France
16-10-16

Dear Winnie: –

We have been in the near view of the big show during the last few days but have not as yet been into action here. I should have said that I rec' d your letter of the 17th ult. today. This part of the country is very hilly. From the hill our camp is on you can see troops in no matter what direction you look the whole place seems to be "alive with them". Our guns bombarded Fritz very heavily last night. The noise was something awful. It was a fine sight from our camp. The flashes from the guns looked something like distant lightning. I think some Imperial Scottish Regiment was carrying on an attack, the bagpipes kept playing all night long. The aeroplanes were also on the rounds. This afternoon three German aeroplanes put in an appearance and our side must have fired hundreds of shots at them but without result. The allies have such complete control of the air service around here that it is very seldom a German airship or balloon is seen. The Allied aeroplanes are around here all the time and I counted twenty-two of our observation balloons today. I was in one of those "tanks" a few days ago. They are curious looking machines and instead of wheels crawl along on a sort of an endless chain arrangement, something like a moving stairway. We passed through a number of small villages since I wrote you last. In some places all that is left of what was once a church or building is an old wall or cellar. The last place we passed through was, no doubt, before the war a large up-to-date city. There are the ruins of a Catholic Church in it, a picture of which you may have seen in some magazine, on the tower of which is the bent statue of the Virgin Mary. The statue now rests at right angles to the tower and is face downwards. It is about twenty-five feet in height and about eight or 10 feet at the base. On the floor and walls of the front entrance are some fine pictures made with colored tiles about one-half in. square. Father Pat McQuillan is chaplain of one of the battalions of the same Division I am in. I did not get any of the parcels you sent. As near as I can make out the Federal of Local Conservatives will get very few of the votes of the soldiers. I'm glad the elections went the way they did in B.C. How is Annie getting on

Jack

[signed bottom left by Corcoran and the censoring officer:]
J Corcoran
WJ Sturgeon

[Editor’s note: Updated June 2024]