About Me

Born August 4, 1894 in Auburn, New York to William and Alice Beardsley Woodruff Hills. Younger brother Carroll Beardsley Hills and younger sister Mary Day Hills. Educated at St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire and Princeton University, class of 1917

Monday, June 30, 2008

Letter dated March 24, 1918

Dear Nannoo (Grandmother Woodruff)-:

(Ed: Paul begins this letter with a long, apologetic explanation to his grandmother of how his personal financial affairs had become entangled and would be rectified at the first opportunity, before returning to report on life at the front)


I am still doing just what I have been for the last months and a half – observation work. I sit up in my airy perch and in the day time try to plot out the Bosche in his evil doings and give directions how to shoot him and at night do the same thing with the addition of watching for rocket signals which appear in every conceivable color and shape. My mania for fireworks is gradually being satisfied. You should hear the sector when it really gets fully going. Imagine ten thousand gigantic iron horses galloping wild and loose over the country and you have some idea of what it is like at least that is the only thing it ever seems like to me. The guns seem to just trample and trample and bellow and snort. And the funny part of it all is that to set the whole thing going all that is necessary is to lift one of those silly little French telephones from its hook and say about three words.This is about all now, Nannoo. I am sorry as the very deuce about that money business and will do everything I can to make it right as soon as I can.
Good bye With love, Paul

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Poor Paul, I hope that he comes through this all right. He seems, from these few letters, to be a nice young man. So young, what a terrible war that was.