TRANSCRIBED FROM THE MENA WEEKLY STAR, FEBRUARY 20, 1919, P 4
But with the chances being that we shall return quite soon. I have no cause to kick. Often I looked back over the time when I was up where hell was being turned loose, and I have thought that I should feel very, very lucky, indeed that I am back here sleeping on a spring bed and being really safe. I know that many times comparative safety would have meant heaven to me.
You ask me to tell something about France. Perhaps I have intimated that there is nothing interesting or beautiful over here. There is. At Liffol le Grande, where we trained before going to the Toul front, there is very beautiful scenery, tho the three divisions of France are evidently there, as they are here near Nevers. There are woods, fields and villages.
Neufechateau, Liffol le Grande, and Gondrecourt are places of much historical renown, for Joan of Arc spent her girlhood days in that country. She was born at Neufechateau, and I saw her tomb at a castle built on the brow of a hill near there. But these places did not have the interest for me as the front had. One day August 1, we loaded ourselves and our belongings, which belongings had been reduced to our clothes, blankets and toilet articles, onto auto trucks, 18 men to a truck, and rode all day and nearly all night passing thru the beautiful and famous city of Toul, shortly after dark. Then we rode thru Lagny, reaching a little town called Boureq, about 3 a.m., August 2. We went to bed in billets and barracks; not knowing where we were, only we were not permitted any lights, which, of course, meant we were near the front. About 11 a.m. we began to wake up and found we were in sight of the German lines. Our town was protected by a trench system and barbed wire entanglements, while some four or five miles to the north we could see Mont See the mountain that had been held by the Germans since August 1914. I learned that after the Germans captured Mont Se e, early in the war, the French recaptured it and held it for 20 minutes. This cost them 35,000 men, so you can imagine how we obeyed the guards commands to keep out of sight of the Dutch balloons, and to keep buildings between Mont See and ourselves.
Often we were entertained by airfights. Many times did, I see airplanes, some English, others French, American or German, fall in flames, while the victors sailed away, new planes to conquer.
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Private D. M. Barker from Ward 2, Base Hospital 107, France to his sister, Mrs. J. L. Phillips pf Grannis, Polk County, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.
But with the chances being that we shall return quite soon. I have no cause to kick. Often I looked back over the time when I was up where hell was being turned loose, and I have thought that I should feel very, very lucky, indeed that I am back here sleeping on a spring bed and being really safe. I know that many times comparative safety would have meant heaven to me.
You ask me to tell something about France. Perhaps I have intimated that there is nothing interesting or beautiful over here. There is. At Liffol le Grande, where we trained before going to the Toul front, there is very beautiful scenery, tho the three divisions of France are evidently there, as they are here near Nevers. There are woods, fields and villages.
Neufechateau, Liffol le Grande, and Gondrecourt are places of much historical renown, for Joan of Arc spent her girlhood days in that country. She was born at Neufechateau, and I saw her tomb at a castle built on the brow of a hill near there. But these places did not have the interest for me as the front had. One day August 1, we loaded ourselves and our belongings, which belongings had been reduced to our clothes, blankets and toilet articles, onto auto trucks, 18 men to a truck, and rode all day and nearly all night passing thru the beautiful and famous city of Toul, shortly after dark. Then we rode thru Lagny, reaching a little town called Boureq, about 3 a.m., August 2. We went to bed in billets and barracks; not knowing where we were, only we were not permitted any lights, which, of course, meant we were near the front. About 11 a.m. we began to wake up and found we were in sight of the German lines. Our town was protected by a trench system and barbed wire entanglements, while some four or five miles to the north we could see Mont See the mountain that had been held by the Germans since August 1914. I learned that after the Germans captured Mont Se e, early in the war, the French recaptured it and held it for 20 minutes. This cost them 35,000 men, so you can imagine how we obeyed the guards commands to keep out of sight of the Dutch balloons, and to keep buildings between Mont See and ourselves.
Often we were entertained by airfights. Many times did, I see airplanes, some English, others French, American or German, fall in flames, while the victors sailed away, new planes to conquer.
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Private D. M. Barker from Ward 2, Base Hospital 107, France to his sister, Mrs. J. L. Phillips pf Grannis, Polk County, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.