Page 7 of Grandpa’s Diary – flipping flapjacks with a saw

Eventually we started again, but alas, in a few miles we turned south missing Paris, the same as we did London. The biggest city was Tours, and we stopped in a suburban station for a few minutes. Continuing on, we finally debarked at Charenton (Cher) almost the exact center of France, where we were billeted […]


Memories of World War I by Robinson Shepard (my grandpa) – page 6: Where Grampa finally gets to France.

After welcoming speeches by dignitaries we marched to, and boarded, one of the peculiar looking British trains. We rode as far as Winchester, where we marched up a steep hill to a British rest camp, “Winnal Downs.” There we had a meal of what the boys called “Oak Leaf Stew,” a very thin and tasteless […]


Memories of World War I by Robinson Shepard (my grandpa) – page 5: Where Grampa’s ship is the only American ship to land in Wales during the War.

Finally the convoy of 23, with the British cruiser “Berwick,” started for Europe. The convoy was faster than the Berwick and several times had to wait for it to catch up. One day we had a submarine scare and the Berwick left (us) to chase the Sub and we never saw the Berwick again. One […]