The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1918-10-04
RUIN AND DESOLATION
IN WAKE OF GERMANS
YANKEES VISIT KAISER
BILLS CASTLE"
Boys Sleep in Spooky, Rat-Rid-
den Nooks and Beside Gene
teries Defaced by War.

/
With the American Troops on tn,
British Front. Night. Oct 81. n. s..
AS New York state troops. that arr
fighting with the British Fourth arm!
on the Cambrai-St. Quentin front
moved up through the war-ridder
country to the front line. they gazet
with much interest on a red bricl
house, known as kaiser bills CASTLE
1t stands in a patch Of woods now
thinned by artillery fire and was built
by the Germans for a safe observation
shelter for the kaiser when he visited
| the Somme front. At that time II was
behind the German lines; now 1t Is faI
behind the British front.
The New York troops hiked through
a scared and uncanny country on their
way to the memorable battle for the
Hindenburg line. They tramped for
miles over the old Somme battlefield
and through a seemingly unending
desert of war.
There is nothing but ruin every
where. The men bivouacked in
abandoned German trenches. dugouts,
cellars and demolished villages. Amidst
this world of fury and death, they ate,
slept, joked, played cards and rolled
dice.
Utter DesoIation.
Words fail to give more than the
slightest conception of the utter de-
ISOLATION and woe amidst which the men
from New York City, Brooklyn. and
up state lived for days. The picture
can never be effaced from the human
memory.
One can motor for hours and see
nothing but "a blighted landscape torn
by mines and shells, and resembling
in many places a storm tossed ocean.
There are gaunt, blackened remnants
of trees and the jagged ruins Of
churches, factories and dwellings. all
reduced to heaps of splintered wood
and powdered brick and mortar.
Weird Environments.
Dark days and moonlit nights add
varying degrees of wierdness to the
environment which automatically and
unconsciously affect the thoughts and
emotions.
The AMERICANS slept in spooky, rat
ridden hooks, and beside ancient ceme-
teries defaced and upheaved by the
tornadoes of modern war.
They tramped over roads pitted by
mines and shells and through land
scape patched thick with wooden
crosses marking the graves of hun
dreds of men who fell as the tide OF
battle ebbed and flowed for four years.
Clumsy Crosses.
There were clumsy crosses In the
German cemeteries which adjoned the
burial grounds for the French and
British.
AS the men approached the firing
line. they passed through battle
wrecked buildings which the British
had but recently taken in bloody hand
to-hand fighting.
The Americans saw stacks Of cap
tured German equipment along the
roadside. There were helmets, rifles.
overcoats, knapsacks. ammunition. old
boots, harness and SO on, which the
Tommes had harvested In the German
dugouts.
Also they saw many German graves
skirting the roads. Each grave had
y musket stuck in it, bayonet down.
with a helmet on the butt. Some Of
the German crosses bore inscriptions,
the buried man as a hero.
and setting forth his deeds. In case
rs a line OF empty she'll jackets around
he mound.
The Americans took a deep interest
n the elaborate system of German
1ugouts. Often they We're sixty feet
leep and reached to the advanced po-
sitions.