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"I was there" with the Yanks on the western front, 1917-1919 By: Hilmar R. (Hilmar Robert) Baukhage (1889-) |
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with the
Yanks
in France Sketches by C. LeRoy Baldridge
Private, A.E.F.
[Illustration: Audsurade Belgium Nov. 11/1918]
"I WAS THERE" WITH THE YANKS
ON THE WESTERN FRONT
1917 1919 BY
C. LEROY BALDRIDGE
PVT. A.E.F.
TOGETHER WITH VERSES
BY
HILMAR R. BAUKHAGE
PVT. A.E.F.
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1919 Copyright, 1919
BY
C. LEROY BALDRIDGE
TO OUR MOTHERS
Ours the Great Adventure,
Yours the pain to bear,
Ours the golden service stripes,
Yours the marks of care. If all the Great Adventure
The old Earth ever knew,
Was ours and in this little book
'Twould still belong to you!
PREFACE These Sketches were made during a year's service as a camion driver with
the French amry in the Chemin des Dames sector and a year's service with
the A.E.F. as an infantry private on special duty with "The Stars and
Stripes," the official A.E.F. newspaper. Most of them were drawn at odd
minutes during the French push of 1917 near Fort Malmaison, at loading
parks and along the roadside while on truck convoy, and while on special
permission to draw and paint with the French army given me by the Grand
Quartier Gènèral during the time I was stationed at Soissons. The rest
were drawn on American fronts from the Argonne to Belgium as my duties
took me from one offensive to another. It has been a keen regret to me that my artistic skill has been so
unequal to these opportunites. The sketches do not sufficiently show
war for the stupid horror I know it to be. I hope, however, they may serve as a record of doughboy types, of the
people he lived with in France, with whom he suffered and by whose side
he fought. Many appeared first in "The Stars and Stripes," "Leslie's Weekly", and
"Scribner's Magazine", through the courtesy of whose editors I am now
enabled to reprint them. C. LeRoy Baldridge
Private, Am.E.F.
June 1919
I WAS THERE
[Illustration: Sunny France] [Illustration: Warming up the "corned willy" over "corned heat" (solidified alcohol)] [Illustration: Rain overhead and mud underfoot / Baldridge Near Montfaucon]
[Illustration: The Yank] [Illustration: Fighting Trim] [Illustration: Seicheprey, America's old home sector. April '19] Seicheprey, America's old home sector first trenches entirely under
their own command. THE LINE
Form a line!
Get in line!
From the time that I enlisted
And since Jerry armististed
I've been standing, kidding, cussing,
I've been waiting, fuming, fussing,
In a line. I have stood in line in mud and slime and sleet,
With the dirty water oozing from my feet,
I have soaked and slid and slipped,
While my tacky slicker dripped,
And I wondered what they'd hand me out to eat. Get in line!
For supplies and for inspections,
With the dust in four directions,
For a chance to scrub the dirt off,
In the winter with my shirt off,
In a line. I have sweated in an August training camp,
That would make a prohibition town look damp,
Underneath my dinky cap
While the sun burned off my map
And I waited for some gold fish (and a cramp!). Get in line!
For rice, pay day, pills, and ration,
For corned willy, army fashion,
In Hoboken, in the trenches,
In a station with the Frenchies,
In a line. I've been standing, freezing, sweating,
Pushing, shoving, wheezing, fretting,
And I won't be soon forgetting
Though I don't say I'm regretting
That I stood there, with my buddies,
In a line... Continue reading book >>
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