Book Synopsis
My grandfather, Rev. Otis L. Linn, served with the Y.M.C.A. from October 1918 until July 1919 supporting the troops of the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.) in France. The "Y" functioned much like the USO in later years. This volume contains scanned letters and transcriptions of letters he wrote to his family. The collection is important to his descendants and to any others interested in original source materials from that time and place. Otis witnessed the 1918 influenza pandemic while in training, the end of the war in New York City while awaiting embarkation to England, and the presence of Woodrow Wilson in France to support the creation of the League of Nations. He worked with Black soldiers in the Graves Registration Service re-interring deceased American soldiers in the American cemeteries. He visited battlefields soon after hostilities ceased. And, he went up in an American military plane, his first flight. Caution: the letters are unedited and may be tedious to read.