TRANSCRIBED FROM THE HOT SPRINGS NEW ERA JULY 22, 1918 P. 6
On Active Service with the American Expeditionary Forces
January 1, 1918
Dear Mamma:
This is New Year’s day and if all the rest of the year is as cold as as it is is today their wont be much for us to do.
It has snowed almost every day for two weeks and it is deep on the ground now.
I was granted a leave and spent Christmas in Paris. It is certainly a live place and one would never think that the war was going on so near.
I saw one of the Captain Gynnemera “Spad” machines, in which he brought down 14 Germans. It is very small and fast, and was banked with flowers, put there by the people of France.
There is very little coal in France the Germans having captured most of it.
I remember in Hot Springs I subscribed to the War Y. M. C. A. fund and also to the Red Cross; well if the Red Cross is as much of a comfort to the wounded as the Y. M. C. A. is to the well ones, there ought not be any trouble raising all the money either could ask for.
The Y is the only place where I have been in France where there was sufficient heat to be comfortable.
Yesterday I received a letter from you written on November 16th and which should have been delivered at Garden City before I left.
There isn’t anything I can write suggesting our location, what we are doing or anything of a nature to be the least interesting.
We are quartered in new stucco and brick barracks with tile roofs and concrete floors, good in every respect except for heat and baths, which will probably be installed later.
Give everyone my regards and do not worry as there is absolutely no occasion to do so.
Love to all,
Sonny
NOTES: This letter was written by Thurman Davis to his parents Judge and Mrs. R. G. Davis. He arrived in France in December 1917 as an aviator.
TRANSCRIBED BY MIKE POLSTON
On Active Service with the American Expeditionary Forces
January 1, 1918
Dear Mamma:
This is New Year’s day and if all the rest of the year is as cold as as it is is today their wont be much for us to do.
It has snowed almost every day for two weeks and it is deep on the ground now.
I was granted a leave and spent Christmas in Paris. It is certainly a live place and one would never think that the war was going on so near.
I saw one of the Captain Gynnemera “Spad” machines, in which he brought down 14 Germans. It is very small and fast, and was banked with flowers, put there by the people of France.
There is very little coal in France the Germans having captured most of it.
I remember in Hot Springs I subscribed to the War Y. M. C. A. fund and also to the Red Cross; well if the Red Cross is as much of a comfort to the wounded as the Y. M. C. A. is to the well ones, there ought not be any trouble raising all the money either could ask for.
The Y is the only place where I have been in France where there was sufficient heat to be comfortable.
Yesterday I received a letter from you written on November 16th and which should have been delivered at Garden City before I left.
There isn’t anything I can write suggesting our location, what we are doing or anything of a nature to be the least interesting.
We are quartered in new stucco and brick barracks with tile roofs and concrete floors, good in every respect except for heat and baths, which will probably be installed later.
Give everyone my regards and do not worry as there is absolutely no occasion to do so.
Love to all,
Sonny
NOTES: This letter was written by Thurman Davis to his parents Judge and Mrs. R. G. Davis. He arrived in France in December 1917 as an aviator.
TRANSCRIBED BY MIKE POLSTON