Putnam patriot. [volume] (Putnam, Conn.) 1872-1962, 1918-03-01

loney of the Engineers Corps In
France. He writes:
will tell you of a trip Red
Packer and l took last week. Before
beginning the story | must say little
something about Packer. Red is
known as the Algerian Fighter, the
bravest man in the world, $50 he
says) He has been going to fight
some Algerian ever since we have
been here, but as We he hasn't had
his chance There is a bar room in
this town and the Algerians hang
out there and every time Red goes in
there they will jump out of windows,
get under the tables or anywhere to
get out of his way. This IS what he
tells me. Of course | believe him.
Last week we had a day off and de-
cided and take good long walk As
we were walking along through some
Of the old battlefields we kept hear
ing some of the large guns booming.
Packer said, What do you say, kid, if
we go up and take a look at them?'
LEAD on, Caesar | said, I'm
your army
HE did and we went through all
of the barbed wire, old trenches and
everything else. | have only one
thing to say regarding following him
As a guide he would make good
steam filter The next time | go any
where with Packer it will be by train
or | don't go. If it wasn't for the
ocean l think he would walk home for
dinner and be back by one o'clock.
when we finally arrived within
about two miles of the big guns we
found they had stopped firing but
we kept going just the same. We had
arrived within short distance of
them when they started firing again.
We got right up behind big gun
which was in action, and believe me
it could make some noise. We put
our hands over our ears to shut out
the sound, but it did ne good. One of
the men in the gun company gave us
some cotton to put in our ears and
this helped a good deal. The gun ser
geant told us to get behind the gun
and we could see the shells going
through the air They make a noise
something like a skyrocket. We could
see it from the time it left the gun
until it got way up in the clouds 1t
looked to be about the size of base
ball while on It's way, but when on the
ground besides US it was many times
larger
"After watching them a short while
he asked US if we would like to see the
way they got the range, and we said
we would. He told US to get right
down there and | did. The gunner
showed us all about it We got to
talking and he said, How would gu
like to put one over at them? | re-
Piled, Great He said to get on the
other side of the gun and when he
said fire to let her go. Over | got
While waiting for the word | said l
hope it gets the Kaiser | had no
sooner got the word Kaiser out of nv
mouth when he shouted to fire.
pulled the string. All | heard was a
Bang | could hear, but couldn't
see the shell start on its deathly MS
sion. Every time / think of it wish
I knew how many it got. But | Will
never know. l got out and gave
Packer a chance to go down IN there
but he wouldn't do it. After seeing
about 20 more shells fired we left for
home, being two very happy boys over
our experience.
1.-The next day started out to keep
an appointment with the dentist at
one of the other camps and while
there l witnessed one of the most
beautiful air battles | have ever seen.
II was lust u o'clock when | heard
an anti-air craft gun being fired.
Locking up l could see the shells
bursting all around big German
airplane which was thousands OF feet
high. The fier was floating around
as unconcerned as if nothing was go
ing to happen. Directly over him cir
cled a British plane, which | don't
think the German saw. All at once
the aircraft gun stopped firing and
the British plane came sailing down
head first at the German, firing at
him with his machine gun as he came.
We could hear the gun and could see
the smoke plainly. When he got on
a level with the German plane both
commenced to circle around shooting
AT each other. This went on Tor
about ten minutes when all OF sud
den the German plane started toward
the ground turning completely over
and the British plane coming down
head first right behind him. When
within 500 feet Of the ground the
German plane righted and started M