A letter received from Dr. T. O. Perrin, from Camp Pantanezen, near Brest, France, gives the following incident, which will be of interest here. The letter is dated March 9:

"Yesterday morning a Lieutenant S. L. Smithson walked into my little office, which opens into the 'Y Club' rooms for officers in this, the headquarters 'Y' hut. He saw my sign, 'On Duty, T. O. Perrin, Greenville, Texas,' and came into see me, opening the conversation, 'Do you know Lieutenant Miller Bond of Greenville?' Then he told me this interesting little story.

He and Bond were in the same organization, Co. C, 2nd Brigade Machine Gun Battalion, 1st Division. One day they rode horseback into Beauvis and had their pictures taken. The Cantigny offensive, in which our boys played such a heroic part, was launched that night and within forty-eight hours after having his picture made, Lieutenant Smithson was in the hospital, gassed, and wounded. A bullet entered his left forearm, ranged through the wrist and hands, coming out at the base of the index finger, taking that finger off entirely.

Bond was also wounded soon afterward, as Greenville people already know, this having happened in our offensive last summer.

While in the hospital, Lieutenant Smithson received Lieutenant Bond's picture and said he supposed Bond must have received his picture, as he has never seen him since and does not know where he is now. Smithson is here with a casual company homeward bound, a fine young fellow. He gave me one of the pictures of Bond, which I enclose herewith, as a matter of much interest to many Greenville people.

You might send it to his immediate family, with this incident.

I am coming in contact with such incidents as this every day, full of life-throbs."

(I am not sure of Dr. Perrin is kin to Celeste's Professor Perrin, but I suspect they are related.)




 

Submitted by Sarah Swindell