In Letter to His
Father, William C. Lee Describes What a Modern Battle Really Is
A letter from Lieut. William C. Lee, who is with the army of
occupation in Germany, to his father, Eldridge Lee of Dunn:
American Army of
Occupation
Moyen, Germany
Dec. 29th,
1918
I am hoping that your Christmas was a very happy one and
that the New Year will bring with it all kinds of good things for you. I wish
that I could have spent the holidays with the home people but that being
impossible I made the best of it and after all had an excellent time.
You probably have learned from my recent letters to Gene and
Mama concerning conditions here and of our daily life among the Germans.
Sufficient to say that the German people treat us with the utmost courtesy and
respect and I do not know of a single instance in which there has been friction
between the Americans and civilians. The people of Lorraine and Luxemburg gave
us a very enthusiastic reception when we marched through their countries but
the Germans received us with doubt and suspicion. However they were not long
realizing that we were not savages on a rampage and all doubt and suspicion
vanished from their minds as our reputation preceded us.
The hike from France to the Rhine was very hard as the
weather was cold and rainy and the roads were in rotten shape. Owing to poor
transportation there were times when we failed to get enough to eat; but when
we reached the Rhine everything was “chicken.” We now get our supplies by rail
thus solving the transportation problem. The S.O.S. is on the job and I don’t
think that we will have any trouble now getting all the supplies that we need.
We have no idea when this division will be ordered home. We
were led to believe that we would go just as soon as peace was signed but that
is very indefinite as peace terms may not be agreed upon for some time yet.
(lines unreadable) territory until the terms have been complied with. As our
division is one of the old regular army outfits we will be one of the most
probable ones to stay. Anyhow a few months doesn’t make so much difference now
for we are quartered in the very best homes in this section of Germany and
every soldier from the General down to the lowest private is very comfortably
housed, clothed and fed.
My regiment has been decorated by the French with the “Croix
de Guerre” with palms for gallantry and bravery in the battles of the Marne and
the Argonne. This is the highest honor given by the French and we were one of
the few American regiments to receive it. Quite an honor and I am proud to have
belonged to such a regiment.
We are doing a lot of guard duty and our training schedule
is almost as strenuous as it was during the war. But gee! What a difference
there is between drilling and fighting. “Civilized” warfare is the most uncivilized
thing possible.
The popular civilian conception of a battle is quite
different from the real thing. The average civilian has an idea that a fight is
a glorious charge, with colors flying, bands playing, horsemen madly dashing to
and fro, handsome young officers leading their men to victory with flashing
swords, and a Y.M.C.A. secretary waiting at the end with hot chocolate and
cigarettes. It is all wrong; particularly the part aobut the Y.M.C.A.
secretary.
What really happens is this: Some dark rainy night (it’s
sure to be raining) your battalion is ordered to take over a certain sector of
the front line. Then the battalion is hiked all night in the rain and sleeps in
the woods next day. It rains all day and of course the rations fail to show up.
The following night you are hiked back over the same ground that you covered
the night before because during the day your guides discover that they have
taken you to the wrong sector. By that time everybody has an awful grouch and
then is when you begin to hear rare examples of typical unadulterated American
profanity. Well finally you arrive in the rear of your sector and more guides
meet you to take each company and platoon to its designated sector. The
companies and platoons are separated and enter the long communicating trenches
leading to the front lines.
About this time the damn rolling kitchen (which until now
have made themselves conspicuous by their absence) begin to blunder up in the
rear making enough noise to awaken the dead. Fritz immediately opens up with
his artillery and begins shelling the communicating trenches and the roads in
the rear. He sends a few gas shells along as a welcome and then on top of the
mud, the rain, and darkness you have don that instrument of torture technically
known as a box respirator or gas mask.
Eventually you reach your position and the relief is made.
If you are a platoon leader there are a million details to attend to, but about
daylight you have things smoothed out to a certain extent and retire to your
dugout for a bit of sleep. But no sleep for the weary. Rats, shells, orders,
runners, mud, rain, cold and a foul smelling two by four dugout is enough to
keep anyone from sleeping.
If you are very lucky you get two meals a day consisting of
corned beef, hardtack and coffee. If you have only ordinary luck you get one
meal a day, menu same as before. If you are neither lucky nor unlucky you have
to make out with a canteen of water a la trenches.
After several days of rain the sun might come out for a
while each day. During the short periods that the sun is shining you will
emerge from your hole and promenade down the trench to some nice warm corner to
dry out and take a smoke. You make yourself as comfortable as possible, pull
out your Bull Durham and say to yourself that it is not so bad after all. Then
you discover that you have no papers and your matches are all wet. To crown
your misfortune the warm sun has brought to life millions and millions of
“animals” that suddenly begin to bite and crawl all over your body. You rise to
your feet, scratch like the dickens and exclaim: “Hell! I’ve got the cooties.”
Oh how many times I have heard those fatal words.
It is characteristic of Americans not to stay downhearted
very long under any circumstances so you console yourself with thoughts that
your relief is due that night and you will go back for a nice long rest. But
when night comes do you get a relief? I say not! Instead you get an order that
your platoon will go over the top at 5 a.m. the next morning after 60 minutes artillery
preparation and take hill number so and so. “Oh what a great and glorious
feeling. NOT! Your company commander pays you a visit and through him you learn
that a big drive is to be launched next morning all along the line.
In the excitement of getting ready you forget about your
half-starved, wet, cootie-bitten body and manage to live 10 years during the
night. A heavy artillery preparation is something that can’t be described.
Neither can you describe your own sensations. But after many long minutes the
zero hour eventually arrives, the barrage lifts and over you go. It is daylight
by this time. The men in small groups, single file, pass through the wire and
you find yourself in no-man’s land on the way to take hill No. --- About the
time you got well out into no-man’s land, the Boche artillery opens up. They
pour shells in on you in quantities, quantities and varieties that you never
before knew existed. Then instead of the highly colored romantic description of
a grand and glorious charge, you see men scurrying for shell holes and any
other kind of holes that may be convenient. Maybe the shelling will ease up a
bit before long and you start your men going forward again. This time you
notice that you haven’t got as many men as you had when you started. Gradually
and cautiously you work your way forward (next lines unreadable) they open up
on you with their machine guns and what a wicked sound those bullets have. It
is not long before you realize that you have got to put some of those guns out
of action before you can advance. It may take all day to do it and night
catches you in no-man’s land. You decide to lay low all night holding on to
what you’ve got and finish taking the hill next morning. You pick out a hole
and try to rest—but all night they shell you. It is not bullets that breaks a
man but it’s those high explosive shells. There is nothing that tears a man’s
nerves up like a long grilling night under shell-fire. You hear wounded men
groan all night and a runner comes to you occasionally with the news that you
have lost another sergeant. In one attack I saw one shell kill 14 men. It blew
them to pieces.
Somehow you manage to survive the night and next morning at
daylight you move forward again. The Americans have a way of always “getting
there” so you eventually capture the hill, send your prisoners back and signal
to your aeroplanes the position of your front lines. You rally your men and
find that more than half of them are missing. Majors and Captains got killed as
well as lieutenants and enlisted men and you might get word that you are now
commanding your company or even your battalion.
You try to eat but gas has made your throat so raw that you
can’t possibly swallow the captured German bread and jam, which is all you
have.
And it goes on like that. Your relief never comes. You are
reinforced instead and ordered to continue the advance. Finally you are
withdrawn, given a couple of days rest and sent to another sector where the
dose is repeated.
That is what war is like today. But even at that we took
what came as a matter of course and expected nothing better. We knew what we
were up against. We are not grumbling about the hardships we had to endure. It
was worth it all to be able to say: “We helped lick the Huns.” We are proud
that we were in a fighting unit. We are glad that we came and we are going to
be glad when we go back. Above all we are glad (emphatically so) that the war
is over. It is true that we have our bright days and almost see the humorous
side of things but the only man that enjoys war is the man behind the lines. If
you ever hear a man say that he has been through a big fight and would like to
go back again you can either put him down for a fool or a liar.
I hope the days of war have passed forever but if we should
ever have another you will see America rise up as one man, for our experiences
over here have made us love and appreciate more than ever the greatest country
that God ever blessed.
I didn’t intend writing such a long letter and hope that it
will not tire you. Write to me often. It has been almost three months since I
received mail but keep writing and maybe eventually a letter from home will
filter through. Love to the family.
Your son,
Willie
Co. C, 30th
Infantry, A.P.O. No. 791, American E.F.
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