TRANSCRIBED FROM THE DAILY ARKANSAS GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 8, 1918 P. 16
Hospital work is interesting in the extreme and I know, father, that you would delight in being here to enjoy the wonderful experiences that are now every day happening to us. I believe that if I continue in this work much longer I would become a member of the medical profession on my return to the states.
We are getting along fairly well in picking up the French language and I hope to be able to jabber along with these frogs as well as the average American soldier. We are not functioning as a hospital all the time, but once in awhile there comes a period of rest, after a period of hard work. This week we are enjoying a period of rest and it certainly has been a very pleasant one I can assure you. We have gone on hikes out over the hills and valleys, we have been in bathing at least once or twice every day in the streams and canals about the place, and, in fact, have enjoyed as lovely a vacation as one would on a camping party back in the states in peace time.
Today is Sunday and the peacefulness of the scenery and the surrounding country is wonderful. You actually could not tell that the country is at war by the immediate appearance of the locality in which we are billeted, the very quietude which prevails is at times almost oppressive. You hear the slow ringing of church bells, a melody that pours forth and reverberates among the hills in the most harmonious of tones. Then follows the chimes, (as you know, this country is mostly Catholic), mingling sweetest sounds, reminding one of that poem of Poe “The Bells.” In fact, the harmony of sound heard here is almost synonymous to that omniapoetic production of our Southern poet.
Yet things here are not always quiet, weird sound of the siren, the signal for an air raid. The German planes have the pernicious habit of flying over and dropping some of their dastardly bombs. The sound of the siren warns all to take cover and put out their lights. Then you hear the whir of the German planes. They have a different sound from the noise of the motors of our planes. The sound is burr-r-r, then a skip, and burr-r-r again. As the enemy planes near overhead our batteries open up and then the air is filled with the whistle of shrapnel and the booming of the bursting shells.
The whole presents a very spectacular scene and one that is not soon to be forgotten. The whole stretch of the horizon is cut up with the piercing light of the searchlights, the flash of the guns, the flares that are dropped and then the raining of falling shrapnel. However, we have become so accustomed to these little occurrences that we no longer pay any attention to them and just go ahead with the regular routine of our work.
NOTES: This letter was written by Sgt. Paul W. Miller to his father Dr. J. W. Miller of Little Rock, Arkansas. He was serving with the Field Hospital No. 325, 307th Sanitary Train, A.E.F. He was born on March 24, 1897 in Texas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
Hospital work is interesting in the extreme and I know, father, that you would delight in being here to enjoy the wonderful experiences that are now every day happening to us. I believe that if I continue in this work much longer I would become a member of the medical profession on my return to the states.
We are getting along fairly well in picking up the French language and I hope to be able to jabber along with these frogs as well as the average American soldier. We are not functioning as a hospital all the time, but once in awhile there comes a period of rest, after a period of hard work. This week we are enjoying a period of rest and it certainly has been a very pleasant one I can assure you. We have gone on hikes out over the hills and valleys, we have been in bathing at least once or twice every day in the streams and canals about the place, and, in fact, have enjoyed as lovely a vacation as one would on a camping party back in the states in peace time.
Today is Sunday and the peacefulness of the scenery and the surrounding country is wonderful. You actually could not tell that the country is at war by the immediate appearance of the locality in which we are billeted, the very quietude which prevails is at times almost oppressive. You hear the slow ringing of church bells, a melody that pours forth and reverberates among the hills in the most harmonious of tones. Then follows the chimes, (as you know, this country is mostly Catholic), mingling sweetest sounds, reminding one of that poem of Poe “The Bells.” In fact, the harmony of sound heard here is almost synonymous to that omniapoetic production of our Southern poet.
Yet things here are not always quiet, weird sound of the siren, the signal for an air raid. The German planes have the pernicious habit of flying over and dropping some of their dastardly bombs. The sound of the siren warns all to take cover and put out their lights. Then you hear the whir of the German planes. They have a different sound from the noise of the motors of our planes. The sound is burr-r-r, then a skip, and burr-r-r again. As the enemy planes near overhead our batteries open up and then the air is filled with the whistle of shrapnel and the booming of the bursting shells.
The whole presents a very spectacular scene and one that is not soon to be forgotten. The whole stretch of the horizon is cut up with the piercing light of the searchlights, the flash of the guns, the flares that are dropped and then the raining of falling shrapnel. However, we have become so accustomed to these little occurrences that we no longer pay any attention to them and just go ahead with the regular routine of our work.
NOTES: This letter was written by Sgt. Paul W. Miller to his father Dr. J. W. Miller of Little Rock, Arkansas. He was serving with the Field Hospital No. 325, 307th Sanitary Train, A.E.F. He was born on March 24, 1897 in Texas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT