I was there with the Yanks in France

'I was there' with the Yanks in
France

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Title: "I was there" with the Yanks in France.
Author: C. LeRoy Baldridge
Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15937]
Language: English
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"I was there"
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.
[Illustration: (soldiers in line in the rain)]
The Lids We Wear-- [Illustration: Dungaree style] [Illustration: This tin

derby with winter knitted helmet] [Illustration: Old "rain-in-the-face"]
[Illustration: The charming red-and-white effect] [Illustration:
Fuzzy-wuzzy] [Illustration: The tank helmet] [Illustration: Some
managed to hang on to the old reliable] [Illustration: With the French
army] [Illustration: With its canvas overcoat on]
[Illustration: He used to hunt rabbits in Kentucky]
[Illustration: The job that's never ended--Cleaning up for inspection]
[Illustration: First time in two weeks!/Montmeuril (men bathing from
canvas bucket)]
[Illustration: The letter from home/reading]
[Illustration: The Ration Detail]
The Ration Detail--a job which no one relishes. Each day