Charles E. H. Bates Family Correspondence, 1899-1930 - 7

526 West 139th St New York City 2 January 1921

Dear Bates -

It was mighty good to get your long letter, so newsy and reminiscent. As to Barkers death I had heard of it several weeks ago through a friend of his. At that time I sent a strong affidavit to the effect that Barker was seriously gassed, and also sent word to Dave Cutler and Pearson asking them to submit

affidavits. Our company was very badly shot up with Phosgene gas, a projection attack, before you joined us. At that time, over half of the men in three platoons were evacuated and about a dozen men died from gas poisoning inside of twenty four hours. Barker was seriously affected at the time but through grit he refused to give in, and our whole company was, that night, withdrawn, and sent back to a rest area to recuperate. Otherwise he and some of the rest of us would have doubtless been sent to a hospital. Theres no doubt in my mind but that his lungs were permanently weakened in that one attack, and that the

exposure and frequent touches of gas which we ran into later added to his troubles.

As for myself, so far as I know, my lungs are now absolutely sound for which I feel extremely lucky. Am sorry to learn that your your lungs are the worse for the wear.

May I extend my hearty congratulations to you on your decorations (I congratulated you on the Croix de Guerre when I was in Germany but apparently you never received my letter). I envy you. But I just wasn't born to be a hero. I cant say that I ever pulled any stunt that would entitle me to special mention but

I do have the satisfaction of feeling that I never shirked a danger when there was dirty work to be done. I feel that its almost a miracle that some of us came through as we did without a scratch.

I was with Headquarters Troop (the enlisted personnel of the headquarters) of the Third Army for several months. Lived in a wonderful big house overlooking the Rhine in Coblence [Coblenz]. Around the first of March, I was ordered to Paris upon my own application to attend a course of lectures at the Sorbonne. I lived very comfortably and without any responsibility there for four months

and then came home in July.

I have had a letter or two from Old Swetty. I imagine he doesn't feel quite natural to be out of the service. He is up in Paris, Maine, looking after his two youngsters — their mother died while he was overseas. He sent me a snapshot taken in the States of General Edwards, Colonel Hume and himself together. I believe he was transferred back to the 26th just before they returned to the States.

I'm going to enclose a Kodak print (which is very poor) taken up on the front lines the