Apr 07, 2022 - Sale 2600

Sale 2600 - Lot 293

Price Realized: $ 2,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(WORLD WAR ONE.) Walter L. Rau. Diary of a Boston artilleryman in the thick of the fighting with a fabled unit. [90] manuscript diary pages, plus [37] pages of manuscript memoranda. 16mo, original limp calf, minor wear and staining, detached from text block; 2 diary leaves detached, at least a couple of memoranda leaves torn out, otherwise minor wear to contents; signed on front free endpaper. With typed transcript. Various places, 1 February 1918 to 10 April 1919
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Walter Leo Rau (1898-1948) was a German-American from the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston who enlisted in Battery C of the 101st Field Artillery, also known as the Boston Light Artillery. This regiment traces its roots back to its 1636 founding by John Winthrop, making it the oldest field artillery unit in the nation; it has served in virtually every major fight from the Pequot War to Iraq and Afghanistan.

This diary begins shortly after Rau's arrival in France, earlier than the great wave of American troops; on the second night he was "billeted in an old shell-ruined church," and on 3 February he "went into a chamber filled with gas today with our English mask & had to change it while in there & put on our French mask . . . to test our mask." After surviving some air raids and bringing supplies to the front, he had his first combat on 17 March: "Went to front today to act as cannoneer for one day, slept in 4th section dugout. Was woke up at 4 a.m. for a big barrage. We fired from 4 a.m. till 6 a.m. at the Germans. 200 of our inf. gassed." On guard duty in Vignes, to honor Good Friday, he wandered alone into a small church in a cemetery lit by a single candle at midnight (20 March 1918). He notes the German spring offensive on 9 April 1918: "The greatest drive & attempt by the Huns & greatest battle of the war is now on. All the ammunition that can be possibly taken is being brought to the front every night." On 12 May he was arrested for taking a couple of shots at birds during target practice: "They say your not a good soldier until you've been in the jug." On 28 May he reported on the travails of the artillery's brother unit: "The Germans are throwing a lot of gas over. The 101st Inf. is in front of us & they are continually making raids. A number of their men have been gassed. Heard that Jacko Murphy of C Co. went out on a patrol party & he got hit over the head by a barbed wire black jack & was killed outright."

Rau described the Second Battle of the Marne on 15 July: "Our guns were out in the open field. We are in open warfare now & we have no dugouts. If I ever saw anything that . . . looked like a real battle & battlefield it was this afternoon. Lieut. Smart was running around swabbing out the guns & waving his hands in the air. Lt. Kanuth was wounded, Lt. Smart gassed. . . . We are working night & day, no sleep at all. We have lost about 80 men & the men are loosing their nerves as we are continually ducking shells & are being gassed at the same time." On 17 October, "we moved over to the Verdun secteur . . . & believe me, it is some lively up here, shells landing all over the valley we were in. Lots of gas up here, loads of shell holes. . . . There is somebody in our btry being killed & wounded every day." Reinforcements arrived from the Iowa National Guard: "My pal & bunk mate in my gun crew, Swede Lundquist from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was wounded Oct 19 & went to hospital. Our guns are in what is called the Valley of Death." The mood shifts abruptly on 15 November with the armistice, followed by a grand Thanksgiving dinner; some men visited "Murphy's Cathouse." An inspection by President Wilson and General Pershing was a highlight of the coming months; the influenza was noted on 27 December.

Also included in the memoranda are Rau's itinerary for his period of service, numerous home addresses of friends and family, and transcriptions of two letters to his unit by Generals Edwards and Leclerc. After the war, Rau married and worked as a postal clerk, living in Boston and Dedham, MA.