USA > Indiana > Jefferson County > Jefferson County in the World War : an historical and sociological study of one Indiana county during the war period, 1917-1918 > Part 7
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"We could not smell the gas at all with the mask on. We were left in there about ten minutes.
"After that lesson, we were put back in and they turned on what they call the 'tear gas,' that won't kill you but hurts your eyes and we had to take our masks off in that. Believe me, I was not long in getting mine back on. As our company went in company A and B stood out in front and sang 'God Be with You Till We Meet Again," and when they went in our company sang 'Nearer My God to Thee.'
"We have been naving it pretty easy of late as we have been going out to the hills and divide the men up into bunches and send messages by semaphore and wig wag like I showed you when I was at home. We stay out most all day, only come in for dinner.
"I received a box of candy from Jesse for my birthday. Haven't eaten it all yet. Will have to wait till a lot of these nuts go to sleep to keep from giving it all away. Had some big birthday. Was 24 years old. Had a letter from Aunt Pink and she sent me a dollar and with the one you sent I am quite flush. We are in quarantine and can't get out to spend it though. It sure pays to have birthdays. Aunt Pink sent me a lot of clippings from The Madison Courier and I was tickled to death to get them and found so much news that no one thinks to tell me when they write. I am dolled up today. They gave me a new uniform. Well, write soon.
"CHARLIE C. TANDY,
"Co. C., 319 Field Signal Bn., Camp Sherman, O."
CHARLES JACOBS.
Private Jacobs, of the 135th field artillery, Co. D., writ- ing from Camp Upton, N. Y., tells, among other things, of the gentle art of testing steel helmets when first worn into the barracks. "There were," he says, "three fellows behind the door. One had a poker, one an axe, and the other a big club. All hit us on the heads very hard, but we could only feel the jar."
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ERNEST HAYCOX.
Writing from Newport, R. I., naval station, Ernest Hay- cox tells of his experience on the rifle range.
"I have been to Wakefield, Mass., at the naval rifle range. Had a great time there and good luck also. I quali- fied as expert rifleman, that is higher than sharpshooter on the expert team. After I had qualified I made a record of the range of getting 19 straight bulls eyes (a bulls eye counts 5) and 4 out of twenty shots at 500 yards. That gave me a score of 99 out of a possible 100. Then we had to shoot 20 shots in change position fire.
"In change position you put in a clip of five shells and get ready. Then the target is up five seconds and out of sight five seconds, and in the meantime you have to shoot, throw a new shell into your gun and change position, viz., first shot prone, second kneeling, third squatting, fourth standing, and the fifth prone again, and go over that four times to get the twenty shots. I got 91 out of that, which gave me a score on the match of 190 out of a possible 200. The highest ever made on that range before was 187, by a marine a year ago.
"Altogether I made $8.50 in prizes-$1.00 in the marks- man course, $2.00 on sharpshooters course, $3.00 on expert rifleman course, $1.00 on expert team match, $1.50 getting the highest score on machine gun.".
DAVID G. KAHN.
Pvt. Kahn, of the Marine Corps, writing from Paris Is- land, S. C., thus describes the rigid drilling practiced in that famous arm of the service:
"Dear Mother :-
"I am now going on three months in the marine corps and the longer I stay the better I like it. I have just about what they call boat training and am now on the rifle range. I will try to give you a description of training as far as I have gone.
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"First we have the drill movements, such as squads right, and left, squads right about and left about to the rear, column left and right, column left and right about, or right in the line, right front in the line. Platoon movements, com- pany movements and numerous others.
"Then we start drilling with light marching order which weighs about twenty pounds. Next we draw our drill rifles and bayonets Rifle weighs nine pounds, three ounces, and bayonet weighs one pound two ounces.
"We had two to three weeks like that at the maneuver grounds. Then we packed up and came to the main training camp, carrying a heavy marching order, weighing about fifty pounds, which consists of bacon can, econdamon can, mess gear, toilet kit, poncho, shelter half, one heavy blanket, pair shoes, pair trousers, shirt, suit of underwear, three pair sox, shelter half pole, and five stakes.
"After reaching the main training camp we drill from seven until eleven thirty. Then come in for dinner or chow as we call it. After dinner we have bayonet practice, which is very interesting. To know the offensive and defensive thrusts with the cold steel will help out over there.
"Then we go in the trenches and practice going around the corners, making a thrust at a dummy just as if it were a real Hun. Then pass on as quick as lightning to get an- other.
"Coming out of the trenches and going over the top is also very interesting, and I don't believe all Germany could stop a regiment of marines in hand to hand fighting.
"After bayonet drill we have a Swedish bath and take boxing and wrestling lessons.
"Then we have supper. After supper we drill again for one hour and a half. Then we come in and wash clothes and believe me you have every piece inspected and if its not clean you wash it over.
"Two days out of the week we have parade where every
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movement must be just so, and this is one of the prettiest sights one ever saw. Six battalions on the parade grounds moving; as one man.
"Our chow is well cooked and very seldom you hear any one say he doesn't get enough. Breakfast consists of bacon and eggs or bacon and potatoes, or hash and jam with plenty bread and coffee. Dinner roast beef, potatoes, navy beans or butter beans, hash, peas, gravy, soup, and bread and water or the equivalent. Supper salmon, tomatoes, gravy, rice or pudding, bread and iced tea. No cake, pie, ice cream or pas- tries of any kind.
"Now we come to the time when we change our Enfield rifles for a Springfield, the one we carry over there and the ‹ind that will kill many a Hun if they are only seen by a marine.
"Then we go on the rifle range where we learn an alto- gether new way to shoot. The only way after you get the position, which is very hard to get, and you swear the coach is going to break your arm, but he don't, and you laugh at yourself after you get it.
"I will soon finish my range and let you know if I go to France or stay here, for if you are not a good shot in the marine corps you are out of luck for going to France. I will let you know in two weeks if I go to France or stay here on the island but it's the desire of every marine to go across, so that's my whole desire, and if hard working would get you there I will not be left behind.
TOM LUCKETT.
Tom Luckett, of the aviation service, tells of the thrills of his first ride in a hydroplane.
"My first flight, about a month ago, was a very inter- esting experience. We went up about four o'clock in the eve- ning, Lieut. Forbes driving. We glided along the water for about two hundred feet, when we began to rise. My first
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feeling was that of being in an elevator, that same sinking feeling. That soon left me, and I enjoyed the rest of the ride immensely. We were not up very long, probably 35 min- utes in all.
"You would imagine that flying is the very smoothest kind of riding. Such is not the case. You receive some bumps equal to those you receive in an old 'Ford,' due to the pockets in the air. When the pilot hits one of these pockets, the machine sometimes drops from five to fifteen feet, before the wings catch the heavy air again.
"We both wore helmets with telephones attached. It is impossible to talk without these phones, because of the great noise of the motor. Flying is very fascinating and I enjoyed my air journey very much."
RAYMOND FRANCISCO.
Corp. Raymond Francisco gives a picture of the novelties to be found about Camp Shelby, Miss.
"We have crossed the swamp since we've been here. In some places you can poke a stick down in the mud or muck four or five feet. Have seen some wild turkey. Quail are very plentiful. I went hunting with another fellow one day for squirrel. There were seven or eight in one tree but as the pine trees were so high with the gun he had he could not shoot them out.
"I find the people down here still use oxen to work with. There's a plantation in a half mile of camp that uses the old way of grinding their cane and corn, which is two large rock with holes in for a pole, and then they hitch the oxen to this pole and do the grinding that way.
"I go quite often to a little town by the name of McLaur- en. It reminds me of some of the western scenes in the movies, as the stores are frame with porches in front and a place for horses to be hitched and the men ride into town in bunches of twenty or thirty. I often see bucking bronchoes. The postoffice looks like Champ Kahn's old slaughter house
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used to look and what they call roads are merely paths thru the woods. I think nearly every house has eight or nine dogs.
"Life at Camp Shelby is sure a busy one. Things never get a chance to stand still for the program is changed every week. Monday, this week, we got up at six a. m., took our exercise by running about a mile, breakfast at seven, drill from seven-thirty to eight, skirmish drill from 8:30 to 10:15, and sighting drill from 10:30 to 11:45.
"Then dinner. At one we go over to a large cleared ring back of the hospital and take lessons in riding. We are taught to ride bare back, then with saddles and then with the harness on. This lasts until about 3 o'clock and the rest of the time is taken up until 5:30 by signal and artillery drill. This schedule is changed every week, with Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday off."
OTIS E. NAY.
Private Nay recites with gusto the list of good things- "turkey, mashed spuds, oyster dressing, olives, oranges, mince and pumpkin pies, fruit cake and good old black cof- fee," served as a feast to the boys of Camp Shelby on Thanks- giving day, 1917; the mess hall being decorated "with all the glorious beauty of the southern woods."
WILBUR F. GRAHAM.
As a companion picture to this, from the same camp, Corporal Graham describes the preparations for a merry Christmas, in 1918.
"We are planning a great big good time for Christmas day. The chief mechanic has been decorating the mess hall for several days now and has it about complete. It is a beau- tiful place, has crepe paper decorations along sides and streamers from the center down the sides. At regular inter- vals along the wall are big rosettes. At one end of the mess hall is an imitation of a big fireplace and holly and mistletoe
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and evergreens, hung around a plenty, All the men are to be given a small Christmas tree by Santa Claus, who will come down the chimney in regulation style. We have a splendid dinner planned including plum pudding and all the trimmings. Immediately following the dinner a program will be rendered by members of the battery. According to the Indianapolis Star I'm on for a lecture! I haven't had time to get any- thing ready yet, but will do something. We have piano rented for Christmas week and a jazz band to play any time. We will have it pretty lively, I think."
CHAPLAIN WM. HEILMAN.
As before said, most of these letters show our solders to have been cheerful and zestful, and inspired with the deter- mination to do their part, though it can not be denied that we get occasional glimpses of despondency and homesickness, and here is where the Y. M. C. A., and those other agencies that concerned themselves with the morale of the soldiers proved their right to exist. Chaplain Wm. Heilman, of Camp Custer, Mich., sallied forth one rainy, dismal night on a cheering-up expedition among the men in the barracks.
"The first man visited," he says, "was lying on his bunk, the picture of dejection. Tied to the iron leg of the cot was a playful bull pup, whose antics could not provoke a smile from his owner. The good humor in the quarters was mon- opolized by the company mascot.
" "Too busy to go to church,' the boy said, and as he mov- ed languidly he let one hand dangle over a side of the cot, and the playful pup nibbled at his fingers. 'I have to work all the time,' he continued, 'and I want to see something different.'
" 'You don't need church at this time,' I said to him. 'What you should do is to spend an afternoon with us at the club house in Battle Creek.'
"After a description of a few of the parties at the club house the bull pup was formally introduced. His pedigree was repeated. When I left a cheerful voice called after me,
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'So long, Reverend, I am going to come to see that club house and you may look for me at service.' "
ELMER MARSHALL.
Concerning the Y. M. C. A. Elmer Marshall, writing from Fort Sheridan, Ill., has this to say :
"Without the Y. army life would be a lot more dreary, unpleasant, lonesome. After supper (mess) you can go down there to the movie at the Y. if there are movies on. If no movies are on you can write either to home or to your dear ones.
"Most of the time if nothing else is doing they have speaking at the Y. You get all of your paper and envelopes for helping yourself. To make a long story short you can go there and make yourself at home.
"I want to say who ever refuses to donate for the Y. M. C. A. or any other thing that will help to comfort the boys in the army and navy ought to be put down as a slacker.
"Good American boys are giving up their lives every day and bearing hardships while some tight wad at home is mak- ing and saving all he can. There should be something done to make him come across.
"Remember we are going (over there) to make the world safe for democracy and we all expect you folks back home to do your part, which I think most of you will."
MARK HAMER.
The spirit of real patriotism that prevailed among our boys, and which crops out in casual sentences in many of the letters, is reflected more at length in one from Mark Hamer, written from Camp Taylor, September 16, 1917, which we reprint in full.
"Dear Mother:
"Through all your unhappiness over seeing your boys going to war you must remember that the great possibility is that all of them will come back, and that although people
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may not realize it now, the fellow who could possibly join in this war and doesn't, had better beyond a doubt die upon a battlefield. It is my own opinion there never was a more just war waged. None ever was more necessary if homes like the one that equipped me for life are not to vanish from the earth. I have no interest in going to war. I would rath- er not go ; but while men exist who believe it is given to them to dominate other men, some men must fight, not because they want to, but exactly because they do not want to.
"If America responds greatly enough to the demands made on her by this war it will be the last great war of the world's history. I have little hope that America's part will be so well done as that. Probably in another seventy-five or one hundred years it will all have to be done over again sim- ply because it was not done quite honestly this time.
"But it is possible and even probable that with the spir- it which as vet dominates American purpose this war will be fought out to the finish and the peace that shall come will be so justly arranged that never again will a nation be able to believe that it has a right to and can better direct the affairs of another nation than that other itself. And men may then rapidly come to see that they create their own greatest happi- ness by creating the most happiness about them.
"But even if the war is not so great a thing as it could be, it will still be a great contribution, and that man who fails to do his part now must live among men who will be at least somewhat advanced in their understanding of other men, and they will have little use-I mean they will find it possible to use very little --- the man who shirks now.
"MARK HAMER."
LETTERS FROM OVERSEAS.
The larger part of the letters from overseas did not be- gin to arrive until the war was nearing its end, but some were written in the earlier part of 1918. Lieutenant E. H.
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Phillips, Carroll Eaglin and Wm. Ramsey Heberhart were the first to be heard from. Mr. Heberhart tells of his first taste of war when he witnessed an air raid on Paris. He writes: "I guess I told you of the air raid we had the last of January. It was quite exciting and I haven't forgotten it in a hurry. The 'alert' was given at eleven-thirty p. m. and all the lights of Paris went out. The sirens screamed and the guns boomed forth their warnings. The sky was full of the colored lights of moving airplanes and the star rockets fell. The sky was one mass of colors. You could hear the guns roar and roar but couldn't see them fire.
"I dined at the Hotel Ritz that evening with friends who were leaving for America the next day, so I went out to Place Vendome and watched it for a long time. Later I went to the garden of the Tuilleries. I went later to Place de la Concorde, where two French machines fell and the men were taken to the Hotel Crillion. President Poincare arrived the same time I did with his staff. All the guests were in pajamas and dressing gowns as most every one goes to bed at eleven o'clock these days.
"A motley gowned crowd to meet the president of France! Such is war."
E. C. DENNY.
E. C. Denny, writing from "Somewhere in France," un- der date of April 15, 1918, thus describes an air fight:
"This afternoon a boche machine was shot down with- in sight. We watched the shells bursting around it for over a half hour. It is pretty hard to get a plane up 5,000 or 10,- 000 feet with shells. The shrapnel must hit the gasoline tank or the driver.
"The machine got over our lines through a cloud. It was sure interesting to watch the machine circling, chang- ing height, etc., to keep us from getting the range. He made several attempts to beat it back to the German lines and safety. But always our guns shot ahead of him and turned him back.
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"I knew where one 3-inch was hid that was taking part in the conversation. Occasionally a machine gun would get the range and let off ten or a dozen shots in quick succession, faster than you could count. Through it all the boche flew unharmed. But at last an allied plane got above him, the guns ceased, and it was 'finished boche," as the French say to us.
"I recall an incident of the first air fight I saw. (They are all alike, only sometimes the Hun gets away.) We were at work, doing a job in a hurry. Some French soldiers were working next to us. We heard a gun and a few seconds later heard the shell explode. Then we saw the white smoke and near it a plane.
"Several French were carrying a big stone, but at the sound of the first shell they all ripped out a stream of French about as long as your arm, dropped the stone, and made dou- ble time for a dugout. I noticed the Americans did almost the opposite. 1
"Not minding the shrapnel falling from the shells, everybody, even the sick, rush out to see the battle. But when the shells explode overhead, then we curb our curiosity ~~ 1 give inside."
EARL SNYDER.
Of these air battles Earl Snyder writes :
"Since we have been having beautiful weather air bat- tles are an every day sight overhead. Just a few minutes ago I witnessed a battle with an enemy plane which the American aviators brought down. It was an interesting sight to see the plane catch fire and the tanks explode and fall to the earth burning."
CLARENCE SEHRT.
Private Sehrt, with a machine gun battalion "some- where in France," gives us these glimpses of his daily ex- periences :
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"I have heard and read a great deal about open warfare and now I am going through it, you can't imagine how aw- ful it is.
"We were in a large woods a short time ago and our artillery was all around us. The boches shelled the woods night and day. We dug in, every man had his own dugout, protection against shrapnel. You could scarcely take two steps for fear of falling head first into a dugout.
"I am sitting out in frout of my dugout writing this letter and old Fritz is sending five inch shells over in front of us about fifty yards from here. If he lowers his eleva- tion I will do the ground-hog stunt.
"You read in the newspapers how the French people are driven from their homes on short notice. Well, as we were moving up to this front we passed family after family running from the danger zone, and believe me it was simply awful to see them go by. Not only forty or fifty but hun- dreds of them. Some in motor trucks, some in wagons with their children, with probably only enough clothing and food to last them a few days.
"The less fortunate ones were pulling their wagons, carrying stuff on their backs and on wheelbarrows. I saw one old woman have a wheelbarrow loaded with some pro- visions lying by the roadside. The poor soul had given out. It made my heart ache. Another case, an old man and a dog were pulling a spring wagon and an old woman push- ing it. I don't know how they made it up grades. They left their homes and all they had. They will probably come hack some day but only to see their homes all destroyed."
CARROLL D. EAGLIN.
Carroll Eaglin, of the 103d Aero Pursuit Squadron, La- fayette Escadrille, writes in a similar vein. * * The other day a little French soldier wander- ed into our camp and told us what had happened to his fam- ily. He is fifteen years old, very small, and has been in the
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trenches for thirty months. The Huns killed his mother and a little five-year old brother, and he was with his father who was a lieutenant, until he was killed. He went "over the top" with his dad, and was wounded at the same time his dad was killed. We are going to keep him and now have him dressed in an American uniform. He sure is liv- ing the life of Raleigh. All he can say in English is 'under your bunk,' and 'good morning.' 'Under the bunk' is a say- ing the boys here use when there are German airplanes about, ready to drop shells on us. This is done mostly at night and sure makes you a little nervous."
, : DANA VAIL.
Dana Vail, in the ambulance service, tells of the little unpleasantnesses of that work.
"Dearest Dad:
"Just had a letter from Grandma Vail and Aunt Fanny, which puts me in mind that I ought to write. We're having kind of an easy time now, back on 'repos,' but take it from me wherever there is a scrap of any kind, we are right in the worst of it.
"You can't imagine how awful it is. We thought we knew about war when we were in that other sector, but as we took in different parts of the front, our first few months seemed more of a picnic than anything else. It is no fun traveling around with an attacking division.
"We are back in a place where we can get hold of baths again. My, that was good news! And we've gotten very good quarters, too. It's a little better than sleeping in an old, rickety barn, on mouldy straw, with lice, mice, and rats running over you, bombs, shells, bullets bursting within ten to fifty feet from you, and waking up in the middle of the night to put on your gas mask. We have been through all that and the memories aren't very pleasant."
CHARLES WAINSCOTT.
Here we have a graphic picture of the battle front in
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July, 1918, plus some other things, including sarcastic opin- ion of the Hun, as expressed by an American doughboy, Charles Wainscott, of Co. C., Hq. Bn.
"I suppose you will be reading in a day or two about the battle that is now raging along sixty miles of the western front. All last night we could hear the big guns and see the flash, sometimes lighting up the sky like a great flash of lightning ; and sometimes it would be a pencil of flame shoot- ing up into the sky.
"These were from the 'heavies' placed farther back and nearer us, and all the time the continuous rumble like far off thunder on a summer evening.
"There were plenty of other fireworks, too, rockets, and star shells-and the Germans didn't accomplish a thing ex- cept to give us an opportunity of ridding the world of several thousand more squareheads.
"We had an air raid, too, but nothing came of it. I mean no damage was done and no one was hurt. As an air raider Fritzie is the most successful joke that could be imposed up- on a scrap-seeking Yank. Why, he has gotten so nervous since we came over that he can't even hit a cathedral any more."
And this from the same writer, under date of August 14:
"It doesn't seem possible that a nation that professes to be civilized could act in the manner of these retreating Ger- mans are acting. Such unnecessary destruction of property that could in no way be of any use to the advancing troops! I could understand the destruction of grain or anything that could be of use to us, but they do not stop at that. I have seen houses which they had used in their brief stay and there wasn't a thing that remained uninjured. Curtains and hangings were slashed, pictures smashed, furniture hacked with bayonets, floors torn up, windows broken and everything that could be done to show their contempt for all laws of de- cency was done,-and I must say most thoroughly.
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