The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-08-09
AMERICANS SHOW
FIGHTING CLASS
Green Yankees in Bel
leau Wood Dig Boches
Out at Bayonet Point

n WITH THE AMERICANS ON TIL
e Misunderstanding in he America
v effort in France has so impresse
p me as the fighting quality of the men
e | am trying to differentiate here be
tween quality and efficiency. Com
3 plete efficiency is result of expert
ence plus perfect equipment plu
= quality. Qaunly alone is the spiri
which leads green troops to viii
, against veterans when conditions ar,
: otherwise equal.
Any man who has ever made /,
habit of watching ring fighting will
understand what | mean. Two pugi
lists may be perfectly matched in agt
and weight and height and reach
and skill. In friendly boxing en-
counter one is as good as the other
In a gruelling fight one win-an6
that same one will always win. He
has the quality or class. Every ring
champion who ever won a belt by
hard fighting and not by some mere
accident of overpowering weight or
by the decay of the title holder had
that quality. FitZsimmans had it
and McGovern and Nelson and a
hundred more.
Fight Like Wild Men
These grass green American troops
have it. They fight like wild men.
They never know when they are
licked. The Germans they smashed
at Cantigny complained that the
americans hit them with any part
of the gum" At Bouresches a Ger
man prisoner wept when he was
taken. He had fought thru two
years of war, but he had had enough.
II weep because | have been
afraid" said he. "Your men fight
like devils"
An officer coming back from the
Bots de Belleau, just after the wood
had been cleaned of the last machine
gun nest, talked mildly of the ex-
plot.
Tell me about the fight" urged.
There isn't anything to tell" said
he. I'VE were ordered to take the
woods and we took it. That's ALL"
dig EN- OUT
THE fact is" said he rather ,
shame-facedly, it seemed, my men
must be a damn rotten lot of bomb
ers. They like to dig EN- out with
the bayonet."
That fight in he wood of Belleau |
illustrates this quality in the Amrei-
cans. The wood was once taken and |
once lost The first time it was
seized by them, with the exception
of one nest of machine guns in a
place of piled up rocks in he east
ern edge of the southern part.
1T looks like stage scenery" said
an officer. "You wouldn t believe
1t true If you saw 1t in a theatre"
In his fight both the command
ing officers of the battalion W ere
put out Of action. The companies
lost touch with each other. Lacking
4 directing head they began to drop
back under the artillery fire the Ger
mans used on them. High explosive
was the Boche rule here. One COM
pany held on, because it would not
1uit. 1t dug itself in, in one edge
If the woods and stayed. Head
quarters sent word to it to pull out,
md it sent back word that:
We'll b damned if we do"
Bombs Were Useless
Later Americans undertook the re-
capture of Belleau wood. There was 9
IN artillery preparation and then the
men went in with their bombs and
'ayonets. Bombs are almost useless
n wood, even in wood that has
een frazzled and beaten down as
as the Bots de Belleau. There
1ere machine guns everywhere-We =
aptured thirty-six of them-and r
very now and then heavy trench
lortar. We took seven of these
evices, and each of them was so
eavy that it took an officer and
twenty-five men to move them out. II
Finally the Boche was cleaned Il
ut Of the wood again, except in Il
ne one nest of machine guns in the
stage scenery" in he southeastern II
nd. The men had done it with rifle
re and the bright steel. Remember II
lese troops were once 70 per cent Il
larksmen and the man who can
OF get into the bullseye pretty reg
larly has no place with these troops
ven now when their ranks have
zen lately filled. The men went for II
ard with their guns at the ready, as
lail shooters do thru wheatfield.
Drops Running Boches
II saw one man get three running
oches," said an officer. Each
emit in the air and dropped like an
npty sack. They were running to-
ard him too"
Pretty good shooting"
THE same man shot a Boche car
er pigeon the other day." said he.
But then, mebbe that was an acct II
MT"
Early in the fight group of Ger n
ans were cornered. They surren-
red on the Boche plan. That is
ey played the "kamerad" trick,
ley put up their hands and cried
r mercy.
Our men are square," said the Of
or who told me the story. "They
d not believed the stories of the
che treachery. They went for
I'd to accept the surrender of the
n. Then the Germans threw stick
enades at them. A corporal and
. men were killed" L.;
"And Them" ... -
And then?" p
He grinned. That sort of a grin
man fresh from fight would
hn nj co,,% 4 h;,.~