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COLWELL FRAKESWrites Again to His Mother, Mrs. George Frakes, of Corydon.caFt'I1Saumur Artillery School, Saumur, France.Thursday, Nov. 28, 1918. Dear Mother.Day before yesterday I began to write a letter to you, but never completed it, so I am starting anew tonight and hope to make a better job of it this time. I wrote Dad a long letter a few days ago and told him some of the things I have been doing since leaving home. In his letter I had the first chance of saying some things I have long wanted to write, but if I were to write from now until:1 next Thanksgiving day I could not! tell you the half I have experienced, j «In telling you of my experiences I ' do not want you to get the idea I have i r become a brave lad, a hero, or any- j thing of that sort, for I an; as much;f of a coward as ever. You have, or ( lt;■ should have received, a citation I re- j c ceived for a “stunt” in the battle of j Soissons on July 18. You may believe ! my knees were far from being steady during that scrap. Perhaps you would like to know the particulars of that atfair.The combat train or ammunition train of the battery consists of ten |caissons in which the ammunition is hauled to battery positions. A lieutenant and two or three N. C. O.’s (non-commissioned officers) are in charge of these. On July 18 Corp. Brockleman and I were in charge of E. Battery train. We had one hollow to pass through which was continually covered by German artillery fire. ,We had to watch our chances and go through this place between shots, which is or was at times a pretty safe proposition, for “old Fritz” sometimes had one great fault in his artillery fire and, that was that each volley was fired at regular intervals. We N. C. O.’s would take two carriages and skip through between shots and thus supply ammunition. On the afternoon that I am telling of I had been to battery position and unloaded and on getting to the edge of this shelled area and having a new bunch of drivers I stopped them and cautioned them to stop for nothing while passing through. After looking over harness and horses we started about fifty or seventy-five wards apart. I was riding on the front carriage. We were about half way across when one shell burst near the carriage I was on, then another and then they began to fall like rain. We lost two horses on first outfit and one man wounded, but managed to get out of the shelled area, but .when out with one carriage, the question was, how is, and where is, the other outfit? I waited what seemed to me not more than a minute, to be one-half hour and then started back to find them. All the time the shells were raising the deuce back in that hell-hole. I found them, one man was dying and the other two wounded, two horses were dead and the rest bleed-o4i:Jtt
Newspaper Details
Corydon Republican
Corydon, Indiana, US
Thu, Jan 02, 1919
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
April P.
OH, USA 14 Jan 2017
Other Publications Near Corydon, Indiana
Corydon Press and AntiMasonic Democrat
Corydon Democrat
Corydon Weekly Democrat
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