Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-11-05
'TW0INLONETANK
!. MAKEDEN 1NFOE
American Fighters in Mouse
Campaign Clean Up Nests
and Big Gun.
DRIVEN OUT BY FLAMES
BY HERBERT COREY.

BY HERBERT COREY.
WITH THE FIRST AMERICAN
ARMY ON THE MEUSE, October II.
mo more remarkable tank story de-
veloped in the fight On the Mouse
than the one in which Corp. Clarence
Sutton Of 1882 Commonwealth ave-
nue.. Boston. played a leading part.
1t contained in itself a hint at each
4 shade Of color that this Kaleidoscope
tank battle carried. and there have
been few tank fights that possessed
a more distinctive character than the
one Of September &c.
Like almost every other one OF the
more than one hundred tanks in the
| battle Sutton's car was lost in the
mist and cut off from it's infantry sup
port. Each tank fought it's own fight.
fsurrounded by frenzied Prussians. If
the mist handicapped them in cut
ting the liaison with the. supporting
forces. 1T was also an advantage in
shelterins them from the enemy ar
tillery.>
You see that mess Of rusty wire
down there?" asked Sutton. as We
stood on the Narennes hill and look
ed down it's almost perpendicular
shoulder into the vale beneath. THAT
was where we had our hottest scrap"
Shrapnel Enters Loophole.
Sutton's car had nosed into .varen-
mes with the others shortly after day
break. looking for Germans. There
had been two or three sharp engage
ments with machine gunners and a
mine or two had been exploded near
them. Sutton himself had been hit
by tiny hunk Of shrapne1 that found
its way in through loophole. but
SO lightly that the skin had only been
bruised.
He put the snout of the tank over
1.-THE edge of the hill in the fog, but
stopped in time to keep from end
Iover-ending down. Then he felt his
way down hill by roundabout road
nests and one seyenty-seven field piece
and some wandering trenches. In
the steep hillside overhead We're
scores Of burrowlike dugouts in
which Germans lived. There were lit
> tie platforms. in front of each. where
the German burrowers had been in
the habit of taking the sun and air.
Among the thousand shattering
noises of battle the approach OF the
tank had been unperceived. 1t is a
itankers that this happens so often.
Locked up in their steel chamber with
cIanking gear and hammering gun
they feel their roaring progress must
pens that they creep up on enemy
groups as though their beast had been
shod with velvet.
! Sutton saw the flare of the seventy
that way. His gunner turned a stream
of fire on it and the gun went out
of action. The tank lurched on to-
ward the long window of rusted wire
Sutton had pointed out to me from
the hill above This wire is perhaps
al chimes red
in the sun. In successive alterations
of the defenses 1t had been made in
to a pile, fifty feet long, perhaps, by
Twenty broad and four feet high.
Right there We ran into nest"
said he. q
! Steel Turret Sheds Bullets.
For ten minutes they 'just sat there
and took it, During that time one
can only guess at the number of thou
Gands of machine gun bullets that
irattled harmlessly from the steel tur-
ret. An anti-tank rifle was brought
into play-I later photographed this
rifle in the hands of Regius NJ. Welsh.
who used to be newspaper man in
Pittsburgh before he Joined the Army.
and 1t is certainly seven feet long
and weighs fully forty pounds-but
the anti-tank rifles bullets likewise
failed to penetrate the living room of
the tank They did cut through the
running gear in one or two non-vital
spots.
wouldn't hit us in the eyes if they
Jeanne through the eye-slits." said SUIT
iton. ''and waited. 1t was a hard place
to get out of. and We didn't like to
take too many chances peeking
through the eye-holes while those bull
lets were hitting the. Tank They
jsounded as though some one was hit
1t IL, - L.
1.-THE second. I thought I'd never hear
1again.''
One tiny silver did get through the
1slit and hit Sutton's gunner ON the
hand. numbing it for time, but not
breaking the skin. Another tapped
ond wound Of the day. Not one of the
three wounds drew blood.
| Sutton'S gunner was Sergt. Dfetz of
New York state-"that's all I know of
him. said Sutton. but I liked to talk
with him, because I used to live in
MiddletoWn. n. Y. myself"-and he
found his hand was too numb to per.
INIT him to go on working the gun.
But I cant drive" said he.
| Crawl Past Each Other.
So the two men changed places, Sui
ton going into the gunner's turret.
This occurs to him as the worst mo-
;ment or the battle, Tor tankers ut as
closely in their tanks as Snails in
their shells. 1t was an abrading and
morally deteriorating effort to crawl
past each other, for there were sew
|eraI painful moments when two bodies
occupied the space that was a tight
lift for one. But they managed it.
| The sun drove away the mists and
!Dietz waggled the tank out into the
open and started for the nest: Of an
lnoying gunners. Sutton respects
these latter. In spite of failure
against the tank, the Prussians died
/ fhoix.