This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Allen Classification: Military Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/AQB.2ACI/255.5 Message Board Post: Plattsmouth Journal, Monday, March 18, 1918 ANOTHER LETTER FROM FRANCE >From Thursday’s Daily. Somewhere in France. February 10, 1918 Dear Mamma and All, Today is Sunday and a long lonesome day, so will try and write some letters. I received your letter of December 31, some two weeks ago, and the one of Dec. 24, that you and Papa both wrote, yesterday, so you see how irregular our mail comes. I was sure glad to get them. We all like to get mail from home. If you could see us when the bugle blows mail call you would think so. You are always kicking about me not writing much and you never write more than three pages. I owe every one a letter now, so will try and answer them today. I got a letter from Thor. He was back in Chicago on a visit, got one from Omar and received the $5.00 for the camera. American money sure looks good and every one in the company had to have a look at it. French paper money looks like some of our soap wrappers. The French sure are fine people and will do anything they can for us. Any of them will do our washing for a couple of franks which amounts to 40 cents in our money. I am learning to talk a litt! le of their language, am visiting with them this morning and am writing on a real table by a fire place. Everything is old fashion over here and reminds me of stories I have read of olden times. The buildings are all made of stone and they say they are from eight to ten hundred years old. We have only been in this camp one week. We hiked from the other place to here in two days, it was about 35 miles. My feet stood the trip fine. The first camp were were in I was on military police duty for 18 days, was on at Christmas time. The cooks sure fixed us up a fine dinner. We had fig pie and turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and coffee. We all had a good time, but once in a while we would think about where we was last year and about the dinner that mother could make, was glad to hear that you and papa belonged to the Red Cross. Yes, I was remembered by them. I got a sweater, a pair of wool socks and a pair of gloves. Yesterday afternoon I took out $10,000.00 of war risk insurance. If ! I get totally disabled, I will draw $57.50 a month as long as I live and if I get picked off you will draw $57.50 a month for 20 years. It is a pretty good thing and after the war I can drop it or keep it up just as I please. I could have my policy kept at Washington D.C. or sent to you so I ordered it to be sent to you but it will be quite a while before you get it, maybe a month. The allotment I made to you was not made out right so it did not go, so I will make out another. An allotment is having so much of our pay sent home. I don’t need all of mine over here, so I will have some of it sent to you to take care of for me, so when I get back I will have enough to buy a new suit anyway. I got a letter from Wayne the other day. He seemed to be pretty well worked up, he said for me to hold out as long as I could and wait till company C got over here with their six-inch guns. He said that they would blow them all to ----. Well this is all the news I can think of for th! is time. I think I will quit writing letters and mail cards from now on and if you don’t hear from me as often as you think you ought, don’t worry and don’t think that I have forgotten you. With love from, RALPH ALLEN. O.K. F.D. Logan [censor] 1st Lieut. 168th Inf. Plattsmouth Journal, Monday, June 17, 1918 LETTER FROM RALPH ALLEN IN FRANCE WRITES TO MOTHER HERE UNDER DATE OF MAY 23RD. – IN FRONT LINES. ALL PLATTSMOUTH BOYS WELL And Glad to Be Able to Do Their Bit Toward Licking Army of the Kaiser. >From Friday’s Daily. France, May 21, 1918 Dear Mother, Tuesday morning, will drop you a line. I got back from the front a few days ago, got a few good nights sleep, took a bath and am boiling up now to get rid of some coolies, have been up four times now and am feeling fine. We are not camped in a timber and its sure a beautiful place. You have to hand it to France for being a beautiful country. Its enough to make a fellow home sick for old Nebraska. Your last letter received while I was in the front line trench. The hash carriers brought it out to me one evening about 6 o’clock. It sure is great to get a letter from home at that time. That shows what Uncle Sammjy does for us over here. I got a letter from aunt Mittee but she never said much, only that they had moved to town and that Harry and Ern were away working on the railroad. I suppose you have heard about our service stripes. We get a service stripe for every six months service on foreigh soil and in the [illegible] half an inch wide and in a V shape, to be worn o! f the left arm at the cuff point down, and the wounded stripes are to be worn on the right. When they are a strait gold stripe, we will get our service stripe the last of this month. Some of the boys have them now, that beat us over. After dinner. Will finish this letter up and get it off. It has to be censored by one of our officers, but the ones you send are never censored. Well its about time you are receiving my allotment. It started the first of February. Will soon be four months. I also took out $10,000.00 insurance. The policy will be sent to you. Did you ever hear from Milo? I wonder if he has come over here yet. The last time I heard from Wayne he was expecting to come over soon. Well I will close for this time. If anyone wants to know how the other Plattsmouth boys are, tell them they are all well and feeling fine. Answer soon, as ever, RALPH H. ALLEN Here is a sample of some of my shooting, 15 shots at 50 yards with my Springield rifle. Do you think they would count? Plattsmouth Journal, Thursday, July 25, 1918 WRITES INTERESTINGLY FROM FRANCE ONE OF THE FORMER SUNDAY SCHOOL SCHOLARS WRITES EXPERIENCES IN EUROPE. >From Monday’s Daily. We the reporter of this paper were in receipt of a letter yesterday, tho written over a month since from the battlefield in France, by one of our friends and former Sunday School scholars, depicting his experiences in the army, and giving his impressions of what is happening there: France, June 16th, 1918 Mrs. M.S. BRIGGS Plattsmouth, Nebr., Dear Friend: - Sunday morning. I am writing some this morning, and will drop you a few lines. There is not much to write about from here probably that will interest you. I am owing you a letter, and have many to write. The Plattsmouth boys who are here are all fine and feeling dandy. We can eat three times per day, with a hearty appetite, as we have much outdoor exercise, and this is a fine looking country, were it not so torn up with the war which devastates it, and can sleep at nights, when there is not too much noise, but the noise seems necessary and a protion of the struggle. We are just back from the front, a few days since, this making our fifth time to serve there, but with very small losses. We are now at a rest camp in a big timber, it is sure a very pretty place. Our greatest friends in the trences are the rats which grow to the size of an ordinary cat. If you are easy with them, they will come up and beg a portion of your stew. There are a few cotties, as well but a good dose of boiling water puts the “kibash’ to them (nuff said). Well about France, it is nothing like we expected, the buildings are of stone, and many of them hundreds and thousands years old, and they look it too. There is only one thing which France beats the united States and that is roads, they are all paved with crushed rock, over the whole country, and are kept in good repair, and make excellent roads over which to travel. In other ways the United States are ahead of this or any other countryin the world. The French sure are fine people, and will do anything for the American soldier. Well I will ring off now. Answer soon, and we would like a rool of Plattsmouth Journals once in a while if it is not asking too much. Thanks in advance, as ever, RALPH H. ALLEN, Co. I, 168th U.S. Inf. A.E.F. Plattsmouth Journal, Monday, October 14, 1918 A LETTER FROM RALPH ALLEN. >From Saturday’s Daily. France, Sept. 1, 1918 Dear Mother and All: Sunday evening and will write a few lines. It sure has been a long time since I wrote, July 14, I believe, but we sure have been on the go since then. I suppose you have read the papers by now of how we have the dutch on the run. They are beginning to find out that France is no place for them, the last battle we were in, we left one of our Plattsmouth boys behind. The dutch sure pair for it, and we all know that he could not have fallen for a better cause when standing up for the rights of mankind. I suppose that Mr. and Mrs. RIPPLE have received notice of it by now, but if they have not, don’t say anything about it this afternoon. There was a Y.M.C.A. man and women gave us a little play and told us how things were coming in the states. It seemed pretty nice to see a real American woman and to hear her talk. I received a long letter from Omer the other day, said they were all getting along fine. Thor writes me a letter every week. I 3 or 4 at once. It will soon be t! ime for some more mail to come in and I’ll be looking for a letter from you. I suppose everybody are busy threshing around there by now. The French are all busy with their grain and they sure have some crop. It looks as good in places as I ever saw it in the states and that sure means a whole lot. In the last drive we made we took many a field of good grain. The dutch set fire to some of it, but most of them left in such a hurry that they forgot to take their guns along, and some of them came over with that (have mercy) stuff, but when they went through Belgium and part of France it was a very little mercy that they had. Well it is getting late, so I’ll ring off. If you don’t hear from me regular, you don’t need to be worried for if anything happens to me, even a wound, you will receive notice within 3 or 4 days. I received a letter from Wayne not long ago, but he never wrote much news. I believe that the 16th of this month is donald’s! birthday. Give him a [dark, looks like] beating for me and tell everyone Hello. Answer soon and often. With lots of love, RALPH B. ALLEN, Address Co. I, 168th Inf., A.E.F. Plattsmouth Journal, December 23, 1918 [ Ralph Allen’s letter appeared with Henry Lamphaer’s letter on this date] Ralph Allen Writes “Dad’s” Letter November 24th Dear Dad, Mother and All: Sunday evening, still at the hospital, but feel fine. Well they tell us not to write where we have been and the battles we were in, but I do not think the red Cross has paper enough for all that. The last front I was on was Verdun and the Argone [sic], and where some of the hardest fighting took place of any place in the war. Before the Armistice was signed we had them out in the open and running, and many down on their knees begging for mercy, others had thrown their guns and helmets away and were running like jack rabbits. The hardest battle we were in was at Chateau Thierry, you know all about that so I do not need tell you, only to recall what Sherman said, “War was Hell,” but let me tell you he did not know anything about war then, it has changed so. We had just taken a town on the Toul [sic] sector, about the size of Plattsmouth when the civilians came out of their cellars, and crawled out from under their house, the women coming and kissing our hands and crying for joy, while the old gray headed men would hobble around and hollow for Americans. If you did not watch them they would cut buttons off your clothes for souvenirs. The Red Cross has set today for “Dad’s Xmas Letters.” I am sending you a map of the Mihial drive, the dotted lines where we started, and the heavy link where we stopped, and I want to say, we did not stop because we could not go any farther, but because we had orders not to go farther then. I believe we could have taken them to Mets. the way we had them going. We were three days making the drive, we had told around we were going to make the drive on the 15th but pulled it off on the 18th, and this surprised the helmies. We hiked about 5 miles the night before in the rain, and went into the trenches at about midnight at Breassette [sic] ; we had some good artillery behind us, the 151 Minnesota light, the 150 Indiana heavy, some French Naval guns 16 and 18 inches, all of them opened up at one o’clock, and kept up the bombardment until five in the morning, when they lifted the barrage and “Over the Top” we went. The Germans had held the trenches since the beginning of the war, and that was to be an active ! front. There was a large hill two miles from the line of the German side. It was called Mt. Sank, the French tried to take the hill in 1915; they took the hill and held it twenty minutes and lost 35,000, and then fell back. That did not sound right to us, but the French told it themselves for an absolute fact. We and the 167 infantry, the Alabama boys took the hill and had the “Botche” going down the other side by ten o’clock. When we got over the hill we believed what the French had said, for we found piles of bones, French helmets and rifles scattered everywhere. Then, the evening of the 14th of September, we took the little town of Bine, advanced about a mile, then dug in for the night. This is where we stopped, and held the line. About 12 o’clock that night the cooks seat us up a feed, boiled beef, potatoes, and bread and coffee, and say, you ought to have seen us eat. We held that line for about seven or eight days and were relieved by the 83 brigade. Went back then, and got some new clothes, a bath and a pay day, and had a few days to ourselves and then went to the Verdun front,, where we stayed until the finish. Well I suppose you are tired of reading war news by now. I know I am tired of writing it and I will ring off. I wrote Wayne a lette! r today. I was talking to a fellow out of the 100th engineers that was down at Deming, N. Mex., he told me that 137th artillery had just come over, so I addressed it over here. If I knew just where they were I would try and get a pass and go see them. Well I will close now with the same address, wishing you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Your son, RALPH H. ALLEN Plattsmouth Journal, Monday, December 16, 1918 MEMBER OF RAINBOW DIVISION WRITES TO HIS MOTHER MRS. M.B. ALLEN OF THIS CITY TELLING OF HIS EXPERIENCES. WAS IN SERVICE LONG TIME Saw Much actual Service in trenches, Over Top and In Hospital, Many Experiences >From Saturday’s Daily. Ralph ALLEN, who has been in the real war, with the experience which has made the Rainbow Division the most noted in all the armies of the world, has written to his mother regarding some of his experiences. He thinks he has had enough of the war for one young man, was at the time of writing in a sopital, for a minor wound, but had been wounded before but has said nothing regarding it. Here is his interesting letter: With the A.E.F., Nov. 17, 1918 Dear Mother and All: This is Sunday morning and I will write you a few lines to let you know I am still alive and feeling pretty good; all but my teeth. I am at the hospital to have them treated. I had one filled last February and now have to have two more filled. They don’t hurt so much any more. The dentist is sure a fine fellow. He is Major, Doctor from Nebraska; and there is a regent doctor from Kansas and we three have some argument about which is the best state. But believe me any old state would sure look good to me just now. Secretary of War BAKER says, “The old men, the ones who have been here the longest and bron the brunt of the fighting should be the first ones to go home.” I hope he stays with that proposition. You know our division (the Rainbow Division) was the first one to hold an American sector. We won a good name for ourselves then, and have kept it ever since. We whipped the “Boche” and whipped him good, just before the signing of the armistice. We had them on their knees praying for mercy. It is hard to tell just when peace will be signed; I hope it won’t be long, for now the fighting is over, one can figure on getting home again. Some times it makes a fellow’s feet itch. The way things looked last Christmas, I thought we might be over here many more. But now we won’t have to spend but one more here, and that won’t be so bad. Where is Wayne now, the last I heard from him he was in Brooklyn. I do not know whether he is over here yet or not. I suppose he will rave if he don’t get to come. If he did come he did not get here in time to get into action. Well I will ring off now, and write again soon. The Red Cross has a big pull here at the hospital and they give us a picture show every night. They also sell tobacco, cigars and cigarettes. Well answer soon. RALPH H. ALLEN, Co. I, 168th U.S. Inf. Am. E.F., France.