The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1918-01-05
HOW ARMY STOOD
first SHELL fire
Meets Roar and ShrapneI Wits
Ties Like Veterans.
MEN Showed GREAT NERVE

American Engineers Endure Ordea. of
High Explosives VITA All the Cool
Nerve of Experienced Regulars
Correspondent Tells of Goodness of
Sammies in Their First Trying Sit
uation Under Fire.
passed by Censor. for Publication in
America Only.)
"How did they face it?" was the
question put to the commanding officer
OF the first battalion of American
troops to come under shell fire.
"How would Americans face it," he
snapped back wrathfully.
Yet the question was a fair one. Sea-
soned British officers say they still feel
nervous under shell fire.
young troops just out, when they
get their first taste of it, sometimes
feel pretty sick for a while, and show
1t. It's quite natural" So spoke an
English officer who himself has lived
under German shell fire so terrific that
it was heard clear across the channel.
Showed Great Nerve.
The fact, then, that these young
American engineers endured their first
ordeal of high explosives with all the
cool nerve of experienced regulars is
worthy of mention.
A personal experience will indicate
In a very mild way the kind OF surprise
n strain which successive patches of
SommipS arc now updorU0ipO
You are walking along a road cheer
fully Joking about the weight of your
tin hat, or about the uncanny feeling
Which from knowing that in
some observation post behind the twist
ing white lines on the ridge opposite
a German officer is watching you with
his telescope. Back of you hidden
British guns are cracking ~methodically.
It is a "quiet day" along the front.
Your attitude is that of an idle spec
tator watching some vast, slow-moving
natural phenomenon. That human
lives are involved in the spectacle
hardly occurs to you, much less that
your own is concerned in the drama.
Entire Party Stops.
Suddenly, with nerve-shattering I'M
eXpectedness, the menacing wall of an
approaching shell stops the whole party.
Every fiber in your body vibrates
harshly in the metallic key set by the
shell.
You feel like a trapped animal.
There is a violent jar in the air and
earth, a roar, shell fragments whistle
about your ears, and the road behind
you is wrapped in a heavy pail of
black smoke and dust.
Before you are conscious of safety
from that shell, another is shrieking
il the air toward you, and still a third
is on its way.
'Damn it, they're after US" says the
officer in charge of the party. Scat
ter out in The field each side of the
read! And if the shell is coming very
close, throw yourself fiat on the ground
quickl Take to a shell hole only if
there's one near. You only have a
second or twoi"
Every shell seems shrieking at you.
Tile Sky seems hard, the atmosphere
tense, the fields crudely shelterless,
and every shell hole a hooking omen
of what's going to happen to you next.
TO the tune of the first shell or two
you inwardly make a last will and
testament. Then you manage to ad-
just yourself mentally to the situation,
and move on again noting where the
shells explode and Analysing your w
feelings.
a Do 1t All Mentally.
You do all that mentally. But nerv-
ously you are high strung to the break
ing point.
The nerve strain comes out when the
party finally reaches the veritable
heaven-a trench. Knees are univers-
ally weak. Everybody sits down awk-
wardly in the mud. Faces are flushed,
foreheads perspiring, and you use two.
or three matches to light one cigarette,
which promptly o toss aside after a
DISTINGUISHED puff or two.
That is roughly what the first eX-
perience has been like to each individ-
ual Sammy. The terrific nervous ten
sion is inevitable.
1t is under just such nervous tension
that these young American engineers,
fresh from shop benches and office
desks, have been quietly keeping at
work day after day here with all the
GOODNESS of old-time soldiers.