Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1918-09-17
CHAPTER v-continued.

never saw a battery better con-
cealed than this one. Up on the ground
you couldn't see the muzzle twenty
yards away-and that was all there
was to see at any distance. There
was a ruined garden just outside the
s gun quarters, and while the gunners
were there picking apples there would
De a hiss and an explosion, and over
would go some of the trees, or maybe
man or two, but never shell struck
nearer the guns than that. The poilus
used to thank Fritz for helping them
pick the apples, because the explosions
would bring them down in great style.
Shells from our heavy artillery passed
just over the garden, too, making an
awful racket. But they were not In it
with the "75's."
They gave me a little practice with
a "75" under the direction of expert
French gunners before l went to my
14-inch naval gun, and, believe me, 1t
was a fine little piece. Just picture
to yourself a little beauty that can
send 38-pound shell every two Sec
Onds for five miles and more, IL you
want it to, and and on Fritz vest
button every tune. There is nothing
like better than a gun, anyway, and
l have never s.Lce been entirely salts
fed with ANYTHING less than "75."
AS you probably know, the opposing
artillery in this war is so widely sepa-
rated that the gunners never see their
targets unless these happen to be
buildings, and even then it is rare So,
since an artillery officer never sees the
enemy artillery or infantry, he must
depend on others to give him the range
and direction.
For this purpose there are balloons
and airplanes attached to each artil-
aery unit. The airplanes are equipped
with wireless, but also signal by
smoke and direction Of flight, while
the balloons use telephones. The OBJ
servers have maps and powerful
glasses and cameras. Their maps are
marked off in zones to correspond with
the maps used by the artillery officers.
The observations are signaled to a
receiving station on the ground and
are then telephOned to the batteries.
All our troops were equipped with
telephone signal corps detachments
and this was a very important arm
of the service. The enemy position Is
shelled before an attack, either en-
barrage or otherwise, and communica-
ttion between the waves of attack and
the artillery is absolutely necessary.
Bombardments are directed toward
certain parts of the enemy position
almost as accurately as you would use
"a searchlight. The field telephones are
very light and are portable to the last
degree. They can be rugged up or
knocked down in a very short time.
The wire is wound on drums or reels
iand you would be surprised to see how
quickly our corps established COM
Imunication from a newly won trench
TO headquarters, for instance. They
were asking for our casualties before
we had finished having them, almost.
Artillery fire was directed by men
whose duty 1t was to dope out the
range from the information sent them
by the observers in the air. Two men
were stationed at the switchboard,
one man to receive the message and
the other to operate the board. AS
soon as the range was plotted out it
was telephoned to the gunners and
they did the rest.
The naval guns at Dixmude were
amounted on fiat cars and these were
drawn back ana forth on the track by
little Belgian engines.
After / had been at my gun for sew
.efal days l was ordered back to my
regiment, which was again in the