Reading the American Past: Printed Page 130
DOCUMENT 22–3
A Doughboy's Letter from the Front
More than a million American soldiers, “doughboys” in contemporary slang, fought fierce German resistance in decisive battles in the Argonne forest of northern France during the fall of 1918. One anonymous soldier described his experiences to a friend back home in the following letter. The letter expresses the risks, fears, horrors, and exhilaration that many soldiers experienced in combat.
Anonymous Soldier
Letter to Elmer J. Sutters, 1918
Cote D'Or France
Dear Old Bunkie,
Now don't go into epileptic fits or something like that when you read this letter, that is because I sent one to you as I know I haven't written you a letter for some time. Too busy with Uncle Sam's affairs just now and am working to beat hell.
I guess you would like to know of a few of my experiences over here while the scrimmage was on so I'll give you a few little yarns.
We were in the line up at Thiacourt (St. Michel Sector) at first and although we did no actual fighting as we were in reserve at first and then in support, we got a lot of strafing from Jerry in the nature of Artillery fire and Air raids.
But in the Argonne Forest was where we got in it in earnest and even if I do say it myself, the good old Lightning (78th) Division will go down in history as second to none for the work they did there.
It was here, old man, that I got my first Hun with the bayonet. That was on the day prior to taking Grandpre and we had just broke through the enemy first line defenses when this happened.
We were pressing through a thicket when this big plug-ugly Hun suddenly loomed up in front of me and made a one-armed stab at me with his bayonet. You can make a hell of a long reach this way, but it's a rather awkward thrust as the bayonet makes the rifle heavy at the muzzle when you've got hold of your rifle at the small of the stock like this guy had. A homelier guy I never saw before in all my life and he'd make two in size compared to Dad and you know what a big man my old Dad is.
Well you can imagine that this bud did not catch me unawares.
I was ready for him. I thought I was going to have a pretty stiff one-sided fight on my hands, with the odds in his favor, but he was a cinch. Before I even realized it myself I parried off his blow and had him through the throat. It was my first hand to hand fight.
It was all over in a second, that is it for Jerry. He never even made a shriek. He went down like a log.
It was hand to hand all the way through that section of the woods as it was considered a vulnerable point, but we finally cleared them out and opened up the way for an attack on Grandpre itself. ...
We took it, but at heavy cost. I lost a buddie in that last charge. If short five or ten yard dashes can be called a charge and I certainly didn't have much love for the Boches after he went west. We can't mention any names of boys who were killed in our letters so I'll have to postpone it until I get home but he came from New Hampshire and a whiter fellow never lived. He was an only child too, old chap and his parents certainly have my sympathy.
Although I don't know his people I wrote a letter to them trying to make it as soft as I could. Well, he gave his all to the cause and you can't expect a fellow to do more. If a fellow goes down, it's up to the next one to carry on and make them pay dearly for every life taken. You know what I mean.
I know that the first thing you would ask me when you see me again for the first if I was afraid. Now I am not going to stick my chest out and exclaim “Like hell I was” or anything of the sort. I sure was afraid, and you and any other chap would be too, but what I was afraid of most was that I would be yellow.
If a fellow gets a yellow streak and backs down the other boys won't have anything to do with him and that was what I was afraid of the most, of getting a yellow streak.
But I didn't. I was as plucky as any other doughboy and carried on all the way through and although I didn't get as much as a scratch I had many a close call. Enough of them to make a fellow's hair turn white. I crouched for three hours one night up to my waist in water in a shell hole waiting for our barrage to lift.
The water was like ice and there [were] four or five dead Huns floating around in it too. Not very pleasant, eh?
While sneaking about the ruins of Grandpre “Mopping Up” we came across a Prussian Chap in a ruined building with a rifle. He was a sniper, alive and the reason he was still there was because he could not get out although the opening was big enough for him to crawl through. During the bombardment the roof of the building had fell through in such a way as to pin him there by the feet and although he was practically uninjured he could not get himself free. I'll explain better when I see you, as I can tell it better than I can write it. He begged us to help him and although we had been cautioned against treatury [treachery] one of the fellows who was with me put down his rifle and started to crawl through to free him. The moment he got his head and shoulders through the hole which had been smashed by a shell, by the way, this Hun hauls off and lets him have a charge right square in the face.
Poor Dan never knew what happened. His face was unrecognizable. We didn't do a thing but riddle that hole, we were that furious, and we didn't stop shooting until our magazines were empty.
That Hun was the dirtiest skunk that every lived. ... Dan was some husky boy and boasted of being a foot-ball player somewhere out in Tennessee where he came from. ...
Up near Brickemay we ran into another pretty stiff proposition. We had to fight through the woods that seemed to be full of machine gun nests. We had just cleared out one of them with hand grenades and while we were sneaking up a rather steep hill, thickly wooded, we saw these Huns suddenly appear and run about a dozen paces and disappear down into a clearly camouflaged dug-out.
The Yanks were pressing the Huns hard, they were some of the Famous Prussian Guard too, and after these three birds had gone down into their hole we sneaked right up. There were three of us together, all Buck Privates. I took a hand grenade out of my bag, pulled out the retaining pin and heaved it down into the dug-out. ... There was a helluva an explosion in about six seconds. I threw two more down to join the first and keep it company. Well after the big noise had stopped down there we crept down to investigate.
There was only one room down there, a big concrete affair and only one entrance, the one we came down, and that room was a mess. There were fifteen dead Huns down there and the walls, floor and ceiling were splashed with red, so you can see what damage a hand grenade can do. I don't know whether my grenades killed them all, we didn't have time to ascertain, as we had to hurry right out again, but I know I got the three we saw beating it down there.
I was also with a detachment of men who took a dozen prisoners out of a dug-out and the worst of the whole thing was that they were only mere kids.
Just think of it old man. Mere kids, that is the most of them and they all expected to be killed immediately.
They were all scared stiff. We bagged the lot and sent them to the man under guard.
Well I was there to the finish old man and we had just mashed Fritz's last resistance up near Sedan when we were relieved by a French Division who captured Sedan next day. ...
Fritz pulled off a peach of an air raid. ... It was about 7:30 pm and quiet, yes very dark outside when the thing started and he came back again and again at regular intervals of ten minutes and bombed the hell out of everything in sight, but what he really wanted to get ... was our Supply and Ammunition Depots. ... Now there is only one sane thing to do and I did it. Nothing heroic about it old man, just common sense and it wasn't the first time I did it either, even though my heart was trying to pound a hole through my ribs at the time. I went outside and walked out on the railroad and lay down flat in a shallow trench I had stumbled upon ... along the tracks and I stayed there all night too. It was an organized raid, or rather a general raid and I saw the flashes from the exploding bomb all around me all night. ... [O]ne bomb struck right near a small wooden shack where the Engineers use to store tools and blew that thing to hallaballoo.
That shed stood only about 100 or 150 yards from where I was laying ... and a big piece of that shed came down ker-smak only six feet from where I was.
The next instant another landed right on the railroad and exploded with terrific force. ...
This one burst about 500 yards away from me, but those things can kill at 1,000 yards and the concussion lifted me up out of this trench between the rails, about a foot or so in the air and I came down again ker-flump. It wasn't a pleasant sensation, but nothing hit me and that was better than anything. ...
Well I guess this will be all for just now so with best regard and good wishes to you, Elmer, Mother Sutters, Pop, Mutt, and all the kyoodles. I close.
Your Old Friend and Comrade in Mischief
Dickwitch
P.S. Say you old slab of a lop-sided tin-eared Jackass, what's wrong with you anyhow. Got writer's cramp or what? Pick up a pen for the Love of Pete and write to your old buddie in France. Dick
From Anonymous Soldier to Elmer J. Sutters, 1918, in Andrew Carroll, ed., War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars (New York: Washington Square Press, 2001), 162–67.
Questions for Reading and Discussion