Sidney Towner Phelan letter to mother - August 22, 1917

Transcript

22 August, [1917] I have been at the front over a week now and I have passed thru enough experiences to fill an ordinary life time. Tho a green section we were given the hottest post in France— a post which two veteran ambulance section quit on. We also got three other posts, none of them easy. On my first day of it (24 hours on duty with only one meal and no sleep) I was under shell fire a half dozen times and I can’t count the shell which fell near me. My car was hit by one and I got a mud bath from another. I also went through gas once, but that was only a pink tea to what we got Sunday. It is utterly beyond human imagination to realize in a small degree what war is. Dante’s Inferno shows a weak lack of imagination in comparison with the reality. There is a stretch of road leading up to our most advanced post which for over a mile is in full view of the German lines on a hill whose name is . I have passed that road and seen so many Boche Shells falling on it that it seemed the whole hill must be blasted away. I have never seen such a wonderful sight, A volcano in steady and violent eruption might be something like it. The road itself is shelled pretty badly as it is lined on both sides by French [batteries] and the Germans try to get them. I made two trips on that road for which I have no excuse but the impulse of a fool to try anything that a Frenchman thought possible. Bill Dickey (my partner) and I were advised that the road was impossible to pass but the medicine chief wanted a car so we went. How we got through I cant see. The road was less of a road than a block of office buildings would afford were they leveled to the ground by an earthquake. The smoke from bursting shells was so thick we could hardly see the road. That was for a stretch of two hundred yards at Hell’s corner. For the rest of the way it was just a shell torn road under ordinary fire. There were several reminders of the Germans tho. The carcasses of several horses, a body minus a face and all that was left of three men, a shell hole filled with blood three battered helmets and a broken machine gun. When we got to our post we swore that we would not go back until morning when the shelling would quiet down and the holes filled up. The medicine chief said he wouldn’t think of sending us back with the road in that condition and several other French officers advised us not to go back until morning. But we hadn’t been there an hour the chief want us to go back with a load of “blesses”. Bill put the decision up to me. He said “We haven’t a chance to get back but if you want to try all right. The chief smiled when we hesitated and I got sore and said Yes. Of all the wild rides we have had that was the wildest. It was if possible worse going back than coming up. I didn’t believe we had a chance but I give you my word I have never had such a wonderful sensation. Before you start you are very much afraid but after the first shell bursts something gets into your blood and you just revel in the greatest sport in the world. Bill turned to me and yelled “I love this” He was drunk with it and so was I. That was the most vivid experience of that day but that same evening I had my closest call. I was stopped at a railway crossing to let a train pass and just then the Boche shell began to fall. I dropped face downward in the dust and had three shells shower me with stones. I got two dents in my helmet and one stone raised a lump on my head. I was lying in between the car and the shell. I am just in from a long stretch of duty. I was on thirty-six hours without sleep. I followed that with a nights sleep and thirty hours more on duty. There has not been a single day in the last week when I have had three meals.