The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1918-11-21
.CALLOUS amid
HORRORS OF war.
Grewsome Sights Of Battle Fail
to Shake Nerves of !
-.-...,. Yanks.
QUIcKLYADAPT THEMSELVES
Admiration Of French and British Vet
Grams Is Aroused by Conduct Of
Americans on Bloody Bat
80 tIefieIds Of France.

~ tieneio8 OF France.
With the American Army.-The cal
l0usness and steady nerves Of fresh
American troops in recent advances
have gladdened the hearts of veteran
British and French who have observed
them, as well as filed with pride their
own officers. .s T. sz...r -, ...-
The horror of warfare is more ap-
parent during an offensive when an
army Is advancing than at any other
time; even during a defensive action
in retreat. Attacking troops advance
over the enemy's positions, dotted with
dead and dying, then dig in and fight
among the corpses and MANNED. Often
in counter-attack they are temporari-
ly thrust back few yards, and there
dig in and fight again, this time among
the bodies of their own fallen COM
rades.
When their advance becomes deeper,
and the enemy's retreat more general,
as in Won Boehm's retirement from the
Marine to the Vesle, the terrain be-
comes even more CHASTITY. A wide belt
OF country Is Uttered with dead men
and dead horses. The advancing army,
eager to maintain contact with the
enemy at all times, has no time to
bury or burn these corpses, respec-
lively. The supporting troops follow
Ing up the advance guards must live
and eat among these grewsome sights.
Never Feased Them.
Fresh, untried Americans, who had
not seen the frightfulness of war, al
though they had been trained In its
artiffce and had been In the line in
quiet sectors, traversed the CHASTITY
country like veterans, never turning
q hair at the sight OF dead, friends
or foes, even when they came upon
such sights as Reddy farm, Bellevue
farm, Cierges, SeriHges ct Nestes and
Sergy.
In these places, particularly the
first two mentioned, the bodies of the
Prussian Guardsmen were literally
lying in heaps, fer these picked troops
had been told to maintain their
streng point positions untR death, and
i'm most eases they followed orders.
The dead were In the distorted posi-
tioRs that ndicated how the end had
come to them. Those killed in ma
'chhe-gun pits were smashed to bits,
the effect Of kand grenades and bombs
which American advance guards had
tossed IN among them after working
round their dianks and getting in be-
hind them.
Occasionally enc saw German snip
'ers or machine gunners sprawled fiat
on The ground at the foot Of a tree
after they had been shot out of their
cam0u1aged positions among It's foil
age. The imost sickening sights were
where bodies of the enemy had at
tempted to make stands in bitches or
beside sunkan roads and had been
trapped by american enfilade machine
gun fire. The deadly automatic rifles
had ripped through whole lines of
Germans, and investigation frequently
showed that every mans body was
pierced by seven or eight bullets and
that frequently the same bullet passed
through three cor four anen. These
corpseS looked like heaps Of rags or
uniforms and equipment, SO
closely did they overlap one another.
No Trace OF Nervousness.
But, despite all, the Americans
forward, stopped three or
four times day for meals, and then
made camp, and slept at might amid |
the horrible surroundings without ever
doing more than showing q surprising
interest in the matter. re
they saw corpse in khaki they looked
It over closely to see If they knew who
t was. Only occasionally Gid they I
have tsme to inter it.; that was left to !
The .burying panties that followed them
up. As they walked through woods
and fields to get water or supplies, they
rifles, bayonetG down, kn the I
,nound to mark the spot Of every dead /
American they discovered.
But there was no trace of nervous
less and no evideAee of any Of the
men worrying or brooding over the
ate Of their fallen comrades. The
orpses We're entirely impersonal to
hem and never. ratified even the new
st recruit.
The doughboys showed no back
hardness about appropriating Luger
utOmatic pistols, the most priced
ouvenir to be had, from dead Boehes,
or did they hesitate to pluck off well
amoufaged helmets from the pates Of
[un cadavers. Z,