Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-07-06
PALMER WRITES OF YPRES

| delay for supplies and munitions COM
ing through the streets. This was ex-
cellent theory which did not work out
in practice. The British were not bill
letting troops to any extent in Ypres
and you could count the number of
army wagons hit on the fingers of one
hand. One shell in the British
trenches accomplished more than ten
into Ypres. The main result was that
the homes and offices and cafes of
eighteen thousand people were de-
stroyed.
Work of AZ Centimeter
The AZ centimeter (17 inch mortar)
had its part in the work. When a
seventeen-inch shell struck a house
the remains of the building not dis
tributed on the pavement were in an
enlarged cellar. Debris in the streets
still remains where it fell There is
no purpose in cleaning it up in an un-
inhabited town. Paving stones are
scattered about from the explosion of
seventeen-inch shell which struck in
the center of the Grande Place and
made crater about fifteen feet
across and ten feet deep. This two
thousand pounds of steel and powder
did not kill anybody so far as could be
learned 1t would not take a paving
gang long to make repairs. Another
which could have brought down a
| cathedral tower dug still larger
crater in the soft earth of the
| cathedral grounds. Big shells or little
shells, they do not count unless they
hit. On the principle that lightning
never strikes twice in the same place
probably the safest cover you could
| find in case of another bombardment
| of Ypres would be to sit in the bottom
! of one of those craters. Another
bombardment would seem as bootless
as falling last years straw or kicking
a dead dog. However the Germans
keep on throwing shells into the
wreckage at intervals as If they could
never be satisfied that they had prop
| erly finished the job of chaos. Every
standing wall was Clipped with
shrapnel. If there was a house which
looked from the outside as if it were
unhit, it would be found that 1t had
been eviscerated by a shell through the
roof
i Yet only one of the figures of that
| golden clockface had been bent and
three out of the four turrets hold
their place untouched in relief against
a genial afternoon sun of June above
the desolation of that dead city.
We'll, what do you think of Ypres,
as place of residence?" asked an
officer who rode by.
Pretty rotten" the visiting CORES.
pondent replied.
II know one that is rottener," he re-
piled with a suggestive nod back to-
ward the trench line beyond Ypres.
Were the turrets still holding out
The visitors could report that they
were. To the German gunners they
must be like the high apple on the
tree that will not come down for all
the small boys stone throwing II
must have cost about two hundred
thousand dollars in shells to destroy
Ypres by manufactured piecemeal
earthquake. and it will cost several
millions to restore it.
Occasionally a father of a family
who had to leave the town during the
bombardment is able to secure a cart
and permission to return to the sal.
wage of the remains of this house He
finds that nothing has been disturbed
except by shell fire. Ypres is forbid
den bad lands where no one may go ex.
cept on military business. In a sense
1t is policed too in the same way as a
rattle snakes nest. The citizen who
goes to CLEAN a mattress, bureau and
! the family Bible from the debris OF
his roof takes time to see If the turrets
and the clock face of the old Cloth
Hall are still holding out