Hampton Roads, VA
    June 6, 1919

    Dear Father,

    I received your letter and was very glad to hear from you.  We just got back

    from Bordeaux.  We had good weather all this trip but on our other trip to

    Brest we had plenty of rough weather including a three day hurricane.  While

    we were in France this trip I got a furlough and went to Paris.  I tried to

    get up to Coblenz to see Fred but they wouldn't let me over the border so I

    took a trip around some of the battlefields and take it from me they are

    some places.  I sent a box with some of my clothes and some souveniers in

    it.  The rusty gun, the helmet, and the canteen belonged to a German soldier

    that we found in a shell hole near Reims.  He had been dead a long time as

    there was only the bones left.  The piece of cloth with the number on it is

    one of the shoulder straps off his overcoat.  The small brass shell is a

    French 75, the big one is an English one, and the short one is a German

    trench mortar shell and is peculiar as it is made of brass.  Nearly all

    German shells are of iron.  The stained glass and the cross are from Reims

    Catherdral which the Germans shelled.  The bayonet is a French one and was

    found in the ruins of Fort St. Thierie where is was hanging on the barbed

    wire.  The thing that looks like an airplane bomb is a flare light and is

    fired from a spring gun.  The copper band is off a gas shell and the shell

    nose from a French [unintelligable].  The heavy piece of brass is off a

    German high explosive.  There is a large picture of the crew rolled up

    inside the shell.  The others are of some of the places where we have been.

    I saw one of the Hibner boys in Brest.  He was on the Covington when she was

    sunk.  Brest is a punk place it rains nearly day.  The streets are paved

    with cobble stones and the sewers are in the gutters.  All the houses are

    built of stone and are two and three stories high.  They don't have any snow

    there but it is a bum place at that.  Bordeaux is a good place.  The weather

    is good and it is a clean city for France.  Most of the streets are wide and

    paved with asphalt or cement and there are several parks there.  The biggest

    park is on the Allee President Wilson.  The main street is called Rue

    Chapeau Rouge.  This means Red Hat Street in English.  The ship couldn't go

    right up into the city so we had to tie up at a place called Bassens. This

    is about 7 miles from Bordeaux.  If we couldn't catch a truck we had to walk

    to Lormont to catch the car.  It is about two miles from Bassens to Lormont.

    The cars are about the size of one of our old fashioned horse cars.  When

    the conductor wants the motor man to stop or go ahead he gives a couple of

    toots on a cows horn.  The wagons they use over here are generaly two

    wheeled or have got four wheels about the size of a wheelbarrow wheel.

    They hitch their horses in front of each other and the driver walks beside

    the leader.  The French railroad cars are about the size of one of our

    wagons and only have four wheels and instead of couplers they use a link

    and hook and don't have any airbrake only on the passenger cars.  These are

    mostly four wheeled except the first class which have eight wheels.  All the

    coaches are divided into compartments.  A soldier or sailor can travel cheap

    over here.  It cost me ten francs eighty centimes or about a dollar eighty

    to go from Bordeaux to Paris.  The regular fare is forty francs.  We got 6

    francs 5 for an American paper dollar.  Paris is quite a place.  There are

    a lot of parks there and monuments scattered all over the city.  I was out

    to Versailles where the peace convention meets.  It is one of the prettiest

    parks I have ever seen.  I saw some of the places where shells from the

    German long range guns struck and where one of them killed the Swiss

    Ambassador and his wife.  They were personal friends of the Kaizer.  They

    have the street where they have all their victory parades lined with

    captured cannons.  These are about five feet apart and make the lines about

    four miles long.  They are all around the place de la Concorde and up the

    Champs Elysees around the Arch de Triomp and down the Avenus de Grande

    Armee.  The guns are of all sizes from trench mortars to nine and ten inch

    siege guns with a couple of tanks and airplanes.  Paris is the only city

    in France with a subway and it is a good one.  You can ride all day on it

    for three sous or about 2 cents.  I started to go up to Coblenz where Fred

    is stationed but got turned back at the border so I took in some of the

    battlefields.  I took in some of the Hindenburg lines and saw the big

    concrete lined trenches and the big dugouts with electric lights are almost

    like a regular house.  These were the trenches the Germans thought that

    could not be captured.  There is enough barb wire there to fence all of New

    York and a lot left over for repairs.  It is different than the ordinary

    wire.  It is heavier and has longer barbs and closer. You can hardly get

    around through the fields because of it and the trenches.  The trenches are

    a regular network all over and in between are shell holes.  Some off the

    shell holes are seventy feet across and twentyfive feet deep and some are

    about the size of a bushel basket.  There were lots of unexploded shells

    and airplane bombs laying all over the fields and you can find gas masks

    nearly anyplace.  I saw one captured German ammunition dump where there

    were thousands of shells from one pounders and antitank shells to fifteen

    inch sheels and gas and high explosives.  There was about a million potato

    masher hand grenades in a pile.  Some of the towns are only a heap of stones

    and a name.  A party of us went out to some of the forts around Reims. The

    first was Fort St. Thierry.  It wasn't shot up much on the outside but the

    inside was busted up with hand grenades.  We went from there over to Fort

    Pompry.  This fort is pretty well battered up but not as bad as Fort Pompel.

    This place is nothing but a heap of sand and stones as the Germans shelled

    it first and then the French and it sure was used rough.  On the way back

    to Paris I stopped at Chateau Thierry where the Americans stopped the

    Germans.  Chateau Thierry wasn't damaged much but the little village about

    a mile northeast of there is flat.  You can see where the German shells

    struck on the sides of a hill about a mile behind where the Americans

    started in.  We brought a cargo of captured rifles and a lot of American

    machine guns and rifles and shot guns.  We had about fifty airplanes.  These

    were American, French, Italian, German, and Austrian which they are going

    to use for experimenting.  We came into Norfolk and unloaded and put the

    ship out of commision and the crew was sent over to the navy yard,  I am

    feeling good and getting fatter all the time.  Hope you are all well.  I

    may get paid off this summer, MAYBE.  This is all I can think of for now.

    Your son, Howard
--------




Return to the previous page