Edward Meier to Frank - October 3, 1918
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[October] 3 1918 Hello Frank, I have forgotten myself at last, I suppose you have read all about our little push by this time, never the less there are a few incidents I am sure the papers didn
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of a very steep hill, watching own barrage, and beleive me thats a sight none of us will ever forget, the explosion of the guns weren
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dense that we couldn
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and discovered that we were caught in the neatest trap imaginable on our left, behind a concrete wall was a German machine gun nest, on our right, somewhere in the clumps of trees was another, in our rear was one, also, to our front, and they were so well camoflaged we could not find any target to fire at although we knew the general direction from which they were comeing, on top of that [m.s. illegible 1 wd] and that we were 15 minutes ahead of the first wave, there were [m.s. illegible 1 wd] of us in the shell hole as near to the bottom as we could get all this time the major was standing erect organizing and waiting for reinforcements to run the nest, while he was giving an order of some kind a
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bullet caught him in the back of the head and put him our of business, after the Major fell they started to fall all around me, and I decided that as a health resort that shell hole made a perfect cream seperator so I ditched the signal equipment I was carrying and made a dash for another shell hole a little farther down the vally, I made it fine with my bunkie right at my heels, we flattened our carcases and neal as we could to bottom and proceded to await developements, the bullets kept clipping the edge of the hole until it looked like they would have it cut down for enough to get us, while laying there it dawned on us how instead of going around those nests as instructed
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the Germans and the fog led us right into the trap, about that time we heard a clanking that sounded like a boiler factory,
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and we went forward hell bent for election, I
Details
| Title | Edward Meier to Frank - October 3, 1918 |
| Creator | Meier, Edward |
| Source | Meier, Edward. Letter to Frank. 03 October 1918. World War I Collection. A1771. Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. |
| Description | Private Edward W. Meier of St. Louis, Missouri, served with the 138th Infantry during World War One. Meier wrote his cousin-in-law Frank Baebler, also of Saint Louis, several humorous letters during the War. In this lette, Meier described his experience in battle and a German trap he escaped from in vivid detail. |
| Subject LCSH | Bombing, Aerial; World War, 1914-1918--Artillery operations; Tanks |
| Subject Local | World War I; WWI |
| Site Accession Number | A1771 |
| Contributing Institution | Missouri History Museum |
| Copy Request | Transmission or reproduction of items on these pages beyond those allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the Missouri History Museum: 314-746-4510 |
| Rights | The text and images contained in this collection are intended for research and educational use only. Duplication of any of these images for commercial use without express written consent is expressly prohibited. Contact the Missouri History Museum's Permissions Office at 314-746-4511 to obtain written consent. |
| Date Original | October 3, 1918 |
| Language | English |