TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE NOVEMBER 9, 1917 P. 7
You don’t mind me using this quaint stationary, do you? My trunk is lost and all my winter clothes and other things I need most are in it. They can trace it to Paris, but no further.
We are located at a very efficient, fashionable school conducted by the British army for its officers. No other Little Rock man is here, and Paul Remmel, who is nearest, is 500 miles from me. The site is an old French convent three stories high and of gray hewn stone. We are comfortably situated and the food is excellent. We dine at the officers’ club and have a reading room, writing room and mess halls. I have a Tommy Atkins assigned to me as a servant, and he cares for my boots, leggings and Sam Brown belt, which is a broad leather belt with a strap running over the right shoulder. We are right back of the line and can hear and see without being in too great danger. All day and night the big guns, roar, which sound like thunder. Armies with their bands and trumpets blaring pass all the time. Big guns and motors, Red Cross ambulances and motorcycle messengers pass continually.
The greatest generals in the British army motor over and lecture to us. They are the men that are whipping the “boche” as Tommy Atkins calls the Germans, and you read of these generals daily. I feel fortunate in being here. The school lasts five weeks and then we go to the trenches with a British regiment to see how they fight.
All the young officers are about my age and as handsome a bunch of men as can be. All have been over the top lots of times and come to the school from right out of the front line. They have all been wounded and have been awarded the highest honors of the army. They are men from Austria, Egypt, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, yet they are all well educated and polished. We have a brass band which plays for all our drills and they give a concert at 4 o’clock, when we have tea. We get up at 7 o’clock, eat breakfast at 8, lunch at 1, tea at 4 and supper at 7:30 o’clock. This is done to give these 300 officers a rest, as well as instruct them. We Americans are the first in action and they make a lot of us. We have met all the generals personally who have come here. Wednesday night Dudley Pierson of Milwaukee and myself were asked down to eat dinner with the commandant and his staff. He is colonel of a regiment of the King’s own Guards. I never enjoyed an evening so much in all my life. They live in an old French chateau which is near to our school, an elegantly appointed place. The commandant married a New York girl and made us fell at home. She is now in England, as no officer can have his wife over here.
It is raining today and we have spent the afternoon in the lecture room. I’m glad though that it is cloudy which means that there will be no Boche air raid tonight. They fly over every moonlight night and drop bombs on us, or try to. There are three large hospitals near here and the try to hit them. One was hit Sunday night and 20 bedridden wounded men were killed and three Red Cross nurses. This is only a drop in the bucket compared to what these British officers have had to endure and suffer. I can tell you things these officers have told me that happened to their men that are so blood curdling and brutal that if they were known all Americans would want to come over and avenge them. However, I know it would violate the rules of censorship and this I would not do.
These men are just like us in every way and were it not for the heavy cannonading I would not realize that we are in this country. It is beautiful, all that the Boches have not destroyed; wonderful macadamized roads that are all lined with hedges and large trees. The farm houses are made of brick as lumber is not to be had. Every inch of the farms is cultivated and they are green now with sugar beets and fall grain.
The reflection from the bombs bursting lights up my room faintly although it is nearly 6:30 of a cloudy dreary day. The awfulness of the war is evident when you see the casualties and all the women in deep mourning. Every woman you see has on deep black. However, the British armies have Fritz on the run and the Yankees coming in now brightens up the outlook wonderfully. Yet this does not atone for the five-acre lot out yonder covered with small wooden crosses.
SECOND LETTER WRITTEN A WEEK LATER:
It is after hours and by rights I should be in bed, but I want to write you and this is the first opportunity I have had. My hands are so cold that I don’t know whether you can read this. No fuel yet and my thin blood and lack of winter clothes keeps me cold. One of our American officers developed pneumonia today and was carted off to the hospital and several more are droopy looking.
About 10 of the British officers are down in the mess hall trying to drown their sorrows. The poor chaps had news today of the losses in their companies and the deaths of many of their brother officers and men, and they feel terribly cut up about it – more of the horrors of war that come home to us each day. One young Scotch lieutenant is the only officer left in his company and he would probably have been killed if he had been with his company. More raids last night and more wounded men killed – makes my blood boil. The German is not a warrior; he is a butcher and a murderer.
I am keeping well and learning lots every day. I haven’t heard a word from home, although the other men are receiving letters right along. I’ve given up hope of ever getting my baggage and mail; it seems to be my Jonah month. Can’t even get information about pay.
NOTES: These partial letters were written by Lieutenant Granville M. Burrow to his aunt Mrs. Thomas E. Burrow. He was born March 18, 1890. His parents both died when he was young and he was living with his aunt and uncle in Little Rock when he enlisted. He was a graduate of the officer’s training camp at Fort Roots the summer of 1917 and was one of a select few officers sent directly to France to train at a British war school arriving September 1917. He was slightly wounded on Mar 1, 1918. He also suffered from shell shock, from which he apparently never fully recovered. After the war he traveled around the U. S. and never married. He died on July 9, 1959 and is buried at Fort Smith National Cemetery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His military headstone identifies him as a First Lieut. of Company K, 18th Infantry of the 1st Division.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
You don’t mind me using this quaint stationary, do you? My trunk is lost and all my winter clothes and other things I need most are in it. They can trace it to Paris, but no further.
We are located at a very efficient, fashionable school conducted by the British army for its officers. No other Little Rock man is here, and Paul Remmel, who is nearest, is 500 miles from me. The site is an old French convent three stories high and of gray hewn stone. We are comfortably situated and the food is excellent. We dine at the officers’ club and have a reading room, writing room and mess halls. I have a Tommy Atkins assigned to me as a servant, and he cares for my boots, leggings and Sam Brown belt, which is a broad leather belt with a strap running over the right shoulder. We are right back of the line and can hear and see without being in too great danger. All day and night the big guns, roar, which sound like thunder. Armies with their bands and trumpets blaring pass all the time. Big guns and motors, Red Cross ambulances and motorcycle messengers pass continually.
The greatest generals in the British army motor over and lecture to us. They are the men that are whipping the “boche” as Tommy Atkins calls the Germans, and you read of these generals daily. I feel fortunate in being here. The school lasts five weeks and then we go to the trenches with a British regiment to see how they fight.
All the young officers are about my age and as handsome a bunch of men as can be. All have been over the top lots of times and come to the school from right out of the front line. They have all been wounded and have been awarded the highest honors of the army. They are men from Austria, Egypt, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, yet they are all well educated and polished. We have a brass band which plays for all our drills and they give a concert at 4 o’clock, when we have tea. We get up at 7 o’clock, eat breakfast at 8, lunch at 1, tea at 4 and supper at 7:30 o’clock. This is done to give these 300 officers a rest, as well as instruct them. We Americans are the first in action and they make a lot of us. We have met all the generals personally who have come here. Wednesday night Dudley Pierson of Milwaukee and myself were asked down to eat dinner with the commandant and his staff. He is colonel of a regiment of the King’s own Guards. I never enjoyed an evening so much in all my life. They live in an old French chateau which is near to our school, an elegantly appointed place. The commandant married a New York girl and made us fell at home. She is now in England, as no officer can have his wife over here.
It is raining today and we have spent the afternoon in the lecture room. I’m glad though that it is cloudy which means that there will be no Boche air raid tonight. They fly over every moonlight night and drop bombs on us, or try to. There are three large hospitals near here and the try to hit them. One was hit Sunday night and 20 bedridden wounded men were killed and three Red Cross nurses. This is only a drop in the bucket compared to what these British officers have had to endure and suffer. I can tell you things these officers have told me that happened to their men that are so blood curdling and brutal that if they were known all Americans would want to come over and avenge them. However, I know it would violate the rules of censorship and this I would not do.
These men are just like us in every way and were it not for the heavy cannonading I would not realize that we are in this country. It is beautiful, all that the Boches have not destroyed; wonderful macadamized roads that are all lined with hedges and large trees. The farm houses are made of brick as lumber is not to be had. Every inch of the farms is cultivated and they are green now with sugar beets and fall grain.
The reflection from the bombs bursting lights up my room faintly although it is nearly 6:30 of a cloudy dreary day. The awfulness of the war is evident when you see the casualties and all the women in deep mourning. Every woman you see has on deep black. However, the British armies have Fritz on the run and the Yankees coming in now brightens up the outlook wonderfully. Yet this does not atone for the five-acre lot out yonder covered with small wooden crosses.
SECOND LETTER WRITTEN A WEEK LATER:
It is after hours and by rights I should be in bed, but I want to write you and this is the first opportunity I have had. My hands are so cold that I don’t know whether you can read this. No fuel yet and my thin blood and lack of winter clothes keeps me cold. One of our American officers developed pneumonia today and was carted off to the hospital and several more are droopy looking.
About 10 of the British officers are down in the mess hall trying to drown their sorrows. The poor chaps had news today of the losses in their companies and the deaths of many of their brother officers and men, and they feel terribly cut up about it – more of the horrors of war that come home to us each day. One young Scotch lieutenant is the only officer left in his company and he would probably have been killed if he had been with his company. More raids last night and more wounded men killed – makes my blood boil. The German is not a warrior; he is a butcher and a murderer.
I am keeping well and learning lots every day. I haven’t heard a word from home, although the other men are receiving letters right along. I’ve given up hope of ever getting my baggage and mail; it seems to be my Jonah month. Can’t even get information about pay.
NOTES: These partial letters were written by Lieutenant Granville M. Burrow to his aunt Mrs. Thomas E. Burrow. He was born March 18, 1890. His parents both died when he was young and he was living with his aunt and uncle in Little Rock when he enlisted. He was a graduate of the officer’s training camp at Fort Roots the summer of 1917 and was one of a select few officers sent directly to France to train at a British war school arriving September 1917. He was slightly wounded on Mar 1, 1918. He also suffered from shell shock, from which he apparently never fully recovered. After the war he traveled around the U. S. and never married. He died on July 9, 1959 and is buried at Fort Smith National Cemetery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His military headstone identifies him as a First Lieut. of Company K, 18th Infantry of the 1st Division.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT