New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1918-09-27
u. S. TROOPS HELP
DURING AIR RAID
Red Cross Workers Also Show
Worth Under Aerial Attack


gives thrilling account of how Amer
lean troops and Red Cross work ers
gives aid to the city in such desperate
moments. He describes an air raid
in this fashion,:
nowhere is there any sound but
the echoes of footsteps. Not a street
light is to be seen, not a single ray of
light-nothing but the .inkiest and
most impenetrable darkness. Then
all of the noise of the world seems
to break loose. Clang-clang-cl
booms the tOcsin-like a gigantic
pneumatic riVeter working on a col
losal bell. Whooo-o shrieks the siren
running up and down the scale in an
awful wall.
The streets come to life. Doors
open and slam shut. The sidewalks
are full of ghostly figures hurrying
towards the caves, where the inhab-
itants have fitted up cots and hunks.
They get up now to make a sitting
place for the new corners. The
place fills up. Everyone looks apa-
thetic, sleepy and bored. The chill
dren go to sleep with their heads on
their mothers shoulders and a girl
in the uniform of street car con-
ductor swaps war yarns with a poilu
in dingy blue. In the last raid, the
front trucks of her car were thrown
from the rails by the displacement
air, caused by an exploding torpedo.
The car and it's inmates were un-
hurt. The poilu looks a mite in
credulous and murmurs, I can we'll
believe you, Mademoiselle.'
"Outside the noise continues for
about three or four minutes and then
CT vie I,
Arches, or anti aircraft guns which
commence to bark furiously from
half a dozen different points.
Searchlights rake the sky. The Arch
les continue their clamor, but they
are not firing at anything, merely
keeping up a barrage fire to prevent
the Boche from flying over the city
Suddenly there is an earthrocking
WHOM. No more doubt as to where
the Boches are. WHOM, WHOM,
WHOM! One involuntarily ducks
and tries turtlewise to cover his head
with his shoulders. A hideous noise
resounds up and down the deserted
street-falling walls, and the tinkling
and crash of showers of broken glass
and roofing tiles.
Through the glass and litter of
the street an American Red Cross
camoinette come ploughing it's way.
One of the city firemen stands on the
running board. They stop and the
fireman flashes an electric lamp into
the ruins, makes a hasty inspection,
and then runs up the street and dives
into the redlight cave.
Anybody here from numbers 40
to SIP he calls. A half a dozen
voices yell out that there is,
Is everybody here from those
numbers? Was there anyone left in
either of those buildings?'
There is an anxious calling back
and forth and a rapid counting of
noses. All here is the answer!
Good! Not much left of those
two buildings. Don't enter the ruins
until they have been inspected by the
engineering department. Go to the
Sisters of the Poor if you want food
or a place to sleep"
"A wall and several curses COM
pete. but the fireman is gone.
'The Arches have stopped and
there are no more whooms, but peo-
pie stay in their cellars. It is only
nine o'clock, and experience has
shown that the industrious and meth
odca1 Boches will keep coming back
"a half a mile away a bright red
glow gets larger and larger and lights
the sky. A fire has broken out in
the railroad yards and is making
great Roadway, Several cars of oil
are burning fiercely and spreading to
cars of merchandise, Half a, dozen
American soldiers are working fever
ishly trying to get the untouched
cars away from the fire.
1.-TWO of them have got hold Of a
switch engine and are shuntfng out
whole strings of cars.
DO you know anything about
these French engines, Sir?' asks the
impromptu engineer, I can't find the
damn brake.
THE fire is eating its way towards
a pier on which stands a line of
drums of gasoline. g n
Come on, boys! roll them kegs o.
gas outa here, yells the corporal and
the line of drums starts trundling
down the pier. 1t is Internally hot,
and the average man does not know
Just how hot gasoline can get be-
fore it begins to misbehave; but the
line never wavers.
"'Rol 'em along, boys! Keep EN-
going. Everybody has got to die
sometime
Little by little things become
quietcr. The fires die down. The
Arches stop. Here and there Il
working party still continues its Ia
bors in the ruins. Someone is miss
ing, and they want to get him out of
cellar. Now the tocsin sounds
again, this time with slow, stately,
measured beats This is the Ais