Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-06-12
AMERICAN TROOPS IN FRANCE
BY Raymond G. Carroll
(London Times Correspondent

In the Field With the British
Troops. - The vanguard of new
United States Army has reached
France, and at the moment of writ
ing, has passed for final training
within the folds of the great Brit
ish Army guarding the roads to the
channel ports. 1t was my good luck
to be the first accredited correspon-
dent of the American Expeditionary
Forces to greet these citizen soldiers.
France has already seen samples OF
our Army picked for overseas duty,
but it was not until recently that the
manpower promises of the United
States took the color of reality.
Fortune arranged it. In the same
seaport where our khaki-clads un-
wound the kinks from their sealegs
and stretched out into long clay
colored lines on the piers there was
going on the simultaneous debarca-
ton of British regiments passing to
France from England; the initial
contact in France between American
soldiers in any considerable number
and British Tommies. Previous units
to arrive, with the possible excep-
tion of a few engineers, had been
welded into the French Army for
instruction and last-stage prepara-
tion for battle. Always there had
been the chasm of language to span,
and the need for shoals of interpre-
ters.
Hello! Tommy" yelled a 1.-THE
young American at a British soldier.
"Cheerio! Lads" shouted back
half dozen of the Essex Regiment.
Speak Common Tongue
An hour later, when both organi-
cations had broken ranks for brief
rest before starting upon the inland
march the waterfront was filled with
the gable of soldier talk; our boys
from the long water jump eagerly
gulping down all the war lore that
those of the short water jump had
! to impart. Only two years back and
the most experienced of the @Tom-
mics had been six months soldiers
in the same state of feeling as the
cousins. from across the Atlantic.
They, too, had left civil life and gone
into the open air to build up ply
sically. They, too, had not been pro-
fessional soldiers, nor army-trained
even in rudimentary way. So they
had a deep understanding with our
new soldiers, and almost as soon as
an acquaintance struck up Tommy
was hard at it sharing from his most
precious store of personal war ex-
pei IhCy opOtNO Ou1 bOiieS
one common language and one COM
mon purpose.
you must never leave off the
bloomin' gas mask" heard one say.
It'll save you the wooden cross"
Take my word, laddie, and stick
by the old rife" said another. 'I
see you has the same as ours. We
has plenty of ammo for you"
when Fritz calls 'Kamerad' Just
you watch out" admonished third.
"Ees up to tricks. and we has to
watch out or get clicked"
No Big Brother ever exhibited
finer instincts towards a ward than
has Tommy since he got a real
chance to get us close to his tongue
mate from America. He had known
all along that we were coming to
help him. He was hungry to see the
Americans, and when we did come
to him for instruction such a SOL
dier's welcome as you never dream
ed of was there. The welcome is
continuous. Wherever one of our
men finds an Englishman there he
finds a real pal.
I watched the British soldiers fall
in, lift their packs to their backs and
swing off the quay with the air of
men having confidence in their
strength and fitness. They looked
smart and clean. I watched our boys
unstack their rifles and, shouldering
their equipment, tramp, tramp,
towards the heart of battle with
backs to the sea that washed the
shores of distant homes. They were
as fine looking soldiers as have seen
anywhere in France.
Kinsmen Marching
Down parallel roads marched the
soldiers of the British Empire and
those of the American Republic. I
looked upon the whole scene as one
of the big moments of the great
war, for these marching men were
kinsmen reunited after many long
years.
Probably what most amazed our
men going to the British for training
was the wonderful order existing at
the back of the lines. Guns were
parked along the roadside with the
neatness of tidy housewives pots and
pans. Lorries most carefully driven
on the right side of the road-a con-
cession of the British to the French
method-and laden with supplies,
moved along the main highway. Sys-
tenn is written upon everything En-
glish. Therein is the great lesson
for us from the British-method, or
der and classification. No army in
Europe is organized better behind
the lines than the British
AS the miles unwound behind our
marching lads the country began to
change. There were fewer women
and children to be observed now;
here and there are roofiess houses,
more dwellings doorless and win
dowless, and more walls with she'll
gashed walls. All this had been
done by bombs from aeroplanes be-
fore the British wrested the suprem-
acy of the air from the Germans.
But the fields were still we'll