Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1918-04-19
Ed. KENNEDY
IN BOCHE RAID
Writes of Hot Reception Given
a German Attacking
Party
SAYS ERNEST RYALL is
ALSO IN FRONT LINE
Drink Wine Instead of Water in
the Trenches.-P0ilus Given
Rum I>....iOn

Harry BaHou has received very
interesting letter this week from a
Well-knOWn Ladysmith young man,
Ed Kennedy, now serving the country
in France as a lieutenant in the infan-
try. Mr.. Ballou has consented to let us
publish it and we are sure it will be
read with great interest by all our
readers.
The letter is as follows:
March 18th, 1918.
First Line Trenches
Somewhere in France
Dear Harry:
Just a few lines to let you know that
am really here where they do the
real thing and deal out death like you
do paper.
Yes | received my baptism of fire
this morning at about five-thirty, five
eight according to German time or
about eleven-thirty back in Gods
country.
Have been here since Monday Was
fortunate enough picked to go to the
front. Two of us here, a fellow by the
name Of Willard c. Hatch, of Roches-
ter. N. Y. as guests of the French army
to learn the organization etc. We are
doing just as they are and it is sure
some life.
Indiations were that the Germans
were about to make raid and prep
arations were made for proper re-
ception of the Boche. We expected
him last night. He made a try but we
had the barage on his front line so he
could not come out. Well one of the
characteristics of the Boche is that he
is stubborn so we looked for him last
night too. We proceeded down to the
front line to be in on the show. We
stayed up until about two O'Clock and
then rolled in for a few winks. Well
| was woke up by the d-dest din
that | have ever heard. | thought
sure all hell had broke loose. The
alarm was given and the men all gath
cred in their proper place. For the
first few minutes my heart was up
shaking hands with my tonsils
Finally we decided to make the best of
it SO we started smoking cigarets and
| had a whole package smoked up be-
fore | knew it. Yes and our conversa
ton was about the rats. Say Harry
it's the d-dest sensation in the
world to have one of those plagued
beasts walk over your bare hand. Be
1ieve me | soon crawled under the old
felt and my only wish was that my
blanket was tin instead of an old felt
Those big shells of the Germans would
light on the dug out and that blame
thing would quiver and shake and the
gases from the shells would come down
in the dug-out and were very suffo
eating. | thought sure | would loose
my lunch several times. The bonn
bardment lasted about an hour and a
half We stuck down in until Z 80 and
crawled on our bellies over the wrecked
trenches trusting to the Good Lord
that the Allemand would not see u.s.
His machine gunners did take several
shots at us and came uncomfOrtably
close And Harry you ought to see us
duck / did it so blamed fast that !
left my tin hat in the air and when it
caught up with me at the bottom of
the trench | thought sure / was a
goner.
Well about the raid A Boche raid
ing party crawled across No Mans
Land. At the given time 15 large tor
pedoes and about thirty-fiye small C1les
landed on the front line trench. At
the same time the German barage set
tied down all around to cut off assist
ance. The sentinels retired to the
shelter Of the dug-out entrance and
from there shelled the gaps in wire
and the Boche could not get through
Our machine guns enfiladed him and
he sure was in hell of a fix. OF
course he tried to get back but the
French barage had settled as a re-
sponse to the signal from the lieuten
ant / was with. And he was cut off
After the bombardment we could see
wounded Germans climbing from shell
hole to shell hole back to their lines
but machine guns sure make a warm
Job Of it. The French losses were
very slight but the Boche Jared worse
They sure are treating us white
here and feeding us up on the best III
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