The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1918-11-08

American boys who journeyed 1t those
July days when they started forward
in the face of murderouS machine gun
fire to smoke the Boches out Of the
stronghold that assured their footing
in Chateau-Thierry.
L climbed over graves and shell
holes, through underbrush and past
isolated bits OF barbed wire entan-
clements into the heart Of the woods,
where the Boches had their dugouts.
And at every step of the way, diff
cult to traverse even now when IT has
been trampled over and cleared out
since the battle, l wondered at the
courage Of the boys who had faced
hidden machine guns and unknown
horrors lurking In the shadows. A
human jawbone lay at the doorway of
a hunting lodge which had been des-
perately contested for and from the
underbrush near by protruded the boots
of an unburied Hun.
A group of dugouts off to the right
was well concealed by rocks and UNI
derbrush and / peered down into sew
eral of them. The openings we're
just big enough to permit a man to
wriggle through on his stomach and
inside va a little straw and perhaps
Il battered helmet or rotting gas
mask. A good hole for q dog, If the
dog wasn't p~articular-but the con-
Quoting officer with me assured me
fhnt An 1,trn.t - %laA IL. --
to accommodate five men during a
bOmbardment or barrage. When the
barrage was lifted the men would
come out and go to work again with
their machine guns.
We saw lots of dugouts, however,
from which the Germans never
emerged. The opening had been filed
up with earth from exploding shells
and the sanitary troops that came
through after the battle were spared
the trouble of burying those men.
Many Of the shell holes had n sickly
greenish hue, the mark Of gas which
poisons even the earth, and around
others were mounds Of empty car
tridges showing they had been used as
semiprotection for machine gunners.
Wrote Themselves Into Fame.
When the Germans entered Chateau
Thierry in June, they reached the apex
of a triangle, the other ends Of which
were at scissors and Reims. They
held the city for 81 days and were so
strongly intrenched that the French
and American troops who retook the
city did 1t by Outfianking movement
instead Of a direct drive which would
have cost many times as many lives.
The marines of the American divi.
siOns which turned the scale Of the
fighting, wrote themselves into fame
by taking Belleau woods. The other
troops Of the divisions, eager for a
similar chance Of distinguished serv-
ice, were allowed" to take vaux, d.
rectly to the west Of Chateau-Thierry.
which became the pivot point for the
scissors that squeezed the Huns from
the city. American artillery battered
the village to bits and then the infan-
trymen, armed with maps which had
OCCh uluNh Wy Ill III StOue mdSOu Oh
the village, marched in and corralled
the Germans who had taken refuge In
the cellars.
The mason knew jast where the eel.
lars Of the village were located be-
cause he had built them. so that the
cleanup after the artillery prepa.
ration was quickly done. And the lit
tie town Is now rebuilding with equal
rapidity. 1t lies on the main road
from La Fere to Chateau hierry 80
the people are drifting back, and az
we passed through / saw carpenters
and plasterers at work making houses
habitable. A group Of red-fezzed Mo-
rOccan soldiers were clearing out a
courtyard, and further down the road
were Italians repairing shell holes.
Another turn and we were In The
city Itself, crossing the substitute for
the famous stone bridge over the
Marne that the French were ten years
in the building, but which. the Ausss.