New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1918-10-12

che toby arrived last night from
Camp T!erritt, N. J.
Rally DcT
Rally day will be observed to-
morrow at the A. M. E. Zion church.
The usual services will be held. The
church is conducting a debt paying
campaign for the purpose of paying off
the church mortgage. The big cam
paign meeting will be held in NOVem-
Der.
Funeral of Miss Smith
The funeral Miss jeanette Smith
was held this afternoon at the home
of her parents Mr.. and Mrs. Simon
Smith Of East Main street, Rev. Gill
lette Of the Congregational church
officiating. The remains were taken
to Middlebury for burial.
Letter From Gage Kent.
Gage Kent who was once employed
in Byington's drug store, and who is
now in France with the medical
corps writes to Captain J. H. Trum-
bull, telling him of his transfer to
hospital near the fighting line, and
relates some of his experiences since
he has been near the front
Dear Captain:
Have at last got somewhere where
there is something going on in the
war game that looks more like active
service. For the past four months I
have been working in a Camp In
Urinary on paper work mostly, al
though we did quite q lot of dressing,
but the wounds we dressed there
were not from bullets as it was an
Engineers Depot. Had a chance to
see something of the magnitude Of
the work required to run war from
the Service Of Supply. Was trans
ferred from the gath Engineers to
Evacuation Hospital, No. 8, of the list
Army Corps and have been on the
move considerably up to the present.
Hope we stay in our present head
quarters for a while as we have taken
over a French hospital and it is
somewhat more convenient than
working in tents and sleeping under
the stars.
Had quite a time finding the out
fit as they were moving about at the
time but got to- see quite lot of
France because of it. We had a. sec
ond class coach to ourselves Ithere
were twenty five in the bunch) and
on the cushions, with. the train bump
ing along and stopping at every sid
ing.
Got into several air-raids and know
how it feels to climb out Of bed and
tear into a dugout with nitroglycerine
and other high explosives dropping
all around There is a peculiar SIMS
ter sort of hum to the Mercedes en-
zines used by the Boche planes, that
one doesn't forget having once heard
It, There seems to be two distinct
tones to it about an octave part and
readily distinguishable from the
sound of the Allied planes. 1t certain
w is a most wonderful sight to see
and hear an air raid at night and one
is somewhat inclined to forget that it
is also more Or less dangerous to be
in the immediate vicinity during the
display not only from the aeroplane
bombs but from the shells fired by
the anti aircraft guns. have a
souvenir of a lead bullet, or ball,
rather, which hit the ground much
too close to be omfortable. 1t was
from a shell fired during the raid.
helmet affords considerable protec-
ton.
Was down to a certain famous bat
tleground not long ago and was out
examining some giant shell craters,
some of them large enough to set
small house in when 7 came across
an abandoned German one-man au-
tomato rifle with several clips lying
near loaded, These clips are in the
shane of a half circle and snap in on
the underside Of the barrel in front
of the trigger. Don't know whether
Won have seen them or not but these
rifles weigh about twice what an or
binary gun weighs and have two han
dies projecting downward to hold
them by. They have an air cooling
system with bell-shaped muzzle
looking very much like an old time
blunderbus used in the time of the
PILGRIMS. The breech and bolt recoil
and reload much the same as the Colt
automatic but when the breech closes
it leaves the firing pin caught on the
scar until just as it locks when very
clever mechanism revolves slightly In
A. groove and releases the pin and
fires the piece. The whole thing is
very simple except the clip which
holds about Is cartridges and is Ii