TRANSCRIBED FROM THE MENA WEEKLY STAR DECEMBER 26, P 3
A.E.F. France, Nov. 26, 1918,
Dear Grandpa:
Your welcome letter received today. You are certainly right, that all letters are welcome to us, as we date time by the arrival of the mails from home. Am surely glad that you are well. In my other letter, I could not on account of the censorship regulations then prevailing, mention much that I wanted to. On our way over, it took us fourteen days on the ocean, we landed in Liverpool, and were encamped there, at camp Knotty Ash two days. Then we took a train to South Hampton where we stayed overnight at “The Commons,” a British camp, then took boat across the channel to La Havre, France, where we stayed two nights. Then we took a French cattle train, 38 of us in each box car about one half the size of a U.S. box car, traveling a couple of days and landing at Semur, France. We spent some little time in training near there and then took another box car trip to a front line sector between Belfort and Milhouse in Alsace. We were there a short time and then came up where we are now, not far from Metz, where we were at the time of the declaration of armistice. It has been a very interesting experience and we have been thru considerable hardships, tho they are not really hardships if one has the right point of view. We are used to sleeping in our clothes and marching under heavy packs in the mud and eating and living under conditions that might have looked hard to us a year or two ago.
But it’s about over now and we are just waiting for developments that may take us home and back to civilization again.
I had a letter from Mrs. Mounsey, No. 8, New Houses, Oughterside, Bullgill, Carlisle, Cumberland, whom you remember, asking me to come see them. I hope to be able to do so, but it is hard to tell where our orders will take us.
I have been over a lot of country completely devastated by the Huns. The towns here are built of stone and town after town is nothing but piles of stone and plaster, not a building standing, and since the armistice on several occasions I have witnessed old men and women cleaning out the debris of a former home, only the shell punctured gaping holes remaining. It is pitiful, indeed, and between the towns the country, mile on mile is pockmarked with shell holes, dugouts, trenches and innumerable crosses, marking the graves of those who paid the supreme price of victory. It was surely a strange silence that prevailed at 11 o’clock on Nov. 11. All morning the guns pounded away at the Germans, a last chance to give them what they deserve and received. And a minute after eleven not a gun was to be heard. It must have been a stranger silence still to those people who have listened to the sounds of war for more than four long years. One has to be over here to know what they feel now that it is over and France is safe. Released prisoners from Germany have been coming thru here in large bunches. They are dressed in all sorts of clothes and many of them, especially the old prisoners look more like huns than allies as they wear mostly discarded German clothing. They have some pitiful tales to tell of treatment by the Boche but for all that they are happy and justly so.
We are keeping up a steady grind of training even tho the war is over. Sure hope I can soon stick my knees under mother’s table again, and crawl into a bed where they have real sheets and pillows. I can remember back to a time when we used to have them.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I get back. Probably go back to Washington, tho I’d rather get into a private corporation as one’s opportunities in Washington is limited unless he gets into politics and that is an uncertain proposition. This war rather knocked the props out from under a lot of us, from the stand point of financial success. It’s a case of beginning over, but at that we have a lot of new and valuable idea--and an appreciation of the value of hard work.
Well grandpa, I’ve just been rambling along with this letter must close. With best wishes,
Your grandson,
Robert H. Bushman,
Regiment Message Center,
349th Inf., A.P.0. 795, A.E.F.
NOTES: Robert H Bushman was one of seven grandson’s of John Tomlinson of Mena, Arkansas that served in the military during WW I.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.
A.E.F. France, Nov. 26, 1918,
Dear Grandpa:
Your welcome letter received today. You are certainly right, that all letters are welcome to us, as we date time by the arrival of the mails from home. Am surely glad that you are well. In my other letter, I could not on account of the censorship regulations then prevailing, mention much that I wanted to. On our way over, it took us fourteen days on the ocean, we landed in Liverpool, and were encamped there, at camp Knotty Ash two days. Then we took a train to South Hampton where we stayed overnight at “The Commons,” a British camp, then took boat across the channel to La Havre, France, where we stayed two nights. Then we took a French cattle train, 38 of us in each box car about one half the size of a U.S. box car, traveling a couple of days and landing at Semur, France. We spent some little time in training near there and then took another box car trip to a front line sector between Belfort and Milhouse in Alsace. We were there a short time and then came up where we are now, not far from Metz, where we were at the time of the declaration of armistice. It has been a very interesting experience and we have been thru considerable hardships, tho they are not really hardships if one has the right point of view. We are used to sleeping in our clothes and marching under heavy packs in the mud and eating and living under conditions that might have looked hard to us a year or two ago.
But it’s about over now and we are just waiting for developments that may take us home and back to civilization again.
I had a letter from Mrs. Mounsey, No. 8, New Houses, Oughterside, Bullgill, Carlisle, Cumberland, whom you remember, asking me to come see them. I hope to be able to do so, but it is hard to tell where our orders will take us.
I have been over a lot of country completely devastated by the Huns. The towns here are built of stone and town after town is nothing but piles of stone and plaster, not a building standing, and since the armistice on several occasions I have witnessed old men and women cleaning out the debris of a former home, only the shell punctured gaping holes remaining. It is pitiful, indeed, and between the towns the country, mile on mile is pockmarked with shell holes, dugouts, trenches and innumerable crosses, marking the graves of those who paid the supreme price of victory. It was surely a strange silence that prevailed at 11 o’clock on Nov. 11. All morning the guns pounded away at the Germans, a last chance to give them what they deserve and received. And a minute after eleven not a gun was to be heard. It must have been a stranger silence still to those people who have listened to the sounds of war for more than four long years. One has to be over here to know what they feel now that it is over and France is safe. Released prisoners from Germany have been coming thru here in large bunches. They are dressed in all sorts of clothes and many of them, especially the old prisoners look more like huns than allies as they wear mostly discarded German clothing. They have some pitiful tales to tell of treatment by the Boche but for all that they are happy and justly so.
We are keeping up a steady grind of training even tho the war is over. Sure hope I can soon stick my knees under mother’s table again, and crawl into a bed where they have real sheets and pillows. I can remember back to a time when we used to have them.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I get back. Probably go back to Washington, tho I’d rather get into a private corporation as one’s opportunities in Washington is limited unless he gets into politics and that is an uncertain proposition. This war rather knocked the props out from under a lot of us, from the stand point of financial success. It’s a case of beginning over, but at that we have a lot of new and valuable idea--and an appreciation of the value of hard work.
Well grandpa, I’ve just been rambling along with this letter must close. With best wishes,
Your grandson,
Robert H. Bushman,
Regiment Message Center,
349th Inf., A.P.0. 795, A.E.F.
NOTES: Robert H Bushman was one of seven grandson’s of John Tomlinson of Mena, Arkansas that served in the military during WW I.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.