Pvt. Carroll, Shields Cameron Share War Stories In Alumni Notes, Feb. 5, 1919

From The Guilfordian, Greensboro, N.C., Feb. 5, 1919

Under Alumni Notes were two letters from former students who are now soldiers.

Private H.A. Carroll, ’14, whose address is 6^th Train Hdqs. And Military Police, A.E.F., A.P.O. 777, has not yet returned to America. The following letter written the 17^th of December, has just arrived:

Aignay-le-Duc, France

Dec. 17^th, 1918

Dear Friend:

I have just received The Guilfordian and I want to tell you and the Board how much an Alumnus in France appreciates it. It gives information concerning several of my classmates and other friends of the college of whom I was anxious to hear.

Well, we finished our job over here for Old Man Humanity a little ahead of schedule—eh? We were so worn and tired from chasing the Huns north of Argonne that we were hardly in a condition to fully appreciate the meaning of the armistice when it came. However, we are glad it’s over and shall be glad when the time comes to start back across the Atlantic.

I expect to go to Paris in a week or so and study philosophy, literature, and history until our division sails.

In early November I was recommended by my commanding officers for a commission in the Chemical Warfare Service and on the 9^th and 10^th passed examination for same but the armistice on the 11^th stopped all further commissions; so I was ‘out of luck’ for the ‘bars.’

Hoping that you and Guilford will have a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I remain,

Your friend,

Hardy Carroll

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Shields Cameron has also been in the heart of things, judging from this letter written soon after the armistice was signed:

November 21, 1918

Dear Professor:

Contrary to all my good intentions I have not written you till now since coming over here. Now however that the war is over, I along with a good many other members of the A.E.F. are writing a good many of those letters that we never had time to write while the big scrap was on. I have not had any news from Guilford since school opened, but I trust you have full dormitories and everything is going along nicely. I guess you missed Professors Woosley and Balderston a great deal at the first of the year. I was told that the former’s company was just across the valley from me when we were moving up to the Argonne forest on the drive northwest of Verdun. I was thinking of taking a run thru the barrage the Dutchmen were throwing over on the road between us to see him, but just about that time the order came in for us to move up or do something of the sort and I did not go. I have never been able to find Sherley White or hear anything from him since he was in the big drive at Chateau Thierry. I am afraid he was hurt there, altho I have no definite information. It was in the Chateau Thierry salient that I had my baptism of fire too. They sent us in there about the first of August. We had a couple of weeks fighting and then were pulled out for a couple of weeks’ rest at Sancourt. From there by a series of night marches we moved up to the Saint Mihiel salient where on the morning of Sept. 12^th, after about three nights of the most grueling work getting our guns and ammunition in position that I have had in this war, we helped send over the barrage that paved the way for our doughboys to take the salient. From there we moved back into Le Forest des Cinq Freres for a brief rest. From there we pulled out on Sept. 22^nd, 9 p.m., for that hill where the French poilus in the early part of the war gave a million of their best to stop the Boche—Le Mort Homme at Verdun. We were in position in the valley between Dead Man’s Hill and Hill 304 when the big drive started at 5:30 a.m. Sept. 26. Next day at 2 p.m. we were in position probably 20 kilometers nearer Berlin pounding away at the Dutchman again. They were doing the same thing to us too. They even came over and bombed us. The latter has more of a mental effect than physical. You never know where the things are going to hit. We soon moved up from that position to one above Septsarges on the edge of the Argonne Forest. There we stayed until the relief came up some time about the first of November. As you know some time about the eleventh of the eleventh day of the aforementioned eleventh month Herr Fritz Hienie Boche held up his hands and yelled “Kamerad” and so the war ended and now several million soldiers have no “raison di etre.”

I am not sorry by any means. I trust that the principles of justice and right for which the war was shall never again be so threatened as to cause men to take up arms against one another again. In short that Dr. Hoobs’ dream of a universal peace league shall become a fact.

My best regards to all at Guilford.

Your friend,

Shields Cameron