The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-12-14
LETTERS FROM
 RED CROSS IN.
 WAR THEATRES

events in which the writer was actu- /ally engaged. One written on July { Is says that the writer had been '-laid out by gas and now my lungs are wheezing like a busted bellows and the following letter received Oct 31 says that ''the American boys are al- ready in line, but considerable dis tance away from my locality Then the letter reads in part:
 "I believe I related to you how we prepared our Red Cross post, (prior to the battle of Mission Ridge), and the stTafing we got Old Fritz made desperate effort to stop our pre- parattOns and he fired thousands upon thousands of shells on all the roads and lines of communication It was absolutely fruitEess- We got every : thing up that we required
 For over a year we had heard of great mine being fixed under Fritz s 1 position, and many stories were cir rent as to the effect its explosion might have on our own position. Our people, however, were not taking any unnecessary risk, and as the attack was to be signalized by the blowing up of this huge mine, everybody in the vicinity was ordered to lie out in the open At the time of the attack I I was lying out flat on my face with the other bearers.
 '-The explosion about which we had heard so much affected us not at isa1L Of course, we felt it slightly, l but very slightly. Some people claim f to have heard it in England and Ire land. was within a stones throw of the burst and was not very much impressed by 1t. The actual effect, however. was tremendous. later Raw the crater and did not doubt a sto<y I got from a wounded officer, and here 1t is:
 Two of our men were captured w9I1ae on patrol duty in No Mans Land and by 8 method best known to Nthe Huns these men revealed the fact 6A1ak we Wre going to attack, but naEaR said a word about the mine. RHnuE. the mine was situated on a hill tl1a8 overlooked the country for miles aeurnd, and to take it with ordinary frontal attack was an impossibility. On the morning of the attack three regiments of Bavarians were concen- tznAsd on q hill and 500 more of them were lined up at the base of a ravine. The idea was to enf1lade our men with the aid of machine guns to cut off the whole of the attacking forces, but the mine did not stop to argue the matter.
 Like all of us it had its duty to perform and when it burst 1t blew all these samples of corpse fat up, and when the earth came down in hun dreds of tons it buried all of them in the ravine. could see our front line, and kept looking at my watch and counting the pdnutes. Our own guns were absolutely silent Sud- denly the whole horizon was set abIaze by gunire. Up went the mine. The attack had commenced. We moved up to the front line and were inform ed that casualties were coming in slowly We could scarcely believe our cara Slowly meant very few, and we had expected enormous 1osSeRs"
 While tho writer was wondering about the matter a friend told him that the fight was a "cake walk Then the letter ran:
 "Before long we were following our fnfankry and the sight of the Ger man lines was extraordinary. His first line was flat, his second nearly SO A few bodies were intact, the rest ir fragments. Ills artillery was quiet probably smashed up, and our voy- age across the battlefield was unevent- fuL Before long prisoners came pouring tn and I was surprised be- cause did not see how these people Oouid have lived through our bom- hbAMdmeTat."
 Daring the night English soldierl fHeduently commented on the smaI 1cEI suffered by them in the fight, ant fben this tragic bit appears in the let 4aes
 "A goodly number of our own mel had been wounded by being too hast, in running toward the enemy. The. had orders to walk, as the barrag, nRe tn front of them would be slov bM1 effective and thus would smasl thS enemy dsfenses. They would run however, and were caught by our owl dEa."
 Here are parts of 8 letter received here from the same writer in Octo bers
 %Sfnes tha big fight at Mission RfdGs we have been giving the Ger man no rest, and bit by bit he ha given way until now he Is strugglin to 6aEs his right flank. He is putin up g splendid fight, but after all de 1snalwe fighting, however splendid never Epells victory. ] had rest af tsR the Mission fight, and then wa sent to the line again. My habitatiol was in a tiA, an ordinary dagout in trsAesa, It was aa old German one and szne1lsd of saHsFkfaHt and deay Huns, and kr6w of nothing nor vilss
 "fE was not long before the Ger mans began performing and all da long kept pounding heavy shell around us. By nightfa1i was warne by 6 gas alarm signal that soHnde . ovsF the desolate countryside and 8 onss got my gas mask ready. wasn't long before we heard the ia EfgfaR sound Of gas shells in down Wasd flight, These shells can al ways be detected by the peealia sound in travelling. This Lombard nsnt was kept uD five and 8 hal hezFs, and in the meantime me came into our shelter gasping an seeking aid.
 ria my haste to deal with them pHftea off my mask, with the resul fhaE I bFeatfed some of this gas int my system, I took no notice of tRi and 1t was not till hours after tha
 Lweat totally blind and vio1entl sick. was carried into the hos