NOT SOLD (BIDDING OVER)
0.00USD+ applicable fees & taxes.
This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2003 Mar 29 @ 13:00UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT
[WORLD WAR I- MUSTARD GAS ATTACK]: A great World War I archive from American soldier Pvt. 1st Class Thomas Knowles, Co. C, 101st U. S. Engineers, American Expeditionary Force detailing his entering the service in Sept. 1917, to the battlefields of Europe were he was wounded and suffered the affects of mustard gas, to March 1919. Included are 24 letters totaling 53pp. many on colorful patriotic and YMCA letter sheets, plus 19 postcards depicting the various European cities and sites he had visited with 13 bearing comments by Knowles on the verso and some being sent home to his sweetheart, in very small part: "...[Boston, Ma. Sept. 11, 1917]...tonight we have to attend a lecture given by an officer of the French Mission, on 'the affect of shell fire'...the latest rumor is that after the lecture...we are to leave...[Boston Sept. 24, 17]...we leave tonight. Goodbye, Tom...[n.d.]...we arrived in old England yesterday...our orders to move from Boston came rather sudden...by midnight we were aboard the train bound for a port...we were put right aboard the transport which was waiting for us...an old Cunard passenger liner...all her insides were taken out and now she is little more than a maze of rough wooden bunks...God help us if we ever got struck...we arrived at--- England...about ten o'clock at night...we were marched through the streets to our camp and didn't the people go wild...the very air breathes of war here...soon...we will be sent to France...I never saw so many soldiers in my life. Every country at war is represented...[Oct. 25, 17]...our quarters now are in a little old French town, just behind the lines...I celebrated my birthday on the boat coming over. I am now twenty-one...[Oct. 31, 17]...our squad has been fortunate in getting a pretty nice billet...and we have made some furniture...I am trying to learn French...[Nov. 19, 17]...Uncle Sam is doing his best to make us warm and comfortable...our uniform is rather different from what we used to wear in old Boston...[and have] two of the additions are the big heavy French boots and steel shrapnel helmets...[Dec. 20, 17]...we now work in high rubber boots which reach up to our hips...[Mar 9, 18]...things are happening now with a vengeance...there is always something doing for the engineers. We are...spread all over France...[Mar. 22, 18]...our detail came in covered with mud from head to foot...I spend most of the time in a muddy hole...[Apr. 9, 18]...there is no chance of getting a good comfortable sleep here...when I lie down my rifle and cartridge belt...on one side and my gas masks and steel helmet on the other, so that at any time...I can jump up and grab them...gets on a fellows nerves...the noise doesn't count...the first night in, I was scared stiff...its funny how many miss you. The only thing to do is to forget it. We have a little saying...'Its the shell that misses that scars you, the one that does hit you, you don't feel'...[Apr. 30, 18]...from the German trenches comes the sound of a flute and an accordion...hope the musicians don't get killed...they play almost every night...we are now wearing our service stripes...they consist of a V shaped chevron...worn four inches from the cuff...[May 19, 18]...we have been having a heavy time of it since we moved up in this sector...the old rats have a hard time trying to get in my blanket...they used to have a habit of eating everything...and then curling up and going to sleep in somebody's bed...[June 6, 18]...I suppose...you have seen the lists, but it really isn't anything serious. Just a little gas and a bump in the ankle...the red-cross surely does its best to help us...such a difference from our lift in the ditch...there is plenty of action up there...but those beastly Huns will never break through...it was somewhere around one o'clock in the morning when a platoon of us were caught in the German barrage...we were ordered at once to do with a will...it was pitch dark and the shells were breaking all around us, filling the air with flashes...and poisonous gas...every minute I expected to be hit...I was...diving down into a dug out when, whiz, crash came a high explosion clean through the roof...when I came to, I tried to get up, but could not, so I...crawled into another dug out and dragged on my gas mask. The next thing I knew I was being carried to a first aid station...the station was filled with wounded...as fast as the ambulance carried them away, more were brought in. three of us were put in the ambulance...and after a rather bumpy ride we were landed in the field hospital...I have to rely on crutches...[Aug. 4, 18]...this is a convalescent camp...it is well situated...in central France. I have only a slight limp now, but the affects of the gas still bother me a little...our commander [cut out by the censor] himself...came to pay a visit to his wounded...we have a...band...who play at least once a day...a bunch of us went on a conducted tour of the city...I stood in the little chapel where Joan of Arc placed her banner after being given command of the French armies...what do you think of our American boys now...the casualty lists are coming in snappy...the Boche is losing a great deal more men than we are. They will meet their Waterloo 'toot sweet'...[n.d.]...our boys certainly made things hum, didn't they...this is the very front I was wounded on, and here I am back again, but under vastly different circumstances...the...thing that disturbs the tranquility of the place is the constant air-raid...the anti-aircraft guns begin the boom...I just lay and trust to luck...my heart beats much faster than usual and my throat gets awfully dry, when I hear them coming my way...every year France calls out a...number of young men...for the army...I suppose the kids think...they have reached mans estate...most of them are boys of seventeen and eighteen...[Oct. 6, 18]...we are always where there is the most fighting going on...the town we are in...is...nothing doing in the way of entertainment, except air-raids...this is...the most bombed city of France...on clear nights the Boche come over an average of three or four times...[Nov. 19, 18]...I left Bar-le-Duc...on the first stage of my journey to Germany. I am...in one of the caves of that wonderful underground city...how fruitless were the German efforts to capture it...the city of Verdun is...in ruins, but the Citadel which stretches for miles underground...is spotlessly clean...the place is crowded with returned prisoners...the Germans just threw open the doors of the prison cages and told them to hot foot it back to their lines...they are all weak and tired looking...many...died on the way over to our lines...they...shamble in bunches, with eyes cast down and with a look of utter dejection on their faces...I noticed...about two hundred Russians, and in the middle of them was one lone Yank, he couldn't have been over eighteen...[Nov. 22, 18]...you have been wondering if I was the same boy. I don't think so. I feel as though I have aged several years...I am in Luxembourg...General Duchese...rides in an old fashioned coach drawn by a pair of prancing horses and their army of one hundred and fifty men dress as if they were going to a fancy dress ball...we left Verdun...crossing...'no mans land' with its leveled villages, tree-stumps, and shell craters...we had a fast car, a Winton, and it was not long before we caught up to the rear-guard of our army of occupation. Then came miles...of doughboys...all the people were out in the streets waiting for us...the crowd was so thick the car had to stop and they climbed all over it shouting, 'Hail to our country's liberators'...I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...they treated me royally...[Dec. 25, 18]...on the Rhine...we are an army of occupation in conquered people we have whipped, still with their heads up...the engineers put up an immense Christmas tree...illuminated by red, white, and blue...the square was crowded by Yanks and Germans...[Jan. 2, 19]...we all went up to town to see the celebration...all the French soldiers in the vicinity paraded...carrying lanterns...the parade was greeted by General Foch and various other Allied officers...[Mar. 10, 19]...we pulled into Boston on the battleship Nebraska...we received a royal welcome at the pier...". A good historic look from an American point of view on the war in Europe and although subjected to military censorship is filled with much war-related news. All with original transmittal envelopes. Minor spotting and soiling, else very good to near fine. $800-1,200
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