The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-06-20
Col. ]. P. Fyffe on Trip in War
Zone With u. S. Press Special
Two Letters of Opening Series From Chattanooga Newspaper
Man Picture Scenes Of Recent Reconstruction

Maj. ]. Perry Fyffe. weli-known
newspaper man OF Chattanooga, who
vision. and who remained on special
duty abroad when his division re-
| turned to the states. has recently
been detailed to make trip
through the war zone on the United
States press special. Two letters have
already been received by The News
telling of the trip. These will be fol-
lowed by others. Col Fyffe promising
to write a series and for the time
being act as the papers European
correspondent.
The first, which was written with
pencil. and bore evidences OF be-
ing scrawled as the train was moving,
is as follows:
~. s., Press Special
May az.
Chateau Thierry, Scissors, Fismes.
Rheims, st. Mihiel are all over the
salient
ITO the Argonne wood all over that
battlefield ending at Sedan. Sedan is
a miserable place. not much shot UP,
but 80 per cent. boche.
1--WE visited Bellvieu chateau. where
Emperor Napoleon III signed the
treaty of 1870. The owner did not let
us inside. He said he was sick OF see
ulS ooiuicIS.
AT Buzancy we saw the chateau
from which the crown prince witnessed
the battle of Verdun. 1t was twenty
five miles away He had the house In
laid with concrete four feet thick ana
looked out from a little peephole ike
a machine gun post. They carried away
the furniture and used an EXTENSIVE IL,
brary o. the owner for fuel. We found
two or three unburned volumes IN the
bottom OF the fireplace. One that got
Is copy of 'Napoleon's EGYPTIAN
Campaign. by One OF the Participants
printed In 1902. 1t is my only souvenir
Others gathered them by the carload.
"At stenay. on the Meuse, we saw
big chateau that was the home OF
the crown prince for thirty months. II
was untouched and the caretaker said
he used the people WELL But when the
kaiser visited his son there was always
a row. From Sedan we went to YER
dun. I thought pres was badly shot
up and Fismes was an awful wreck, but
Verdun-no pen can picture II.
Half a million casualties, and only
the graves of one-fourth marked. Yet
little crosses stand everywhere as thick
as briars in a blackberry patch.-each
marking where some soldier fell and
was buried on the spot. The ground Is
one continuous shellhole. From the
great citadel with twenty miles OF I'M
derground corridors clear to the outer
walls of the three. lines OF forts-a ter
ritory probably Of tire cor four nun
dred square miles-looks like the
determination OF Desolation." The
town is nearly uninhabited, but a few
stores are beginning to open. and
everywhere Hun prisoners under
French guards cleaning up the wreck
I'm the midst Of all this ! met on the
streets a pretty young girl. She wore
a Red Cross uniform and said she was
from Indiana. She lives with a French
family in house that was destroyed
but has been patched UP with ia pa
ped. She is doing a liaison officers Jon
between the American Red cross and
the French Relief society--and doing it
well. The American women over here
are wonderful-but that is another
story. The respect shown them by the
American soldiers is profoundly aston
ishing.