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Conger Reynolds correspondence, June 1918
1918-06-04 Conger Reynolds to John & Emily Reynolds Page 1
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Twenty-three June 4, 1918. My dear Home Folks: - The time has come for me to write to you again to assure you that Mr. Ludendorf hasn't got me yet. There were a few days last week when it looked very much as if he was going to break through after me, but thanks to the brave poilus the situation was saved. The drive looked pretty bad along toward the latter part of the week. Profiting by their strategic advantage the Boches had managed to overwhelm the allies by weight of numbers. And how they did pour through for awhile! But yesterday and today the news has been encouraging. It appears that the same wonderful French troops that stopped the Hun at the Marne and Verdun and in Picardy have done it again. And for the second time this year the Boches have gained a few hundred square miles at the cost of great losses of men. The newspapers have announced the arrival of American troops to take part in the battle, but we are still not allowed to discuss what part they are taking. Last Sunday I had my chance to visit the Iowa outfit. It happens that in all my trips to the front I had not struck the spot where the boys from my own state are. Sunday I went out with the correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and to get another correspondent. While they were at division headquarters I saw I had some time to kill, so I started for headquarters of the Iowa crowd. The directions given me proved to be wrong, but it was a pretty afternoon and the woods in which we got lost were interesting, and I didn't care. The road gradually faded until it was little more than a trail, but the Cadillac kept going. After perhaps half an hour winding through the deep timber without seeing a soul we came out at some sort of reserve post. On one side of the road was the entrance to a dugout. On the other was a rolling kitchen established in a farmyard. I got out and sought information from one of the cooks. He gave me directions by which I was able to get to a village that showed on my map and from there, on a better road, we had no difficulty inquiring our way along to our destination. I found the colonel established in an old chateau. He remembered me after I told him who I was and took me into his elegant private office for a chat. We talked about men in the regiment, about the good work they were doing. Recently the regiment has had to stand some pretty severe tests. By the time this reaches you, you will probably know that many many of the boys from Winterset and Des Moines will never come back. Thanks to their heroism and the courage of their remaining comrades the Iowa bunch is known in the army as one of the most substantial. For instance their was the little exploit in which fifty Germans surrounded an isolated combat position. Most of the fifty went down before Iowa machine guns and rifles or beat it back toward Berlin. But fourteen actually got into the trenches. Ten of them were killed and the remaining four taken prisoner.
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Twenty-three June 4, 1918. My dear Home Folks: - The time has come for me to write to you again to assure you that Mr. Ludendorf hasn't got me yet. There were a few days last week when it looked very much as if he was going to break through after me, but thanks to the brave poilus the situation was saved. The drive looked pretty bad along toward the latter part of the week. Profiting by their strategic advantage the Boches had managed to overwhelm the allies by weight of numbers. And how they did pour through for awhile! But yesterday and today the news has been encouraging. It appears that the same wonderful French troops that stopped the Hun at the Marne and Verdun and in Picardy have done it again. And for the second time this year the Boches have gained a few hundred square miles at the cost of great losses of men. The newspapers have announced the arrival of American troops to take part in the battle, but we are still not allowed to discuss what part they are taking. Last Sunday I had my chance to visit the Iowa outfit. It happens that in all my trips to the front I had not struck the spot where the boys from my own state are. Sunday I went out with the correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and to get another correspondent. While they were at division headquarters I saw I had some time to kill, so I started for headquarters of the Iowa crowd. The directions given me proved to be wrong, but it was a pretty afternoon and the woods in which we got lost were interesting, and I didn't care. The road gradually faded until it was little more than a trail, but the Cadillac kept going. After perhaps half an hour winding through the deep timber without seeing a soul we came out at some sort of reserve post. On one side of the road was the entrance to a dugout. On the other was a rolling kitchen established in a farmyard. I got out and sought information from one of the cooks. He gave me directions by which I was able to get to a village that showed on my map and from there, on a better road, we had no difficulty inquiring our way along to our destination. I found the colonel established in an old chateau. He remembered me after I told him who I was and took me into his elegant private office for a chat. We talked about men in the regiment, about the good work they were doing. Recently the regiment has had to stand some pretty severe tests. By the time this reaches you, you will probably know that many many of the boys from Winterset and Des Moines will never come back. Thanks to their heroism and the courage of their remaining comrades the Iowa bunch is known in the army as one of the most substantial. For instance their was the little exploit in which fifty Germans surrounded an isolated combat position. Most of the fifty went down before Iowa machine guns and rifles or beat it back toward Berlin. But fourteen actually got into the trenches. Ten of them were killed and the remaining four taken prisoner.
World War I Diaries and Letters
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