"This is a camp of considerable size. It covers ten
square miles of a fairly level, treeless plain. There will be
50,000 or
more soldiers here when all arrive. A remount station for
horses that will belong to the light artillery is here. An aviation
field, hangars and barracks are under erection."
France, May 7, 1918.
"I was talking to a fellow that had been in the trenches
and he said that I'd have a lot of new experiences when I got
up
there. he has been up twice and says he feels as though he
had his share. You know the Boche uses a lot of gas on us. Well,
every night after you have crawled down in your dugout to sleep
he opens up on you and cheats you out of your sleep, because,
when you are wearing a gas mask, it is hard to sleep. That may
sound as if the 'square heads' make it miserable for us, but
for every shell he sends at us we give him a dozen at least."
France, June 17, 1918.
"Just recently, I came out of the trenches from another
tour in them. I surely will be glad, if I am always lucky, as
I have
been. One can have some narrow escapes from the big shells
that sing overhead and occasionally drop uncomfortably close
to our hole in the ground, for the trenches are nothing more
than ditches with occasionally a shelter overhead for protection
from the shrapnel. Those high explosive shells of Fritz's surely
have me buffaloed and I like to keep down when the shells are
coming.
"The weather was fine all the time in the trenches and
is continuing so.
"It seems good to get away from the sound of the guns.
It gets on my nerves. Bombardments and barrages are nerve-
racking worlds of noise.
"There is a Y.M.C.A., where we can buy cookies and sweets
and get paper to write on. Then there is a Red Cross
here. They give away hot chocolate and 'smokes' and treat
us fine."
France, Sept. 25, 1918.
"We have moved again and are waiting for a chance to
get into the big thing again. Perhaps you have read about the
Fritz's Camp in a big woods, where he was rudely surprised
and chased out. We just got paid, but can't buy anything because
the 'Y' isn't around and these French stores don't have what
one wants. I hope the river and the parks are still there when
I get back."
Your son,
PRIVATE WILBERT MURPHY.
Ruppach, Germany, February 23, 1919.
"The following is a summary of what happened to Wilbert
Murphy during the five days he was in action at Soissons, and
what the fellows he was with, did:
"We got into position in the support line about 4:00
A.M., on the morning of July 18. Our artillery had opened up
with a
crash. It was a terrific drum fire and it served its purpose
to surprise the Jerries.
"After what seemed ages to me, though in reality it
was only a few minutes, we reached the line and dropped into
the
shallow trenches to get our breath and also to get our rifles
ready. Bayonets were fixed, rifles loaded ready to fire, when
we should run across the Jerries in our advance. I was a buck
in Corporal Butts' squad then and was right next to him while
we were getting ready to go over.
"Just as we were smoking the Captain came along and
gave orders to get ready to go over. He was an exceptionally
fearless man and that gave us all confidence. Soon the order
came to go over and over we went. Just as we went over the man
at the telephone back of me said, that over half of the German
batteries had been knocked out by our artillery fire.
"As we went over the crest of the hill and down into
the valley, we saw the French tanks making their way up the
opposite hillside towards the Jerry trenches. We kept going
ahead about an hour and then we got down in some German trenches
that were pretty well battered up. Here we stopped a while to
rest and let the flanks catch up. Far ahead we saw the tanks,
most of them still going ahead. Shells from Jerry were coming
over now and twice while I was looking over the parapet, I saw
a tank stop, rear up on its tail (as we said) and nearly go to
pieces from the force of the explosion. A shell had made a direct
hit.
"Soon we moved ahead and about noon came to a road which
was being pretty well shelled by the Germans. Here we
stopped and dug in. The whizz-bangs were coming over fast
and did not have to listen very hard to hear the 88's and 77's
whine through the air and light a short distance from you. Some
of the explosives nearly took my breath away, the concussion
was so great.
"So far we had run into very little gas. We had been
advancing so fast that Jerry did not have time to use it anyway.
However we could go no further that day until our artillery
moved up further - as we were nearly out of range. The aeroplanes
were pretty thick. I think I counted sixty-five in the air at
once when we started over. They weren't all French or American
either, several were British and not a few were German.
"We improved our trench and prepared for a counter-attack,
which we felt sure would come, for the Germans were
well prepared here. You remember their last big drive started
the 14th and we had helped stop their advance. Nov. the 18th
we were pursuing them.
"Next day about noon orders came to advance. Packs were
adjusted and over we went. It was necessary to expose
ourselves very much in crossing the crest of the ridge, consequently
as soon as Jerry saw us coming he opened up; and we had very
little barrage of our own ahead of us. Double timing over the
crest and down into the valley we went. Gas was in the valley
so we could not stop. A few adjusted gas masks on the run. Most
of us did not. We gained the next slope O.K., and without a single
casualty. Then we spread ourselves out in a wheatfield to await
the signal for further advance. Jerry must have seen us enter
the field, for his machine guns kept up a constant put-put-put,
and we could see the dust rise, where the bullets hit around
us. I had a queer feeling once, when I felt something slap against
my pack. When I got a chance to look I saw that a machine-gun
bullet just grazed by helmet and hit the pack going through the
mess kit and finally stopping in the handle of the small shovel
I carried. I felt pretty lucky.
"At four o'clock we started to advance again. This time
the machine-gun bullets were hell. Some of our best friends
dropped, but it only made us more determined to stick it
out and get our revenge. We went a couple hundred yards and hit
the Paris-Soissons road and then an open plain which was fairly
level. The road was covered with dead Huns and not a few Americans.
They had had hard fighting. The cavalry ahead of us had lost
a great many horses and now there were no tanks ahead of us.
Still we went on and with a cheer, a shout of defiance to the
Huns, we swept across that highway and into the open field beyond.
We had broken their defense and they were in retreat. Our line
of skirmishers across that plain was beautiful - yes marvelous.
Nothing but Jerry's G.I. cans bothered us now and he was throwing
a bunch of them now.
"We crossed the plain, went down a hillside into a valley
and captured the town of Ploisy - but we could not stop, even
though we were nearly exhausted. We passed through the town
and up the next hill. We gained the crest of the hill, when the
machine-gun fire got so intense and deadly, that we had to stop
and seek shelter behind the crest of the hill. Our company was
there alone - the outfits on our flanks had not gone as fast
as we did. It was nearly dark, getting near the close of the
second day of fighting. We lay along the ridge - shooting now
and then in the direction the machine-gun fire came from. Butts
and I were digging ourselves a hole, when the order came to advance.
We had to take those machine-gun nests by a charge. We did and
such a cheer as arose from the boys, when we made it. That and
the sight of us coming at them with that cold steel of the bayonets
glistening in the last rays of the sun made the Germans' hearts
sink. Then we saw a wonderful sight. Going down the road ahead
of us, at a distance of about 300 yards, was nearly a company
of Jerries in full retreat. They did not even stop to yell 'kamerad'
or take their guns or anything. They just beat it. We let loose
on them with our rifles and saw quite a number of them drop.
Then we had to stop and re-establish connections on our flank.
"Finally, when it got dark, we dug in. Connections were
re-established and we prepared ourselves for a counter-attack.
It did not come, however, though all next day, while we lay
in our little holes, the shelling was fierce. The aeroplanes
were fewer in number now, excepting that Jerry seemed to have
more planes up than we did.
"About midnight we withdrew a few hundred yards and
waited for the signal to go over again the next morning. The
morning came and after a little barrage by our artillery
started over. We had not gone three hundred yards, when over
a hundred of the fellows were lying on the ground wounded or
killed. The second wave rushed up and filled the gaps in the
first wave. In about ten minutes we got to Benzy-a-Sec, our final
objective, but we were so badly shot up, that we could go no
further. Only about seventy out of two hundred and fifty men
were at the final objective, when we captured it. That last day
we took only a few prisoners."