TRANSCRIBED FROM THE DEQUEEN BEE AUGUST 9, 1918 P. 2
June 26, 1918
Dear Mother and All:
Tomorrow makes our first week here in our billetts and it sure has been a busy and mighty interesting one for us all. Am feeling fine and it is nice and cool here so we can work hard without getting overheated. Our outfit is in a village here on two sides of a mountain stream about 100 feet wide. It is not very deep but is swift, in fact it never freezes over in the winter. Lots of trout in it if we had time to fish for them. The buildings are real old, some dating back to 1470. All the streets are narrow and the courts or gardens are in the back. Five of we officers are billetted in the home of some rich city people who only live here some two or three months of the year. It is a nice 18 or 20-room house and the garden is beautiful. Of course, now all of it is planted to vegetables, etc., but all the borders of flowers are left there must be all of 20 varieties of trees and the whole thing is enclosed by the house on one side and an eight or nine foot stone wall on the other three sides. Seven of us are messing here. We have the use of the whole house and kitchen utensils. They are all solid copper, also the silver and dishes. We eat off a white table cloth in a big, airy dining room and look out the low wide windows at the picturesque garden. Over the walls the hills rise abruptly behind the village and high above us on the very edge of the top of the hill are the ruins of a castle.
Our trip across was rather uneventful, except I was sick all the way. We were in a fog the first few days and had to go mighty slow. Land and houses sure looked good to me the morning we pulled into Liverpool. Going across England in daylight we saw the country pretty thoroughly. Their fields are divided by thick low stone walls and acre after acre of ground is in pasture.
The horses are magnificent as are the roads. The houses are all brick or stone, built to stay. France is quite different. The ground is nearly all cultivated. All the corners and odd lots are raising spuds this year. No fences at all to divide fields, just plot after plot of vegetables, hay, grain, etc. these countries here know there is a war and if the U. S. were to sacrifice one-half as much, the Huns would never know what hit ‘em. I guess we are around a million strong now. Make it two or three or five and it will reduce the war period to five or three or two years, perhaps less, depending on the staying qualities of the Germans. She’s whipped, though, and not a person you meet doubts it. We are here to finish the job and finish it for good.
Very soon now we will be taking an active part in this big fight. I pray that I may be spared to come home to my wife and baby, but if God wills it otherwise, you all will know that I have only done my part. We read the Paris edition of the New York Herald and Chicago Tribune here just as eagerly as you do at home, and the first thing we look at is the casualty list, to see if any of our own Illinois troops have gone with the rest of the heroes of this war. Today we read of Major Roosevelt being mentioned in orders. Guess Teddy R. can be proud of his sons, two of them having now been mentioned.
We landed in this place on our second anniversary and I sure thought of it many times that day and since. In fact I thought I was celebrating it on the 20th until someone enlightened me as to the correct date and then I did it all over again, so realy commemorated it twice.
I’m mighty tired tonight as I have been on the go all day long. Our feather beds sure feel good these nights. We are in the valley of the river. From the tops of our hills we can see snow topped mountains about 50 miles away.
Well, I hope this finds everyone well and happy, write often. I’m getting along fine. Don’t need anything yet but what I can get here. Tell dad the army syrup has a sorghum taste so he’d sure like that part of it. Lots of love to all.
Paul
108 Ammunition Train,
American Expeditionary Forces
NOTES: Paul Moon is writing to his mother, Mrs. D. E. Moon, from France. He is serving from Illinois.
TRANSCRIBED BY MIKE POLSTON
June 26, 1918
Dear Mother and All:
Tomorrow makes our first week here in our billetts and it sure has been a busy and mighty interesting one for us all. Am feeling fine and it is nice and cool here so we can work hard without getting overheated. Our outfit is in a village here on two sides of a mountain stream about 100 feet wide. It is not very deep but is swift, in fact it never freezes over in the winter. Lots of trout in it if we had time to fish for them. The buildings are real old, some dating back to 1470. All the streets are narrow and the courts or gardens are in the back. Five of we officers are billetted in the home of some rich city people who only live here some two or three months of the year. It is a nice 18 or 20-room house and the garden is beautiful. Of course, now all of it is planted to vegetables, etc., but all the borders of flowers are left there must be all of 20 varieties of trees and the whole thing is enclosed by the house on one side and an eight or nine foot stone wall on the other three sides. Seven of us are messing here. We have the use of the whole house and kitchen utensils. They are all solid copper, also the silver and dishes. We eat off a white table cloth in a big, airy dining room and look out the low wide windows at the picturesque garden. Over the walls the hills rise abruptly behind the village and high above us on the very edge of the top of the hill are the ruins of a castle.
Our trip across was rather uneventful, except I was sick all the way. We were in a fog the first few days and had to go mighty slow. Land and houses sure looked good to me the morning we pulled into Liverpool. Going across England in daylight we saw the country pretty thoroughly. Their fields are divided by thick low stone walls and acre after acre of ground is in pasture.
The horses are magnificent as are the roads. The houses are all brick or stone, built to stay. France is quite different. The ground is nearly all cultivated. All the corners and odd lots are raising spuds this year. No fences at all to divide fields, just plot after plot of vegetables, hay, grain, etc. these countries here know there is a war and if the U. S. were to sacrifice one-half as much, the Huns would never know what hit ‘em. I guess we are around a million strong now. Make it two or three or five and it will reduce the war period to five or three or two years, perhaps less, depending on the staying qualities of the Germans. She’s whipped, though, and not a person you meet doubts it. We are here to finish the job and finish it for good.
Very soon now we will be taking an active part in this big fight. I pray that I may be spared to come home to my wife and baby, but if God wills it otherwise, you all will know that I have only done my part. We read the Paris edition of the New York Herald and Chicago Tribune here just as eagerly as you do at home, and the first thing we look at is the casualty list, to see if any of our own Illinois troops have gone with the rest of the heroes of this war. Today we read of Major Roosevelt being mentioned in orders. Guess Teddy R. can be proud of his sons, two of them having now been mentioned.
We landed in this place on our second anniversary and I sure thought of it many times that day and since. In fact I thought I was celebrating it on the 20th until someone enlightened me as to the correct date and then I did it all over again, so realy commemorated it twice.
I’m mighty tired tonight as I have been on the go all day long. Our feather beds sure feel good these nights. We are in the valley of the river. From the tops of our hills we can see snow topped mountains about 50 miles away.
Well, I hope this finds everyone well and happy, write often. I’m getting along fine. Don’t need anything yet but what I can get here. Tell dad the army syrup has a sorghum taste so he’d sure like that part of it. Lots of love to all.
Paul
108 Ammunition Train,
American Expeditionary Forces
NOTES: Paul Moon is writing to his mother, Mrs. D. E. Moon, from France. He is serving from Illinois.
TRANSCRIBED BY MIKE POLSTON