France Sept 29-1918
Dear Anna,
I am in a hospital somewhere in France. I was wounded last Thursday morning about 8:30. I was shot in the side of the head by a machine gun bullet. There would have been nothing to it except that the temporal artery was cut. Inside of about three minutes I was covered with blood. There was another fellow laying nearby and I called him over and he put his first aid bandage on it and the bleeding stop[ped] almost right away. The stretcher was nearby and they had captured some German prisoners and they carried me back to the first aid station, then they had to carry me to another place and they looked at the dressing and put me in an ambulance with three other fellows one of them being German. The ambulance took us to a relay hospital where they looked at the dressing again and sent [me] to what is called an evacuation hospital where they operate on you. First they take an X Ray of the wound and then you are sent to the operating room. All they had to do with me was clean the wound and tie up the artery. Most of the fellows have to take ether. We stayed at this place for 24 hours when we were put on a hospital train and brought us to this place.
We certainly had some tough ground to go over when we made our attack. First we had to cross a lot of marshy ground and had to wade through water from six inches to four feet deep. Then we had to go through a woods and the vines and underbrush were so thick we could hardly get through. We did not meet with much resistance in the woods except a few machine guns. It was just as we got through the woods that I got hit. It was very foggy and we could not see very far and we run onto this machine gun post before we knew it. I think [there] was about three more fellows hit besides myself. I will be alright again in a couple of weeks. We certainly got good treatment at the hospital. Knute Winge’s brother is just a few beds from where I am. He was not wounded but got a piece of steel in his eye. He is the youngest brother who I had never met but we had got to talking and he asked me if I knew Knute. He knows the Ericksons also as he lived in Logan Square. I will try and write more next time.
Love to all
Theo
Pvt. T.F. Thourson 1390312
Co. A 132nd Inf
American E.F.
Note: This incident occurred on September 26, 1918, the first day of the Meuse Argonne Offensive, the final offensive of the war. The Thirty Third Division was on the right flank of the American Army with the Meuse River on their right. Theo was shot near the town of Forges, north of Verdun. His wound was serious enough to get him out of combat but was not life threatening.
In this letter Theo describes the action up to the point where he is wounded. The Germans were taken by surprise by this maneuver. When captured, a German officer said "We were looking for you in front. We did not expect you would come through the swamp and out flank us. We did not think that any Yankee outfit was so foxy." (From a Chicago Daily news account of the battle.)
Subsequent fighting was heavy and as many as 25,000 Americans died between Sep 26 and November 11, the date of the Armistice. So Theo escaped the worst of it.
TLT
