James E. Henschel letter to Mrs. Leopold H. Henschel - December 18, 1918

Transcript

Lt. J.E. Henschel M.T.C. School No. 1, A.P.O. 772-A, Am. Ex. Forces, France. December 18th, 1918. Mother dear: Just a little birthday note before starting the day. May it be a very happy day indeed for you. I have moved again, for a short time. The famous tour will be over soon, in about a week. We are hoping and planning by some chance or other to get started back so that we can spend Christmas day in Paris. I think that it may be managed, but of course one never can tell. Our new orders tell us to leave here on the return trip to Decize the twenty-third, I believe, yet we may be able to arrange things so that we start the twenty-fourth, in which case everyone would be very happy. You should have been along on the trip to Tonnere, or the last jump of the trip. The faithful Cadillac came around exactly at eight o'clock, as all good Cadillacs should do, and we started, from Bar-sur-Aube. A beautiful day and a beautiful bit of France to see. Some fine day I should enjoy taking you over the same roads, in a Cadillac eight, or for that matter in any sort of vehicle - except a truck. We wound (or the road did) through wonderfully beautiful hills; wish that I could describe them, but I can't. It's all grape country, the steep sides of the hills covered with long rows of vines. You would have enjoyed seeing country. All the quaint old towns are to be found at the very bottom of the valleys, so that one saw a village for perhaps fifteen minutes before he was in it. Usually it takes about five minutes to pass through the town when one finally reaches it, and from the high places it is much prettier to see. We are still observing. Not much now, for everything is rather mixed up at this time; it really isn't, but to some one who wasn't in on the game, it would all seem a hopeless tangle. We have been at the 1st Corps headquarters for the past few days, and in that time, it's three divisions have changed entirely twice. One division may be in the Corps at breakfast time and entirely out again at noon. Our job is to notice just how the M.T.C. end of the mix-up is taken care of or not taken care of, as the case may be. While doing this noticing, it is of course necessary to travel all over this district in order to locate the different units. That's the way it should work out to be an ideal trip - but too often it is different, and we can't find an unused motor. We've been pretty lucky on the whole, and in most places have had a very wonderful car at our disposal. Got to quit. My love to all of those at home.