Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1919-01-09
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CAMP AND FIELD. ~
OUR SOLDIER BOYS IN ~
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The following letter was written
by Lieut.. Harry Harding on Thanks
giving day from Clamecy, France, IL
his father, jay Harding; Last sun
day, Nov. gath. was officially desig-
mated as Fathers Day" and every
member OF the A. E. #. was supposed
TO sit down and write his dad let
ter. Sunday, however. found me
humping along on a French train and
/ didn't have the opportunity to write,
so I'll take advantage of this holi-
day to try to get letter to you by
Christmas.
The censorship has practically been
lifted so can tell you lot OF things
I couldn't mention before. suppose
you'll all be interested In knowing
what we've been doing and where
we've been since coming over, so I'll
sketch our travels since leaving the
States. We sailed from New York,
July 0, on the Olympic, White Star
liner and one of the largest things
afloat. She is a sister ship to the
Titanic and she is certainly some
whale We had grand trip, making
1T in seven days, and swinging away
south of our natural course at that.
The Olympic is so fast that she isn't
conveyed except for the last two days
of the trip. Five American destroy
sers came out and met us after we
reached the real danger zone and
they were certainly on the job every
minute. We were in waters thickly
infested with subs for about 4S hours
but none of them had the nerve to-
tackle that combination and we ar
rived at Southampton, England, with
out any mishaps.
We were only there for a day. We
sailed the following night on a chan
mel boat for La Harve, France and
arrived there the next morning At
ter stopping there for two days In al
English rest camp, we loaded onto
a string Of dinky little French box
cars and left for our training area.
down in the Haute Marine country.
MY battalion was billeted in a little
village called Millieres, and we re-
NAMED there and finished an inten
sive course of training, until about
The middle of September when orders
came to move out. We knew that a
irive was about to start some place,
but nobody knew just where, but af-
ter marching for several days we
found ourselves opposite the st.
Mihiel salient We thought we
would see some excitement there, but
we were a reserve division and the
whole affair was pulled off so neatly
hat they didn't need us. was in
the town where they brought
Ill the Boche prisoners and saw them
them in for two days. They
lad about $4,000 of them in one big
,ull pen there.
They loaded us on trucks and then
lauled us up on the front behind
yerdun and we waited there until
he big push started on September
Is. We were one Of the divisions
licked to go over the top first and ,
he 35th, with the Kansas boys, were
n our left, though l never had a
nance to see any Of them, except
.alph Lucier, and told you of meet
ng him in a previous letter. won't
tempt to describe the battle, but !
,'s safe to say that we had one of
he toughest sectors of the whole
yar. The Germans put up desper-
tie resistance and we earned every
Dot Of the ground we took. At one |
me all my officers were killed, I
or missing, and all l could j
ollect Of the original company of 213 h
len that we went into action with, t
ras 80. Luckily, l was able to keep c
1em together and the following day v
re found one of our lieutenants with b
mother bunch about the size of mine. t
was next to impossible to keep a
'om being separated up there, as the v
round over which we fought the p
rst five days was dense tangle Of A
,rest and underbrush and we were h
ghting uphill all the way which "
ave the Germans all the best of It, W
dded to this was the fact that the c.
round was a stiff clay and it rained 81
good part of the time. b
Boche shelled the roads behind Us IL
and our ration and am n