TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT DECEMBER 3, 1917 P2
I know that you will think that I am an ungrateful “cus,” and at the same time a regular beggar, because I have not written oftener, but the truth of the matter is that I have been hopping from one place to another for the last three months, and did not like to write and be able to give no address at all except France, and perhaps never get a letter when one had been written to me.
Am awfully sorry that I cannot tell you of some of places that I saw in my travels as to do so would give you an idea that I am somewhat of a globe-trotter and I guess I have been that since I left the United States. My trip across was absolutely without event of any kind, and my stomach did not even allow me the pleasure (?) of being sea sick. I can’t say I missed anything, judging from the looks and actions of the rest of the men on the boat.
I have been with the British army the last six weeks taking a course at one of their schools, and at one place was on one of the battleships where last year occurred one of the hardest-fought battles of the war. It was the starting place at the big push by the British that drove the boche back 20 miles to the now famous (?) Hindenburg line.
Looking east over the battlefield the ground lies in sort of a semi-circle of the low hills, which rise on a very gentle slope from the river, upon which rested the main British forces. The front line was on the crest of the ridge formed by the hills. Across the shallow valley on another similar ridge was the German front line. Near the center was a sharp spur of a hill which extended toward the British lines some 200 yards and was about 100 feet above the valley. This was really the key to the German main line at this place, and before making the attack the British ran Russian sap under this point and placed a mine under it. They also placed four other mines under strong points on the boche line and at the zero hour they were exploded and the infantry went over the top.
I wish I could tell you what the country looks like at this place, but it is impossible to begin to describe it in words. Os far as one anc see in any direction are lines after lines of trenches connected by shorter ones, until the whole thing forms a perfect network of ditches from six to 20 feet deep, covering the whole ground. Between the trenches the ground is torn and scattered by countles shellholes and mixed with it all is the nameles debris of wasted war material. Broken and abandoned cannon and shell carriages, millions of feet of telephone and telegraph wires, as many miles of barbed wire as you can imagine when I tell you that in some places the entanglements are 100 yards deep of five to 15 strands to the row, and between the rows the wire is twisted and piled in every form that can be imagined and then this maze of tangled wire stretching away as far as the eye can see, and one entanglement placed right behind the other until for a solid mile deep and 20 miles long the ground is covered with barbed wire.
Then mix into this torn fragments of several million shells of every size from 3-inch to 11-inch, several thousand unexploded or dud shells, billions of rifle and machine gun cartridges and bullets, cast off equipment of men and horses, bits of wood and clothing, old shoes, tin cans, sheet iron, trench stoves, miles of water and gas pipe, dead men and animals, and then stir the mess up with a few hundred thousand high explosive shells, five mines of 20 tons of ___ each, odds what is left of the ruins several villages, cover the whole with thousands of wooden crosses to mark the graves of a few that fell in the fight, and you have a faint conception of what a modern battlefield looks like after a year after the smoke has cleared away.
I stood in the center of where a village of 1,000 persons had been, and did not know I was in a village until the officer that was with me told me this is (censored), and then I looked and saw a few spots that were the remains of brick and some house here and there, and a fragment of furniture or a few bricks confirm the report that I was in a village.
I went into some of the Boche dugouts that were just as they had been left by the Germans when they were forced out of them, and they were not nice places to visit, even after this long a time. If you can get the idea of a narrow hole running down into the earth 20 or 40 feet and at the bottom a place 10 feet square and six feet high, and then imagine what it meant to the occupants to suddenly have a hand grenade dropped down there and explode. The British did not stop to investigate who or what was in the dugouts but threw mines down and went on to the next. The salvage people are now going along and blowing in the entrance without disturbing them in any way.
There may be some glory in war, but I cannot see where the glory “stuff” comes in. It will take years of hard work to put the land into shape to work at all, and then another several years to work the poison out of the ground, so say nothing of the unexploded shells that will be a source of danger for the next 10 years. They are in the ground by the thousands, and every size that is made.
You have no doubt read a number of articles on the destruction caused by this war, but unless you see it you cannot get eevn the slightest idea of what it means.
I also had the pleasure of spending a week on the British front and in the front line trenches. We started from the village where were the billets, and walked about three miles to get to the first communication trench. When we were about a half-mile from the end of this trench we had to cross a ridge which was in plain sight of the Boche trench, which was little less than 2,000 yards away.
We were about half of the way across when he evidently decided that we would make a good target, so started to send us a few little “whizbangs” (3-inch high velocity shells), and you can bet that the way we got into a shell hole out of sight was no trouble at all, and as there was about six inches of water in it we had a very pleasant rest for a half-hour. We stayed there and watched him shell a village to our right about 1,000 yards, and when he quit that we made a run for the trench, arriving there without being further entertained.
This trench is about 18 inches wide, with buckboard flour and is as crooked as it was possible to dig it. I know that it was at least 40 miles long, but the officer with me told me that it was about a mile from where we entered it to where we came to what he said was a sunken road, but what was really a river of very thin mud about 22 feet wide and a foot deep. We went down this road for about 400 yards, when we entered another trench and slipped, twisted and slid our way into the front line trench.
Here there was an airplane lying out in front of the trenches about 50 yards, and I wanted to take a look at it, so I climbed up on a fire step so that I could see over the parapet, I saw the plane all right, and I think a Boche sniper saw me at about the same time, as a bullet passed my head and buried in the parado about one foot away. I immediately lost all interest in the airplane, and so far as I am concerned, it can stay forever. I don’t care if the paint all peels off. They told me there was a couple of derelict tanks a little way from the front line, but I took their word for it. We started from this point to go to what they call the apex, and when about 200 yards from them were met by a man who told us the Boche were sending Tac Emmes (trench mortar shells), into that part of the trench, so we decided that where we were was close enough and went up another trench.
They told me that it was very quite on that part of the front, and all I can say about it is that if that was the quiet part of the line I am easily led to believe that some one lied to me. Whizbangs, Tac Emmes, Crumps, Pipssqueaks, Emma-Gees and droners may be an every-day thing on a quiet piece of line, but---
At present I am with our own troops, but I don’t know long I will be here, as I am only temperately assigned, and may go to some other regiment soon. I am at least where mail will reach me sometimes, which is more than I could say before.
Now to beg a little. If you can spare the time I wish you would send me a cartoon of Lucky Stripe cigarettes a month and I will remit for them so soon as I can get some U.S. money. Everything here is paid in francs, and to tell you the truth, I do not know how many francs make a dollar. Well, I must close for this time, and I trust I will hear from you in the near future (before Christmas). Give my best to Bruce and his wife and rest of the family, including the cat.
P.S. I nearly forgot to tell you how a British sergeant instructs in bayonet fighting. (Imagine the accent): It is not necessary to force your bayonet entirely through an henemmy to kill him. Merely himsert hit six hinches. This will hinflect ha mortal wound. Then by quickly turning the bayonet sharply to the right and quickly withdrawing hit, you not only make the wound mortal but dangerous.
NOTES: Lieut. Henry Sidney Bonney was writing to Donald S. Watrous of the Little Rock Lumber and Manufacturing Company. Bonney was born on December 12, 1884 in Marshall, Iowa and died on May 6, 1954 at Catano, Puerto Rico. He is buried in the Puerto Rico National Cemetery, Bayamon, Puerto Rico. His military headstone identifies him as an Iowa, Captain Infantry serving in World War I. He was a tactical officer at Camp Pike for the National Guard but when the Officer Training School opened at Fort Roots he enrolled. He was among the first officers sent to France after graduation from Fort Roots.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
I know that you will think that I am an ungrateful “cus,” and at the same time a regular beggar, because I have not written oftener, but the truth of the matter is that I have been hopping from one place to another for the last three months, and did not like to write and be able to give no address at all except France, and perhaps never get a letter when one had been written to me.
Am awfully sorry that I cannot tell you of some of places that I saw in my travels as to do so would give you an idea that I am somewhat of a globe-trotter and I guess I have been that since I left the United States. My trip across was absolutely without event of any kind, and my stomach did not even allow me the pleasure (?) of being sea sick. I can’t say I missed anything, judging from the looks and actions of the rest of the men on the boat.
I have been with the British army the last six weeks taking a course at one of their schools, and at one place was on one of the battleships where last year occurred one of the hardest-fought battles of the war. It was the starting place at the big push by the British that drove the boche back 20 miles to the now famous (?) Hindenburg line.
Looking east over the battlefield the ground lies in sort of a semi-circle of the low hills, which rise on a very gentle slope from the river, upon which rested the main British forces. The front line was on the crest of the ridge formed by the hills. Across the shallow valley on another similar ridge was the German front line. Near the center was a sharp spur of a hill which extended toward the British lines some 200 yards and was about 100 feet above the valley. This was really the key to the German main line at this place, and before making the attack the British ran Russian sap under this point and placed a mine under it. They also placed four other mines under strong points on the boche line and at the zero hour they were exploded and the infantry went over the top.
I wish I could tell you what the country looks like at this place, but it is impossible to begin to describe it in words. Os far as one anc see in any direction are lines after lines of trenches connected by shorter ones, until the whole thing forms a perfect network of ditches from six to 20 feet deep, covering the whole ground. Between the trenches the ground is torn and scattered by countles shellholes and mixed with it all is the nameles debris of wasted war material. Broken and abandoned cannon and shell carriages, millions of feet of telephone and telegraph wires, as many miles of barbed wire as you can imagine when I tell you that in some places the entanglements are 100 yards deep of five to 15 strands to the row, and between the rows the wire is twisted and piled in every form that can be imagined and then this maze of tangled wire stretching away as far as the eye can see, and one entanglement placed right behind the other until for a solid mile deep and 20 miles long the ground is covered with barbed wire.
Then mix into this torn fragments of several million shells of every size from 3-inch to 11-inch, several thousand unexploded or dud shells, billions of rifle and machine gun cartridges and bullets, cast off equipment of men and horses, bits of wood and clothing, old shoes, tin cans, sheet iron, trench stoves, miles of water and gas pipe, dead men and animals, and then stir the mess up with a few hundred thousand high explosive shells, five mines of 20 tons of ___ each, odds what is left of the ruins several villages, cover the whole with thousands of wooden crosses to mark the graves of a few that fell in the fight, and you have a faint conception of what a modern battlefield looks like after a year after the smoke has cleared away.
I stood in the center of where a village of 1,000 persons had been, and did not know I was in a village until the officer that was with me told me this is (censored), and then I looked and saw a few spots that were the remains of brick and some house here and there, and a fragment of furniture or a few bricks confirm the report that I was in a village.
I went into some of the Boche dugouts that were just as they had been left by the Germans when they were forced out of them, and they were not nice places to visit, even after this long a time. If you can get the idea of a narrow hole running down into the earth 20 or 40 feet and at the bottom a place 10 feet square and six feet high, and then imagine what it meant to the occupants to suddenly have a hand grenade dropped down there and explode. The British did not stop to investigate who or what was in the dugouts but threw mines down and went on to the next. The salvage people are now going along and blowing in the entrance without disturbing them in any way.
There may be some glory in war, but I cannot see where the glory “stuff” comes in. It will take years of hard work to put the land into shape to work at all, and then another several years to work the poison out of the ground, so say nothing of the unexploded shells that will be a source of danger for the next 10 years. They are in the ground by the thousands, and every size that is made.
You have no doubt read a number of articles on the destruction caused by this war, but unless you see it you cannot get eevn the slightest idea of what it means.
I also had the pleasure of spending a week on the British front and in the front line trenches. We started from the village where were the billets, and walked about three miles to get to the first communication trench. When we were about a half-mile from the end of this trench we had to cross a ridge which was in plain sight of the Boche trench, which was little less than 2,000 yards away.
We were about half of the way across when he evidently decided that we would make a good target, so started to send us a few little “whizbangs” (3-inch high velocity shells), and you can bet that the way we got into a shell hole out of sight was no trouble at all, and as there was about six inches of water in it we had a very pleasant rest for a half-hour. We stayed there and watched him shell a village to our right about 1,000 yards, and when he quit that we made a run for the trench, arriving there without being further entertained.
This trench is about 18 inches wide, with buckboard flour and is as crooked as it was possible to dig it. I know that it was at least 40 miles long, but the officer with me told me that it was about a mile from where we entered it to where we came to what he said was a sunken road, but what was really a river of very thin mud about 22 feet wide and a foot deep. We went down this road for about 400 yards, when we entered another trench and slipped, twisted and slid our way into the front line trench.
Here there was an airplane lying out in front of the trenches about 50 yards, and I wanted to take a look at it, so I climbed up on a fire step so that I could see over the parapet, I saw the plane all right, and I think a Boche sniper saw me at about the same time, as a bullet passed my head and buried in the parado about one foot away. I immediately lost all interest in the airplane, and so far as I am concerned, it can stay forever. I don’t care if the paint all peels off. They told me there was a couple of derelict tanks a little way from the front line, but I took their word for it. We started from this point to go to what they call the apex, and when about 200 yards from them were met by a man who told us the Boche were sending Tac Emmes (trench mortar shells), into that part of the trench, so we decided that where we were was close enough and went up another trench.
They told me that it was very quite on that part of the front, and all I can say about it is that if that was the quiet part of the line I am easily led to believe that some one lied to me. Whizbangs, Tac Emmes, Crumps, Pipssqueaks, Emma-Gees and droners may be an every-day thing on a quiet piece of line, but---
At present I am with our own troops, but I don’t know long I will be here, as I am only temperately assigned, and may go to some other regiment soon. I am at least where mail will reach me sometimes, which is more than I could say before.
Now to beg a little. If you can spare the time I wish you would send me a cartoon of Lucky Stripe cigarettes a month and I will remit for them so soon as I can get some U.S. money. Everything here is paid in francs, and to tell you the truth, I do not know how many francs make a dollar. Well, I must close for this time, and I trust I will hear from you in the near future (before Christmas). Give my best to Bruce and his wife and rest of the family, including the cat.
P.S. I nearly forgot to tell you how a British sergeant instructs in bayonet fighting. (Imagine the accent): It is not necessary to force your bayonet entirely through an henemmy to kill him. Merely himsert hit six hinches. This will hinflect ha mortal wound. Then by quickly turning the bayonet sharply to the right and quickly withdrawing hit, you not only make the wound mortal but dangerous.
NOTES: Lieut. Henry Sidney Bonney was writing to Donald S. Watrous of the Little Rock Lumber and Manufacturing Company. Bonney was born on December 12, 1884 in Marshall, Iowa and died on May 6, 1954 at Catano, Puerto Rico. He is buried in the Puerto Rico National Cemetery, Bayamon, Puerto Rico. His military headstone identifies him as an Iowa, Captain Infantry serving in World War I. He was a tactical officer at Camp Pike for the National Guard but when the Officer Training School opened at Fort Roots he enrolled. He was among the first officers sent to France after graduation from Fort Roots.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT