Newport daily independent., 1918-11-27
CALLOUS AMID HORRORS OF WAR GreWsome Sights of Battle Fail to Shake Nerves of
 Tanks.
QUICKLYADAPT THEMSELVES
Admiration of French and British Vet, erans Is Aroused by Conduct of Americans on Bloody Bat
 tlefieIds of France.


 With the American Army-The cal lousness 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 filled with pride their own officers.
 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 a retreat. Attacking troops advance over the enemy's positions, dotted with dead and dying, then dig in and fight among the corpses and maimed. Often in a 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 Von Boehm's retirement from the Marne to the Vesle, the terrain be- comes even more ghastly. A wide belt of country is filtered 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.
 hIaxar EeaeoI Tbaro
 Fresh, untried Americahs, who had not seen the frightfulness of war, al- though they had been trained in it's artifce and had been in the line in quiet sectors, traversed the ghastly country like veterans, never turning hair at the sight of dead, friends or foes, even when they came upon such sights as Reddy farm, Bellevue farm, Cierges, Seringes ct Nesles and Sergy.
 In these places, particularly the first two mentioned, the bodies of the Prussian Guardsmen were literally lying in heaps, for these picked troops had been told to maintain their strong point positions unjl death, and in most gases they followed orders.
 The dead were in the distorted posi- tions that indicated how the end had come fo them. Those killed in ma chine-gun pits were smashed to bits, the effect of hand grenades and bombs which American advance guards had tossed n among them after working round their Hanks and getting in be- hind them.
 Occasionally enc saw German snip CTS or machine gunners sprawled fiat on the ground at the foot of a tree after they had been shot out of their camouflaged positions among its foli- age. The most sickening sights were where bodies of the enemy had at tempted to make stands in ditches or beside sunken roads and had been trapped by American enfilade machine gun fire. The deadly automatic rifles had ripped through whole lines of Germa -', and investigation frequently showed that every mans body was pierced by seven or eight bullets and that frequently the same bullet passed through three or four men. These corpses looked like heaps of rags or discarded uniforms and equipment, so closely did they overlap one another.
 No Trace of Nervousness.
 But, despite all, the Americans marched forward, stopped three or four times day for meals, and then made camp, and slept at night amid the horrible surroundings without ever doing more than showing a surprising preliminary interest in the matter. If they saw corpse in khaki they looked it over closely to see if they knew who 1t was. Only occasionally did they have time to inter it; that was left to the burying parties that followed them up. AS they walked through woods and fields to get water or supplies, they implanted rifles, bayonets down, in the ground to mark the spot of every dead American they discovered.
 But there was no trace of nervous ness and no evidence of any of the men worrying or breeding over the fate of their fallen comrades. The corpses were entirely impersonal to them and never rattled even the new est recruit.
 The doughboys showed no back wardness about appropriating Luger automatic pistols, the most prized souvenir to be had, from dead Boches, nor did they hesitate to pluck off we'll camoufiaged helmets from the pates of Hun cadavers,