Elmer Revisited

I’ve closed the book on another significant surge of work on preserving Elmer H. Krehbiel’s World War I diaries and letters. I have now transcribed all the letters, which amounted to more than twice as much text as the diaries, and the resulting combination of diaries and letters is over 75,000 words long. Printed on one side of 24# paper, it amounts to about 140 pages, and a stack about an inch tall.

After transcribing the letters, I went back through the diaries and attempted to correct any lingering transcription errors and further pinpoint the locations Elmer described. I found two excellent new resources with detailed information, the Regimental History of the 316th Infantry, and The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War (found on the Internet). They contained detailed accounts of Elmer’s regimental activities, and most importantly, maps! I was able to pinpoint Elmer’s position within the Meuse-Argonne offensive to within a half mile. And I learned more information about travel routes that Elmer was not very specific about.

Anyway, it’s all very exciting stuff. I hope someday to publish it on a little better media than just a stack of paper, but that’s probably some distance in the future yet. While I covered an enormous amount of ground with the latest batch of transcriptions, there is still quite a bit I don’t know about Elmer and his adventures that I’d like to include in the tome.