Abilene weekly reflector., 1919-01-02

From Albert Gish.

or the 1UStn Engineers Ddnu III
France. He writes of interesting ex-
periences while In France and on the
voyage across. He says: AS today
is the day all the boys In the A. II.
F. are expected to write their dads
a Christmas letter, though | would
try and write few lines to let you
know how / am getting along. Well,
the war is over and we are allowed
to write almost anything we want to
now, without fear of 1t being cen
sored. There were great celebrations
over here when word came that the
armistice had been signed, and |
suppose they had big times In the
States, also. Although the peace
terms have not been signed yet It's
safe bet that there viii be no more
hostilities, for Germany Is completely
licked and couldn't begin again If
she wanted to. The most popular
topic of the day now is "hOw soon
are we going homer" Every divi-
sion thinks they will be the first home
but no one knows for sure who will
be the lucky ones, and you should hear
| the wild stories that are circulated
around. The old 33rd division has
been In the thick of 1t, and we have
as good a chance as any division of
being one of the first back. We left
New York harbor May Sth on the
big steamer, George Washington and
landed at Brest, Fance, May 18th.
The Washington is one of the Ger
man ships the u. S. interned In 1914,
and Is next in size to the water
land" which is the largest ship afloat.
We had quite a trip and only had one
submarine alarm. 1t happened the
| last day at sea, and about 4 o'clock
in the morning. The siren whistle
blew and all hand went upon deck.
We got In TIE harbor all right and
heard later that the submarine de
stroyers sunk the sub we had sighted.
We were in the Bay of Biscay and
sighted the Spanish coast at one
time. We were in the English chan
mel also, but never got over In Eng
| land. When we landed at Brest, they
| took us about two miles from the
city out to Pontazin barracks and
quartered us there for few days. 1t
had big stone wall all around the
place and had a greabsAhistory con
nected with it. They claim Napo-
leon built 1t and trained his soldiers
there, and ! saw a road that 1t Is
claimed Caesar built. We went from
there up the SOmme and ours was
the first American division to light
with the British. We were In Aner
ricu woods, near Aimens, most OF the
time (that Is, our headquarters COM
pany) and had the first man in our
regiment killed there by an aerial
torpedo. He was standing guard and
a Fritz bombing machine few over
and bombed us. Every moonlight
night we could expect an air raid and
we sure had plenty Of them. Fritz
was shelling places on all sides Of
us, but our dug outs protected us and
we were pretty lucky. Our division
was cut up quite bit on the Somme
before we moved south, down around
Verdun. We left the Somme district
the latter part of August and rested |
a couple of weeks at Stainville, be- |
fore we went into action again. Stain
vile is the place where Hobart came
over to see me, for he had ~ hour
pass to Barley Due and came on over
where we were The division started
the drive September 90. near Yer
dun, around Forges woods In the
Argonne forest, and we had ssome
time of 1t. The Illinois boys did
wonderful work and made a great
name for themselves. ! came here
to Claumont (which is A. f. IT, head
quarters) the other day to take the
examination for a commission. All
band masters have to. take an exam
ination in order to get a commission,
and its a good thing for it weeds out
the men that don't understand their
business. They have wonderful
school here called the American Band
Masters and Musicians school. NJ
the Conductor of the Paris
Grand Opera, is at the head of the
school and has a wonderful STAFF Of
/ heard a concert last
night by the faculty, and they are
surely splendid musicians. I know
you viii be pleased when ! tell you
that Hobart is now with us in the
band, and that / got him just a few