Letters From the Front

Dated: March 23, 1917

Huntington Gleaner

May 3, 1917

Letter from Dr. Gardner

the following letter from Dr. Gardner to his parents give some interesting glimpses of the war front in France. Dr. Gardner is in charge of the base hospital near at Ypres

May 23, 1917.

It has been snowing quite hard today and now the sun is shining brightly. In the midst of this German retreat in the south, we are having all kinds of rumors of surrenders, naval fights, German revolutions and much greater deeds than the papers report. The retreat seems to be on quite a large-scale, however, and evidently the Boche must feel the necessity of shortening his line. How he is laying waste to the country he is leaving is painful to hear, even cutting down all fruit trees. It is probably part of the game of war, but pretty hard on the poor French people, who will have to try and build up their homes again.

A few days ago I made rounds with the wireless expert to the heavy batteries, and saw an 8 inch howitzer battery firing. It was the first time I've been so close to a heavy gun in action and was quite interested watching some German shrapnel bursting in a neighboring field. When they fired one of these guns, I thought the top had gone off my head, the noise is simply terrific and the flash tremendous. The wicked way the gun jumps back is quite a sight. After getting over the shock of this unexpected earthquake, I was greatly interested in watching subsequent firing. The range was about 10,000 yds., any aeroplane, with its wireless in connection with the battery, was flying near the German line and watching the shell burst, telegraphing down corrections. We then went to a 6 inch howitzer battery that had been heavily shelled some days before. There were shell holes everywhere except were the guns were, and while the Boche put 500 shells all around and one right through the ammunition store, not a gun was damaged nor a man scratched but of course, the gun crews had been withdrawn to their dugouts while the shelling lasted and the German plane remained overhead, directing the Boche firing. There were no German planes around this day, however, but the German shrapnel was sprinkling an open field all afternoon, where there was nobody and no war material of any description. It was a very interesting day to me, and showed how scientifically big gun fire is carried out. It, no doubt, shall be a different tale when open warfare comes into vogue again, as probably it shall if we are able to come in contact with the retreating Boche. Wonder how far back he really intends to go, probably much further than we, at present, anticipating. Tonight we are going to a show three miles from here, put on by one of the British divisions, and said to be very good. We went to one a week ago that was splendid and our artillery was roaring away all the time from half to a mile away. The day I was at the big battery, a foot-ball match was going on not far from the German shrapnel. No one paid the least attention to anything but the football. I have not been fortunate enough to see a good fight, but had dinner with the crew of a neighboring air squadron a few nights ago and met a young chap who brought down a Hun machine that day. He had been attacked by five of them and brought one crashing down and away tho he was in a very slow machine.

I have a number of very sick man in my ward just now and as usual, am very anxious to bring them all through. One does not glory so much in war when one sees what the harvest of it is. We have had quite a few wounded Boches lately, but none very seriously. They are quite content to be prisoners, after they are certain they are not going to be shot, as they are evidently told they will be if they fall into the hands of the English. We have daily very heavy shelling at the front, and the few days ago the Boche dropped a couple of shells uncomfortably near here. They had no sooner exploded than our men were making for the holes pell mell to pick up the pieces. One of our batmen got a big piece so warm he had to lay it down a few times on the way back, as it was too hot to carry all the way.

Willie