On My Grandfather's Trail

I’m spending five days in northeastern France retracing the footsteps of my grandfather, Grant Willard, who was an ambulance driver with the French and U.S. Armies during the First World War.

Tonight I am in Verdun, a sleepy city on the Meuse River—very sleepy. Last night was Saturday and half of the restaurants in the center were closed. I couldn’t tell if they were just closed or out of business. Perhaps I’m here at the low tourist season. But then as elsewhere in the world, I don’t think the economy is hopping here in the Department of the Meuse.

I’m staying at this comical old inn called Le Coq Hardi (The Hardy Cock)—no jokes, please. The inn is housed in several old houses that easily could be several hundred years old. There is a marvelous stone fireplace in the lobby with a fire blazing away and a wood-beam main staircase. There is also an Otis elevator from the 1920s or 30s with a grate across the door that you have to open and shut yourself. To get to my room I go to the 2nd floor, walk down a hallway, then up a ramp and then down a ramp. The rooms are actually very nice and well-apportioned. There is also a bistro downstairs as well as a “restaurant gastronomique” with a menu whose prices made my eyes pop out of my head. Naturally, both are closed tonight. (As it happened, the entire hotel was closed last night including the "business center.")

I spent a good part of today exploring the Verdun battlefield. Although it’s been ninety-two years since the big battle, the earth is still scarred from the thousands and thousands of artillery shells that were fired by the Germans and the French. It is hard to visualize the hilly terrain completely devoid trees and vegetation as I have seen in photos.

Driving through the beautiful fall forests my eyes were drawn to the ground under the trees that was incredibly pockmarked and cratered. It’s damaged for centuries. I visited the Fort de Vaux and Fort Douaument, two major focal points of the battle. Both of these 19th-century fortresses were smashed into heaps of rubble and still look that way. So many explosives fell here that the land can still kill. There were signs warning not to stray off the paths.

I also saw some of the cemeteries that litter the area. It was interesting to see a Muslim section in the cemetery at Douament with all the tombstones facing Mecca. The white crosses next to them were aligned completely differently.

Grant Willard was my mother’s dad. As part of a volunteer ambulance corps he evacuated wounded French soldiers from the Verdun front line in August 1917 under pretty awful conditions. Then he joined the U.S. Army to do the same job as a buck private. He served at the St. Mihiel Salient and the Meuse Argonne Offensives in 1918.

Throughout it all Grant kept a detailed diary during his service and was a prolific letter writer. Both have been invaluable in planning this trip.

Ninety years ago today Grant was in the thick of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that helped end the war. During a brief respite he wrote to his mother back in Mankato, Minnesota. Although he did so practically every day to his family and fiancée, everyone in his unit was ordered to write home:

Saturday, Oct. 26, 1918

Dearest Mother,

In compliance with Section Order #46, I am writing you this note. The order calls for a letter but this is the best I can do now. Maybe I’ll be here tomorrow – if so I’ll write again.

I have just come in from 24 hours on post with no sleep and just enough gas to make me very sleepy and dopey so I’m afraid I can’t do much by way of a letter.

Tonight another big racket starts and the chances are that we shall all be called out again before morning so I must pull in for a bit of sleep.

Am enclosing a “Lettre de Félicitations” sent, I think, to all [ambulance] sections by General Pétain. It makes a rather good souvenir.

Expect we’ll be going forward again tonight. Am very tired as is everyone else in the section but excitement keeps our minds off of such trivials.

Heaps of love,

Grant.

In his diary Grant wrote today:

Went up on post again this a.m. Artillery activity is picking up on our front. Apremont is shelled every morning and night to endeavor to cripple operations on the railhead. No damage has been done so far. They are coming darn close to [us], however. I prescribe another advance to spoil Fritz’s range on our home. Fléville is under almost constant fire. It’s an awfully good thing they moved our dressing station out and back to the farm because the old place has been hit twice and our nice little ambulance home is in ruins. Fléville is lousy with artillery -- 75s, 155s and 210s. Every clump of bushes and every natural shelter the other side of Fléville bristles with howitzers and 155 rifles. Tonight the roads were so choked with guns and ammunition and we had a great deal of difficulty in getting our ambulances through. "Speed" left the farm for Sommerance this evening at 6:00. At 9 o’clock he hadn’t returned. We began to get worried. At 9:15 McCrackin and I went up to the ditch and barns and Fléville. Got but one patient. Things were quiet. Told Mac that I would run up to Sommerance on phone and were told that "Speed" had left there at 7:30 with three patients. I was just starting out when in pulled "Speed." I sure was relieved because I never saw a darker night, and a heavier fog with just enough sneezing and tear gas on the roads to make things disagreeable -- and traffic! "Speed" had been held up all this time in traffic. Couldn’t do a thing against it. Never saw so many guns.