Letters From The Trenches in France

Vince Winninghoff wrote letters to his family during WWI that brought the realities of war home. Published in the Philipsburg Mail are the following: 

(August 30, 1918) The other morning they had quite a time around here and the Americans did fine work making the Germans more than pay for our losses which were very light, although a number of fellows were slightly wounded. In one place the Germans crept up real close with a liquid fire apparatus. The Americans heard a noise and just then the Germans shot the fire, but there was no one where they shot. This fire revealed the Boche and the Americans made short work of them, capturing a lieutenant and the apparatus, besides killing a couple and wounding more. The losses the Americans sustained did them more good than harm. It seemed to raise their moral 100 per cent and make them determined to get the Boche…We have lots of companions in the trenches. We have Frenchmen like in the picture. We talk with them and try to learn French and they try to learn English. Then there are the rats. If the allies had as many soldiers in the trenches as there are rats this war would soon be over. One ran up on the end of my gun while I was standing guard, and when you are sleeping rats play hide and seek on you as the little fellows did in the English story about Gulliver. And last but not least are the gray backs. Thousands of them! One sees fellows with their shirts off playing hunt the lice every day. At night while standing guard we hate the rats worse, for then while straining our ears to catch the slightest sound a rat will start running around on No-Man’s Land scaring us because we think it is a Boche. Sometimes as the day is breaking there won’t be a noise: even the boom and crack of gun is absent, then the birds will start singing. How beautiful it is one cannot imagine. And it is hard to realize that war exists. It really seems to me as if there are more birds on No-Man’s Land than any place else on earth…I am writing this in a dugout by candle light, and in a very poor position to write. Your Loving Son, Vince” 

(September 4, 1918 Somewhere in France) Dear Father; Just another short note but active hitch at the front. But it was quite different from the hitches before in that we had a different kind of foe to face. Here the German infantry did not put up much of a fight. Every chance they got they threw up their hands and hollered “Kamerad”. They said their officers went to the rear before the attacks, otherwise they would have been shot if they showed a white flag. But the artillery fire at times was a fright. The Germans threw over shells that would dig a hole big enough to bury several horses in. … The German soldiers seem to have come to realize that the Kaiser cannot win the war and he has lost all ambition to fight. This I believe is true with the exception of the artillery and some of the machine gun men. The latter will often stand at their posts pumping lead into you until you reach them, then they will throw up their arms and holler, “Kamerad, Kamerad”, but they are shown little mercy. This is something to much for anyone to stand, but those who give up decently are treated as men should be. …I saw my first areoplanes brought down. The first one came down in flames. It was an Allied plane and was flying over our lines. I don’t know what struck it, but all of a sudden a tongue of flame darted out behind her. The aviator started toward the German lines then he turned and started to come down. Our ante-aircraft hit a wing and tore it off. The German came straight down. His machine kept spinning this killing the momentum and he came down fairly slow… Well father, I’ll bid goodbye; Your loving son Vince. 

(April 13, 1928) announced the marriage of Vincent C. Winninghoff to Miss Anna (Anne) M. Brooks, on Monday April 9, in Los Angeles, California. Vince, had been working in a U.S. Post Office position in Los Angeles for several years. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Winninghoff, and after graduating from Granite County High School won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in either 1912 or 1913 and was rejected secondary to a minor eye condition. Not being able to serve as an American, he served in the A.E. F., in France in WWI. After an education at The University Of Montana he moved to California and is credited in the Family History as "conceiving and designing the automobile transmission and flowing rear axle for automobiles as we know them today." He is also credited with developing the Zip Code System for the U.S. Post Office which is still in operation today.