The Alaska citizen., 1915-06-28

| of the Treadwell cyanide plant is in receipt of a letter Asp William Ala dorf. of the 72nd aeldbrth Highland CTS, who left victo1A not very long ago with the Ca9aian contingent which gives a vividfst-hand account of the battle of Nuve Chapelle. l Aladorf is an Englishman by birth, but has spent a great deal of his life in the United States and Can. ada including some time at Tread well. The letter IS dated April 2Oth and was written from the British Red Cross hospital at Netley, Hamp. shire. England. and smuggled past the censors. In part it is as follows
 AS you see from the above ad- dress l am back in England,-wound ed. 1 got mine at the hellish racket they call the battle of Neuve Cha. belle. I got a rifle bullet in my shin got my kilt torn off and two bullets through my cap. While I was ty- ing up my leg wound a German 1 shell of the kind We 'call Jack John son burst ten feet to my left, kill ing nine and wounding twenty-one. It blew me up agains. the branches of an apple tree and injured my spine, besides tearing the pack on my back to shreds. If that pack hadn't been stuffed with an extra pair of boots, spare shirt sweat CT, socks and couple of magazines, it would have cut me in two. As | it is, the battle happened on March 10th and at the time of the writing which is a little more than a month later, am still flat on my back. I am afraid that I am permanently injured, although the medical officer says that perfect rest will put me all right again-at any rate, there is a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that am improving. SHELLS NOISY.
 You will be able to get some idea of what the bursting of these shells means. They stand five feet high and weigh 1900 pounds and | the crater they form in the ground by bursting would easily bury your engine room at the plant there at Treadwell. I suppose you will be interested in an account of the bat tie, so here it is:
 On March 10th we got orders to clean up everything, get everything in ship shape and shave. We though, that the Commanderin-Ch was coming to review us in the trenches At three in the morning of the 10th we were aroused and we made our 1 breakfast in the charcoal braziers We have in the trenches. and at four we were ordered fto stand to.
 At five-thirty speech was made to us, preceded by warning that no cheering was allowed at the news to be forthcoming-whic news con- sisted of the information that an at tack by 48 battalions on Neuve Cha belle was to be made and that the eyes of the whole nation, etc, etc, etc.
 With great secrecy $50 guns, comprising IS pounders. 6-inch how itzers, 92-inch converted naval guns and two brand new 15-inch siege guns. had been massed along a 1000 yard line, 500 yards behind our lines. These last two guns fire shell 27 miles, the shell weighing z 2,500 pounds and standing six feet l high.
 1 At seven fifteen shot of rum was served out with the news that the guns were to pound hell out of 1 the first line of German trenches, eighty yards in front of us and keep up fire from 7:30 to a. III. sharp. Then we were to be allowed five whole minutes to rush across eighty yards of machine gun and shell-swept space to carry the first line. At 8:O5 the guns would repeat the dose on the second line, l75 yards in the rear of the first line. We'll that shot of rum and last cigarette helped some. tell you, for nobody was prepared for what followed, for never in the history of man was anything like it performed.
 | I do not know how l ever stood that terrible thirty minutes. think the fact that l kept smoking one cigarette after another helped to l kncn my ncrxca nuiefed At Ia af