TRANSCRIBED FROM THE OSCEOLA TIMES SEPTEMBER 13, 1918 PP. 1, 3
July 28, 1918.
Dear Mother:
I received your welcome letter and was glad to hear from you and to learn that you are still with brother and his family and enjoying yourself. I sure would like to see the boys, but I can wait, I suppose. I expect they will be talking before I get the chance.
Life over here is one big drive after another. Each is supposed to be the last. I don’t know when it will end, and I don’t even guess about it. Some say it will be over in three months and some say that it will last forever. If it will last forever it has a pretty good start. The boys are only sure about one thing, and that is that the war won’t end until the kaiser is licked and then some. The U.S. is the nation that will show the kaiser “where to get off at,” and we will, too. The English are fighters, but they are tiring out and haven’t the comeback they once had. The French, I believe, can last forever. They take it calm, easy and slow, especially slow. We fired 15 shots into (CENSORED) while a French battery near us was firing one.
In certain action, which I had the pleasure to take part in, the Boche advanced in such masses that the dead hardly had room to fall in. We were attached to the French then, and, with the exception of Battery (CENSORED), which was with us, were the only Americans on that front. We saw a great deal of the French and their way of fighting, and they bring in the Boches, or rather ring them in.
We were up on a certain part of the front where the line is in the shape of a horseshoe—that is, the Germans had us surrounded on three sides. We were only a mile and ahalf behind the first line trenches, and the only out let, the mouth of the horseshoe, was 25 miles behind us. Across this mouth, from German to German, was only 5 miles, and in case they pushed across this neck we would be surrounded.
When we first went up to this place we were billeted in a village, which was deserted by everybody except soldiers and was pretty badly shot up, as the Boche had its range from three sides. It had been a fine place once, before the war. There was not a whole house in the place, and many of them were completely down. Where an H.E. shell hits there is not much left except splinters and dust. We were quartered in cellars all over the town. I was in the same cellar with 11 more men. It did well as a bathroom but it was a mighty poor place to sleep. Our cellar was beneath a big, old, three-story house, once a fine building until a Boche shell carried away the roof and part of the third story. Some Frenchmen who occupied it ahead of us informed us that the place was haunted, to make us feel at home, no doubt, it was a fine place for a ghost, but he didn’t call on us, or, if he did, we were asleep and he got insulted and left. The ghost didn’t bother us, but the cooties did. They must have been mobilizing in that cellar since the war began. Right behind the house was a big orchard and garden growing up in weeds and rank grass, and there was a strawberry patch, too, and the berries were just getting ripe. We had orders to keep out of sight, but some orders can’t be obeyed—at least we didn’t try very hard to obey those orders—and the berries came in mighty handy as rations were scarce. We had to keep the berry patch a secret, for if the other fellows had found it they would have cleaned it out in no time. I used to go out there in the morning and eat berries and watch the Boche planes come sailing over in droves, with hundreds of antiaircraft guns barking away at them and shooting smoke rings at them, but the planes didn’t seem to mind at all and would fly back again when they had all the pictures they wanted. Every once in a while a big shell would go humming over bound for some French battery the aeroplanes had photographed behind the town. I never made any attempt to stop such shells. I just let them go ahead. One night I went up to what was left of the third story and watched the star shells in No-Man’s-Land. There had been a barrage earlier in the evening and the Boche were afraid the French were going over the top, so they keep No-Man’s-Land lighted up bright as day. Their rifles and machine guns were busy, too, just as a warning to the French to stay at home. The German artillery was getting ready for action, for someone with a blinker was signaling to an airplane with a blinker. I could make out the message, but it was in a secret code and I didn’t know what it meant. Just then I heard another shell coming, bound for the French battery, but it exploded before it was supposed to, at a great height, and by the time part of it got to me there was no force behind it, but I decided to go down, and went back to the cellar.
Just a block up the street stood what was left of a church. Across the street from the church was a pump from which we got our water. The Boche artillery used the church as a datum point and every afternoon about 5 o’clock they would send over several shells to us, just to let us know they were still alive. Those shells always exploded near the church. One afternoon I went up to the pump to get a canteen of water. Two Frenchmen were also there washing their faces. I started filling my canteen, but heard shell coming, and knowing it was meant for the church jumped back to the shelter of a wall. The Frenchmen laughed at me for taking cover. After the shell had exploded a good way short I stated filling my canteen again, and then I heard another one coming and jumped for cover again. The Frenchmen did not, but were preparing for another laugh, no doubt, when the shell some what upset their calculations, for it exploded right over the pump. Funerals that night.
Next day the Boche decided that we had been there long enough, so he made it so hot for us that the captain decided it was time to go, so we went about a mile out of town to where we were digging our position. A big old house near by afforded us a shelter. A river ran behind the house and the railroad in front. There was a spring near, where we got our water. It was a pretty place with lot of trees and grass, and I forgot to say that between the river and the house was a small pond. I shall always remember that pond, for it happened to be in just the right place. Well, we continued work on our position. Believe me, it was some position. We had to cut straight back through a big bank from the railroad and grade a cut about 200 feet long, with a depth of 10 feet. The battery was divided into two shifts, eight hours on and eight hours off to eat and sleep. The work continued day and night for we were anxious to get our shots fired before the Germans started the drive they were preparing for, and everyone worked. A large railroad gun such as we have is no small thing to move about. There are only a few guns like we have and they are very valuable. A small engine is with the gun all the time to pull it out and push it around with. A man can be pulled through the bore of our gun and it is long in proportion, so you can imagine how big it is. After 4 days the cut was finished and we began work on the gun pit. We were getting down so deep now that water began to seep from the sides of the cut and we dug through the source of some spring later, which flooded the pit with water, and we had to keep 2 trench pumps and one big pump going all the time to keep the water down enough to dig.
I remember, and always will I suppose, the exciting time that followed. It was midnight and my shift was in the position working away. We were all dead tired, hungry and sleepy and the shift did not change until four in the morning I almost wished that the Germans would start something so we could get away from that work for awhile. I asked a man for the time. He looked at his watch and said, “Twelve o’clock, and just as he spoke far over the German lines a big gun said “Boom” then another and another and the bombardment had begun.
Theshells began to burst in the woods to our right and the lieutenant told us to get to the cave. There was a cave near the house and we had instructions to go to it in case of a bombardment. I had left my gas mask on the end of a tree at the end of our position when I began work, so I went around to get it. I took my time, for I believed the firing would soon be over and I wanted to rest all I could. I got the mask and walked down to the railroad track and found that I was alone. I heard the bunch hoofing it way down the track to the cave. I had half a notion to go up in the woods and go to sleep; then the thought of the bunch beating it tickled me and I had to laugh; then I thought of the two Frenchmen and decided that I had better go on to the cave. I suppose I thought I might see the Frenchmen’s ghost. I started down the track at a slow walk, and then I heard it coming. It came sreeching along and I stopped and looked up to see where it would burst. It burst all right, right over my head, but luckily a good way up, and shrapnel began to rain down on me, and I thought to myself, “Good-night,” and believe me, I don’t know what the world’s record for running is, but I broke it.
When I got to the cave the whole company was there and the place was jammed full. I got shoved up in a cornerand nearly smothered and I began to wish I had stayed at the pit after all. The captain kept telling us to stay inside, stay inside, and there were very few who cared to go outside, for the French batteries were answering the Germans back and I never heard such a racket in my life. It was a continuous roar. Guns booming and shells shrieking and exploding. The Germans had us on three sides and their target was the railroad, to stop supplies, as they were going to start their drive. It sounded like an elephant on a tin roof.
Just then the captain thought of the gas sentries we were posted up the river to watch for gas shells and give the alarm if any came over, and he asked for a volunteer to go out and round them in. He knew they would stick to their posts until they got killed if he didn’t send for them. I didn’t hear anybody speak up very fast, and some big fellow next to me began to crowd in, trying to get out of sight, I suppose, until I thought I was going to smother to death, and figured I would rather take achance outside, so I said I would go, and started out.
It was worse outside than I had thought. Inside the cave, where everything was crowded, the noise was muffled, but outside I got the full benefit of it all. I started out at a run. A shell exploded on the track and I threw myself down and rolled down the bank. I got up running, but stopped, and began to walk for fear I might run into a shell. I headed up the river and was beginning to wish I hadn’t come when I ran into the sentries, and I didn’t have to fight them to get them to go back to the cave. They doubled timed back. Returning to the cave I stopped at the house to get my rifle, for the orders were to keep it by you at all times. I hadn’t thought of it before. I stayed in the third story, as I started up the steps I heard a piece of shell come whirling through the roof. I decided I didn’t want my rifle and started to leave, but the artillery saying is that a shell never hits the same place twice on account of the thing not being there after the first, so I beat it upstairs and began feeling my way along the wall, for it was pretty dark, there being but one window to the room where I left my things, and then I stumbled over something. It was a man there on the floor covered over by his blankets. I remembered the piece of shell I had heard come through the roof and wondered if that was what had got him. Perhaps you can imagine how I felt, finding him there alone in that big old house. I felt like running again, but thought better of it, and then it occurred to me that perhaps he was only badly wounded and that I could help him, so I began to try to untwist him from his blanket, and just then the dead man said, “Great guns,” what the hell, time to get up already? I didn’t wait for him to finish talking—I got my gun and left. He sure was a sound sleeper.
When I got back to the cave the battery was getting ready to pull out. Word had come that the Germans were pushing the French infantry back and the captain was afraid we would get trapped. The captain told the men who had guns to go ahead in advance. The rest of the battery would follow. We started out, and we didn’t need much urging along. The air was full of high explosive from bursting shells, and this made breathing hard. Then a shell came whizzing along and exploded just above us. It didn’t burst with a bang but with more of a puff, and some one shouted “gas.” We dropped our guns and knocked of our tin hats and got into our gas masks, which is hard to see through in the day, let alone night. The only way you could go straight was by looking down and following the rail. Suddenly something loomed up on the track almost over me and I made a dive off the side. It was the little engine going up for the gun. She was creeping along without a bit of noise and without alight showing and the battery was coming down the track with their gas masks on. Then I heard some one behind me shouting to clear the track for the engine. He shouted several times and I waited for him to catch up with me. He came along and passed with in two feet of me and he didn’t have his mask on, I took mine off and asked him where we were going. He didn’t know so we stopped where we were, presently the other fellows came straggling along with their masks on, but took them off when they saw us. Then the lieutenant came along and told us to get off the track and lie against the bank, for the road was raid in a hollow place. We did as he said. Pretty soon some of the fellows began sneezing. My eyes were burning, and pretty soon I began sneezing along with everybody else. We had run into sneezing gas and were told to put our gas masks back on. We were waiting for the captain, but he didn’t show up, so I rested against the bank with my mask on and watched the shells that were bursting and wondered where the next one would hit, and then I went to sleep.
When I woke up the battery was getting ready to move again. This time we went to a small village down the track about a mile. This village was getting hit hard as there was a railroad yard here. Duncan Steele and I put in a pleasant hour strolling about the town and seeing the sights. We bummed a breakfast off a French Red Cross kitchen. We came to a place where a shell had exploded in a stable. There were nine dead horses. At another place we found seven more. Most of the shells were bursting down in the railyard, but occasionally one would go a little astray. One of those lit on a house just up the street. It dropped through the roof before it exploded and the upper part of the house came crashing down. Luckily no one was at home. Steele and I suddenly decided to rejoin our battery, and found them in some dugouts in the safe side of a hill. I crawled into a hole and went to sleep. When I woke everything was quiet except for an occasional shell, and a message had come from the captain for us to return to our positions, so the lieutenant took us back.
When we got back to our position it was about noon, and the cook passed us some canned willie and hard tack to feed us. We were eating behind the house when a shell came along and lit in that little pond. Mud, water and weeds came raining down on us, and we had our mess kits full of it. I didn’t have a very good appetite after that. The German advance had been checked and we were sent back to the position. We found the pit full of water, so everybody dug to and pumped and dug and put down track and were getting along fine until another shell came and exploded right at the end of the position, cutting the track and covering us with iron, dirt and rocks. It also put a damper on our work. A German plane was sailing around over us and spotting us for the artillery. We stayed in the pit working away and expecting to be blown up every minute, but when a lieutenant came running up and said, “Boys, I’ve got good news for you. We are going to leave this place. Get to the house and get your packs.” The Germans are driving again.
The little engine had already gone with the gun, so it was up to us to hike the 25 miles out of the neck or get trapped. The Boche had only three miles to drive each way to have us. I shall always remember that retreat. We had everything we owned with us, A weight of about 75 pounds, and were already tired from work and chasing around. We had had very little to eat and very few of us had any water with us. The lieutenant told us that we would do well to save ourselves, and if we couldn’t make it, to ditch our packs. Many of the fellows did, but I stuck to mine. The Germans had begun shelling again and exploding shell gave us speed. Once we stopped to rest for about 10 minutes and then went on. My pack was getting pretty heavy and I was getting pretty tired and thirsty and we were only half way. We passed through several towns already deserted except for soldiers. It was dark now and the sky to our right was lighted up by the flames of a burning town the Germans had taken.
It was 11 o’clock when we got out of the horseshoe and the captain took us into the woods to spend the night. I was staggering like a drunken man and my tongue was almost hanging out, I was so thirsty. I shook my pack off but didn’t unroll it. I didn’t sleep very well that night. I was simply dead till morning.
I have heard since that the Boche used our gun pit for a swimming pool. Some big Dutchman is no doubt playing “The Watch on the Rhine” on Hinkle’s banjo which he forgot in his excitement. It’s all in the life, why worry?
Your loving son,
J. C. WADDELL
NOTES: J. C. Waddell was writing to his mother. Waddell had worked for J. W. Rhodes of Golder Lake and was considered an Osceola boy.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
July 28, 1918.
Dear Mother:
I received your welcome letter and was glad to hear from you and to learn that you are still with brother and his family and enjoying yourself. I sure would like to see the boys, but I can wait, I suppose. I expect they will be talking before I get the chance.
Life over here is one big drive after another. Each is supposed to be the last. I don’t know when it will end, and I don’t even guess about it. Some say it will be over in three months and some say that it will last forever. If it will last forever it has a pretty good start. The boys are only sure about one thing, and that is that the war won’t end until the kaiser is licked and then some. The U.S. is the nation that will show the kaiser “where to get off at,” and we will, too. The English are fighters, but they are tiring out and haven’t the comeback they once had. The French, I believe, can last forever. They take it calm, easy and slow, especially slow. We fired 15 shots into (CENSORED) while a French battery near us was firing one.
In certain action, which I had the pleasure to take part in, the Boche advanced in such masses that the dead hardly had room to fall in. We were attached to the French then, and, with the exception of Battery (CENSORED), which was with us, were the only Americans on that front. We saw a great deal of the French and their way of fighting, and they bring in the Boches, or rather ring them in.
We were up on a certain part of the front where the line is in the shape of a horseshoe—that is, the Germans had us surrounded on three sides. We were only a mile and ahalf behind the first line trenches, and the only out let, the mouth of the horseshoe, was 25 miles behind us. Across this mouth, from German to German, was only 5 miles, and in case they pushed across this neck we would be surrounded.
When we first went up to this place we were billeted in a village, which was deserted by everybody except soldiers and was pretty badly shot up, as the Boche had its range from three sides. It had been a fine place once, before the war. There was not a whole house in the place, and many of them were completely down. Where an H.E. shell hits there is not much left except splinters and dust. We were quartered in cellars all over the town. I was in the same cellar with 11 more men. It did well as a bathroom but it was a mighty poor place to sleep. Our cellar was beneath a big, old, three-story house, once a fine building until a Boche shell carried away the roof and part of the third story. Some Frenchmen who occupied it ahead of us informed us that the place was haunted, to make us feel at home, no doubt, it was a fine place for a ghost, but he didn’t call on us, or, if he did, we were asleep and he got insulted and left. The ghost didn’t bother us, but the cooties did. They must have been mobilizing in that cellar since the war began. Right behind the house was a big orchard and garden growing up in weeds and rank grass, and there was a strawberry patch, too, and the berries were just getting ripe. We had orders to keep out of sight, but some orders can’t be obeyed—at least we didn’t try very hard to obey those orders—and the berries came in mighty handy as rations were scarce. We had to keep the berry patch a secret, for if the other fellows had found it they would have cleaned it out in no time. I used to go out there in the morning and eat berries and watch the Boche planes come sailing over in droves, with hundreds of antiaircraft guns barking away at them and shooting smoke rings at them, but the planes didn’t seem to mind at all and would fly back again when they had all the pictures they wanted. Every once in a while a big shell would go humming over bound for some French battery the aeroplanes had photographed behind the town. I never made any attempt to stop such shells. I just let them go ahead. One night I went up to what was left of the third story and watched the star shells in No-Man’s-Land. There had been a barrage earlier in the evening and the Boche were afraid the French were going over the top, so they keep No-Man’s-Land lighted up bright as day. Their rifles and machine guns were busy, too, just as a warning to the French to stay at home. The German artillery was getting ready for action, for someone with a blinker was signaling to an airplane with a blinker. I could make out the message, but it was in a secret code and I didn’t know what it meant. Just then I heard another shell coming, bound for the French battery, but it exploded before it was supposed to, at a great height, and by the time part of it got to me there was no force behind it, but I decided to go down, and went back to the cellar.
Just a block up the street stood what was left of a church. Across the street from the church was a pump from which we got our water. The Boche artillery used the church as a datum point and every afternoon about 5 o’clock they would send over several shells to us, just to let us know they were still alive. Those shells always exploded near the church. One afternoon I went up to the pump to get a canteen of water. Two Frenchmen were also there washing their faces. I started filling my canteen, but heard shell coming, and knowing it was meant for the church jumped back to the shelter of a wall. The Frenchmen laughed at me for taking cover. After the shell had exploded a good way short I stated filling my canteen again, and then I heard another one coming and jumped for cover again. The Frenchmen did not, but were preparing for another laugh, no doubt, when the shell some what upset their calculations, for it exploded right over the pump. Funerals that night.
Next day the Boche decided that we had been there long enough, so he made it so hot for us that the captain decided it was time to go, so we went about a mile out of town to where we were digging our position. A big old house near by afforded us a shelter. A river ran behind the house and the railroad in front. There was a spring near, where we got our water. It was a pretty place with lot of trees and grass, and I forgot to say that between the river and the house was a small pond. I shall always remember that pond, for it happened to be in just the right place. Well, we continued work on our position. Believe me, it was some position. We had to cut straight back through a big bank from the railroad and grade a cut about 200 feet long, with a depth of 10 feet. The battery was divided into two shifts, eight hours on and eight hours off to eat and sleep. The work continued day and night for we were anxious to get our shots fired before the Germans started the drive they were preparing for, and everyone worked. A large railroad gun such as we have is no small thing to move about. There are only a few guns like we have and they are very valuable. A small engine is with the gun all the time to pull it out and push it around with. A man can be pulled through the bore of our gun and it is long in proportion, so you can imagine how big it is. After 4 days the cut was finished and we began work on the gun pit. We were getting down so deep now that water began to seep from the sides of the cut and we dug through the source of some spring later, which flooded the pit with water, and we had to keep 2 trench pumps and one big pump going all the time to keep the water down enough to dig.
I remember, and always will I suppose, the exciting time that followed. It was midnight and my shift was in the position working away. We were all dead tired, hungry and sleepy and the shift did not change until four in the morning I almost wished that the Germans would start something so we could get away from that work for awhile. I asked a man for the time. He looked at his watch and said, “Twelve o’clock, and just as he spoke far over the German lines a big gun said “Boom” then another and another and the bombardment had begun.
Theshells began to burst in the woods to our right and the lieutenant told us to get to the cave. There was a cave near the house and we had instructions to go to it in case of a bombardment. I had left my gas mask on the end of a tree at the end of our position when I began work, so I went around to get it. I took my time, for I believed the firing would soon be over and I wanted to rest all I could. I got the mask and walked down to the railroad track and found that I was alone. I heard the bunch hoofing it way down the track to the cave. I had half a notion to go up in the woods and go to sleep; then the thought of the bunch beating it tickled me and I had to laugh; then I thought of the two Frenchmen and decided that I had better go on to the cave. I suppose I thought I might see the Frenchmen’s ghost. I started down the track at a slow walk, and then I heard it coming. It came sreeching along and I stopped and looked up to see where it would burst. It burst all right, right over my head, but luckily a good way up, and shrapnel began to rain down on me, and I thought to myself, “Good-night,” and believe me, I don’t know what the world’s record for running is, but I broke it.
When I got to the cave the whole company was there and the place was jammed full. I got shoved up in a cornerand nearly smothered and I began to wish I had stayed at the pit after all. The captain kept telling us to stay inside, stay inside, and there were very few who cared to go outside, for the French batteries were answering the Germans back and I never heard such a racket in my life. It was a continuous roar. Guns booming and shells shrieking and exploding. The Germans had us on three sides and their target was the railroad, to stop supplies, as they were going to start their drive. It sounded like an elephant on a tin roof.
Just then the captain thought of the gas sentries we were posted up the river to watch for gas shells and give the alarm if any came over, and he asked for a volunteer to go out and round them in. He knew they would stick to their posts until they got killed if he didn’t send for them. I didn’t hear anybody speak up very fast, and some big fellow next to me began to crowd in, trying to get out of sight, I suppose, until I thought I was going to smother to death, and figured I would rather take achance outside, so I said I would go, and started out.
It was worse outside than I had thought. Inside the cave, where everything was crowded, the noise was muffled, but outside I got the full benefit of it all. I started out at a run. A shell exploded on the track and I threw myself down and rolled down the bank. I got up running, but stopped, and began to walk for fear I might run into a shell. I headed up the river and was beginning to wish I hadn’t come when I ran into the sentries, and I didn’t have to fight them to get them to go back to the cave. They doubled timed back. Returning to the cave I stopped at the house to get my rifle, for the orders were to keep it by you at all times. I hadn’t thought of it before. I stayed in the third story, as I started up the steps I heard a piece of shell come whirling through the roof. I decided I didn’t want my rifle and started to leave, but the artillery saying is that a shell never hits the same place twice on account of the thing not being there after the first, so I beat it upstairs and began feeling my way along the wall, for it was pretty dark, there being but one window to the room where I left my things, and then I stumbled over something. It was a man there on the floor covered over by his blankets. I remembered the piece of shell I had heard come through the roof and wondered if that was what had got him. Perhaps you can imagine how I felt, finding him there alone in that big old house. I felt like running again, but thought better of it, and then it occurred to me that perhaps he was only badly wounded and that I could help him, so I began to try to untwist him from his blanket, and just then the dead man said, “Great guns,” what the hell, time to get up already? I didn’t wait for him to finish talking—I got my gun and left. He sure was a sound sleeper.
When I got back to the cave the battery was getting ready to pull out. Word had come that the Germans were pushing the French infantry back and the captain was afraid we would get trapped. The captain told the men who had guns to go ahead in advance. The rest of the battery would follow. We started out, and we didn’t need much urging along. The air was full of high explosive from bursting shells, and this made breathing hard. Then a shell came whizzing along and exploded just above us. It didn’t burst with a bang but with more of a puff, and some one shouted “gas.” We dropped our guns and knocked of our tin hats and got into our gas masks, which is hard to see through in the day, let alone night. The only way you could go straight was by looking down and following the rail. Suddenly something loomed up on the track almost over me and I made a dive off the side. It was the little engine going up for the gun. She was creeping along without a bit of noise and without alight showing and the battery was coming down the track with their gas masks on. Then I heard some one behind me shouting to clear the track for the engine. He shouted several times and I waited for him to catch up with me. He came along and passed with in two feet of me and he didn’t have his mask on, I took mine off and asked him where we were going. He didn’t know so we stopped where we were, presently the other fellows came straggling along with their masks on, but took them off when they saw us. Then the lieutenant came along and told us to get off the track and lie against the bank, for the road was raid in a hollow place. We did as he said. Pretty soon some of the fellows began sneezing. My eyes were burning, and pretty soon I began sneezing along with everybody else. We had run into sneezing gas and were told to put our gas masks back on. We were waiting for the captain, but he didn’t show up, so I rested against the bank with my mask on and watched the shells that were bursting and wondered where the next one would hit, and then I went to sleep.
When I woke up the battery was getting ready to move again. This time we went to a small village down the track about a mile. This village was getting hit hard as there was a railroad yard here. Duncan Steele and I put in a pleasant hour strolling about the town and seeing the sights. We bummed a breakfast off a French Red Cross kitchen. We came to a place where a shell had exploded in a stable. There were nine dead horses. At another place we found seven more. Most of the shells were bursting down in the railyard, but occasionally one would go a little astray. One of those lit on a house just up the street. It dropped through the roof before it exploded and the upper part of the house came crashing down. Luckily no one was at home. Steele and I suddenly decided to rejoin our battery, and found them in some dugouts in the safe side of a hill. I crawled into a hole and went to sleep. When I woke everything was quiet except for an occasional shell, and a message had come from the captain for us to return to our positions, so the lieutenant took us back.
When we got back to our position it was about noon, and the cook passed us some canned willie and hard tack to feed us. We were eating behind the house when a shell came along and lit in that little pond. Mud, water and weeds came raining down on us, and we had our mess kits full of it. I didn’t have a very good appetite after that. The German advance had been checked and we were sent back to the position. We found the pit full of water, so everybody dug to and pumped and dug and put down track and were getting along fine until another shell came and exploded right at the end of the position, cutting the track and covering us with iron, dirt and rocks. It also put a damper on our work. A German plane was sailing around over us and spotting us for the artillery. We stayed in the pit working away and expecting to be blown up every minute, but when a lieutenant came running up and said, “Boys, I’ve got good news for you. We are going to leave this place. Get to the house and get your packs.” The Germans are driving again.
The little engine had already gone with the gun, so it was up to us to hike the 25 miles out of the neck or get trapped. The Boche had only three miles to drive each way to have us. I shall always remember that retreat. We had everything we owned with us, A weight of about 75 pounds, and were already tired from work and chasing around. We had had very little to eat and very few of us had any water with us. The lieutenant told us that we would do well to save ourselves, and if we couldn’t make it, to ditch our packs. Many of the fellows did, but I stuck to mine. The Germans had begun shelling again and exploding shell gave us speed. Once we stopped to rest for about 10 minutes and then went on. My pack was getting pretty heavy and I was getting pretty tired and thirsty and we were only half way. We passed through several towns already deserted except for soldiers. It was dark now and the sky to our right was lighted up by the flames of a burning town the Germans had taken.
It was 11 o’clock when we got out of the horseshoe and the captain took us into the woods to spend the night. I was staggering like a drunken man and my tongue was almost hanging out, I was so thirsty. I shook my pack off but didn’t unroll it. I didn’t sleep very well that night. I was simply dead till morning.
I have heard since that the Boche used our gun pit for a swimming pool. Some big Dutchman is no doubt playing “The Watch on the Rhine” on Hinkle’s banjo which he forgot in his excitement. It’s all in the life, why worry?
Your loving son,
J. C. WADDELL
NOTES: J. C. Waddell was writing to his mother. Waddell had worked for J. W. Rhodes of Golder Lake and was considered an Osceola boy.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT