TRANSCRIBED FROM THE OSCEOLA TIMES, SEPTEMBER 6, 1918 P. 3
July 29th, 1918.
My Dear Mr. Barham:
This is the first opportunity I have had for weeks to answer correspondence that has been piling up on me, letters that I am always glad to receive but hardly have the time to answer. And in justice to you, I am taking advantage of this available time to answer your letter of June 25th that I received several days ago, and also another letter written several days previous.
I wish you were over here to appreciate what the “Amex” are doing toward fulfilling President Wilson’s declaration on the kaiser some months past. Everyone is putting his heart and soul into the very brim of the thing with the hopes that the German Kulter will soon find out that they have more than mere American “Bull” to fear and cope with. Undoubtedly you have read of the 9merican-French victories and achievements since July 15th, so you will heartily agree with me. Didn’t they put one over on the Crown Prince though?
I don’t know that I can give you a very good description of the war work being done by the different societies over here at present, but I do know one thing that if it wasn’t for the YMCA and KC huts the boys would almost quit the whole thing, for there is a great deal of credit due them for cheering up the soldiers and helping them in almost every conceivable way. They furnish the boys with different kind of amusements that are a great help and supply us with American cigarettes, candies and such necessities that are hard to get in this section of the country. Of course they can only give you a limited amount each time, but they are very reasonable.
A few days ago the “Y” brought Elsie Janis, New York Star and Movie Actress, over to this part of the world and she gave an entertainment in the afternoon in an open field near headquarters before the General and American and British boys. She sang his Staff and some four thousand some cute songs, danced and told several good jokes and ingeneral kept the boys amused the whole hour that she devoted to us.
It was a rare treat and I thoroughly believe that before the entertainment was over she had won the heart of every boy there. She was certainly a queen-I say this for Elsie is the first real American girl I have seen for over four months. Every once in a while they give little entertainments, movies, musical concerts, furnished sometimes by the British, Belgium, French, or American Bands, so we get the benefit of hearing good classical music as well as their ragtime and patriotic airs. They have writing tables, reading matter, phonograph or piano in the hut, and in general it is just a bloody good place to pass away the time.
I made several trips to the local field hospitals with the Major lately on some investigations and it was very interesting to note how keen everything was fixed for comfort of the boys. They have every convenience in the world-cigarettes, candies, reading matter and such like, being furnished them through the Red Cross canteens. It would do you good to see how happy and cheerful the boys are under the constant care of the Red Cross nurses.
Last Friday the Major and myself made a trip to the front lines. After riding some miles we had to get out and walk for fear our car would be too great an attraction for Fritzie. The rest of the trip was through trenches and dugouts. All of us in the party had our helmets on and wore our gas masks at an alert position in readiness for any emergency. We walked perhaps thirty minutes before we came to the dugout we were seeking. It was quite a surprise to me at first for a dugout is far more different from what I expected it to be. We went down some narrow steps, then passed through an underground tunnel for some fifty feet and came to a concrete constructure partitioned off into several departments, with the headquarters in one office and the quarters in the others. Everything was fixed just as conveniently almost as a real home, telephones, lights, and over in one corner of the mess hall a phonograph was playing a familiar old rag time.
Later one of the sergeants took me over into an observation trench and with the aid of a telescope I could see a little village some miles to my right that the Germans were shelling. I noticed several other interesting things I am afraid to mention. The “Big Babies” were coming over pretty frequently, but we were in no particular danger unless we got a “direct hit” and we soon got accustomed to the busting and singing of the shells as they passed over our heads, some going on a journey of destruction fifteen and twenty miles behind the lines.
After spending a couple of hours in the trenches we started back on our trip to Headquarters. It was getting quite dark and they were beginning to send up vary lights over in “No Man’s land”. Vary lights are shot from pistols and are different lights used for various signals. When they get as far as they are going they seem to linger in the air for a few seconds and light up the country for miles. You could see flashes from the artillery almost all around you and the display was beautiful.
On our way back to the car we came upon a large hole torn in the road and what appeared to be a great pool of blood laying near the hole. Upon asking the Major, who accompanied us back to our car, what damage was done, stated that a German shell hit a transport wagon the night before and tore one of the mules into a thousand pieces. That one of his soldiers was on the mule and he was thrown some fifty feet in a ditch and when they found him he was mixed up in several parts of the mule but without a scratch.
I suppose you know that the Germans are very systematic in their work of destruction. For instance, they have certain hours each day in which to shell certain places along the roads, especially the cross roads, with the hopes of getting some of the transports that must make their way to the lines. In coming to these cross roads, and when the M.P. gave the signal ‘all clear’ the Major would tell the chauffer ‘to step on it’ and believe me he sure would ‘step on it, too.’
We have made several other intercountry in the last ten days, I conesting trip through this section of the sider myself lucky to get to go with the Major on these trips. On one trip we passed through several places that had once been in the hands of the Germans, but there was nothing left to tell they were towns but one mass of ruins. It is really pitiful to note the shameful destructions that the Germans perpetrated in the last hours of their retreat. For miles around you cant see anything but desolate fields torn up by shells. Not a tree is left standing, and none of the old outlines are left to distinguish the once beautiful France.
In one town, in particular, it had that really suffered were the smaller ones on the hillside above. The large houses and mansions along the new front have, in the majority of instances, escaped altogether, save for windows cracked or shattered by concussions.
The houses to which the following applies were wholly uninjured by shell shrapnel of bullet. The damage they sustained was entirely inflicted from within. These houses were magnificently and tastefully furnished, the walls were hung with costly tapestries and pictures, while the furniture was artistic.
Today there is nothing that is not destroyed. Tapestries have been hacked to pieces, pictures split from corner to corner, leather and other frames, and legs torn off tables. Not a mirror is unbroken. Statues and statuettes in marble and ivory have been dismembered with hammers, and a pickaxe was used to destroy a grand piano which must of cost hundreds of dollars.
Jerry has been very much in evidence around us for the past few days. Between the few shells he puts over every night and his air raids we manage to find a little ‘excitement’. We have gotten so now we expect him regularly at a certain hour every night. The other night when Jerry made his first appearance we went down in one of the bomb-proof cellars. We hadn’t been down there more than fifteen minutes when one of those ‘Big Babies’ came over, sounding almost like a freight train going through the air. She landed somewhere pretty close and almost jarred our eye-teeth out, when some old boy broke out with “You better hold your hands on your pocket-book boys, that’s a good un.” You hardly realize the danger you are in until its all over with. Such remarks as that are continuously passing among the fellows, and it does help keep up the spirits a good deal, because it don’t take but one of these shells to make you feel you have lost your happy home forever.
Give my regards to the Madam, the Judge and Dick and write me whenever you can.
Your sincere friend,
C.M. (Mid.) SEMMES
NOTES: Charles Middleton Semmes was born in Osceola, Arkansas on May 28, 1898 and died on October 30, 1966. He is buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. He departed Brest, France on June 14, 1919 and arrived in Boston, Mass. on July 4, 1919. He was listed as serving in Casual Co. 1 GHQ.
TRANSCRIBED BY ISAAC WOLTER
July 29th, 1918.
My Dear Mr. Barham:
This is the first opportunity I have had for weeks to answer correspondence that has been piling up on me, letters that I am always glad to receive but hardly have the time to answer. And in justice to you, I am taking advantage of this available time to answer your letter of June 25th that I received several days ago, and also another letter written several days previous.
I wish you were over here to appreciate what the “Amex” are doing toward fulfilling President Wilson’s declaration on the kaiser some months past. Everyone is putting his heart and soul into the very brim of the thing with the hopes that the German Kulter will soon find out that they have more than mere American “Bull” to fear and cope with. Undoubtedly you have read of the 9merican-French victories and achievements since July 15th, so you will heartily agree with me. Didn’t they put one over on the Crown Prince though?
I don’t know that I can give you a very good description of the war work being done by the different societies over here at present, but I do know one thing that if it wasn’t for the YMCA and KC huts the boys would almost quit the whole thing, for there is a great deal of credit due them for cheering up the soldiers and helping them in almost every conceivable way. They furnish the boys with different kind of amusements that are a great help and supply us with American cigarettes, candies and such necessities that are hard to get in this section of the country. Of course they can only give you a limited amount each time, but they are very reasonable.
A few days ago the “Y” brought Elsie Janis, New York Star and Movie Actress, over to this part of the world and she gave an entertainment in the afternoon in an open field near headquarters before the General and American and British boys. She sang his Staff and some four thousand some cute songs, danced and told several good jokes and ingeneral kept the boys amused the whole hour that she devoted to us.
It was a rare treat and I thoroughly believe that before the entertainment was over she had won the heart of every boy there. She was certainly a queen-I say this for Elsie is the first real American girl I have seen for over four months. Every once in a while they give little entertainments, movies, musical concerts, furnished sometimes by the British, Belgium, French, or American Bands, so we get the benefit of hearing good classical music as well as their ragtime and patriotic airs. They have writing tables, reading matter, phonograph or piano in the hut, and in general it is just a bloody good place to pass away the time.
I made several trips to the local field hospitals with the Major lately on some investigations and it was very interesting to note how keen everything was fixed for comfort of the boys. They have every convenience in the world-cigarettes, candies, reading matter and such like, being furnished them through the Red Cross canteens. It would do you good to see how happy and cheerful the boys are under the constant care of the Red Cross nurses.
Last Friday the Major and myself made a trip to the front lines. After riding some miles we had to get out and walk for fear our car would be too great an attraction for Fritzie. The rest of the trip was through trenches and dugouts. All of us in the party had our helmets on and wore our gas masks at an alert position in readiness for any emergency. We walked perhaps thirty minutes before we came to the dugout we were seeking. It was quite a surprise to me at first for a dugout is far more different from what I expected it to be. We went down some narrow steps, then passed through an underground tunnel for some fifty feet and came to a concrete constructure partitioned off into several departments, with the headquarters in one office and the quarters in the others. Everything was fixed just as conveniently almost as a real home, telephones, lights, and over in one corner of the mess hall a phonograph was playing a familiar old rag time.
Later one of the sergeants took me over into an observation trench and with the aid of a telescope I could see a little village some miles to my right that the Germans were shelling. I noticed several other interesting things I am afraid to mention. The “Big Babies” were coming over pretty frequently, but we were in no particular danger unless we got a “direct hit” and we soon got accustomed to the busting and singing of the shells as they passed over our heads, some going on a journey of destruction fifteen and twenty miles behind the lines.
After spending a couple of hours in the trenches we started back on our trip to Headquarters. It was getting quite dark and they were beginning to send up vary lights over in “No Man’s land”. Vary lights are shot from pistols and are different lights used for various signals. When they get as far as they are going they seem to linger in the air for a few seconds and light up the country for miles. You could see flashes from the artillery almost all around you and the display was beautiful.
On our way back to the car we came upon a large hole torn in the road and what appeared to be a great pool of blood laying near the hole. Upon asking the Major, who accompanied us back to our car, what damage was done, stated that a German shell hit a transport wagon the night before and tore one of the mules into a thousand pieces. That one of his soldiers was on the mule and he was thrown some fifty feet in a ditch and when they found him he was mixed up in several parts of the mule but without a scratch.
I suppose you know that the Germans are very systematic in their work of destruction. For instance, they have certain hours each day in which to shell certain places along the roads, especially the cross roads, with the hopes of getting some of the transports that must make their way to the lines. In coming to these cross roads, and when the M.P. gave the signal ‘all clear’ the Major would tell the chauffer ‘to step on it’ and believe me he sure would ‘step on it, too.’
We have made several other intercountry in the last ten days, I conesting trip through this section of the sider myself lucky to get to go with the Major on these trips. On one trip we passed through several places that had once been in the hands of the Germans, but there was nothing left to tell they were towns but one mass of ruins. It is really pitiful to note the shameful destructions that the Germans perpetrated in the last hours of their retreat. For miles around you cant see anything but desolate fields torn up by shells. Not a tree is left standing, and none of the old outlines are left to distinguish the once beautiful France.
In one town, in particular, it had that really suffered were the smaller ones on the hillside above. The large houses and mansions along the new front have, in the majority of instances, escaped altogether, save for windows cracked or shattered by concussions.
The houses to which the following applies were wholly uninjured by shell shrapnel of bullet. The damage they sustained was entirely inflicted from within. These houses were magnificently and tastefully furnished, the walls were hung with costly tapestries and pictures, while the furniture was artistic.
Today there is nothing that is not destroyed. Tapestries have been hacked to pieces, pictures split from corner to corner, leather and other frames, and legs torn off tables. Not a mirror is unbroken. Statues and statuettes in marble and ivory have been dismembered with hammers, and a pickaxe was used to destroy a grand piano which must of cost hundreds of dollars.
Jerry has been very much in evidence around us for the past few days. Between the few shells he puts over every night and his air raids we manage to find a little ‘excitement’. We have gotten so now we expect him regularly at a certain hour every night. The other night when Jerry made his first appearance we went down in one of the bomb-proof cellars. We hadn’t been down there more than fifteen minutes when one of those ‘Big Babies’ came over, sounding almost like a freight train going through the air. She landed somewhere pretty close and almost jarred our eye-teeth out, when some old boy broke out with “You better hold your hands on your pocket-book boys, that’s a good un.” You hardly realize the danger you are in until its all over with. Such remarks as that are continuously passing among the fellows, and it does help keep up the spirits a good deal, because it don’t take but one of these shells to make you feel you have lost your happy home forever.
Give my regards to the Madam, the Judge and Dick and write me whenever you can.
Your sincere friend,
C.M. (Mid.) SEMMES
NOTES: Charles Middleton Semmes was born in Osceola, Arkansas on May 28, 1898 and died on October 30, 1966. He is buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. He departed Brest, France on June 14, 1919 and arrived in Boston, Mass. on July 4, 1919. He was listed as serving in Casual Co. 1 GHQ.
TRANSCRIBED BY ISAAC WOLTER