Captain Ferdinand Frazier Jelke

It goes without saying that the letters here gathered were not written with any idea of being permanently preserved. They were merely a progressive recital, in a most informal and unstudied vein, of circumstances and scenes with which the writer came in touch in the course of his work, first in the ranks of the Marine Corps, and afterward as a Lieutenant of Infantry in the Liaison Service, in France.
But since the author’s return from “Over There”—and in view of the gigantic scale of World War and the epochal character of the events and situations touched upon in the correspondence—members of his family have urged that the series of letters written from the scenes of his activities during 1917-’19, be made into a handy volume for the use of such friends as may find in them some personal appeal and interest.
In preparing the letters for publication an attempt has been made to omit the more private and intimate details, while retaining such of the descriptive text as would aid the reader in gaining some lasting impressions of the scenes and incidents which rushed by, like an animated panorama, in those days of frenzied endeavour and kaleidoscopic change, beginning shortly after America’s entrance into the war and continuing until after the signing of the Armistice, and the return of the writer to America, early in 1919.