“The whole thing was very interesting all the way through.  The Huns sure did make themselves scarce in a hurry, but they kept many prisoners, a troop train and an ammunition train.

“Cigarettes are scarce and we look for smokes all the time.  The Red Cross and the Salvation Army are the ones who look to our comforts.  If any one wants to give, tell them the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are the ones to get it.”

HUNS CARRY OFF CAPTIVE WOMEN

But Corporal Fick uncovers another Hun procedure that has no fun in it.  While the Huns lost no time in getting away from there, they took care to carry off their captured women slaves.

“The women they have held captives for the last four years,” he writes, “were driven ahead of them, but they were brought back by the Americans.  Truckload after truckload passed us on the way, and they sure were happy to be free again.”

“HELL HAS CUT LOOSE”

Another soldier wrote to his father telling about the first day of attack as he saw it: 

“Hell has let loose.  The woods are a mass of whistling shell and shrapnel.  Every time the big twelves go off the flash lights up the entire camp like a flashlight picture, then the ground heaves and tumbles like old Lake Michigan does on a stormy day.

“The infantry have cleared the top and have gone on far in advance, almost outside of the range of fire.  Our big objective has been wiped off the map and our men are preparing to keep right on going after them and backing up the doughboys who are doing such great work.

“I went up to the front last night on an ammunition caisson (which is the only way to get up there) and saw the thing commence.  It started with one solitary gun of ours (a big one, too).  Then the others joined in on the chorus, and it has been steady ever since.

“When the doughboys were told that they were going over the top at the zero hour, you never heard shouting to equal it; the Board of Trade on a Monday morning was just a whisper in comparison.

“Dad, that is the general feeling of our boys over here—­always waiting to move up.  I told a lad in one of the outfits that the artillery was right back of them and would blow them through to the objective if they did not make it, and he laughed and said, ‘Hoboken by Christmas.’  They were all in the best of mood and roaring to go.”

These letters are good specimens of the thousands that have come over the sea.  They not only give good sidelights on an event that will loom large in history, but they show the indomitable cheer and high spirit of our soldiers.

MAJOR TELLS HIS STORY

Concurrently with the action that originated at St. Mihiel on September 11, 1918, another great battle developed northwest of Verdun.  It lasted about three weeks, and is graphically described by Lt.  Col.  B.M.  Chipperfield (then a major) of the 23d Division.  Lt.  Col.  Chipperfield was a participant in as well as an eyewitness of the whole engagement.  Under date of September 29, 1918, the described it substantially as follows, in a letter to a friend at home: