Weekly journal-miner., 1917-10-10
NEAR OFFICERS GIVEN TASTE TRENCH WARP FARE
Lyle Abbott, Former City Editor Of The Journal-Miner Gives Vivid Descrip-
 ton Of ManeuverS.
(By Lyle Abbott)
Correspondence.


 LEON SPRINGS. Texas. Sept. 90. Candidates for commissions in the United States reserve corps got their first taste of trench warfare here dur ing the week just ended. Those things which the instructors have been ham mering into the beans" of the off ccrs-to-be were vividly demonstrated during the period the candidates spent in the real trench zone they had con- structcd under the direction of Lieu tenant Bazin of the French army, two weeks before.
 The model trenches cover zone 500 yards deep and about 500 yards wide, and represent complete oppos- ing treHch systems. Even the dug outs for officers, signal corps, hospital dressing stations, machine guns, H. luminating flares, barbed-wire en- tanglements are reproduced.
 Two thousand men marched into the trenches carly Tuesday morning. The complete trench system was then organized. Officers explained to the men the procedure of relieving" a division of defenders. The men settled down for the night, merely taking off their heavy packs and curling up in the narrow ditches, some seven feet below the ground surface Rest was | denied, however. As soon as 1t grew SO dark that enemy patrols might op- crate safely, the Huns opened with a shower of star shells rockets of magnesia. brighter than a photo graphic flashlight and burning for about a minute. Then came the flares. Searchlights from hills five miles away played on the zone. The star shells, drifting with the wind and suspended by their small white cloth parachutes made the shadows of the hackberry and live oak trees shift over the scene in a most weird fash ion. Here and there on the parapets could be seen the improviscd wooden periscopes, moving grotesquely like the necks of the imitation camels of the circus clowns, as the observers watched for enemy patrols.
 The men forgot to be tired. My company had been detailed to enlarge the Tenth company's trenches during the afternoon, but when the Boches began to shower us with light, we all reused up and took in the show. D | Front line trenches were being held | by the Third, Fourth and Fifth com- panies. We didn't know when our turn would come, but ~e were anxious i for the attack, believing that in course of the night. we would get chance to move up into the front line from our supporting trenches. Soon, pa trols from the front lines began to arrive with prisoners, captured in No Mans Land by accommodating parties. Among these were five privates from the Fifty-seventh infantry, a regiment of regulars established near the Leon | Springs school We learned that a party of the regulars had crawled up 10 our front line trenches in order to see what the students were doing. The result was disastrous. In the dark, they were taken for enemies" and surrounded by two patrols of candidates, who sent them back to headquarters. The major was so peeved at being disturbed that he stood the men up along the wall of his dugout and set guard over them. They were compelled to remain stand ing from ll:30 that night until 5:3O the next morning.
 At l2:30, the word was passed to stand by for relief. We thought our chance had come at last. But no. When two relieving companies had filed in and had quietly taken our places, we were marched out in single file, through half a mile of communi- eating trenches, and put to bed in an ignominious manner in a set Of trenches at least mile from the front. There we remained until 9:30 the next morning, when we filed back and oc- cupied the front line. Meanwhile, a great chatter of battle had proceeded from the advance points. At 4:30. the enemy, consisting of about half the men in the camp, had pushed forward grand assault wave, which swept up to the front line of trenches, and was showed back only after all our sup ports had been called into action, and had got hanking attack under way. Small packages of flour representing hand grenades were hurled into our trenches, and each man sprinkled with l.t. ,,-a= 1o,e;Jaraj "Ieai-