Nate Arnot was one of eight children of Alpine County Superior Court judge N.D. Arnot. Born in Markleeville in 1892, Nate moved to Placerville at the age of twelve with his parents, after his father became an El Dorado County judge.
World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, but it was 1917 before the United States became involved. Nate Arnot received his “love letter” (draft notice) from Uncle Sam that September. He was just 25 years old at the time, and living in San Francisco.
Following a stint at Camp Lewis, Nate was assigned as a private to the Meteorological Section of the Signal Corps. The next year (September 1918), found Nate stationed in northeastern France with the American Expeditionary Forces. Here in his own words is Nate’s first-person account of life in the trenches of France. His handwritten diary of his World War I experience was thoughtfully donated to the Alpine County Historical Society, which kindly agreed to share this transcription.
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Diary – American Expeditionary Forces
Sept. 1, 1918: Day passed without anything much doing. At night all the roads were jammed with traffic as Artillery and troops move up.
Sept 2. Aeroplanes annoy the Dutch all day. Heavy traffic all night as usual. Looks like something doing before long.
Sept 3. Planes still busy. Got shelled today, one landing 1000 feet from observation post. Cheers! Traffic at night is getting heavier. Lots of heavy guns moving in.
Sept 4. Balloon of 10th Co. shot down in flames by Hun aviator. Aviator dives from great height amidst heavy antiaircraft barrage pumping tracer and explosive bullets at balloon. I watch fight from under oak tree to avoid falling shell particles. Observers jump on second attempt of plane and land safely. Balloon burns on Hun’s third try. Two allied planes wait for Boche and shoot him down in no man’s land. He’ll know better next time.
Sept 5. Uneventful day – Rain makes mud fierce. Heavy movement of trucks etc. at night as usual. Too cloudy for planes.
Sept 6. More rain and high wind. Big guns being located near us. We fix up our trench, expecting something shortly.
Sept 7. Had a gas alarm in early morning. Dutch put over a barrage but get kicked back. Night work as usual – Heavy mud caused much trouble in handling heavy guns.
Sept 8. Pay day today – got 150 Francs. Boche plane shot down nearby. 300 tanks move into woods. Railroad artillery being brought up. Something doing before long surely.
Sept 9. Battery of 155mm long guns got stuck in front of our shack and had to operate in daylight. Too cloudy for huns to spot them. Men sleep on wet ground or on guns. They don’t give a damn. Everybody is after the Dutch.
Sept 10. Major Blair comes out and has us prepare for special observations. Drive expected to start at midnight. We are all tuned up and a little nervous. We put duck boards in trench and bail out the water. Mud is terrific.
Sept 11. Our wireless crew moves in and sets up. The drive did not start last night – traffic has died down. Everything is ready for the big doings. It goes tonight[,] weather permitting. Rained today and hailed.
Sept 12. Thurs: At 1:00 am the Artillery cut loose with a terrific bombardment of the German positions. Montsec which yesterday was a green wooded hill is today a mere clay heap. The guns literally wiped it out. This was the Hun’s main stronghold. We took our place in the trench for ½ hour in a cold rain. Hun’s reply was weak so we crawled into our shack again. Took several special observations for Artillery. A battery of 9.7-inch guns shook hell out of our shack causing the barograph to reflect 3mm change in pressure. These guns fired a shot a minute for 8 hours at Montsec. Was on night shift so helped with observation. The sky was lighted up red for miles either side of us and presented a magnificent spectacle. The noise was teriffic. At 5:30 am the tanks went over the top followed by the infantry. The 3rd Div. is holding the line here. At 7:00 being off duty I went out on top of the hill this side of Susanville to watch the battle. A wonderful sight. The artillery in back of me is shooting fast and furious. The French 75s have already started forward and are mounting themselves on the Germans’ front line trenches. Huns are running like hell. Big columns of smoke indicate Hun ammunitions dumps burning. The horizon is filled with bursting shells.
At 8:00 the prisoners started to arrive. They are old men and young kids. Some have their packs, others have nothing. There was a constant stream of them going back all day long and into the night. The roads have been jammed all day long with troops coming up, troops of mounted signal corps men, ammunition trains, artillery and every conceivable kind of trucks. The whole presented a wonderful spectacle. An ammunitions railroad train ran into Hammonville for the first time since 1914 today.
By 10 o’clock the heavy artillery had almost ceased firing entirely and the battle line had so far advanced that only the distant thundering of the 75s could be heard. On all sides great praise is given the famous French 75s. It is by far the best light field piece in the world.
Large squadrons of allied planes were overhead all day long. Not a Boche showed up. The planes patrolled the roads, made observations and shot the dickens out of the retreating Dutch. They held complete supremacy of the air. One Hun did show up late in the afternoon and was immediately shot down.
The French troops (they have several batteries of artillery here) are wild with joy. They all wear smiles a mile wide and shout “Merci Americains.” Everybody is smiling both going to and coming from the front. It’s been a great day.
Sept 13, Friday – The battle is raging in the distance. Hardly audible. We expect to move stations any hour.
Later: prisoners numbering thousands have been arriving all day long. The woods here are about deserted but the roads are jammed.
Many ambulance are bringing back wounded to the dressing station south of us. The wounded are all cheerful, many smiling and waving to the soldiers along the road. There are a number of huge naval guns (16”) mounted on the heights this side of Toul. They are manned by jackies.
We got orders to move forward at 5:00 pm. At 7:30 the first truck load went up following the 10th Balloon co. Devine, Nielan, Knott and I were left here to prepare the second load. At midnight the truck had not returned so we build a fire and sit up waiting.
Sept 14 – Sat. At 10:30 the truck is still away. Something is wrong. Delay in traffic or they got lost. We’ll see later.
Night: No truck yet. Yanks are making good progress all along line.
Sept 15 – Sun: Our truck has not returned yet. We are eating with Heavy Artillery troops with 3rd Div. Traffic on roads especially artillery is terrific. Lt. Noyes arrives from Colombey-les-Belles with grub. Souter has just arrived with telegram for Maj. Blair. Is going on to Thiacourt to try to locate our party.
Later: Truck arrives just as Souter leaves. Was delayed 2 days and nights by intense traffic to the lines. We loaded and left for the front at 2 pm. We passed thru Bermicourt and Fleury. Both towns are in absolute ruins, especially the latter where there is hardly a wall left standing. Engineers were busy breaking up rock from the walls to make road across what was a few days ago “no man’s land.” No man’s land here is one mass of barbed wire entanglements, very rusty.
Shell fire has reduced all including the Hun trenches to chaos. It is the worst mess I ever saw or expect to see. All kinds of supplies, clothing, shells, gas masks are everywhere. Dead Germans are lying about in the trenches or in what is left of their dugouts. There is not one square yard of ground which has not been ploughed up by the terrific bombardment and barrage of Thursday.
We arrived in about 2 hours to this our present station. The office including radio set is located in an evacuated German gun position. Trenches lead off to dugouts in which the crews lived. They are dark, damp, stinking dungeons. Hell of a place to live. Some are made of concrete. Our gun emplacement or rather station is covered with 6” I Beams over which is placed several layers of corrugated sheet steel and on top of all is earth and camouflage. The allies had discovered all these locations and had them marked on their maps. The shelling of the other night has literally cut this forest all to pieces. No tree is left intact. Shell holes are on an average 10’ apart though many join together.
I pitched my pup tent out in the field adjoining the woods. Knott is my bunkey. The barrage has cut this field up so badly that it was hard to find space enough between shell craters to set up. My bunk (on the ground) is one foot from the edge of a large shell hole into which I figure to jump in case Fritz gets flip and throws a few over. I am on night duty so will not sleep much tonight.
The Hun planes came over our heads after dark and tried to shoot up the roads etc. Eight large searchlights were searching the sky all the time. The air was alive with the drone of Hun planes and the cracking of their machine guns as they fired at the lights. Fritz cannot see to shoot accurately when the light is in his face. Also he refuses to come over in daytime. Soldiers are searching the woods and trenches continually for souvenirs. All kinds of stuff is coming in. I am sitting on the edge of a steel wheelbarrow which I cherchered. I don’t know what to do with it now that it’s here. We are going to have a look in the trenches tomorrow more thoroughly.
Sept 16- [19]18 – Mon. Well the Huns put over some shells last night but did not hit very near us. Was on the night party for observation. We got the work out as usual despite many planes lurking about. Took a trip of inspection thru the German trenches today. It is like a museum. The dugouts are 4 years old. They are damp and dirty and dark – regular dungeons. Found many machine guns all set on the parapets just as the Huns left them. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were scattered about. Found a helmet with a hole in it and very bloody inside. The German was dead in a dugout. Very spooky. Numerous hand grenades necessitated our watching our step. Everything indicated a hasty retreat. There were several dead horses in places. We moved our pup tents back into the woods today for better concealment.
Sept 17-[19]18 – Tues. We put walls in our station today to keep the light in at night. Also planked over the gun pit. Rained this morning making much sloppy mud.
Sept 18 –[19]18 – Wed. Got shelled last night. One shell threw mud on our tents. This was at 1:30 a.m. – very cheerful way to be awakened – whizz-zzzz – Bang! Cheers.
Took another walk into the forest to see a German regimental headquarters where a Hun Colonel and staff were captured. They had things fixed up pretty good: concrete dugouts with running water. Found a large field kitchen with the grub still on the stove. The soup was rather stale I’d say – also the meat – whew. There was a druggist’s balance on which were two small spuds – a soldier’s rations. The Dutch are evidently damn careful that no guy gets more than is coming to him. We found a spot where there was an extra hot hand-to-hand fight. There were several American field rifles with the butts all smashed – lots of German paraphernalia including hand grenades, rifles, packs, etc. One dead German lay there. It rained this morning as usual. I put a window in our office using airplane cover goods in place of glass.
Sept 19 – [19]18 – Thurs. Last night was uneventful, there being no shells and few enemy planes. Took another walk into the Foret de Romparts today. Found more machine guns on their emplacements. Lots of rifles, ammunitions, grenades and flares. There is a concrete pill box about a hundred feet from my tent and a dump of gas shells with their projectors nearby. The Germans tried to shell this dump the other night. Peeved cause they couldn’t take their shell with them. Luckily they missed. The Americans made a direct hit on the pill box in their recent attack. A 75mm shell gently but firmly removed one side of said pill box and finished the crews there. Rain and mud is something fierce. I am lucky to have hip rubber boots. Some of the boys are without them. Put the back door on our office today. Will get that damn thing fixed yet.
Sept 20, 1918. Friday. Last night it rained hard and the water seeped up from the ground and soused us as we slept. Oh this is a great life if you don’t weaken! So today Knott and I took up an old Hun Red Cross station using the lumber to build ourselves a wooden floor over which the tent was placed, the whole thing being raised from the ground. We expect to sleep like millionaires tonight, the shellfire permitting. We put a stove in our office today; one taken from an old dugout. Found an Engineer’s dump in the woods today. There were scores of tools of all kinds, piles of planking, concrete, an ammunition warehouse full of machine gun cartridges, grenades & flares and a complete power house underground. The Huns used electric lights in most of their dugouts. They also had electric blowers to force ventiation and pumps to keep the water out. I bet they hated to leave these quarters, winter coming on. They had no choice however; the American bombardment of the 12th inst. sure put things on the blink. We have a good view of Montsec from here. No one is allowed upon it as they think it is heavily mined.
This was some stronghold for the Germans but the fierce bombardment concentrated upon it mashed things to a pulp. There are lots of captive balloons in the air these days as well as planes. The Germans put up three balloons yesterday and an American aviator immediately shot one down in flames. The Allies have complete supremacy of the air here. The Huns come over only at night. We are still attached to the 10th Balloon Co. for rations but otherwise to the 4th Army Corps where Hdqtrs are now at Meril La Tour.
Sept 21, [19]18 – Sat. The 10th Balloon Co. moved out today for Pont a Mousson. We do our own cooking and draw our own rations from now on. Abe McKinley is Mess Sergeant and Cook. We have found a cookstove in a Hun kitchen which has been installed in the old gun position next to ours. This is our kitchen now. Some of the boys are getting quite keen on shelling and have moved into old dugouts from their pup tents. Knott and I are still outside and intend to stay there. We put a roof of tar paper and green limbs for camouflage over the fore part of our tent today. We can now crawl out onto dry ground instead of sticky clay mud.
Sept 22, 1918 – Sun. Took a walk to Fleury today to get drinking water. We carried a dozen canteens strung out on a cane. There is a fine spring at Fleury and our nearest watering place is there – 2 miles away. Washing water is found in shell holes of which there are millions around here.
The town of Fleury is smashed all to pieces, there being no house undamaged. There are large piles of salvage materials, gathered from the trenches, in the streets. Lots of machine guns & ammunitions, clothing, a whole hill of small stoves, canteen, shell and all kinds of miscellaneous junk. I am on night shift beginning tonight and expect to stay up all night. Fritz threw over a bunch of shells this evening. They landed out at the edge of the woods 200 yards away and did no harm. Shelling is quite common these days even this far back.
Sept 23, 1918 – Mon. Last night or rather this morning the Americans put over a barrage and made a big raid on the Germans. The sky was lighted up a brilliant red from the gun flashes. It’s great to look at – a wonderful sight. The sound is that of incessant thunder.
Sept 24, 1918 –Tuesday – 1:30 am: Quite an extensive artillery duel is going on at present. Many shells are landing hear the road just North East of us. We’re all keen. My idea of zero pleasure is getting shelled at night. I am writing this by lamp light in a concrete dugout. Most of the boys are up and under cover. We have a good fire in our captured stove which helps some. We should [not] worry as long as the Whizz-Bangs keep their distance. There’s wind of another drive soon near Verdun.
Later: Slept all day till 5:00 p.m. There were a few Boche planes over this evening and the air was full of bursting shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns. We were shelled again tonight, some H.E. and some shrapnel. Started a fire at Essey two miles north of here.
[To Be Continued in Part 2 of this fascinating Diary!]