The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-11
IN BIG ARGONNE OFFENSIVE

IN DlG AhdONNE OF EINSltE k 1 T was in the big offensive which we
 launched on September 26 at 5:30 a. m. l It was our first gigantic American ef- l fort, and I believe that it and its re-
 suits were large contributing causes ill
 the threatened collapse of the central | powers. My regiment was in from the ] zero hour for six days That may not l sound long to you, but in an offensive | such as this one was, 1t seems like ages at times. The hours between midnight 1 and daybreak are the worst. It rained every night and almost every day. it was cold. of course we could carry nefth- ! CT blanket nor overcoat the little holes ! dug to protect from shell fire would fill with water and add to the inconvenience l of sleeping. Due to our rapid advance 1 and the destruction of artillery fire from l both sides food and water at times would l have been worth a fortune. And despite the fact that the Germans brought up their best troops to try to stop the ad- vance, not once could they stand against the attacks of the Americans. We got ahead of our artillery of course, while the Germans were only driven back to their supposed impreg- nable strongholds with increased artillery and machine guns.
 There was some wonderful fight | ing at all points. but some I saw in the Argonne forest I believe was as | bloody as anything that could possi- | ply be ina gined. The Germans relied on their artillery and machine guns. | but our infantry did not fail to storm l their strongholds and take them We | took many prisoners, two platoons of | mine taking 153, including four officers. in one day. But honestly, it was dead easy and not particularly dangerous when our men could meet their in- fantry We either captured them killed them or made them retreat But they rely mostly on machine gunss and artillery. No one can deny that they have lots of them and they cer- tainly massed them on us. With ar- tllery and machine guns they fight desperately.
 NO CHANGE FOR REST "It was rumored rather officially that our division was going to get rest, as we had been in constant action either in the trenches or in open warfare for long time But after hiking quite a long ways we stopped for couple of days in a village the Germans had been forced to evacuate and then were or- dered to the line again. I have cer- tainly been busy since the drive. "Among our casualties were our captain, the lieutenant who handles the company paper work, the first
 
 duty sergeants, and over 20 corpo- rals. We were rather hard hit
 there as you can see. had to take command of the company, to ap- point new nOncOms for all these va cancies, to try to teach them what to do, make out all manner of cas- ualty reports and equipment data, get a complete set of clothes for every man. and then to add to 1t the day we came back into the line we were given 150 new men as re- placements to fill mp the company. The first few days in the line hardly had time to sleep or eat, but things are in pretty good shape now. Things here are calm and peaceful compared with what we had in the last sector.
 But enough of the war. I am still of the opinion had when came over more
 than year ago. that l will probably