The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-05-23


were scared, yet there was a peculiar
sensation that | had never known be-
fore. We expected every m to
have TO encounter the boche barrage,
but it did not ONE. The most excit-
ing m of my life was just after
we got through the wire and came up
on the enemy's trench. II was there,
if we ever reached it. We anticipated
a hand TO hand fight. Imagine our
surprise when We found the trench
empty, We went on TO the second
trench and ii was empty. We fell
back to our own trench. Not a shot
had been fired. The raid was had
so carefully prepared for for weeks
ended in nothing. because the boche
would not come out and fight
Lieutenant Mansields' company also
made a raid, but with the same re-
suit. Evidently the Germans did not
care to meet the Americans in a hand
to hand encounter. Mansfield told us
how the Germans sent over mustard
gas balloons one afternoon. Some of
them reached our lines before they
were destroyed, fell and bursted. A
few of our boys were caught. These
fellows are 10 in our hospital here,
and | have visited them. If Dante
were living today he would be
ashamed of his puny efforts to de-
scribe way And means by which
human beings may be tortured. He
would write a second edition of the
Inferno
The boches made a raid on a part
Of the trench held by Lieutenant Par
sons company. 1t was a surprise.
"FoIty-two of them said the lieuten.
ant. were almost on us before we
saw them. They were yelling to the
Americanos' to come out. to surren-
der. Well, We came out but we didn't
surrender. Their leader threw a roll
ing pin-shaped grenade at our captain.
1t struck his helmet, glanced OFF and
exploded across the trench. The inn
pact rolled our captain over. but he
hung to his gun and from a sitting
position fired point blank at the burly
boche. The bullet went clear through
his body and also killed the man just
behind him. Meanwhile, the rest OF
US were busy, and we stopped them.
We lost eight men, but they left thir-
%ty-four of their number lying prone
in front Of our trench
Your Iowa boys suffered most"
said Lieutenant BOWMAN, but they
were quite a distance from us and
we did not learn the details, or the
number of deaths. We were told.
however. hat they fought CALAMITY
and inflicted a much greater loss on
the enemy than they received"
This was the action in which Capt.
Harry c. McHenry, Corp. Donald Mac
Rae and other Iowa boys were killed.
- ! ! pvt liaN "Nbt ~ ANU
this engagement shows that these
boys met death courageously and gal
lantly, with their face to the foe. a
little later | am to move to the front,
when | will visit their graves, see
if they are properly marked and Gas
| know their families would have me
do decorate them with flowers. Gods
pity | cannot do more-yet that viii
| do.
wild night he spent in front of the
trench. At two points u barbed
wire entanglements had beer blown
up by the evenings shells, leaving
two gaps each some twenty feet wide.
Those gaps were inviting to the boche.
They afforded opportunity for a raid,
so the lieutenant a ordered to take
a detail of men and close them. The
order came in the morning. said the
lieutenant, and maybe you fellows
think | enjoyed that day. The Ger
mar trenches were but one hundred
yards away, and for several days they
had been shooting at us straight and
often. During the day we made ready
We had to place a tangle Of wire,
made chicken-fence fashion, three feet
thick, along each gap, and then place
two more tangles of the same kind
alongside the first one. making the
barricade of wire nine feet thick. We
used an iron stake with threads and
fingers on one end, and We screw ii
into the ground 1t We should go out
there rafting around driving stakes
into the ground and making a noise,
we wouldn't last two minutes. Dur
ing the day We prepared the tang!es,
six of them; the stakes, the wires
for tying and other paraphernalia. 1t
required six men to carry n tangle,
and there were forty-four men in the
doto;1 Each man Gnour inst what no