'Rats and mud': Memories of Dundee World War I veterans

Rats and mud.

Put them together, and they create unbearable living conditions for a dozen or so Dundee Township and Elgin residents who fought in World War I.

To describe them in more detail, the Dundee Township Historical Society will host a program at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 7, to mark the 100th anniversary of U.S. involvement in the first World War.

The free program will explain the trials some of our grandfathers met as members of Company E. 129th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, said Marge Edwards, society president.

"The Company was stationed in France and fought in the Argonne Forest. They had to dig their own trenches and live in them," Edwards said. "The weather was terrible. It rained, and many of the men had to sleep in the mud. They were ankle-deep in mud."

Dundee area residents Joe Falese, Fred Wendt and Harry Pitschow were three of those soldiers. Caroline Steinwart, another Dundee resident, also served in the war as a Red Cross nurse.

They and their comrades fought machine-gun toting Germans and rats that climbed over them nightly as they slept.

Much of the information Edwards will use in her presentation will come from a book titled "Hardtack and Bullets," by Cpl. Henry J. Hines and Sydney Birdsall. The book vividly describes conditions in "the war to end all wars," as it was called then.

"They also had to put up with bad water and cooties, or insects that infested the soldiers," Edwards said. "My grandfather was a member of Company E. Other people in town had relatives who fought in it. We have some photos and some memorabilia from the war. People who attend the program are invited to bring anything they may have from the war."

Company E. left for France on May 25, 1918. They sailed to France from New Jersey on a transport ship with 6,000 other soldiers.

In the five months before the war ended and the armistice was signed, soldiers spent weeks fighting on the front lines before they could bathe or eat a hot meal.

"One soldier went 46 days without a bath. Others had to walk three miles to bathe," she said. "Conditions were terrible."

World War I battles killed 15 Dundee Township residents and injured scores of others from the Northern Fox Valley.

The program will take place at the historical society's museum, 426 Highland Ave., West Dundee. Admission is free, but donations are accepted. Call (847) 428-6996.