m a r k e r i c k s o n p a i n t i n g s Frank Severin Erickson Ernest Julius Erickson Andrew Anders Sebran Erickson American Expeditionary Force 1918 - 1919 Out West & North Dakota
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Today, October 9th, 1918 maybe, just maybe my grandfather, Pvt. Frank Gustaf Severin Erickson) was breathing a sigh of relief through all the mustard gas he had breathed while he was a runner rifleman with Major Charles Whittesley's command in the Argonne Forest. Frank was with the 308th Infantry of the 77th Division and on the 8th of October he and just under 200 men had escaped out of the pocket of The Argonne Forest and would forever be members of an elite group, survivors of the Lost Battalion. Frank went to a few reunions over the years and collected these articles from different newspapers and spanning 1918 through 1968.
Here is the transcription of a poignant letter he wrote on November 15, 1918
somewhere on the Western Front in France to his 13 year old brother back in
Dakota. This was over a month after his scrape with the Lost Battalion and in
so many ways sums up his time oversees with some humor, which is quite
remarkable considering what he had been through in October.
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