"I'm attached to the Field Hospital, the hospital that
does the first real surgery on the battlefield, and in action
is located
about five miles back of the front in a cellar or basement
of any building big enough. We also have tentage we can use in
summer in the open. I like it here and like my superior officers
and that's a mighty big item in the army.
"There are four Field Hospitals to a division (36,000
men) and they are located where they can be of most service as
they are mobile units. There are six surgeons to each hospital
and eighty-two enlisted men to do the nursing, first aid, litter
work, etc., and change dressings. The surgeons, if we ever see
service, will certainly do some surgery.
"Coming back to this town - it's one of the most delightful
places in the good old U.S.A. for the winter season. Just
picture to yourself a fine, calm, warm, ideal old-fashioned
September day, cloudless and no wind, and you have the beautiful
winter climate of San Antonio. Of course, occasionally, they
have what they call a 'norther,' a sudden cold wave that only
serves to remind the natives what the northern states suffer
all winter. Houses and buildings are of the old style Mexican
or Spanish, and are odd and foreign in appearance. This end of
the U.S. is really the only foreign country in the U.S. All the
rest looks pretty much the same. Of course there is a Mexican
section to the town but they stay there, except for those of
'class' and money whose company is sought by everyone. This place
is 127,000 now, by no means a town, but rather has all the ear
marks of a city. Camp Travis is the National Army Cantonment
with its 40,000 men.
"We have a class in equitation taught by Col. Leary,
an old cavalry officer, and he teaches us the correct method
of
riding in all its various phases. For instance, one thing
I'm learning is to take hurdles on the run without stirrups,
without hold on the reins, and with hands behind the head. Imagine
me on a horse, if you can, but really I'm a fair rider already,
with two weeks of instruction one hour daily, and it's all on
account of having an expert instructor; and the horses! Say,
those 'birds' are almost human, all old cavalry horses and will
obey commands of a leader without touching a rein. To turn one
around, just touch the opposite flank with the heel; no one ever
speaks to a cavalry horse, all being done with the heels, reins
and arm signals. In formation though, reins are not needed; all
obey the commander. It's truly remarkable, and I think more of
a horse than I ever did in my life.
"Besides that I teach anatomy and physiology an hour
a day to the enlisted men, drill them two hours, attend two-hour
lectures myself and often a lecture after supper.
"I witnessed a review of this whole division last week
and it was a truly impressive sight, one that quickens the pulse
and
tightens the throat with pride; a sight that no true American
can look upon without its producing a certain emotion - to watch
these young men of less than two months training, marching in
rhythmical stride, flags flying, and the bands playing 'The Stars
and Stripes Forever.' I wish everyone might have the privilege."
San Antonio, Texas, January 27, 1918.
"I am in uniform again after seven weeks in casts. My
leg is not strong enough to bear much weight yet, but I get around
on crutches pretty well. Go most anywhere with the aid of
the jitneys. The leg is straight. I worried about it a long time
till I saw it out of the cast and now I worry for fear it won't
get strong. Sometimes a bone does not make bone, and is slow
even when it does. I worry about all the things that sometimes
happen because I know too well what often does happen, so that's
one handicap in being a physician.
"Yesterday Bob Warn was to come to eat at noon and he
never came. He is out at Leon Springs twenty miles north of
here at Camp Stanley, running an army truck and also teaching
the telephone business to the student officers at the Officers'
Training Camp.
"Captain Vernon Castle, erstwhile dancer and now expert
aviator, is at Fort Worth teaching our boys too. He made 300
trips back of the German lines without getting killed, and
then after ten months continuous work, they thought he needed
a rest, so they sent him here to teach. The town is full of French
and English flyers and we had a Chinese flyer here, too, the
other day. Katherine Stinson, the famous woman flyer, is to be
here soon. This is her home and she is getting ready to conduct
a private school here with her brother, also an expert. We have
Kelly field, one and two, and Brooks field; also a balloon school,
the only camp in the United States that has all branches of the
service represented, Infantry, Artillery, Quartermaster Corps,
Ordnance, Signal Corps, Aviation, Balloon, Grenade School, Officers'
Training Camp and Cavalry.
"This is the largest flying school in the world and
the planes are so thick over town that they look like dragon
flies at
times. Balloons go over at all heights. We watched two the
other day that got up over town and the breeze played out and
there they were stranded two hours. They went up and down trying
to get into a current of air, but didn't find it. They didn't
dare try to land in the city and so had to wait until the breeze
came back. They thought it was great sport and I guess it is.
I'm going to ride with one of them when this leg gets well. They
fly free, you know, in training and light when they get ready.
Of course in service they keep a string on them and use them
for observation. If an enemy flier puts the balloon out of commission,
they tumble out and trust to their parachutes which are folded
and fastened to the outside of the basket. Each man wears a harness
attached to his back and shoulders, and that is fastened to the
parachute. Exciting business I should think, especially if something
happens to the balloon.
"Saw some French government war pictures the other night
and they were the best I've seen yet. Simply marvelous is
the organization they have at present. It shows how far we
have yet to go before we can say we have an army. We are not
half ready - in training or equipment. They show the actual picture
of a French flyer shooting down a German plane. Showed the German
fluttering down like a leaf and the smoking ruins a second later.
Picture taken from a plane following close behind the fighter,
showed how they control the machine with one hand and operate
the Lewis gun with the other. It was the greatest picture I've
seen yet in connection with the war.
"Write when you get time."
September 8, 1918, France.
"We spent about five weeks in a small village not so
very far from the lines, then two weeks ago moved up here in
motor
trucks, and our division is now holding a sector of the front.
"We are not so far front the front but that there are
plenty of guns back of us - big ones I mean - for, of course,
the real
stuff - the 75's, the 6 and 8 inch - are ahead of us and
they speak American. The German can understand their language
even if he is a little shy in gray matter. A flock of the big
boys behind us opened up yesterday for a while and I thought
the whole country must be full of guns, but one can never tell.
They may move a six inch gun a mile in one half hour, and by
the time the Boche bombs the spot where he was, the old six inch
boy is setting up ready for business elsewhere.
"I think I may say some things about the Boche aviator
as he is much written about and as common up here as field mice.
I see them daily and hear them nightly. So far, when they
have passed over us, they have kept their hands in their pockets,
that is, they have not dropped anything. That is one of their
mean habits - dropping bombs. They are after guns, ammunition
dumps, aviation fields, convoys and things like that though,
so they leave us alone.
"They have one aviator that is a pippin at getting our
observation balloons. I've seen him get three close to us within
a
week. He soars high up over 15,000 feet or better, and his
own anti-aircraft puts up a barrage as a blind to make us think
they are trying to et one of our aviators, and so we pay no attention
to the hound. Then he circles over one of our balloons and dives
straight down or at a slight angle. When he gets within about
200 yards of it, he lets go with a stream of explosive bullets,
puncturing Mr. Gasbag in many places. He flattens out after thirty
or forty shots and, perhaps within one hundred yards of the balloon,
flies away as fast as his beast will take him and begins to climb
rapidly so as to get away from aircraft and anti-aircraft guns.
He gets away every time perhaps because our defense is not all
that it might be. It looks more like a sporting event than a
war stunt. Oh, yes, the poor innocent aernoaut, the balloonist,
was forgotten but, never mind, he has been out in his parachute
for some time when the aviator dives, and about ten seconds after
a stream of hot lead goes through the balloon, she bursts into
flames, rapidly burns up and falls to the ground. The hydrogen
gas burns like gasoline vapor, readily and explosively. The balloonist
may light in a tree top, but at any rate he's safer there than
in the balloon. One fellow over here has been up thirteen times
lately and came down nine times in a parachute, though the balloon
was not attacked. Men have jumped from planes piloted by another,
but so far as I know, no one has successfully gotten out of a
burning plane he himself was piloting. Rodman Law at San Antonio
jumped from a plane 7,000 feet in the air, piloted by the famous
aviator Stinson. We are reliably informed that the British aviator
is the very best of the Allied aviators. The Boche is a smart
guy but has no show with him. One British plane will successfully
cope with four or even six Boche, shoot up a few and get away
with his own hide; but the particular outfit of Boche we've seen
are real clever boys and it will take more and better Allied
aviators here before we see their finish.
"The familiar shape of the Boche's fighting plane, the
Albatross, can readily be discerned by us. The wings have the
shape of a bird moving with a distinct backward swing. Our
planes are flats with square ends. All German planes wear the
black maltese cross while all the Allies wear the concentric
circles of red, white and blue. The British use one color in
the center spot, the French another and the American the other,
with the outer circles colored with the two remaining colors
as the case may be. So it's always easy to tell French, British
or American if close enough to see.
"Another pretty sight is to watch the searchlights at
night trying to locate a Boche aviator overhead. One can hear
him
plainly enough, but the lights rarely spot him. He's small
and the sky is very large.
"We follow the army so we do not know how long we'll
be here. We do not try to carry everything with us. Our trunks
we sent to Paris. I can pack and be ready to go with only
fifteen minutes notice. We have a surgeon from New Orleans with
us, a Southerner, who has begun to shiver already. He already
dresses like an Eskimo. He was in the Chateau Thierry drive and
had a lot of experience, so we gain much information from him.
He's an excellent surgeon, and, as he is attached to our outfit
indefinitely, I expect to enjoy the next month or so immensely,
as he's a regular fellow. We have eight medical officers with
this organization and eighty-three enlisted men. Nothing much
to do unless there is a drive on; then we may work for from two
to even four days without rest. We get chocolate, cigars and
cigarettes from the Red Cross, Y.M.C.A. and Salvation Army, so
we do not suffer for sweets and smokes like we did the first
month we were in France. It is easier to get stuff near the front
than further back. The Y.M.C.A. charge the cost of the article.
The Red Cross are the real helpers. The others also do a commendable
work.
"Well, good luck to Wisconsinites and hope you get coal
for the winter."
September 14, 1918, Somewhere in Alsace.
"I can't see why we are not allowed to tell just where
we are, since the Germans know exactly all the time what
divisions they are facing and just how many men there are.
We've been here more than a week and are holding down the old
'Hindenburg line' that they said we could not take. Our Division
did in three days what the French said couldn't be done and now
we are taking our time getting settled in the nice German dugouts.
The boys complain because they face the wrong way and because
the electric lights won't work. The Germans blew up the light
plant the day they retired. I say retired, but if you had seen
them you would have said they ran like hell.
"Last night we sent the Germans about a million tons
of cast iron, and a varied assortment of all kinds of heavy hard-
ware that we had no other use for, and in about two hours
Fritz got in a carload and he shipped it to us in great haste.
I wasn't out admiring the moon or the beautiful night either.
When that stuff comes tearing over there, we just naturally can't
stand the 'night air.' It isn't healthy, so we take to Fritz's
fine dugouts and underground holes, and wait until they get it
off their chests.
"I am with an infantry outfit just now which is holding
the front line trenches. I came out to take the place of a Doctor
that got killed by shrapnel last week; he failed to flatten
out when he heard the shell coming. If he had he would have been
O.K. as none of those with him got a scratch. Say, I can lie
so flat on the ground that it seems even my ears flatten out
and, so far, the Boche haven't gotten my address. I plan to try
to bring home my Boche souvenirs in my hands, not my hide. We
are merely taking care of sick just now as there is a lull in
the fighting, except artillery, and they never quit as long as
they have the hardware. We have been expecting to go back any
day. They have retired all the other divisions that took part
in the big drive but ours, so we'll go back soon. We had some
hard work during the drive, as many shrapnel wounds and machine
gun wounds were dressed by this outfit. We are the most advanced
of the medical departments and I must say it's interesting to
say the least.
"We are occupying a German machine gunners' nest, built
of solid concrete three feet thick on all sides, with bunks,
electric light, etc., stove and all. We just took over their
nest and started keeping house.