The Dickinson press., 1917-12-08
WILLISTON BOY GIVES
GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION
OF LIFE AT FRONT

Harry Teal, a Williston boy, now
fighting in France, has written an in
teresting letter of his adventures
cover there" to a friend in Devils
Lake. Part of the letter is here
given:
"At last! Yes, the Germans have
not bombed me to death yet, but very
nearly so, or a great number Of oc-
casions. If you had to see the effects
Of the raids it would make you mad,
real mad. In one Of the many raids
they hit a school in a poor district in
the east end and blew from 40 to SO
Riddles to bits, just like a slaughter
house. There were 537 killed and in
jured in that raid and only six Taubes
at that. A little while ago there were
Sc Il counted them) big Gotta type
airplanes in an II o'clock morning
raid, a beautiful. fine day.
Gunners Like Automatics
"The proportionate results from a
fleet like that would be awful as the
Gothes are tremendous machines and
can carry a number of high explosives.
AS you have probably read, we have
had moonlight raids for two weeks,
but at last the government has OBJ
tanned a tremendous number of
Arches (anti-aircraft cannon) and
we had real bombardment each
time they came. And then what a
noise. The guns throw a barrage Of
shells, which show a trail of light or
fire in front of the planes, at the rate
of Is to the minute each. Fancy
thousands of guns, each going like
that for two and two and one-half
hours steady. The gunners are mar
velous, just like automatics for speed
and accuracy and the rain of pieces
of high explosive shells is just like
hail and you have to keep yourself
under some kind of roof for it's all
up if a bit of the shells hits you,
after falling a distance of from 10000
to 10000 feet. The guns and shells
make a noise like gigantic cats me-
wouw), accent on the youw.
Bedlam of Noises
Cali the time this is going on the
buzzing of the planes is tremendous.
Intensity the sound of millions of
mosquitoes and you have an idea of
the little row they make, the hum
ming and the buzzing is uneven, way
up and down notes. At night one
can't see them, but when they drop
or fire the bombs or (much worse)
the aerial torpedoes, then one knows
there is something doin' up there and
for a sauce one hears machine gun
fire up aloft, so with it all n has a
proper bedlam of noise and sights.
II got near a few bombs last week
and I got shaking, but by the way,
that big east end explosion a the
limit of shake-ups. But after all 1
would not miss the show for anything,
apart from the killing. It is certainly
a wonderful sight worth coming to
see. Londoners have seen something
of war all right. I have relics of the
Zepps and will send them to you.
"But Harry, we have the Huns
beaten and the little Contemplate
army has walloped the stuffing out of
the proud warriors. Yes, blooming
bank clerks, gone clean through them.
The world has seen and read of how
the arrogant, proud and mighty arm,
les of the Deutschland uber alles,'
have been licked by a contemplate
army composed of pale-faced anemic
counter hoppers, but they have Brit
ish blood in them and when they
move they do not stop. Yes, quite a
surprise for the world which thought
that the Old Country was played out.
"It is funny but the Britisher fights
best only after he has earned darned
good beating. One can just bet that
the Huns lick their lips when the see,
say, the Scot Guards coming with
bayonets up. The Scots and their
bayonets scare the Boches stiff.
Some of these days you might hear
what these brave Scotchmen have
done in this great war even when out
numbered 20 to 1, with unlimited can
non; food, railways, machine guns all
arrayed before them.