Perth Amboy evening news., 1918-09-12
COLEY RELATES
TALE Of ATTACK
Saw Holm After Latter Had
Carried Wounded Captain
Back to Safety

7 Corporal Joseph f. Coley, son of
Mr.. and Mrs. c. J. Coley of Sewaren,
formerly of this city. was gassed dur
ing the fighting near Chateau Thierry
and is now improving in a a $ hos
pital somewhere in France" A let
ter has been received from Corporal
Coley by his family which tells in
detail of the part played by the en-
gineers in the battle. Owing to the
scarcity of paper he was allowed but
one sheet and although he wrote with
small letters he could not tell all he
wished In the one letter. AS a result
he decided to write his account in in
stallments-
In this letter CoIey tells Of meeting
Corporal Holger Holm of this city
during the battle and of Holm's
bringing in his captain from out of
tho enemy's range after the officer
had been hit by n of h enemy
bullets.
Coley Toes not tell In this letter
Of the occasion on which he was
gassed but states that his eyesight Ii
improving and Thai his body burns
are better. He is in Base Hospital
The letter follows:
France, Aug. 10, 1918
Dear Ma, Pop and the Family
/ am still in the hospital but ex-
pect to leave foot sweet" and the
"tooter the sweeter." Ny eyes have
improved wonderfully and though /
cannot stand strong sunshine they
are otherwise O. K.
The burns on my body are all bet
ter and I am beginning to regain
some Of the weight I lost IN the
drive 1 will try and give you an
outline Of things as they happened
We were relieved from the other
front and proceeded by slow marches
to a point about twelve miles from
Paris where we billeted. I had
visions of a payday and had made UP
my mind to see Raris-whether I had
permission or not. I figured we were
back for a rest
While we were back we beat b
Company In baseball game, So.
/ am sadly In need of practice. We
had one of the best IL not the best
team in the regiment before the drive
What VIC ave now 1 don't know as I
haven't seen the casualty list.
We finally got orders to move
again. This time 1t was trucks we
were moved in and the boys started
wondering what was up. You see
when the American army loves as a
whole they walk and the very tact
that they provided truck for us set
us thinking.
On the night of the 17th of July,
we IllAGu III a uTIZ[ilnK ram anu the
road was full of troops and wagons.
artillery, etc. We knew hen that
something was up. but whether we
were going to attack or, stop one we
didn't know. We pulled into a field
and we were told to get a little sleep
il possible.
1t was raining. but we slept IN spite
for a pillow. We were awakened
about 4 2, m. and told our division
was going to attack and that zero
hour vas 4:35. We hung around
and the kitchen came up and we had
hot coffee We were arguing as to what
they did with the engineers In a drive.
Finally someone said 1t was 4:S0
O'Clock. Everything was quite too
quiet to be comfortable.
A few minutes later a big u went
o. Immediately after there was a
"a and we knew the attack was on.
We o found out What III engi-
.neers did. They were reserve infan-
try, A little later we were ordered
t move up. We started out and hiked
up about 6 o'clock. We saw the first
wounded Americans come in-that Is
the slightly wounded. They seemed
in good spirits and everything was o.
X.
They said that we had better shake
a leg IL we didn't want 10 get lost. as
lAAG hAlCIACdu 1lAAllA W18
so fast that IL they kept up h pace
they would be In Berlin in a week.
You see they caught old Fritz nap
ping and had busted right through
his line before he knew what hap
pened.
We still liked on and about half a
mile further / happened to look up
and saw h road full of Germans.
I thought they broke through at
first, but I soon learned they were
prisoners-about 500 of them. They
were guarded by a few grinning
douRhboys, who told us they were the
easiest picking they ever had.
The Germans were mostly boys and
seemed tickled TO death to be taken
prisoners.
We finally hit a town hat was
hot meal. the last we were 70 get
for Jour days though we didn't know
Il at tha time. While I was eating ]
! heard some one call my name and l
looked up and saw Holger Holm. Hs
had a lot of blood on his clothes
and / thought he was hurt first. but
he had carried his Captain in when
he was hit and that II where the
blood come from. He went over the
top that morning and confirmed the
stories we had heard OF the advance
He said they had captured the Ger
man artillery. That explained why
we hadn't been shelled that morning
I will write this letter In installments
This letter covers until noon. July
IS. 1918
To be continued in our next.
y Love TO all.
Up. S.-Address my mail to Coaa.
pany c. First Engineers. as usual.