TRANSCRIBED FROM THE HOT SPRINGS NEW ERA AUGUST 22, 1918 P. 3
Received your letter the 17th July but I couldn't answer it at that time. I don't suppose I would have time now if I was not in the hospital. Today is the first day I felt like doing anything.
Annie, I am a lucky bird. I was wounded on the 24th of May which was my first time "over the top." I got shot in the chest, but recovered from that just in time to go over again. Here's the way it all went, I left the hospital and came back to my company, which was still in the front line. The first person I met was Darrell Brock just in the same spirit as he was in the day we both were side by side going over the top.
Well, we stayed in the trenches for a number of days. We got relieved for a couple of days. Darrel was acting corporal or lance-jack as we soldiers call it. While I was away we had gotten some new man. So Darrel's squad was filled up, but we told the sergeant if he wouldn't let me be in his squad he wouldn't stay in it either.
One day the order came to get ready to leave 8:30 we left on trucks. We were going away from the front which made me feel happy. We rode all night and part of the next day. At the end of our journey we came to a large woods where we stayed that day and night and the next day.
Towards dusk the order came, "tight kits' ready to leave in half an hour. We started to hike. It was a dark night and soon it started to rain and we were soon wringing wet; but being a real bunch of soldiers no one fell out. Before long there was quite a bit of mud ankle deep, which we hiked through. About 3:30 it brightened up and before we knew it the sun was shining, but we were still a long way from the front.
As we continued our march I said to one of the lads by my side "I don't think we are going over the top at all." Finally we came to a town which was all blown to pieces. Things looked lively now. Artillery stood all along the road. Just as we got in the center of the town the barrage started. We hustled into position as quick as possible. At the other side of the town there was a valley, which was between our lines and the Germans leaving both sides on the top of the hills.
We all sat in the bushes that were in the bottom of this valley. The artillery on both hills were shelling one another. The shells whizzed over our heads. It was wonderful. There were twice as many sent over by our artillery as there were by the Boches. That made us feel real good, because we knew it wouldn't be so hard for us. It was time for us to start over. The tanks were in the lead, wiping out machine gun nests.
We kept on going all that day, driving the Germans that we didn't capture and kill to the rear over hills, down valleys, thru woods, swamps, barbed wire, towns and wheat fields. This continued day and is still going on as far as I know.
The second day we stopped for a little rest but the soldiers that were fresh kept going. The third day it was our turn again.
There had been no one wounded or killed in our company. We were laying out in the wheat field waiting for orders to start over again. In this wheat field, we lost our first man, but he was not killed. He was laying between Darrel and I. The bullet cut him across the back.
We were on the go again, fellows dropping to the left and right of me but they couldn't hold us back. I was coming up thru the German trenches when a big shell threw me about ten or fifteen feet. After a short time I came to myself and started after the company but I couldn't make it, so I stopped and crawled back in the trench and stayed about two hours and then started for the first aid. On the way I had to go through a little town. The boches started to shell it with gas, but as luck would have it the shells fell about twenty feet to my right and I didn't get very much of the gas but I did get enough to put me in the hospital.
From the first aid they took us all on trucks to some railway station and early in the morning they put on all on train. There I met Darrel. He also had been gassed and is here at the same hospital but in a different ward. He can get out of bed and walk around but they won't let me out of bed. You asked me if I knew Clarence Anderson. I do if he is a light haired fellow.
As you say you work in your father's drug store you want to eat lots of ice cream for me because I don't even get any real candy over here. About the only thing we get here is chocolate and believe me we all enjoy it.
Well Annie, don't know anything else to write so will close. Will try and write you another letter in a day or two.
I remain yours,
Pat Emil Schutz,
Co. B. 28th Inf.,
A.E.F., Via New York.
NOTES: Private Pat Emil Schutz was writing to Miss Annie Sturdivant of Hot Springs, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.
Received your letter the 17th July but I couldn't answer it at that time. I don't suppose I would have time now if I was not in the hospital. Today is the first day I felt like doing anything.
Annie, I am a lucky bird. I was wounded on the 24th of May which was my first time "over the top." I got shot in the chest, but recovered from that just in time to go over again. Here's the way it all went, I left the hospital and came back to my company, which was still in the front line. The first person I met was Darrell Brock just in the same spirit as he was in the day we both were side by side going over the top.
Well, we stayed in the trenches for a number of days. We got relieved for a couple of days. Darrel was acting corporal or lance-jack as we soldiers call it. While I was away we had gotten some new man. So Darrel's squad was filled up, but we told the sergeant if he wouldn't let me be in his squad he wouldn't stay in it either.
One day the order came to get ready to leave 8:30 we left on trucks. We were going away from the front which made me feel happy. We rode all night and part of the next day. At the end of our journey we came to a large woods where we stayed that day and night and the next day.
Towards dusk the order came, "tight kits' ready to leave in half an hour. We started to hike. It was a dark night and soon it started to rain and we were soon wringing wet; but being a real bunch of soldiers no one fell out. Before long there was quite a bit of mud ankle deep, which we hiked through. About 3:30 it brightened up and before we knew it the sun was shining, but we were still a long way from the front.
As we continued our march I said to one of the lads by my side "I don't think we are going over the top at all." Finally we came to a town which was all blown to pieces. Things looked lively now. Artillery stood all along the road. Just as we got in the center of the town the barrage started. We hustled into position as quick as possible. At the other side of the town there was a valley, which was between our lines and the Germans leaving both sides on the top of the hills.
We all sat in the bushes that were in the bottom of this valley. The artillery on both hills were shelling one another. The shells whizzed over our heads. It was wonderful. There were twice as many sent over by our artillery as there were by the Boches. That made us feel real good, because we knew it wouldn't be so hard for us. It was time for us to start over. The tanks were in the lead, wiping out machine gun nests.
We kept on going all that day, driving the Germans that we didn't capture and kill to the rear over hills, down valleys, thru woods, swamps, barbed wire, towns and wheat fields. This continued day and is still going on as far as I know.
The second day we stopped for a little rest but the soldiers that were fresh kept going. The third day it was our turn again.
There had been no one wounded or killed in our company. We were laying out in the wheat field waiting for orders to start over again. In this wheat field, we lost our first man, but he was not killed. He was laying between Darrel and I. The bullet cut him across the back.
We were on the go again, fellows dropping to the left and right of me but they couldn't hold us back. I was coming up thru the German trenches when a big shell threw me about ten or fifteen feet. After a short time I came to myself and started after the company but I couldn't make it, so I stopped and crawled back in the trench and stayed about two hours and then started for the first aid. On the way I had to go through a little town. The boches started to shell it with gas, but as luck would have it the shells fell about twenty feet to my right and I didn't get very much of the gas but I did get enough to put me in the hospital.
From the first aid they took us all on trucks to some railway station and early in the morning they put on all on train. There I met Darrel. He also had been gassed and is here at the same hospital but in a different ward. He can get out of bed and walk around but they won't let me out of bed. You asked me if I knew Clarence Anderson. I do if he is a light haired fellow.
As you say you work in your father's drug store you want to eat lots of ice cream for me because I don't even get any real candy over here. About the only thing we get here is chocolate and believe me we all enjoy it.
Well Annie, don't know anything else to write so will close. Will try and write you another letter in a day or two.
I remain yours,
Pat Emil Schutz,
Co. B. 28th Inf.,
A.E.F., Via New York.
NOTES: Private Pat Emil Schutz was writing to Miss Annie Sturdivant of Hot Springs, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.