New-York tribune., 1918-10-21
Continued from page 1

without misgiving. It's issue is Boche-
lard. This is why America should not
grow impatient with Pershing's hard
fighting armies here in the east while
other armies are dashing forward by
leaps and bounds. "Patience" should
be the watchword. Pershing's turn
will come.
The character Of the Americans bat
tie is no better illustrated than in the
terrific fighting which preceded the
capture of the Cote de Chatillon by one
of our famous veteran divisions. Cha
tillon Hill lies Immediately southwest
of the village Of Landres ct Saint
George, marking the apex of the Kriem-
hide Stellung. With heavily wooded
slopes running to the crest. 718 feet
high, it dominates the encrcling hills
around it and the tangled forests of
| Romagne and Bantheville on the east.
Possibly no natural stronghold at Yer
+ dun ever offered such a formidable bar
! rier to advancing troops.
New Workers in Battle
1t was the task of this division, some
of whose men hail from New York
State, and the forty-eight hour battle
here will doubtless gain mention in the
histories of the future, saner days.
Foot by foot, hour by hour, night and
day, the Americans fought through the
y nc -.
woven through and around trees and
underbrush on the slopes. The Ger
mans, knowing their position to be the
key to the surrounding hills and val
leys, massed machine guns between
every belt of wire encircling the strong
hold from top to bottom. Snipers
lurked everywhere and hand grenade
fighting figured constantly in the never
ending combat.
Covered with mud, with hair matted,
their boards growing, their faces black,
the Americans crawled mostly on their
stomachs, cutting the wire, bobbing
through it, wiping out resistance whcr-
ever it was found. Meantime halls of
machine-g gun bullets swept them from
the crest and lone "seventy-seven"
cannon fired constantly at direct range.
German and American dead inter
mingled thickly on the slopes when the
doughboys began to approach the crest
Thursday morning. And here, encir-
cling the summit, they found in the
thickness centre spiderweb which the
spider formed of scores Of sputtering
machine guns and the lone cannon still
belchng direct fire. A heavy belt of
wire completely enclosed the crest.
Huns Fought to Death
While others held the positions un
der terrific fire some descended again
and dragged heavy trench mortars up
the hillside to deal with the wire. Fir
ing at less than 100-yard range, the
mortars soon tore great gaps in the en-
and the doughboys, with
yells, leaped ahead with only the cold
steel in their hands. Fire burst from
the summit, and the Germans stuck to
their posts under protection of their
we'll built pits and machine gun nests,
and the gunners in most cases had to
be bayoneted at their weapons. /
The agonized screams of those who !
gave up their lives so hard were weird
and uncanny, according to the men who
recounted their experiences TODAY.
Some Germans rushed out to surrender
before the cold steel reached them. but
the majority died the deaths of fanat-
les, bowling like wounded wild beasts. !
The lone seventy seven" was taken
intact, its crew still firing as they were |
run through with the bayonet
Once the crest of Chatillon Hill was