100 years in Spokane: Soldier witnesses carnage in Paris

The Spokesman-Review printed nearly a full page of letters from Spokane soldiers at the European front. Here are two excerpts:

Harry Hubler, artilleryman, training in a French auto school in Paris: “When in Paris, I saw three air raids and a day of shelling by a long-range gun the Huns (Germans) were firing at a range of 74 miles. … One day a shell bursted five or six blocks away and a friend and myself started in that direction to see what the damage was, when another shell bursted in the middle of the block, throwing stone and giving us quite a shake-up, but causing no serious damage. One shell struck an old lady’s fruit stand and blew it all to pieces and also blew her poor head off. I tell you, if you could hear and see all of the dirt they have done, you would say go after them all and do it now, and that is just what we are going to do as soon as we get to the front.”

E.L. Taylor, in a motor detachment in France: “For almost a week, we started the fire in our forge with the ruins of a Boche (German) plane that an American aviator brought down. It fell within a couple of blocks of our camp. I saw it fall. I have some pieces of it now. … I have been in nearly every city of any size in France. Everywhere I go I meet fellows that I knew in the States. I sure like to watch the pretty girls go by, after having been so long at the front without seeing any, although I have seen some American nurses here and there, and at one place I saw French girls driving ambulances. I enjoy life over here more than I ever did in the States. … Well, mother, tomorrow we start on our cross-country trip and I’ll be glad to get back where the big guns make the candles flicker and the airplanes sound like bumblebees.”