The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-03-29
Talks to Fair Sized Crowd at the Y.
M. c. A. Auditorium on War
Experiences Last
Night
PRAISES ALL WAR WORK
Gives Portrayal Of Night Attack in No
Mans Land and of Fol-
lowing Artillery
6arrase-

Lieotensnt Brownell talked TO fair
sized crowd at the Y last night on
his experiences while seeing action
in some of the biggest battles on the
British front. Lieutenant BrowneE.
while no orator. said what he had to
say simply and directly and the time
that he took was not noticed by any
in the audience. He confined ihl
most of his talk to the two battles.
one at Vimy ridge and the other al
Mont ST Heloy.
In the tale OF the battle of Vimy
ridge, Browneu started with the
preparation that went on weeks be-
fore the actual attack. The method
of training the men on ground re-
'sembling the terrain at the ridge by
the use of flags representing the diff
feren sectors and the cavalry moving
forward ahead of the infantry repre-
senting the barrage, proved highly
interesting. The battle at Vimy ridge
went off without flaw and while
the fighting was fierce, the Canadian
troops took the ridge and sue
cessfully held the ground against the
counter attack Brownell stated
that in his opinion the Germans
would never retake that territory. He
also made 1t plain that it was quite
a feat for the Canadian troops as the
English and French had both tried
before and failed
The Fresnoy show he described as
being much fiercer than at Viny
ridge and in no way as successful.
This was a night attack. the men go
ing over the top at 3:45 in the morn
ing. One Of the bad features of this
action was the gas attack which he
q he; "a nr-. hi, >f
a wound that can be experienced
Through some miscarriage of direc-
tons this attack failed and many OF
the troops were killed by the cross
fire of German machine guns. Brow
nell himself lost his company AMI
did not find them until the next day
after the battle. His experiences
with five other men in shell hole
while being shelled by both German
and Canadian infantry was worth
listening to. How they finally reach.
ed their own trenches. running
through artillery fire from both sides,
and being surrounded on three sides
by German trenches, made a vivid
hair raising tale.
The method of following barrage I
was also highly interesting, and he !
said that the French did not consider
there was fifteen per cent casualty !
list from their own barrage.
Throughout his talk he could not |
say enough good about the different |
bodies that are helping with the |
carrying on OF the war He spok,
of the work that the Y. NJ.
c. A. is doing in France, and while
he said there were criticisms made
on practically every war body, the
thing to do was not to listen to the
criticism, but get back Of the diffe:-
ant bodies. such as the Red Cross ana
The Y. NJ. c. a, with every possible
effort. It's praise OF the manner in
which the governments handled the
nail was very high. Brownell had NJ
to advance, he simply
rave his experiences as he saw them.
lie spoke highly of the American
roops, that he had seen. and placed
treat confidence in their ability to
10 their share in whipping the Huns.
When questioned later as to the