The Evening Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1917-1920, 1917-09-19
WILLIAM R. GENTRY
BACK FROM FRANCE
Nephew of n. T. Gentry Re-
lates Thrilling Story About
War at Front.
INJURED IN SERVICE
Drove Transport Motor Four
Months Struck Once by
Piece of Shell.
INJURED IN SERVICE

SnellS OH tHe DdttleIleluS OF fTdHCe,
William r. Gentry, Jr., 19 years old,
nephew of N. T. Gentry of Columbia,
has returned to st. Louis following an
operation in French hospital for an
injury sustained when driving an
ammunition truck near Scissors.
He is the son of William r. Gentry,
Sr., of Vernon avenue, st. Louis.
His parents had received no word from
!: him since the cablegram announcing
he would undergo an operation. He
surprised them when, unannounced,
he appeared at their home and greet
ed them with bon soir."
In his four months in France he has
been much of the time under fire. He
was in a gas attack. witnessed the
bombing By Germans of a French hos
pital, was struck by piece of shrap-
mel and on his return voyage his ship
was attacked by submarine.
i He interviewed Germans in the
French prison camps. They told him
they expected the war to end before
spring with Germany defeated. The
prisoners said decreasing man-power
and the virtual starvation of the Ger
man civilian population would force
the end.
Drove at Night
! He sailed from New York with the
Philips Andover unit and landed at
Bordeaux May g. After his arrival at
Paris he was told that a lack of am
balances would make it necessary for
hin to drive an ammunition truck.
After two weeks training in the French
manual of arms and. military tactics,
he was assigned to a truck He had
had no experience with motors except
that gained driving his fathers auto
mobile. Soon after his truck had be-
come part of an ammunition train
running between scissors and Rheims,
he was surprised to find Joseph
Desioge. another st. Louis boy, de-
tailed on his truck.
Among the duties of the st. Louis
ians was the hauling of shells, hand
grenades. torpedoes and detonating
fuses to the front They often haul
ed 220-millimeter shells, but more
frequently carried 75-millimeter
shells
The trucks moved at night except
when the fighting was heaviest. They
were forced to do this because in day.
light the German observation bal
looms would telephone the location of
the trucks to the batteries and a bonn
bardment would ensue During one
period of heavy fighting, Gentry said,
he drove his truck twenty hours day /
for ten days, now and then catching
few minutes sleep on the truck
seat.
Struck by Shell.
Gentry told of his first sensation
when under shell fire. He expressed
this by saying that he was "dog-gone
scared" He said he was driving his
truck in the ammunition train, when a
shell dropped about so yeards distant,
pieces of it striking him !
"We were so frightened" he said, .
that we all stepped on the accelerator
at the same time and it is a wonder
that our trucks didn't land somewhere
over the German lines. After that,
though, the shells dropped near us so
frequently that we lost our fear. Once
when hauling logs for trench re-en-
forcements, a German battery opened
on u.s. The French soldiers, who were
unloading the trucks, disappeared
quite suddenly, going to their dug
outs, but we Americans, probably in a
spirit of foolhardiness. remained at
our tasks as the shells dropped all
about u.s. The Frenchmen have be-
come adroit at lodging and many
often save themselves because of their
skill in this
Gentry said he experienced his first
gas attack one night when the ammu-
milton train had been helted for a few
minutes at Bourget-et- Comm, a viii
lage, now in ruins.
1--WE were eating our lunch when a
mountain trumpeter dashed through
the streets blowing "gas call" We
rushed for our tool boxes for the gas
masks that had been provided. One
of the drivers was slow finding his
mask and was overcome After that l
always carried by mask on the seat
near me and frequently had to use it.
Germans Desp0ndent
Spare moments were few, Gentry
said, but those he had, he used getting
interviews around the prison camps.
Soldiers and drivers were barred from
these prisoners, but he slipped in when
a guard he had presented with a pack
of cigarettes, looked the other way.
Gentry said he could understand Ger
man and was able to get the sense of
what the prisoners said They told
him that the German soldiers had
plenty of food, but the civilian popu-
lation was suffering for want of it.
This condition and Germany's rapidly
decreasing man-power would end the
war soon. they believed. Some of them
said 1t was matter of months. but
none expected it to last longer than
spring.
Among the prisoners he interviewed