The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-26
In Command of Kansas Company He Gives Inter- esting Data on Spirit
 of Americans 1
PEACE TALK HAD BEGUN TO APPEAR
 ALONG FRONT LINES
Says September 26 to Octo- Der 1 Reminds Him of Alabama State Fair Pos
 ter "6-Big Days-6"

The Age-Herald up to the time he en- tered the service, has been in some more lively fighting, according to word received from him yesterday.
 1 His letter was dated October 19. IL shows that for sometime he has been lin command of a company of Kansas 1 troops. His latest letter is here given 1 because of Lieutenant Bradley's wide l acquaintance all over the state and be. cause he writes of many things which Twill interest everyone who had a friend or loved one in the last great fighting I of the war. He writes as follows: !"Company B, 137th Infantry, A. E. F.. l France, October 19, 1918. l Dear Mir. Stanley: wish you would send a few copies of The Age Herald Icontaining the latest dope on the peace situation to the Huns who occupy the trenches opposite ours in and around these parts Judging by the way the Fritzies have been hurling over the gas Ishelis on our right, their lines of conn Imunication with Berlin must be bad. Peace talk or no peace talk, if they keep pestering our men they will get mad directly and give them a return en- lgagement of the recent general offen- Isive. But regardless of all parleying (which may be taking place in official lcireles, it is still proper fer all Dutch men who wan to see th.ir fathers in the old fatherland to follow the advice lof that song, Keep Your Head Down, lAIemand. Our forces are operating lon the principl3 that the war has only ibegun and the harder we hit the Hun
 and the quicker. the better things VIII be-
 "The old troops who nave seen cen siderable action, thinking tha. there might be something in all these peace 1T amistice reports, are anxious to get Ia final swat at the Germans and the newly arrived forces are impatient fol Hear they might not get into a real big faction before it is too late All of which bodes no good for the Huns. 1 GET LITTLE INFORMATION
 "But regarding the peace talk. We really don't know much. For the past two months I have seen newspapers Sd few times that was hariiy able 'o understand references to many things lwhicE had occurred. About all we have kearo about peace was in reports hand- ed ot wn from word of mouth and semi official bulletins sent down from head lqua~ters from time to time. have just tread the Presidents reply of October l1t tc the Hun peace propo ion. The latitude of the men in the lines over Ihere k largely one of hands off They realize that their sources If informa- tion are so limited that they are not in position to pass competent judgment on the matter. The universal opinion is that there will be no peace except pne based on unconditional surrender of lCe,many and that satisfies them gil They would like to go home but they
 want to stay here until the job IS fr- Iished.
 But really. I did not intend to say Ianyth.ng about peace, for knew 70 iitt.e about what is going on, don't recall just when wrote yol last. Alihis are usually to be accepted with cer- tain amount of mental reservation. but ' have not had time to write you for som etime. If recall correctly. wrote Iyou brief note about Septamber 23 or s4. just before the big drive started. We were lying up in the woods just close enough to the line to march up in tonc night under cover of darkness and arrive at the jumping off place befol c the zero hour, which was at $40 q m. September 26.
 GENERAL OFFENSIVE STARTED
 Of course you recall what happened at this drive. All of the allies started a general offensive on the same morn ing. Only a short time before. the
 American army, operating in an of fensive alone for the first time. had nipped off the St. Mihiel salient. In the offensive beginning September 56 1 cur forces were in the Argonne, around verdun and in the Champagne sector. You know what a success the drive was. Our division attacked for six
 days and nights and we captured mary towns and strongly fortified positions.
 a vast number of prisoners and much I material.
 "one of the officers in my com pany has just received from the United States copy of the Associated Press account of the first morning of tho , drive. I am enclosing part of 1t.
 "The Kansas troops were my regi-
 ment and the Missouri troops were In
 our division. You will note that we ! advanced seven miles this first day [ against what the official communique
 called stubborn resistance thought the resistance that day was pretty -i stubborn myself. but when compared , with the resistance of the other days, it was nothing more than triumphant parade. You sec the Pcches were fail- ling back to strongly fortified positions which they had held for several years: Ithev were falling back on their masscd artillery and supplies. while we were
 getting further away from ours.
 | MAC1S IT lCIlN AAvO tl1yoE lRAASU
 "But our troops stormed their strong holds in the face of imperetrable bar rases and belts of machine gun fire and not once did the Huns fail to turn
 loose So far as their infantry was concerned, they could not stand against
 our men. But when they were back in their strongholds with much artil-
 lery and countless machine guns. they
 certainly fought about as desperately
 as anyone could. I never hope to sec
 T more magnificent and inspiring sight
 than the way our men stormed the
 Hun positions in the face of murderous artillery and machine gun fire. Yet
 never man faltertd unless killed or
 seriously wounded The fighting on
 the first day necessary to capture the towns mentioned in the clipping was
 pretty severe. but the worst of ali was when we had to drive the Germans ont of parts of the Argonne forest
 We had nothing to fight but artillery and myriads of machine guns which lpoured a terrific fire into our men
 when we could seldom see even one
 German. Their concrete and steel pill
 boxes for machine gums in the woods