The north Mississippi herald., 1919-05-16
CPL. DUDLEY WAGNER
VISITS FRONT LINES
Tells About German Defenses
And How Our Boys" Rip
ped Them Up-Describes
Some Wonderful Dugouts 80
Feet Under Ground. Be-
lieves Battery A Will Depart
For Home About June 1st.
Hal Greer and Dickey Sizemore
Wounded BY Explosion of German
Shell-Both Doing Fine In
Base Hospital.

The following interesting letter
was written by Corporal Dudley Wag-
ner to his father, Hon. John H. Wag
ner, of Water Valley. 1t is one of
the most interesting letters we have
had the pleasure to read from any of
"our boys" over there. Upon our
personal solicitation Mr.. Wagner
kindly consented to allow us the
privilege of publishing the same. The
letter is filled with valuable infor-
nation and personal news of many of
our Battery A boys. In behalf of the
relatives and world of friends of
Battery A, we heartily thank Mr..
Wagner for his kindness. The let
ter follows:
Headquarters, Battery "A", 140th
Field Artillery, American Ex-
peditionary Forces, A. P. o.
404, France. April %, 1919
Dear Father
Yesterday returned from a most
delightful trip to the front. We left
here Saturday morning in big Whit
reconnaissance car, passed through all
the towns of which / have sent you
cards, stopping in most of them for
awhile and in others not so long, and
arrived at St. Ludwig at eight o'clock
Saturday night. Lieutenant Frost
was driving, and if you believe he is
a slow driver, you just ought to ride
behind him some time. He is alb
solutely the fastest man at the wheel
have ever seen. The weather was
glorious; nice and cool and the sky
cleap as a bell. The roads were
perfect, straight and smooth as hard
usoySA and as white as srow. Yor
know what these French roads are
however, so there is no need to tell
you how grand they were to ride on.
That's one thing the French have on
us-the roads-absolutely wonder
full.
We went thru the Alsace Lorraine
sector and straight to the banks of
the Rhine. 1t was fine! The seen
cry magnificent! | never saw such
mountains, such streams, such val
leys, such beautiful hillsides, such
miles and miles of absolutely beauti-
full land as I saw on this trip. One
time we shut off the engine and
coasted down a five mile mountain
that was simply gorgeous. We could
see the road at six different places
and the Doubs river could be seen
flowing at the foot of the mountain
for miles and miles. The river was
perfectly blue, the landslides bril-
liant green and the white road wind
ing down the mountain looked like
pathway of snow. 1t was superb /
can't begin to picture it to you. We
spent the night at st. Ludwig at the
st. Johns Hotel; very modern and
very German. OF course you know
the Alsace Lorraine people are COM
prised of both French and German
because right across the river is
Germany. Up until the present war,
Germany owned Alsace, but now of
course it belongs to the French. All
the houses and cafes and restaurants
are German name, and the people
speak both languages. They seem
better fed and look fatter up there
than they do down around this section
We slept in good beds and had a fire
breakfast the next morning. Easter
breakfast on the Rhine-think of
that. Afterwards we got the car
out and went down to the river,
where we proceeded to wash our
hands in the water, step in it and
get some pebbles out of the water.
After staying there awhile and watch
ing the folks fish we got back into
the car and started for the real
front In litter. | saw so many
things and did so many things that it's
impossible to find time to write about
it; shall have to wait till get home
and talk about it. / used to wonder
why the lines didn't capture more
territory; used to read about one
side gaining twenty yards, and
thought what bunch of fools they
were. I know why now. There's
not twenty feet of No Mans Land
but what is covered with barbwire.
It's about waist deep and looks
like this
AS far as your eye can travel you
see this barbwire and these trenches.
You can tell when the Germans were
driven out of the trench because they
always wired the trenches too so that
they would not or rather could not
be used by the French. I found
German bayonet in one of the trenc-
hes, also a hand grenade, loaded but
without the fuse. brought them
both back with me. Also some wire
which / cut off of No Mans Land
and which am sending you. also
got a German gas mask, which | am
mailing you today, in one of the
trenches. There's no telling who wore
it. l am sending you a German he'll
met, one to Johnnie, one to Jess and
one to Louise--all Of them from No
Mans Land which / picked up.
As we went along we would stop