Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1918 — LETTERS FROM OUR SOLDIERS [ARTICLE]

LETTERS FROM OUR SOLDIERS

Vein Davisson Is “Still in the Ring,” and Busy. Somewhere in France, May 26. Dear Pa and Ma: I received your letters dated April 16 and 21. Glad to hear from you. We are working day and night now. Have been up for about eight or nine days. Up to date 1 have managed to get about twentyfour hours’ sleep out of nine days and nights. The roads have been so badly shot up we had to fill in big shell craters and cut trees from across the road so we could get through with our ambulances to the poste to get the wounded. Had to do all that under shell fire. Have bad several cars hit. Two nights ago my car received two nice holes through the body. It is thy second new car in two weeks. The first night at poste the road just in front of the poste was so full of big shell craters .that I stopped my car and borrowed a pick and Shovel from the cave and filled two big holes so the cars sould be turned around in front of the poste. The French told me not to do that, to stay in the car until things quieted down a little. They lent me the tools but they were afraid to come out and help, so I continued to do the work.- Every little while a shell would hit close and I would jump in the ditch to avoid the spray of shrapnel, then continue until the next one. Finally I get it done and turned my car around and had a had waiting for me. so I to k them and wound my way around ..’he rest of the shell holes for about two kilometres to a good road and felt much relieved to get out of that place. It is not so bad now as it was for awhile at first, but we, all feel shaky down that strip of road, for every two or- three minutes shells drop all along there. We call that place “Dead Man’s Gulch,” because the road is strewn along either side with dead soldiers. Some were laying there' two weeks, as there was no time to bury the dead an I too dangerous to hesitate along there. Dead horses, wagons, ambulances, guns, helmets —everything lay just as it was killed or shot to pieces—the most terrible sight anyone ever saw on any part of the front. We were about tired out. Several of ■us got a slight touch of gas—not bad enough to stop work. Duvall is back to the section now all O. K.

June 3, 1918. Have been so busy lately have not had time to write even a line. Getting about five or Hix days rest now, then return into the hell again. One of our drivers got hit in the leg by a piece of shell a few days ago, but his wound was not serious. Several of our cars got chewed up a bit by shells. I got another new car a few days ago and it has a few shrapnel holes through the body already. This is my second new car in a month. Have almost seen my finish several times during the big battling, but pulled through O. K. by some good luck. Just took a load of wounded from the poste, which was located in the remains of a little town just behind the trenches, which were exceptionally close, and came back after another. The town was being fiercely bombarded. The streets were full of buildings tumbled down, and large shell holes.’ A shell hit the Red Cross poste and tumbled the building and knocked the cellar in just before I could get there again. The shells were coming so thick I had to pull my car behind the big brick church and wait awhile. While I was dodging around from one corner to another a big one hit the church, blew the windows out and the doors open and knocked part of the church down. 1 almost gave up the ghost. I could not find a place anywhere where the shells were not coming, therefore I just kept-on-dodging behind the corners to save myself from the flying pieces of shell. It got so hot around the church I had to vacate that place, so I began to look for a way out of town. Every street I went to "was tumbled full of debris afid blocked up," so 1 cranked up “Lizzie” and imagined she was a goat and drove oyer the remains of a house in the Street a'hd managed to get out. I bursted a tire in the attempt but had no time to make any repairs there, besides I was the only person left In that town. Believe Jne, I tnwust

have looked lonesome. I sure felt it and it was some relief to get out. The bodies were Shooting big six and eight inch shells in there. “Poor sport.’’ ' ' Don’t know where we will go after this little rest of a few days. I hope not to such a rotten place as we just came out of. VERN C. DAVISSON. U. <. A. A. S. 629 Convoy Autos, Par. B. M. C., Paris, France. Dr. Reddick of Winamac Writes Home Again. Pulaski County Democrat: Lieut. George H. Reddick, former Pulaski county boy who joined the army medical corps in this country and who was assigned to service with the British army in France, writes another interesting letter from the scene of action. lit is addressed to F. M. Williams of this city, old time neighbor of the Reddick family, and with whom George used to work hereabout. It reached here this week, after having been written somewhere over there on May

28: •I trust the censor passed the letters to the Democrat. I was very busy and didn’t have time to write much. To date I haven t had my clothes or boots off for ten days. YOU' Should see my bungalow. I have a nook cut in a bank, bags of sand piled in front, and timbers and bags of sand on tbp. It is four feet high, four feet wide and six feet long. I sleep on straw, with a rubber sheet on the ground and a blanket over me. But .he rations are good, so we don’t worry. My aid post is a sunken ulaje next door. T<s date the boche planes haven't located us, but when they do I suppose we will be shelled out of here. That seems to be one of their favorite tricks after we get settled. The old gravel pits I used to work in back home would be ideal places to house troops- They could dig into the banks, and the only shell to get tham would ba a direct hit in the pit I have seen some warm spots since the boche began to push. „ I was nearly captured once, and have been barely missed by shrapnel a thousand tiimes, it seems to me. Gad, but the Hun does have some terrific shells. I have seen him get a direct hit on a brick house, and then the whole thing would go up.‘ The shells are bad enough, but the gas is worse. Without a doubt it is the most damnable stuff ever invented. Recently he put it into my regiment, and 200 men began pouring through my department in almost less time than it takes to tell it—blind, vomiting, gasping for breath, sneezing, coughing, and with blisters on the skin from burning, as it gees right through the clothes. Because my catarrh is so slight I can siiiell " the d—d stuff sooner than many, and it does not take long to put a mask on. The boche is having a few minor successes now, but he will lose in the end, for he is in the wrong. He is a wily individual, but we have more that are more wily than he. Every day I live I am more glad that I am an American citizen. GEORGE.”