Aremnian boy. He
went to the United States about FIVE
years ago and has received but one
letter from his mother and sister
whom he left in Entertainments I
had him go to the Red Cross and get
them to look it up. He received
letter from Paris yesterday saying
they were going to. have my
doubts though as to whether his rel
atives are alive or not as they were
in the region covered by the Turks
! in their fighting. So we spend our
time in doing anything we can. We
have 2S left out of the SO of us as
we went through classification
camp at lie Mons and some of the
boys were not considered strong en-
ough to go on with the rest of US. We
that are left are getting to be almost
! like little family as We have a good
chance to get acquainted. | am still
acting as first sergeant of the unit.
Just now there is a general order
| saying that there are TO be no more
promotions in the A. 2. F., but this
may be changed at any time so I can
get my higher rating, hope so at
/ least.
l guess I will talk about the lit
tie hike took yesterday forenoon.
did not have anything to do so one
of the boys and myself went out to
spend the morning. We received our
automatics so took them along for
some target practice. The revolt
vers we have are Colts AS automatics
and IL is quite a little trick to shoot
them straight We were out most
ly for sight seeing, though, so we
spent most of the time walking
around. We went to the top of the
hill not far away and went through
the trenches and dugouts. Il sure
was interesting to see how they were
| fixed The woods on the hill were
full of all kinds of barbed wire en-
tanglements. The roadway thru the
4 woods was lined on both sides with
air bombs which were stored among
the trees. We couldn't go through
this fort as ii was guarded by the
French. so we went on east about 8
miles to another one. This was sit
uated at the edge of dirty looking
little village. First we saw where
there were preparations for big gun
so we went through the whole en-
placement. There was the large cir
cular place where the gun was set
ting and 1t extended down about 10
feet. Around this we're rooms, all
underground for ammunition and al
so rooms for the soldiers to live in.
The structure Of the whole thing Was
concrete. OF course il was 80 dark