TRANSCRIBED FROM THE CLEVELAND COUNTY HERALD MAY 1, 1919 P. 1
After one year of service in France I will write you a short letter. I have been here one year the 7th of this month and it has seemed like twelve years to me since I left the good old U.S.A. and I am wondering when Uncle Sam is going to send for us to come home, it seems as if we Engineers will have to stay over here longer than any of the other boys. We have done nearly every kind of work since landing here but supplying the boys at the front with lumber and wood has been our biggest job.
We were stationed in the advance Sector, near the Swiss border in the Alps where we had lots of snow and cold weather, but now we are in Southern France, near the Spanish border, cutting pine timber. There are many Engineer troops here and lots of timber to cut it will probably be six months before we hit the gang plank.
We do not know very much about the guns and drills, but we can tell all about the different forests we have cut and the bridges we have built, and some of this work was done under shell fire to keep our great Army moving after the Boche.
Most of us have learned to speak French a little, so we get along fine talking to a French girl, but we never forget our pretty Arkansas girls we are longing to see.
There are several Cleveland County boys here with me but we have not been getting much mail lately and we would be glad to get a letter from anybody from home and will answer everyone.
I have heard that several of our boys are back home so I am sure you have learned all about France, it is a great country for scenery and that is about all, there is some farming and mining on account of the war, but they are far behind the U.S.A. in farm implements and other tools. Stock is scarce in this country and the people use their cows and oxen to plow and drive.
For pastime we play ball and other games, and we have a large Y.M.C.A. near we have Picture Shows three time a week, andsome times we have Y. Minstrel shows, which we enjoy very much.
Our Company has won two Ball games and lost two. The 20th Engineers have a Record on all kinds of work and games, but we are proudest of our Hot Cakes record. In one of the largest camps in France we had a kitchen range 929 feet wide and 1353 feet long, it took eighteen firemen to keep it hot and we had 519 cooks and 700 KPs. We mashed potatoes with a pile driver and ground coffee with a 350 HP Liberty motor, they hauled out dirty pans on railroad cars, the KP’s went onroller skates und the Mess Seargent rode up, down the kitchen on a motorcycle shouting orders through a megaphone, we cooked for 8000 soldiers. Now for the flap-jacks. We mixed the batter with 12 concrete mixers. Had a steam shovel moving egg shells away from the door, and six K.P.s with bacon rines strapped to their feet skating over the griddle to keep it greased and I think when Uncle Sam looks over our service record he will surely send us home.
I will close as I am not much of a writer, but a pan cake fryer, and what it takes to make them we’ve got it.
From your soldier boy in France,
Cook Jackson A. White
26th Co, of 20th Engineers, American E.F. Via New York
NOTES:
TRANSCRIBED BY: ISAAC WOLTER
After one year of service in France I will write you a short letter. I have been here one year the 7th of this month and it has seemed like twelve years to me since I left the good old U.S.A. and I am wondering when Uncle Sam is going to send for us to come home, it seems as if we Engineers will have to stay over here longer than any of the other boys. We have done nearly every kind of work since landing here but supplying the boys at the front with lumber and wood has been our biggest job.
We were stationed in the advance Sector, near the Swiss border in the Alps where we had lots of snow and cold weather, but now we are in Southern France, near the Spanish border, cutting pine timber. There are many Engineer troops here and lots of timber to cut it will probably be six months before we hit the gang plank.
We do not know very much about the guns and drills, but we can tell all about the different forests we have cut and the bridges we have built, and some of this work was done under shell fire to keep our great Army moving after the Boche.
Most of us have learned to speak French a little, so we get along fine talking to a French girl, but we never forget our pretty Arkansas girls we are longing to see.
There are several Cleveland County boys here with me but we have not been getting much mail lately and we would be glad to get a letter from anybody from home and will answer everyone.
I have heard that several of our boys are back home so I am sure you have learned all about France, it is a great country for scenery and that is about all, there is some farming and mining on account of the war, but they are far behind the U.S.A. in farm implements and other tools. Stock is scarce in this country and the people use their cows and oxen to plow and drive.
For pastime we play ball and other games, and we have a large Y.M.C.A. near we have Picture Shows three time a week, andsome times we have Y. Minstrel shows, which we enjoy very much.
Our Company has won two Ball games and lost two. The 20th Engineers have a Record on all kinds of work and games, but we are proudest of our Hot Cakes record. In one of the largest camps in France we had a kitchen range 929 feet wide and 1353 feet long, it took eighteen firemen to keep it hot and we had 519 cooks and 700 KPs. We mashed potatoes with a pile driver and ground coffee with a 350 HP Liberty motor, they hauled out dirty pans on railroad cars, the KP’s went onroller skates und the Mess Seargent rode up, down the kitchen on a motorcycle shouting orders through a megaphone, we cooked for 8000 soldiers. Now for the flap-jacks. We mixed the batter with 12 concrete mixers. Had a steam shovel moving egg shells away from the door, and six K.P.s with bacon rines strapped to their feet skating over the griddle to keep it greased and I think when Uncle Sam looks over our service record he will surely send us home.
I will close as I am not much of a writer, but a pan cake fryer, and what it takes to make them we’ve got it.
From your soldier boy in France,
Cook Jackson A. White
26th Co, of 20th Engineers, American E.F. Via New York
NOTES:
TRANSCRIBED BY: ISAAC WOLTER