Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1919-02-08
COuldn / See Why Germans
Wanted To Take France

al reserve IN July, 1918, and later EN-
barked as a marine with the steam
ship Western Pride. writes a very in
teresting letter from DunkirIx, France,
to W. A. Denton, of the Meyers dry
goods house, in which La Rue was em.
ployed for number of years He SAYS
in part:
"Greetings from the land of the lily
and-mud. We have been here now
for several weeks, and for the life of
me can t see why the Germans should
have kicked up such fight in at
tempting to gain possession of this
country. Personally / d give the whole
thing to them and then move to the
good old q. S. A. Guess | m a trifle
homesick.
have met quite number of the
American lads over here. The 9lst di.
vision is stationed Just short dis
tance from here and we have some of
them down to the ship almost every
day. They are nearly all west coast
boys, and have seen some hard fight |
ing. Most of them are past masters in
the great American are of Singing
the bull, and they have lot of anus
ing little tricks they are always ready !
to try on any of their own kind who
care to bite. They like to get crowd
together and then recall incidents in
which bloody arms and legs and head |
less bodies play a prominent part.
At Ypres Christmas
II spent Christmas at Ypres. Wei
left Dunkirk at 2:30 and arrived at
Ypres at T. and as the distance is on
ly about so miles you can see we did |
n t need any speed regulations. Never
again will l complain about the speed
of American trains. And such trains,
too. 1t was dark when we arrived at
Ypres, and we spent an hour tramping
about in the mud and debris looking
for q hotel but finally wound up in
the corridor of ruined building, which
had roof and parts of three walls.
Later, by rare good fortune / stun
bled upon a British supply dump,
where the guard was dead drunk. /
borrowed case of pork and beans and
Dne of canned fruit and took them
back to our dugout, and before long
We were enjoying fine dinner.
early in the morning we were
by an English captain, who
invited us to a fine Christmas break
last in his dugout- ham, plum pudding,
,tc., and some excellent Scotch whis
teyl As soon as it was light we start
ID out to explore Ypres and No Man 8
land. Ypres is total ruin. No build
ng in the entire city remains intact
The ONLY thing that withstood the
hell fire was the ccbble stone streets.
con No Man s Land barbed wire,
hell holes, trenches, dugouts and mil
tary debris Of every description was
till to be seen. There were actually
Millions Of lbullets-French, English
md Belgian. About midway between .
fpres and Rouler we saw about forty
anks OF various sizes that had been !
nut out Of commission by shells. Some
4 them had the skeletons of the op-
rators still inside. In one of them we
0und the skeleton of German snip
n, with bullet hole through bis head.
took button off his coat as a sou- I
'enir. i
Saw End of Line h
IL might tell you of a million things
70 saw but ! haven't the time or the
tationery. The second trip over the r
wenty five mile front was about t.s I
anne as the first, only we saw more c
( the French and Belgian end of the o
ne at Roulers. The British are rapid q
2 salvaging everything of value, and v
uge gangs Of German prisoners are '
usy clearing the land Of debris. 1t n
lrely does one good to see those dogs h
artially undoing the dirty work they v
re responsible for. Believe me there i
70 going to be q good many disap- h
ointcd tourists visit this country be- !
)re the summer is over. Dunkirk is !,
bout the last place on earth theNl
onld want to visit, for it has felt the
ar very keenly. having been shelled
nh bombed repeatedly. : !.
1--WE have rough crew of sailors !
nd blacks on board. / believe d have u
led of fright few months ago if l d =
zen put up against some of the ex, .
srionces that occur almost every day. D
ow I feel almost lonesome if some 81
10 doesn't threaten to kill me at q
asst once day. Two Greeks did try 81
knife me one day, but got soundly "
ounced for their trouble. A few days h
70 I had my camera and $50 in good
meriean money lifted.
~ doubt If will get back before m
,He now. want to stick until the fl
'ys get back, and then too after see fl