The citizen., 1918-08-22

"' "iSS hhu an EXPLOSION, ana over
would go some Of the trees, or maybe
a man or two, but never n 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 n little practice with
To- under the direction Of exsert
French gunners before I went to my
14inch naval gun, and, believe me, II
was fine little piece. Just picture
to yourself little beauty that can
send 3s-pound shell every two sec
onds for five miles and more, II you
want II to. and land on Fritz vest
button every time. There is nothing
i like better than a gun, anyway, and
i have never since 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-
lery 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 of in zones to correspond with
the maps used by the artillery officers.
The observations are slgnaled 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-
ton 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 rigged up or
knocked down In a very short time.
The wire is wound on drums or reels
and you would be surprised to see how
quickly our corps established COM
munication 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 II 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
mounted on fiat cars and these were
drawn back and forth on the track BY
little Belgian engines.
After I had been at my gun for sew
eral days l was ordered back to my
regiment. which was again In the
front-line trenches. My course was
past both the British and French lines
but quite a distance behind the front
lines.
Everywhere there were ambulances
and wagons going backward and for
ward. / met one French ambulance
from a field hospital near the firing
line and was driven by a man whose
left arm was bandaged to the shoul-
der. Two poilus who sat In the rear
on guard had each been wounded In
the leg and one had had q big strip Of
his scalp torn of. There was not a
sound man In the bunch. You can
imagine what their cargo was like, II
the convoy was as used up as these
chaps. But all who could were sing
Ing and talking and full of pep. That
Is the French for you: they used no
more men than they could possibly
spare to take care Of the wounded. but
they were all cheerful about it
always.
Just after passed this ambulance
he Germans began shelling a section
,f the road too near me TO be comfort
able, SO beat It to q shell crater
about twenty yards OF the road. to the
ear. A shrapnel shell exploded pretty
lear me just as i jumped into this /,
lole-I did not look around to see how
lose It was-and i remember now /.
low the old minstrel Joke had heard
N board ship came to my mind at the
about a fellow feel ,,
ng SO small he climbed into q hole
nd pulled It after him-and wished
might do the same. / fiattened my
elf as close against the wall of the
rater as could and then ! noticed :
hat somebody had made q dugout In ,,
he other wall Of the crater and I Q
tarted for II. /,
The shells were exploding so fast =
y that time that you could not listen :,
Or each explosion separately. and Just =
. Jumned into the dugout a regular a