A Bord le "Chicago" 25th April, 1917.

WE are safe at last in the mouth of the harbor of the Garonne. Bordeaux is about forty miles up the river. We got here at ten this morning, and have been anchored ever since, waiting for the high tide. We hope to arrive at Bordeaux at 8 p. m., and at Paris some time tomorrow.

It is a great relief to be here at last, with land nearby. Last night was a pretty anxious time. No smoking was allowed on deck after dark, and all lights were put out early. We were rather lucky to get here safely, for this morning one of the French officers told us that two ships near us had been sunk, one by a mine, he thought, the other by a submarine. There are lots of other ships in the harbor, but none as big as ours. Most of the ships are waiting to go through to the Mediterranean, as there is a canal right across the country.

The red tape has started again. This morning we had to have our passports examined again by some men who came on board, and we are now waiting for customs officers to come and inspect our bags.

The inspectors have passed safely, and we are on our way up the river. Flat, green meadows and towns on one side, and very low white cliffs on the other. The spring seems to be considerably ahead of the American spring. We can see the towns and the people very plainly. At present we are stuck in the mud, and do not seem to be able to get off. The tide is coming in, however, so we will be floating again shortly, I hope.

By the way, one of the ships sunk was a Swedish steamer, two hours ahead of us. When we got the news by the wireless the Captain stopped the ship and lay quiet for an hour, then went on. It is lucky now that we could not go any faster, or we might have met the submarine instead. We are going to spend the night in Bordeaux, and go on to Paris tomorrow.

Paris, April 9, 1917.

WE are now staying at the house at 21 rue Raynouard. It is a very old stone building on a little street in Passy, in the western part of the city. The house is built right on the street, but back of it the grounds run down almost a quarter of a mile, as far as a road on the bank of the Seine, so we have a beautiful view of the river. All the completed ambulances are kept in these grounds. Of course the grounds are not kept up carefully, but they are very pretty nevertheless. They feed us here very well---much better than at college. There is more than enough of every kind of food except sugar and butter, and we can use very little of that. When you buy food here, it does not cost any more than in the United States, and some things are less.

Yesterday I went down town to buy some things such as duffle bag, uniform, and equipment, and stopped in the Madeleine. This afternoon I am going to see Notre Dame. We are in a very convenient location for sight seeing, being only a couple of blocks from the Metro. The Eiffel Tower is less than a mile off, and there are a lot of municipal buildings near it. However, no one is allowed to go near it, so I have only seen it from a distance.

I am getting so that I can understand French a little better, but that is not very well. However, I do not have any trouble getting around, or getting what I want to eat or buy.

I do not know when we will leave for the front, but it will not be for a couple of weeks. I must stop, as I want this letter to catch the" Chicago" mail.

May 10, 1917.

LOTS of things have happened since I wrote last. I am writing this from a little encampment of three tents on the outskirts of a little French village, near enough the front to hear the boom of the guns now and then. Last Saturday (May 5th) the head of the Ambulance Service, Dr. Andrew, got the Cornell men together and told us the French needed men to drive 5-ton Pierce-Arrow trucks (they call them camions), and wanted us to be the first section.

The work consists of taking supplies to the front where they are most needed, the section not being assigned to any permanent sector, but being used as a flying squadron to go where the need is greatest. They gave us overnight to think it over, and the next morning forty-four of us volunteered for the Service. It was a lightning decision, but I think I chose right. In the first place, our ambulances would not have been ready for a long time, and we would have had to waste most of the time waiting. In the second place, this Service is no more dangerous than the ambulance, and it is what the French want us to do at present---they say they are up against it for truck drivers, and that is why their gains have not been greater.

Personally, I would rather drive a Ford than a truck, but I think it's up to us to go where we can help most, and it would be very hard to refuse our services when the French say they need us. So here I am.

We have very good food, and plenty of it. The fact is, I have never had such luxuries in camping before. There is a little brook near the camp, and we have fixed a trough for a shower, so we can take a bath every little while. My French is improving all the time. It is hard to find time to study it, but of course we have to speak it quite often, although not as much as I would have expected. I can carry on a simple conversation unless the Frenchman gets excited, and then I lose track of what be is saying and can't understand a thing.

Our training is just about over now. We start in on our regular transport work early next week. I don't know where we are going, and couldn't tell if I did. I can't even tell where our present camp is. Our address now is simply "T.M. 23, Par B.C.M., Paris" but that changes soon. You see we are a new organization, and I do not know how they will number us.

Every cloudy night we hear the big guns very clearly, and sometimes see the "star shells." Aeroplanes buzz around all the time.

May 18, 1917.

You have probably heard from a letter I wrote the family that I am not in the Ambulance Service any more. A new organization has been formed---The American Transport Service---the official name is not certain yet. We drive 5-ton Pierce-Arrow trucks---the best in the world, the French say---with "supplies" for the French Armies. We are shifted from one army to another as we are needed, which means that we are always at the point of the greatest activity. We go as near, often nearer, the front line trenches than the ambulances, have harder work, and do at least as much good. At any rate, it was what the French wanted us to do, and I think it was up to us to do it, unless there were individual reasons against it. Almost all the Cornell boys are with us, all but about eight of the thirty-eight.

At present we are having a wonderful life in camp here. An ideal location, good tents, straw to sleep on, good food and lots of it, and a little brook near by to wash in. The only drawback is that we cannot make any fires, the wood is so scarce, and there may be other reasons. We have been having some rainy weather, and things get pretty damp. However, every one seems to be keeping well, and I never felt better in my life.

The people are always very much interested when they hear we are Americans. They ask us all sorts of questions---if we are Roosevelt's army was one. I can carry on a very simple, slow conversation, but when they talk fast I am lost. I've learned a lot talking with the truck drivers that went with us to show us how the trucks went. One man had been a diamond cutter for Tiffany before the war, and most of the others were intelligent.

On some of our practice driving trips we got to the old lines where the French and Germans faced each other for two years. in one place there had been a village, but no one would have known it. The ground was all dug up with shell holes, and trenches, and covered with wire entanglements. We went through the German positions, and saw their underground houses, electric bells, and stoves and beds, just like a hotel.

On another trip we went to Pierrefonds, and had an hour to spend going through the castle. It was completely restored a few years ago, and is a great sight---all thick walls, and towers and a little stone staircase. Most of the rooms had soldiers quartered in them, and straw on the floor to sleep on. There are soldiers everywhere. Every little village is crowded with troops just coming from the trenches for a rest, or going to the front.

Every night we can hear the big guns very plainly, especially when it is cloudy, and sometimes we see strings of "star shells."

It is almost time for driving. I must stop.

May 18, 1917.

SINCE my last letter I have been busy learning about 5-ton Pierce trucks, and I now know quite a lot about one. Every day we have driving lessons lasting several hours, and sometimes we go to very interesting places. The other day we went to a place where the Germans and French had faced each other for two years. They showed us where a village had been, but it looked exactly like the country round---shell holes every couple of yards, trenches everywhere, and also wire entanglements. We had to be very careful where we stepped, because there were lots of unexploded shells and hand grenades lying around, which go off very easily. The Germans had been living in dug-outs in a hillside; regular rooms with tin ceilings, stoves, electric bells, and everything.

Day before yesterday we started at 2 p.m. and went to Pierrefonds, and they gave us an hour to go through the castle. It certainly is a wonderful place. We ate our food outside the town, and waited till dark to get practice in night driving without lights. It was a black, cloudy night, and we found it pretty hard to keep the road and our place in the convoy (we had twelve cars). It had been raining, and some of the cars got stuck in the mud at the side of the road, and we had a hard time pulling them out. Then another car ran into us from behind and smashed its radiator. It was not the driver's fault, though, because you could not see a car three feet off. We had to tow them in, and finally arrived at camp at 4 a. m., a little tired. They don't work us like that all the time, though everybody has kept well so far. I never felt better in my life, and I think I am putting on a good deal of weight.

Monday we had a big banquet. Ambassador Sharp and lots of high French officials were there and made us speeches.

I spent Tuesday in packing up, and yesterday we entrained with great ceremony and came towards here as far as the trains ran, and then in trucks. We are somewhere near Soissons. The French treat us like princes. They give us the glad hand every chance they get, and tell us how glad they are we're here. The food is splendid. Last night at the soldiers' mess we each had more soup out of a big iron pot than an ordinary family of eight will eat, half a loaf of bread that must have weighed three or four pounds, some meat, tea, jam, and vin rouge. The food is even better than at rue Raynouard. We start work on the camions this afternoon.

June 11, 1917.

I RECEIVED your letters a few days ago, and was mighty glad to hear all the news from America. I'm glad things are moving fast.

We have been having some exciting times lately. Last week we were on the go most of the time with capacity loads of 75's shells or air bombs or hand grenades, the most dangerous of all to handle, as one little pin sets them off.

We have been on roads when they were being shelled several times. When a shell explodes at a distance it looks at first exactly like a tall, black maple tree, then it becomes just a mess of smoke and dust. Most of the roads are in pretty good condition, as they are lined with piles of gravel, and there are men who fill up the shell holes immediately. The other day we were going along when a shell destroyed a bridge a little ahead of us, and we had to back up quite a way to take another road. I had been the first car, so of course I was the last when we backed. Our camions back slowly any time, and then they hardly seemed to move, and the worst of it was to see a Frenchman stick his head out of a trench every now and then to see what was going on, and then duck down again. Believe me, I wanted to join them.

We had a great treat yesterday. The Captain let us take a camion and go to a creek a few miles off for a swim. It was an ideal place, and we swam and lay around in the sun all afternoon. It has been hot ever since we got here, and the dust on the roads often makes it as dark as night, except that it is white. Of course we wear goggles, so it does not get in our eyes, but there is a crust over every part of us when we get back. The work is not so very hard, especially as there are two men on a camion to take turns driving.

I am Tent Police today, and must go to work.

June 12, 1917.

I HAVE just returned from a short morning run. They are giving us a good rest after last week, when we had a long series of twelve to a eighteen hour trips with only a few hours between. We had some experiences that were a little too exciting to be pleasant.

One day we were loaded with five tons of trench bombs and were getting along towards the front when the Germans started shelling the road we were on. I guess they saw us from one of their "Sausages" (observation balloons). I was driving the first car. Several shells fell about three hundred yards from us, and then they dropped one by the road about seventy yards ahead, about ten feet from a man working on the road. As we went by he was lying half on his face, with his head and shoulders half blown off, sort of quivering, although of course he was dead. We had just passed him, through a little stream of blood, when the section leader came along in his car with orders to back up, as a bridge ahead of us was destroyed.

As we started backing, another shell landed about twenty yards behind us, between us and the next camion (a hundred yards). A shell looks very pretty a little way off, it looks like a big tree, but when it gets closer than a hundred yards it looks wicked, and sounds so, too, and five tons of explosives between it and you does not make it any pleasanter. Well, we backed up what seemed a long way and it took a long time, and had to wait for all the others to get on the other road. It was funny to look down along the road and see all the Frenchmen squatting in their trenches, sticking their heads out every now and then to see what was going on, but it about doubled the effect of the shells on us.

There was a big ditch just at the beginning of the small road, and as we were pulling through it the engine stopped, although we were in low. It seems that the jarring had shaken a spark plug wire off. Joe Gray, the other man on my camion, jumped out and cranked the engine as it had never been cranked before. He almost twirled the handle off. I guess cars that haven't been used for years would have started from the spinning he gave it. He said afterwards that he could have cranked the car all the way home if he had had to. Anyway, the engine went and we pulled out all right, and went along hitting on only three cylinders till we found a sheltered place to stop in and fix it up. We had to come back empty over the same road and it was nervous work going there, but we were not shelled again that time.

We kick sometimes against having to wear our steel helmets, but they feel just about right at times like that, although I don't believe they would do much good, if any, as a shell fragment goes through boiler plate like water through a sieve, and our helmets are pretty thin. We only had a very few shells whistle that day, as the explosion came so soon after they had passed. The nearest one was probably only a few feet over our heads, and as it passed we felt the concussion of the air, or something else, perhaps, that felt like a light electric shock.

Several times a day we can see a lot of little puffs of smoke in the sky where airplanes are being fired on by one side or another. Sometimes we see air battles, where the airplanes go past each other several times, and try to get over or under the enemy, and sail all around each other. Some of the fellows saw an airplane come down a few days ago, but I haven't seen that yet.

June 24, 1917

THIS letter must be short, as I "roll" in a few minutes, but I will write again as soon as I get a little time. I have lots of your letters---I'll tell you how many next time I write, as I haven't time to count them now. I hope all the foolishness that has appeared in the papers about this Service has not started you worrying. I don't know what makes them print such things, or where they get all their ideas from, about "As the 30 Cornellians appeared in the trenches, waving the Stars and Stripes, the veteran soldiers gave a cheer." We don't go within a mile of the first line trenches, and the only danger is from stray shells, and the Germans are not wasting many these days. There has been only one man killed in all the sectors here since we came, and he was the last one of forty men going into a dugout. There isn't as much danger as there is in New York City.

I think it's fine that you are growing so many things to eat. It certainly will help. Personally, I haven't seen any board shortage. We have all the food, splendidly cooked, we can eat, and in this camp good water to drink, which is much better than the miserable "pinard" they give us. It is a kind of red wine---I think a kind of claret---worse than anything you can buy in the U. S. At least that is what I gather from our connoisseurs.

This camp is very nice. Besides plenty of good water, we have long wooden barracks to sleep in, which we have made water-tight with rolls of tar paper. It's near a little town where we go sometimes, and where we can buy fresh bread, which is a great treat after the army bread, which is baked somewhere in the south of France, and would make good, solid, car-wheels by the time we get it. We never see any butter, but there is lots of "confiture" to eat on it.

By the way, did you get some photos of the "Chicago" I sent you some time ago? I would like to know, because there is a rumor that photos cannot be sent through the mails, and so I have not sent any more. If you got them safely, I have lots I can send. I print and develop my own pictures. Bought an outfit in Paris 50-50 with another fellow, and we have been doing a rushing business whenever we have a little time off. There has been no excitement for a long time---haven't even heard an arrivée shell for a long time, but we hear plenty of "departs," as there are now several batteries not far from camp.

I did not have time to finish this letter last evening before "rolling," so I am finishing it this morning (June 25). The trip was not as long as we expected it would be, as the place we were going to was destroyed before we got there, so we were saved about two miles, which means something to us. We do all our driving without lights, but somehow it never seems to get dark. There has seldom been a night when the road was not perfectly plain before us, and usually the traffic is easily seen. At any rate the other traffic on the road does not endanger us, as a steam roller or a big gun are about the only things on the road heavier than we are. It's mighty interesting work, too, creeping along the roads with batteries of big guns and little soixante-quinzes flashing every few minutes near us, and seeing the shrapnel burst with a dull red flash over the trenches, and, near the front, seeing the sky and ground lit up for miles and miles around by the long strings of star shells and rockets sent up by both the French and the Germans. Sometimes there are dozens of searchlights sweeping over the sky when an airplane motor is heard, and when they find it, if they do, you can hear the hammering of machine guns shooting at it---it sounds exactly like the compressed air riveting on a steel building.

I have got to go and change a tire on my car which was torn last night. Will write again soon.

By the way, will you send me a mouth-organ! Just an ordinary one. I have tried to buy one here, but they don't have them. Also, if it isn't too much trouble, I would like a Sunday paper sent me now and then.

July 2, 1917.

AT last the weather and transport service are giving me time to write again. About a week ago I got a most dee-licious box of nut fudge you sent me. Thank you ever so much for it---the first real candy we have had since April 14. Well, when I got up this morning some of the boys came and told me there were a couple of packages for me, and went with me to help open them, and we found it was, or they were, two big boxes of fudge, and a box of guava jelly, for which I and the boys thank you again very gratefully. It's the only good American candy that's been in camp, and it certainly is a treat.

Life has not been at all exciting lately. We seldom get sent to dangerous places in the daytime---not because they don't want us to get shot, but the camions have some value, and usually we would have to unload them near some General's domicile, and that might get hit instead of us. So, as a general rule, we load up in the afternoon and then go and wait behind some hill or in some wood where the Boche sausages can't see us, until dark, and then go to the depot and unload. It rained steadily for the last few nights, and so has been very dark. I don't know why we haven't been stuck in the mud,---most of the cars have,---but we have had the luck to escape that, although I guess we've been shelled more than any other of our cars.

I have come to the conclusion that in this work I am not running any more danger than I am in going to college---perhaps not as much. All the shells the Germans shoot at the roads to destroy them are, of course, high explosive shells, and I have lost all respect for them. They make a big noise, and a big hole in the ground, and a high column of dirt, but they won't kill you unless you are right next to one. Of course, the shrapnel shells are pretty mean---they explode in the air and scatter, but they are no good for destroying roads and bridges, and so we see very few of them. We were in a village yesterday that the Germans had occupied for two and a half years, and only left about April 15th. When they left they blew up all the houses and cut down all the fruit trees they had time to, and cut a ring of bark off around the trunks of the others. Sometimes they bored a hole in a tree to put some powder in, and blew it up. The country is a wreck now, and it will be a desert next year, as far as trees go.

A few days ago we saw an exciting air battle between one of our fellows in the Lafayette Esquadrille and seven Boches. We were playing a game of baseball after supper when we saw six "spads" (French) fly over us. One was having engine trouble, and had to drop behind the others. A little later we saw a whole swarm of planes in the distance, and heard their machineguns, and saw one machine come down. The day after one of the fellows went over to a big hospital near us, and talked with the fellow, named Hall, who had been brought down. He said he had dropped way behind his party, and had then mistaken the seven German planes for theirs. Of course, when he got near them they attacked him, and he was shot through the arm and the lung. He lost consciousness and fell, but came to about a hundred feet above the ground, in time to turn his machine. Then he fainted again, and when he came to he was in the hospital. Sounds like a fairy story, doesn't it? Next day all the papers said he had attacked the seven Germans.

I can't tell if I have received all your letters, but I have received several very interesting ones. It's too bad Bill couldn't get into the army. He must be awfully disappointed. I wonder if I could pass the examination---my eyes are not very good. Lots of the older men in this Service are here because they are not able to join the army, and want to do something.

July 14, 1917.

THE maple sugar you sent me came safely last night, and it was the greatest treat I have had for weeks and weeks. It was fresh and in fine condition. I gave some to some of my poilu friends, and they didn't seem to know exactly what to make of it. The only thing they would say was that it was very sweet. I don't have to pay duty on anything I get---even tobacco seems to come through free.

July 10th I got your letter written June 21st.

We were making a night trip, and were waiting to be unloaded when the staff car brought out the mail to us. I couldn't see very well by the star shells, so I took a lamp off the car and went down into a nearby dug-out. It was the first time the lamp had ever been lit, but it burned all right and I had just time to read my letters before we had orders to go on.

Everything is going on as usual. Nobody in the section has been hurt or has been sick for more than a couple of days at a time. The only trouble is that there does not seem to be nearly enough work for us to do.

Our address has changed again---the latest is at the head of this letter, but any of the former ones will reach us all right. I am afraid that one of the boxes of fudge that ------ sent has been lost---I have received three in all. Along with your maple sugar I got a big box of chocolate from ------. At present, I have probably the biggest reputation for packages in camp. As soon as one comes in for me, fellows come from both barracks to tell me about it and help me carry them up to my bunk.

The hot weather seems to be over, and it has been very cold and rainy for the last few days. I like it better than the hot weather, because I have a rubber shirt and a sheepskin coat, and can keep perfectly warm and dry.

I have a lot of cleaning and greasing to do to my car, so I must stop.

July 22, 1917.

I AM writing on a desk I have just made out of a shell-box, which I saved from a load of "empties" we were carrying back from the front. They are very useful to keep things in, because they are very well made, with big iron hinges. Most of the "75 " cases have "U. S. 3" on them-meaning United States 3-inch, so I guess we must be sending over lots of the shells we use in our 3-inch guns.

There is not anything new about the work to say. We still get splendid food and not too much work to do. The section has been very quiet lately, and I've almost forgotten what a shell sounds like. The only excitement has been two or three air raids which the Germans have made on this district. A few nights ago we were waked up by an explosion and a heavy shock that felt like an earthquake, then there was another nearer explosion, and another nearer still. We were pretty well scared then, and were expecting the next one on top of us, but there were no more.

Last Sunday some fellows and I went to Church at a beautiful thirteenth century cathedral on top of a little hill. There was an architect with us and he told us that originally the cathedral had been about three times as big as it is now, with a big spire in the middle, but, even in its present condition, it is very impressive. The inside is all white-washed stone, with few decorations, and the outside walls are covered with grass and small shrubs, wherever they can find a crevice to grow in. The congregation was made up of women and children mostly---all dressed up in their Sunday clothes, and some wounded soldiers.

I am sending some photos in this letter, and I hope they get through. One is of the celebration we had the 4th of July. I told about it in another letter. You can see the car sliding down the narrow gauge track. The trick is to stick the pole through a hole in a board nailed below the pail of water. If you don't do it, the pail tips over on you, as in the picture. The picture of the French village is very true to life---just big piles of stones on both sides of the road, with a few walls standing. There are lots of dug-outs that you can't see underneath these ruins. The picture of the convoy was taken when we stopped once along the road. My car is not in it, but all the cars are almost the same. The one of the shell exploding in the distance was taken a long time ago, also in a "village." You can see the barbed wire chevaux de frises near the camera.

Arrangements about our "permissions" have changed again. I cannot visit ------, because we are not allowed to leave France. I think I will take a trip to the Swiss border---near Lake Geneva. They say living there is very cheap, and transportation is free, so it is a good chance to see the Alps and to compare Lake Geneva and Lake George for myself. By the time you get this letter I will probably be back working again, as my permission begins August 2nd. I am rather disappointed at not being able to go to London, but this certainly is a wonderful opportunity to see some beautiful places without spending much money.

Another box of fudge came night before last. It had been packed in moth balls in the Post Office and it was pretty strong till I had aired it for a couple of days, then it tasted natural and very good.

The supper gong is ringing, so I must stop.

21 rue Raynouard, Paris, May , 1917.

THE present prospect is that I will soon leave Paris, and as it may not be so easy to write letters later on, I want to outline the trend of events up to now.

It isn't at all interesting to read, although we enjoyed it immensely. After the incident with the submarine we landed at Bordeaux, where we spent the day. Rode to Paris in a funny train by night. We've been in Paris for a few days now and have spent the time taking care of military and other red tape, taking French lessons and Ford lessons and seeing Paris, which last is no small nor unpleasant job. This certainly is a regular city.

Now comes an explanation which I shall not be able to make as clear as I would wish.

In the last big battle the French experienced very great difficulty in transporting munitions. There was a deficit of men to drive the trucks, so serious that the army staff has requested that the American Field Ambulance Service convert men from ambulance to heavy transport drivers. They say that they need the latter much more at the present time.

The officials have asked that a unit of sixty men be organized at once. Andrew, head of our Field Ambulance Service in France, has put the subject before the Cornell men now in Paris, asking that they form the nucleus of the first American unit of this sort.

Tinkham, who raised the first Cornell ambulance unit, is going to convert the unit for which he worked so hard into this new transport service. Nearly every Cornell man is going into it. You can see that I'm confronted with questions. In spite of the fact that our standing as Americans and American Ambulance Field Service men remains exactly the same, there is a change in the nature of the Service. France asks us to enter the new Service. It promises harder work and less excitement, farther from the front. It would be a great relief to me if I could personally explain the proposed change to the men who gave me money to come over here.

But I must use my own judgment. I believe that you and the other Cornell men at home would endorse my action in getting into the transport service. I place great reliance on Tinkham's judgment. . .

This is the second chapter of this letter, due to the fact that I've been awaiting events. They have occurred and the events of the near future are clear enough to proceed. After the best of my judgment and that of those whom I feel are best fitted to give advice, I have decided to enter the new transport section. We will be the first armed Americans to enter the " Great War" with the exception of some aviators. Tomorrow morning at 9.30 we leave Paris for barracks not a great many miles from Paris. There we will remain for two weeks probably, learning the Pierce-Arrow cars, which will be used exclusively.

I sincerely hope that in case you do not favor my action, that you will refrain from too severe a criticism until I can get home and explain comprehensively the turn which may mean so much to me. Had I followed my personal desires I would have refused to leave the ambulance service. But after my experience with the submarine and learning practically at first hand the enemy that not only France, but the United States, has to deal with, and seeing the tremendous sacrifice going on about me without a sign of quailing, I feel that any sacrifice of personal desires that I make is infinitely trivial. If France is so hard put as to make, through some of her highest officials, a request that a part of her Ambulance Service be turned over into this new Service---What is a man to think?

This letter certainly lacks the valuable quality of brevity. With a request that you write me and a promise to keep you posted as far as reasonable, though not an ambulance driver I am,

Yours sincerely

___________

A WHOLE lot has happened, too much to account for in detail, since I last wrote. Forty-two of us, mostly Cornell boys, left Paris on the morning of May 8. Movies and quite a celebration accompanied the departure. In the middle of the afternoon we had arrived at the nearest point the trains were able to reach to Soissons in the Brie region. We were trucked to a small town in a hilly wooded country. A mile or so out we made a camp, which was changed to a permanent position in a large and beautiful open beech wood.

We have three nice tents, fourteen men to a tent, a French army cooking outfit and two cooks who provide plain, well cooked food in more than sufficient quantity.

There is a splendid man, a French Lieutenant, in charge. He and an assistant give us lectures on the Pierce-Arrow cars, road and army regulations, etc. There are eighteen trucks (one section) back from the front to train us in running them. We are getting along well and seeing a lot of trenches and other interesting scenery.

When our section has been trained we will go on duty as a reserve, to supply the drivers where extra supplies are needed, the shifts making it possible for us to see greatly more of the war and country.

I have just asked the Lieutenant and he says it is all right to say that we are in the Brie district at present, near Soissons. Soissons is now being shelled to prevent entrance of trains.

The actual war sights we have seen are I suppose only preliminaries. We hear the big guns, see as many as a dozen or fifteen airplanes in the air at once and at night there are the stray shells from anti-aircraft guns and the strings of luminous rockets. There is a hand grenade practice point a couple of hundred yards from the camp and we were shown the mechanism and throwing, all of which were mighty interesting.

Yesterday we went to what was the first line less than two months ago. The Germans were driven out by a big French drive from a position which they had held for two years. The place was a sure enough sight, concreted, glazed, decorated, curiosities and salvage to satisfy the most fanatical. The place was full of traps, wires with bombs hanging in concealed places, etc. We hardly dared touch anything.

A town back of the trenches was nearly grounded, the whole country round indescribable in its ruin of iron, enormous shell holes, barb wire, remains of all kinds of shells and mechanisms of war.

If I respected the French before I came over here, that respect is now multiplied many times. Outside of their treating us in the very best way possible, the way they seem to be running the war is certainly wonderful. If anything goes wrong, or any personal pleasures have to be turned into hardships, it's "Pour La Guerre," and is all right. They all seem to be well aware that this is a war of years, not months.

The morning after we had set up camp here, a band was brought from the front, a Captain and a bunch of men gave us a welcome, a speech, and some right good music. All of which indicates the value and rating that France puts on the new blood that she needs more than any one in America can realize.

We have been out nearly all day today, learning how to turn the trucks around under difficulties. I should think that it would cost the French Government about $100 apiece to train us.

It is now 5 o'clock and the big guns at the front are going at it with unusual vigor.

JUST before our arrival in Paris, the American Ambulance Field Service was changed into the American Field Service and the organization much enlarged. Under the existing conditions, many of us had to enter other fields of service. We came to help France and France needed men for transport service. It was our duty to join where needed and this we did. Six of the W. U. Unit are with me; the rest are in Paris and expect to drive ambulances there---to and from the railway stations. I hated very much to break up the unit, but I could not have done otherwise and I have a clear conscience. America is at war and boys of my standing should not be doing only the Ambulance work. Please do not criticise my action---it would be unfair to me, for no one in America has the knowledge that he must have before making any conclusions.---It isn't what we came to do, but it is the thing to do.---America is absurdly ignorant of the part she is expected to play in this great war. It is a tremendous and grim thing, and the sooner America realizes it, the better. France has fought a wonderful fight and it is now time for a fresh entry into the conflict.

June 14, 1917.

THE section has just finished loading the cars at one of the big depots and is on the road toward the lines. It is early in the afternoon and they can only go to a certain point along the road and wait there until nightfall before continuing to the more advanced posts. The load consists of various trench materials, walks, poles, wire, screens, and so on. It is not our task to carry such things, but during slack intervals the reserves do not always carry ammunition. We arrived three weeks ago, just at the tail end of an offensive, and work has been diminishing ever since. The fellows get impatient at being idle any of the time---they haven't learned that this is how war goes. Over three weeks since we left the training school and began regular service. Before six months are up the fellows will have accomplished a lot of real hard physical work. Much more, I think, than in the Ambulance section. But the work isn't nearly so appealing, so it would take more courage to see it through. We go about as far up as the ambulances and take the same risks---in fact, on every trip some of the cars have run through shells, but there isn't the same opportunity for individual action. Convois of eight, twelve, sixteen cars always together.

I knew from the start that we had an exceptionally good set of men, and they are turning out that in every respect. The French Captain has remarked about it several times. ----- and ------ are excellent Sergeants, ------ and ----- and ----- are equally good Corporals. ------ and ----- are next in line for non-com, officers. Already four of the men of the original section have been made leaders of new sections---they were not Cornell men, however. It is my aim to have this section the well from which the leaders for the new sections will be drawn. This T. M. Service should increase very fast. I expect by the end of the summer there will be a thousand men enrolled. Of course, the type of fellows may have to change because of conscription, but it will be just the place for men over thirty who wish to serve in some active manner.

I wish the people in America could realize how much France needs men and supplies. Not only fighting men, but organizers and business heads. At times there are incidents that give reasons, perhaps, why the war has lasted so long.

I was delighted to receive your letter telling of the financial success of your campaign for money for the Service.

July 2nd, 1917.

ALTHOUGH yesterday was Sunday no one would have known it as far as we were concerned. In the morning a mist which was the end of a two days' rain kept every one who had not work to do indoors where we lay around and rested, as the orders were out that we were to go out that night. Besides I had several things to do, such as laying walks, etc., so that the fellows could get around camp without being swallowed up in the mud. For two days' rain makes this soil impassable for human or any other travel. The roads, however, are good, for they have a nice deep rock bottom, and as long as one stays there everything runs along O. K. But when a 5-ton truck gets stuck in the mud there's the deuce to pay and it takes a pretty good deal of work to get her out again. So far we have been lucky and with careful driving have avoided lots of trouble.

Now let me tell you why I feel like a prince today. To begin with four of the fellows left for Meaux, where they are training as officers and that left some vacancies. Before this time I had been a second driver to ----- on the second car (we call the job "Grease Cup Boy"). Well, what do you think, I became the proud possessor of a 5-ton truck myself, with a grease cup boy under me and lots of driving. This job was not to last long. I only took one trip with my car and was hardly on to its quaint tricks when our acting Chief called me to the Bureau and said that one of the Corporals had been called to and that I was to be a Corporal from henceforth. Now maybe this doesn't mean much, but to me it means a lot. Our Service is young and new sections are going out every day. Already nine of our men have gone to Meaux; when they complete their training they take out their own sections. I'm now in direct line to be sent to Meaux; maybe it will be in six weeks, maybe not for ten, but anyway eventually I think I shall have a chance to go and then I shall be a First Lieutenant. So although I don't want to raise your hopes too high I want you to know how lucky I am and that so far I've done my duty and that bit more which counted.

Our trip last night was uneventful, and as I have been over the same road at least six times it was more or less monotonous. However, the place where we stopped for supper was under free bombardment. The shells were coming in about once every minute. The whizzytheth XX! and then a bang! It was rather disconcerting even when one knew they were landing three hundred feet away. The French batteries were mighty busy, too, and it was like being in a mighty thunderstorm which never stopped thundering an instant. One gets so that he can distinguish the size of the gun by the strength of the explosion and it was amusing to guess which was which.

I don't think I ever told you just how we were organized. That is, what every officier is supposed to do. Well, there are five degrees of rank. The Assistant Driver, Driver, Corporal, Sergeant, and Chief. The Assistant Driver helps out on everything and the Driver is only a degree higher in that he is responsible for the car. Both have to clean the car, repair it, etc., and also act in turn with the other men as camp police. The Corporal has to see that the work is done and done right and in convoy rides in the last car of each section to see that the convoy is kept from trailing out along the road, and in case a car has to stop sizes up the trouble, fixes it if he can, and if not sees that it gets home. The Sergeant is responsible for the convoy en route, the camp and men in general, while the Chief does the whole thing, and rides in the Staff car. If he is a good man and has a good bunch, his responsibilities are light, if not they are heavy.

I must do the rounds, so good-bye until later.

Somewhere in France, July, 1917.

IT 5 three o'clock this afternoon and I have only just got up, the reason being that I did not get in until eight this morning. We had a long, hard trip yesterday and last night. Left here at two in the afternoon, picked up a load of barbed wire, then ran up toward the lines as far as we could in daylight and stopped for supper about 5 o'clock. Three of us had bought some cheese, bread, and jam, so with the modest rations furnished us we had an excellent supper, sitting out in the middle of a field with a fine view off to the west and no reminders from the north that such a thing as war was going on.

We had not been there very long before we heard a hiss and a bang nearby and ran over to see what had happened. We found that one of the crew boys had picked up a hand grenade and thrown it into a nearby trench, but it failed to explode, so he looked over to discover the reason, with the result it went off and some jagged splinters hit him in the leg above the knee. We bandaged him up, hailed a passing ambulance and shipped him off to the hospital, from which reports have come that the slug was easily removed and he will soon be out. He was a lucky lad.

The fields about here are filled with unexploded shell and hand grenades and bombs and we have strict orders not to touch them, so it was his own fault, pure and simple. Well, we had to wait until 10 o'clock so we would not be seen before going to the lines. We ran down into the gully of the Aisne river and just as we were about to cross the stream the car ahead of me, instead of turning and going over the new bridge, headed straight for the one which had been destroyed and almost got there, but was stopped in time. I turned to the right without waiting for him, crossed the new makeshift bridge and went banging along up the opposite slope where we were to unload.

There was no shelling to speak of, so soon all ten trucks were unloaded and we were ready to go home, but it was not to be. There was a lot of heavy shells which were to be moved to another spot from a nearby abandoned battery, so we cranked up and started off for another load.

It was awfully dark and cloudy and just beginning to rain, so there was some excuse for my almost running down some soldiers on their way back from the trenches. They were marching along silently in the dark, the Captain with his dog leading the way on foot; the soldiers with their rifles and packs close behind him; they followed by the supply wagons.

There is something most impressive about the way these infantry officers lead their men. For the most part they are men well on towards middle age; that is, the higher officers; instead of riding they usually walk along just ahead of the younger officers and invariably they are accompanied by a German police dog. You get the impression that they expect nothing better than the men get, stand the same marches and the same hardships and at the same time carry all the responsibility that the command of a body of men brings.

So having passed by, we ran on for a few kilometers in the pouring rain; the unloaded trucks slid first to one side of the road, then to the other, with sometimes a wheel in the ditch. After some time we found the shells which turned out to be those huge 320's. It took the men a long time to load them, so we coiled up on the seats, pulled our thick coats over us, and slept soundly in the rain for almost two hours.

Then came the order to move, the cars roared and spluttered; one went into a ditch and had to be pulled out. Another lost all the water from its radiator because the car ahead smashed into it but went along, the last car towing the invalid. The road we ran along would in daylight have been about as safe as a lane in no man's land, but now with only the star shells burning over us and no sausages or balloons up it was as safe as Harrison Avenue on a summer night. The star shells lighted things up wonderfully.

We went rumbling through deserted villages, the noise of the trucks becoming a roar in the little narrow streets. Never a soul do you see in these little ruined towns; it is almost uncanny. Most of the little houses are roofless, some have great gaping holes in the walls, many have little left but the walls themselves, which stand out in blaze of light to the north. A sentry stood at the bridge as we crossed a poplar lined canal. We ran along through the country again, but soon entered one of the prettiest French towns I have yet seen.

The streets were wide (for a French town), most of the buildings were chateaux set well back from the road among the trees, and oddly enough they were little damaged from shell fire. Off to the right a square church tower, surmounted by the usual ugly spire which spoils so many French country churches, was clearly visible.

We turned to the left and suddenly came into a part of the town which had been torn to pieces. The trees were cut off near the ground, though some still stood with a grotesque limb or two stuck out from the trunk. The houses were in ruins; great round shadows in the gardens showed where some of the shells had landed. It was almost impossible to believe that this was a part of the same town.

We passed on again into the country and turned back toward the south. The star shells behind us cast the shadows of the camion on the road before us. No longer was the illumination an aid; it was most decidedly a hindrance. The road became rougher; we bumped rapidly on and then suddenly came out into one of those great broad highways for which France is famous. Those of us who were wise enough to remove the governors from our cars flew along; those who had not bumped placidly on. Finally, just as it was growing light, we came to our depot, only to find we could not be unloaded until six o'clock.

The driver of the car ahead of me let down the back of his truck, exposing the forty-odd shells which lay there. He thought he would be unloaded there, but instead he was told to move further on. Forgetting that his tailboard was down, he started ahead, jolting over the corduroy road. I saw the last one of the shells move back, then it rolled a bit nearer the edge. I did not budge, but sat there scared stiff. Nearer it came and suddenly rolled off and dropped five feet onto the log roadway and lay there. I had not dared to breathe, for it seemed an hour, and all I could do was to gulp. So we curled up again on our coats.

The rain began again, but we slept on for two hours, until the men came to unload us. Then we flew for home, picking up some turbaned African soldiers who asked for a lift. At 7 30 a.m. we pulled in here and at 8 we were sound asleep after eighteen hours on the road. I have gone into detail about this trip, so as to show what our work is like. Sometimes we have more excitement in various forms, but it was an average trip.