The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1918-11-29

american boys VINO JOurneyed Ii those
July days when they started forward
in the face of murderons machine gun.
fire to smoke the BOches out of the
stronghold that assured their footing
In Chateau-Thierry.
climbed over graves and shell
holes, through, underbrush and past
isolated bits of barbed wire entan-
clements into the heart of the woods,
where the Boches had their dugouts.
And ut every step of the way, diff
cult to traverse even now when 1t has
been trampled over and cleared out
since the battle, wondered mt the
courage Of the boys who had faced
hidden machine guns and unknown
horrors lurking in the shadows. A
human jawbOne lay Mt the doorway Of
q hunting lodge which had been des-
perately contested for and from the
underbrush near by protruded the boots
of an unburied Hun.
A group Of dugouts off to the right
was well concealed by rocks and I'M
derbrush and l peered down into sew
| eral of them. The openings were
just big enough to permit a man to
wriggle through on his stomach and
inside was little straw and perhaps
Il battered helmet or rotting gas
mask. A good hole for dog. If the
dog wasn't particular-but the con-
Quoting officer with me assured me
that dugout of that size was used
to accommodate five men during
bombardment or barrage. When the
come out and go to work again with
their machine guns.
We saw lots of dugouts, however,
from which the Germans never
emerged. The opening had been filled
up with earth from exploding shells
and the sanitary troops that came
through after the battle were spared
the trouble of burying those men,
Many of the shell holes had n sickly
greenish hue, the mark of gas which
poisons even the earth, and around
others were mounds of empty car
tridges showing they had been used as
semiprotectlon for machine gunners.
Wrote Themselves Into Fame.
When the Germans entered Chateau
Thierry in June, they reached the apex
of triangle, the other ends of which
were at scissors and Reims. They
held the city for 30 days and were so
strongly intrenchcd that the French
and American troops who retook the
city did 1t by outilanking movements
instead of a direct drive which would
have cost many times as many lives.
The marines of the American dlyi-
SiOns which turned the scale of the
fighting, wrote themselves into fame
by taking Belleau woods. The other
troops of the divisions, eager for
similar chance of distinguished serv-
Ice. were allowed" 10 take vaux, d.
rectly to the, west Of Chateau-Thierry,
which became the pivot point for the
scissors that squeezed the Huns from
the city. American artillery battered
the village to bits and then the infan-
trymen, armed with maps which had
been drawn by an old stone mason of
the village, marched in and corralled
the Germans who had taken refuge I'm
the cellars.
The mason knew just where the cell
lars of the village were located be-
cause he had built them, so that the
cleanup" after the artillery prepa-
ration was quickly done. And the lit
tie town is now rebuilding with equal
rapidity. II lies on the main road
from La Fere to ChGteau-Thierry SO
the people are drifting back, and ms
we passed through saw carpenters
and plnsterers at work making houses
habltable. A group Of red-fczzed Mo-
roccan soldiers were clearing out
courtyard. and further down the road
were Italians repairing shell holes.
Another turn and we were In IN,
city itself, crossing the, substitute fyr
the famous stone bridge over the
Marine that the French were ten years
In the building, but which The Ameri-
cans blew up In ten minutes TO him
der the German advance last .mne.
We climbed on up to hilltop from