When Section Sixty-One arrived the following year, the fighting was still going on sporadically although the French had regained much of the lost ground. Over a few short weeks in August, Grant and his comrades got more than a taste of the horrors of war, witnessing scenes that they'd never forget.
Saturday, August 11, 1917:
Got up at 7:45 A.M. with a headache after a more or less nervous night with heavy artillery fire going on all night. The noise was terrific this A.M. about 5 o’clock. Think what it will be when the offensive starts! We haven’t been shelled since last evening, but 5 shells have passed over our heads this P.M. There was considerable air activity this P.M., but we saw nothing spectacular.
The evening passed quietly without much excitement. The Boche have been shelling a road back of our camp. Their purpose is more than I can guess. There is very little traffic this evening over the road. Later the activity starts when camion trains and troops pass on to the front for the night. It is remarkable how they are able to shell accurately a spot invisible to them. The evening was clear enough for considerable air activity and we spent the evening looking for excitement, but all the excitement took place far out of our sight. We could hear machine gun fire way up in the air, but out of sight.
Having been here a day I am now able to describe in a way our situation. A diagram will give in a way the relative positions of the various important details.
We are on a mound, less than a mile from Verdun, just out side of the walls of our hospital -- Caserne Bevaux. We overlook a beautiful valley on the south through which a broad canal winds and twists lazily. The valley was once beautiful and fertile and the canal a busy path with continuous strings of large canal boats passing down to Verdun and other centers. Now the scene is quite different. Where beautiful green fields once lay now are replaced with crater filled, barren waste-land. Where patches of woodland dotted the green floor now only desolate sticks like tomb stones are left standing. The whole floor is a mass of crossed and recrossed roads -- white against the black of the ruins. The roads all lead somewhere, but where I have not yet learned: Undoubtedly they lead to "Somewhere in France" and we shall find out all we want to know about them before long. While one road is being shelled from the German lines about 6 miles away other roads are noisy with long endless lines of artillery, camion trains, troops trains and provision trains. The big movement starts about 6 or 7 P.M. and continues until day light.
The sky is dotted with sausage balloons and aëroplanes.
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