The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-11-16
Army Corps.

Champagne last month when the
 French made their notable advance
 against the Germans, are related in a
 letter made public today from Richard Norton, the organizer and commander
 of the American Motor Ambulance
 Corps.
 One point that is disclosed in MT.
 Norton's narrative is the fact that gas
 apparatus which was captured from
 the Germans in the battle of Cham
 pagne was dated as far back as 1908,
 thus showing," he said, that seven
 ears ago the Germans had decided
 70 fight with gas-''
 The letter is dated at La Croix
 Champagne, October IA, and is ad-
 dressed to Elliot Norton, his brother,
 n New York He points out that it
 is just a year that the corps came into
 being, and that it has grown until it l now includes some sixty motor ambu- i 1ances to which the St. Johns Ambu- lance Corps and the Red Cross Soci- l cites render any assistance that is re- l quested.
 .tThe French authorities have en- | trusted us with the whole ambulance service of the eleventh army corps" says MT. Norton, and briefly review ing the years work he add that the American corps has carried nearly | 28, 900 eases, and that from the tWen- | ty-fifth of September to the ninth of October the American cars relieved the sufferings of oyer 5000 individu- als.
 Beginning his account of the battle of Champagne, he says: For some weeks before the battle began we knew from all sorts of evidence that a big movement was on foot. The movement of troops by night and day, the great numbers of aerop1anes and captive 1 balloons and general ,rumor all point | ed to this. It was not, however until l we were sent from = the region of Arniens to this district that we knew where the attack was TO be made. And i it was not until we had been some. three weeks stationed within a few
 miles of theN1ine here that we had any inkHng- as to exactly when or at exact l ly what spots the blow would be deliv- cred. When, however, we were sent for ward, our base became the village of La Croix, where two large hospitals 1 had been erected. Seven of the ambu dances were stationed here, two others at Somme Tourbe, five at La Sale and finally. two groups were sent to the woods, were we camped out in tents and dugouts and carried the wounded of the twenty first and twenty-second divisions from trenches Nos. and 5, which had been dug for the purpose of bringing them out>of the firing line.
 '"The whole countryside had been m ost carefully prepared. Ore main road had been cut from St. lean over the FO1nnS C1EE31k QlI1S to 1fle Villages of HerIus and Mesnil, which were be- tween the French batteries and the front trenches, and from which other roads ran further north. Besides this main road there were many tracks and trails over the chalk desert and these as the days passed became more clearly marked. But-the instant the rain began to fall, which it did the first day of the battle, and continued off and on for many days, they be- ,I,T@ -S<. 1r1r TN It Vas not only the enofnous amout of traffic that made driving difficult, but the slightest rain turns the chalky soil into a, mixture so slippery that a car standing quiet on the crown of the road would not infrequently slide gent ly but surely into the gutter, which was, of course, deep in mud. At night we had to drive without lights, which increased our difficulty. Besides the making of the road mentioned, narrow guage railways had been laid to carry munitions and other supplies to the, fighting line. and for miles the land was. scored with deep dug trenches.
 ; ''It Twas on the twenty-fourth that we received final orders to move up to the lines and to station our cars at the field hospitals and the trenches
 We sorted out the cars and the men to their various capacities. I took one group on the night of the twenty fourth up to the lines.~ The other trench group was in charge of Messrs. J. B. Harrington and J. H. Phelps
 ssThe country was absolutely pack ed; I can scarcely find any word to suggest 8. picture of how packed it was with troops and munition trains. There was every sort and description. On the rolling land, over which the tren- ches cut in through the chalk soil ran like great white snakes, the batteries of every sized gun were innumerab1e. I cannot tell you who many guns there were in a radius of half 8 mile from where my ambulance stood the first night there were at least a dozen bat te.ries of various calibres, and they were no thicker than anywhere else. We tried to sleep on the stretchers for an hour or two before dawn on the twenty-fifth but when you have bat tery of 150-s coughing uninterrupted Ivy within less than 100 yards of were you are resting, to say nothing Of oth- CT guns to right and left of you, ones rcpose is decidedly syncopated. On the morning of the twenty-Gfth the can nonade slackened and we knew af- forwards that the three previous days work had battered the German lines into a shapless mass and the French infantry had made good the chance they had been patiently waiting for all summer of proving to the world their ability to beat the Germans
 we are in no position to tell what troops did the best work but everyone knows that the Colonials under Gener- al Marchand did splendidly as did the 11th corps which was along side them. Only three or four incidents of the twelve hard days stand out clearly in my mind. The rest is but 2 hazy mem orv of indistingIIishable nights and dHvs. cold and rain, long rows of lad en stretchers waiting to be put into the cars wavering lines of less seriously wounded hobbHng along to where we were waiting, sleepy hospital order lies. dark underground chambers in which the doctors were sorting out and caring for the wounded, and an unceasing noise of rumbling wagons. IVbirring aeroplanes, distant guns coughing and nearby ones crashing, shells bursting and bullets hissing. Out of this general tumble of memory