The Evening Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1917-1920, 1918-11-06
BEN BULL WRITES OF
NIGHT At THE FRONT
Former NJ. u. Student With
Field Artillery in Bonn
bardment Near Verdun.
FOUND MINE FIELDS
Yanks Capture in One Night
Positions Which Took 4
Years to Build.

stormcd and captured positions the
Germans spent four years in forti>
flying. is related by Corporal Ben NJ.
Bull, former student in the UNIVERSE
ty and member of the Kappa Alpha
fraternity, with the overseas force,
in a letter to his parents, Mr. and
Mrs. James NJ. Bull, 5519 Clemens
avenue. St. Louis. He tells of rece:v-
ing his baptism by fire" with otter
ST. LOuisans. The letter was pIb-
lished in the ST. Louis Globe-DemO-
crat.
The majority of dead Germans en-
countered we're scarcely more than
boys, he said. Only a few of them
appeared to be over 20. In their re-
treat, the Germans left mines under
vacated areas, but were forced to
take such hurried flight that they he'd
no time to remove the warning posted
for their own men.
Corporal Bull, who is 20 years old,
enlisted in August, 1917, while a stu
dent in the University. He went
overseas from Camp Doniphan, Ok,
last March He is stationed with
Battery A, One Hundred and Twenty
eighth Field Artillery.
In Regular War.
His letter, IN part. follows:
I'VE are back from the front again,
billeted in a little town for few
days. This time our campaign WAS
no rest cure, as was our first one.
We were in a regular war. Suppose
you have heard of the part the boys
from Missouri and Kansas played in
it.
Would like to cable you l am still
in one piece, as | know you will be
anxious when you see the casualty
lists with st. Louis names. We made
a hurried, forced march, day and
night, from our positions in reserve
at the ST. Mihiel drive, and jailed
into action west of Verdun the day
after the big show started. We got
cur baptism of fire there the second
night. Our position was sheiled and
about an hour later the allied artil-
lery cut loose for a twelve-hour bonn
bardment, which effectually silenced
the battery working on US.
DOughbOys Outran Them.
We made our first advance the next
afternoon, but our doughboys had
gone too far for us and we couldn't
fire We stayed all night in this po-
sition and left the next morning. We
then covered the ground formerly oc-
cupied by the Huns, and found out
what is war They had abandoned
everything cumbersome in their hur-
ry, but we were going too fast to
bother with souvenirs. | got belt
and some uniform buttons, which l
will send soon. Also l picked up a
helmet but threw it away after car
rying it a half mile. We were going
too fast for our food wagons, so
several of us made meals of German
canned stuff. Didn't do more than
taste their bread. 1t looks like BOs-
ton brown bread, but, of course, is
not rich, and is sour instead OF
sweet
From the defenses they had one
would think they could have stood
a siege of a year. Dugouts from fif-
ty to one hundred feet deep, fitted
up with hunks, kitchens, ETC., and
miles of barbed-wire fencing. In one
particularly strong hill we found
Young Hohenzollern's fat from the
inscription on the door. 1t was deep
underground, and equipped with cleo
trio lights, beds, bathtubs and other
conveniences.
Work Required Four Years.
All of this work it had taken them
four years to do, and we had run
them out in one night. Most of all
the dead Huns we saw were young,
very few being as old as 20. We
found newspapers, some of them be-
ing about four days old. Barutio Ia
member of the detachment familiar
with GERMANY read some of them to
me. There is in the September pa
pers an entirely different tone than
that expressed in March.
They talk lots of after the war, and
devote a good deal of space to letting
the people down easy, from their orig
inal expectations, as to what they are
going to get later. They tell of Old
Bill himself, making speeches to and
fraternizing with factory hands. Also
lots of talk in them about a league
of nations. including the central pow
ers and the allies. They hit the
English hard, but don't give a word
about Americans or what they are
doing.
The papers are trying to close the
peoples eyes to our work, and this
at the same time they are getting
banged by the Yanks at St. Mihiel
The next morning we were gone
again and by noon had caught up
with the fireworks, going through
shellfire on the roads. l was never
so scared in my life as when we were
being shelled on the road in plain
view of the Germans and no pro-
lection whatever.
Regains His COmposure.
Shells we're bursting on all sides