New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-06-30
GERMAN SHELLS
CONVERT YPRES
INT0FLAT RUIN
American COlIegian with
British Army Draws
Graphic Picture.
3S MEN KILLED
BY ONE MISSILE
Writer Pays Tribute to Caradi'
ans Vino Saved Day When
African Troops Broke.
From IN, Tribune Bureau. ]


Washington, June PA letter dated
May ~, just received by friends Of a
young American college graduate serv-
ing as lieutenant with the British army
in Belgium, paints with striking real
ism the devastation wrought by the
German shell fire at Ypres. The writer
refers in the opening paragraphs to
classmate reported missing"
"Bill was a private in D Company "a
Battalion, First Brigade, First Canadi-
an Division" tn collegian writes, and
was No. in that company's machine
gun section. His commanding othcer
said that Bill was the best man he had
Intelligent, cool, fearless and with
plenty of common sense-and that his
name was about TO be sent in for pro-
motion to sergeant.
During the first part Of the recent
great battle near Ypres, Bill did very
well. When the order came to retire
he and another man in his section went
to save their gun. Bill carried the
gun, the other man the tripod Ihey
retired under heavy fire, and after GO
ing a few hundred yards Bill fell. he
rose and kept on, but soon fell again.
He called to the other man to throw
away the tripod and to take the gun,
which Bill could no longer carry. The
commanding officer spoke Of this evil
dence of coolheadedness up TO the last,
for the gun is, Of course, much more
valuable than the ipod.
"Bill tried to stagger on little fur-
Their. but the other man, who escaped
unhit with the gun, lost sight of him.
This was the last that has been seen
or heard of Bill.
Little Left of Ypres.
personally. | have been having
rather bad. though distinctly interest
ing, time lately, located at Ypres. The
unfortunate old town is row quite fiat,
and what little even of wreckaEe is LETT
is now burning. We were shelled out
OF four different billets, each one com
pletely destroyed. We took to cellars,
but those crumpled up under the Il
inch howitzers and most every one was
killed. The losses have been appalling.
"a lieutenant came out from England
a few days ago TO join his regiment.
He found that il didn't exist; only one
corporal and seventeen men were left
Yesterday | saw $50 men walking back
fror. the trenches, having been re-
r,ved; they were all that was left OF
the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light
Infantry, once, with drafts, over 2,OOc
strong. Many of my friends have been
done in and familiar NAMES or faces
turn up every day in the casualty lists,
various reports, or in the never ceasing
streams of wounded pouring toward the
rear.
"More than $4,000 shells are esti-
mated TO have fallen in Ypres in less
than the last month. Some are shrap-
mel, some incendiary, some gas bombs
and many high explosives of all sizes,
but one gets accustomed to all these
and the constant din, the complete de-
struction and sudden and horrible
death all around, and pays little atten-
tion to most Of them. 1t is kind of
fatalism. Perhaps, however, it is only
comparative, for there is no one who
can ignore or pretend TO regard with
indifference the 17-inch howitzers.
when one of these shells lands il
does not smash up or toss away chunks
Of houses or do the sort of damage one
expects. The area in which the eX-
plosion takes place completely disap-
pears in hell's own clouds of black
smoke, fine dust and flying wreckaFe.
Il filings large chunks of town high in
the air and spreads them broadcast.
The conclusion shakes everything for
miles, and huge, white-hot fragments
of the shell scream through the air for
more than thousand yards from the
centre One cannot see foot through
the dense, black, acrid smoke, which
burns the eyes and throat and Is al
most suffocsting, and which lifts slowly
and drifts away like a pail over the
town. For many minutes afterward the
air is full OF fine dust, and great
pieces OF wreckage, shattered beams,
bricks, tiles and stone rair about the
neighborhood.
One Shell Kills 80 Men.
"On one famous night, when over
1000 shells were dropped inside the
town, the 17-inchers broke regularly
every eight or twelve minutes, to the
second. One alone, striking on mas
sive old easement under the ramparts,
killed outright thirty-eight persons and
nine horses, although there were only
few civilians in that section, no
troops and no concentration.
81 and one other lieutenant with me