Connecticut western news., 1917-08-16

HUN 60AA s%AA &&4S @&@~@~~" ~~~ %~~ 2, Interesting, Personal Narrative, ,f the Spirit and Atmosphere of the hes in France.
 After had been hit remember feel ing relieved that I hadn't been hurt enough to keep me from going on with the men. I'm not trying to make my self out hero. I'm just trying to tell you how all ordinary mans mind works under the stress of fighting and the danger of sudden death. There are some queer things in the psycholo- gy of battle. For instance, when we had got into the German trench and were holding it against the most vigorous counterattacks the thought which was consistently uppermost ill my mind was that I had lost the ad- dress of a girl in London along with some papers which I had thrown away just before we started over and which should certainly never be able to find again.
 Hold Regina Trench at Last.
 The Regina trench had been taken and lost three times by the British. We took 1t that day and held it. We went into action with 1,50O men of all ranks and came out with GOO.
 have said that because we were on the extreme right of the line we had the hottest little spot in France to hold for awhile. You see we had to institute a double defensive as we had the Germans on our front and on our flank, the whole length of the trench to the right of us being still held by the Germans. There we had to form block massing our bomb CTS behind barricade which was only fifteen yards from the barricade be- hind which the Germans were fighting Our flank and the German flank were in contact as fiery as that of two live wire ends. And meanwhile the Fritzes tried to rush us on our front with nine separate counterattacks. Only one of them got up close to us, and we went out and stopped that with the bayonet Behind our block barricade there was the nearest approach to an actual fight ing hell that had seen.
 And yet man who was in the midst of it from beginning to end came out without'a scratch He was tall chap named Hunter For twenty four hours, without interruption, he threw German "eggshelP' bombs from position at the center of our barricade. He never stopped except to light cigarette or yell for some one to bring him more bombs from FTitz's captured store house. He projected regular curtain of fire of his own. I've no doubt the Germans reported he was a couple of platoons, working in alternate reliefs. He was awarded the D. c. M. for his services in that fight, and, though, as I said, he was unwounded, half the men around him were killed, and his nerves finished in such condition that he had to be sent back to England. The Big Blunder and What It Cost.
 One of the great tragedies of the war resulted from bit of carelessness when couple of days later the effort was made to extend our grip beyond the spot which we took in that first fight Plans had been made for the Forty fourth battalion of the Tenth Canadian brigade to take by assault the trench section extending to the right from the point where we had es- tablished the "block" on our flank. The hour for the attack had been fixed Then headquarters sent out counter manding order Something wasn't quite ready.
 The orders were sent by runners, as all confidential orders must be- Tele- phones are of no avail any more, as both our people and the Germans have an apparatus which needs only to be attached to metal spike in the ground to ''pick up'' every telephone message within a radius of three miles. When telephones are used for anything inn portant messages are sent in code. But for any vitally important commu- nicatiOn which might cost serious losses, if misunderstood, old style run ners are used, just as they were in the days when the field telephone was un- heard of. It is the rule to dispatch two or three runners by different routes so that one at least will be certain to ar rive In the case of the countermand- ing of the order for the Fourty- fourth battalion to assault the German posi- ton on our flank some officer at head quarters thought that one messenger to the lieutenant colonel commanding the Forty-fourth would be sufficient The messenger was killed by chance shot, and his message was undelivered The Forty-fourth, in ignorance of the change of plan, went over." There was no barrage fire to protect them, and their valiant effort was simply a