AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION
ARMY OF OCCUPATION
January 1, 1919
Dear Father and Mother.
Will now try and write you a few lines. I haven’t had any mail for three months, so didn’t know until I got back to the company that you had moved back to Colorado. I wrote you a card a few days ago.
We are at a town named Engers on the east bank of the Rhine in Germany. There are a good many steam boats on the river. Also some American Patrol boats. The river is nearly a half mile wide at this place.
I suppose you get the Stars and Stripes yet. You can see in General Pershing’s report the different drives the 2nd Division has taken part in. I was in it all except the last big drive know as the Argonne drive [Meuse-Argonne offensive].
I was wounded when we were on the campaign front the 4th of October. I was in the hospital seven weeks near Paris about ten minutes ride from the main part of the city. After leaving Paris I was in three replacement camps and was attached to the 330 Machine Gun Battalion of the 85th Division near Toul, France where the 3rd Army casualties returning from the hospital were kept until our outfit got settled in the Zone of Occupation, then were shipped here to join our outfits.
There is no snow here yet and it is not so cold as it was last year at this time where we were in France. But I suppose the cold weather will come later on. While I was in a replacement camp I met Marie Cordova, he is the only guy from home that I have run into since I left.
I will send you some postcard views of the country around here soon. This is about all there is to write about so will close with love to all, your son,
Robert. E. Schalles Pvt. 1st Class
1st Amb Co. 2nd Div.
American Expeditionary Forces
via New York