Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1918-01-04
SOLDIERS
LEARN TO FIGHT COLD
IN FRENCH WAR ZONE
Some Are mfOrta bly,
Housed But Others Live In
Big, Cold Barns
By j. w. Pegler
Omitted Press Staff Correspondent

Omitted Press Staff Correspondent
With the American Army in France,
Jan. 4.--America s soldiers in France
are fast learning how to keep warm
under conditions as they exist in the
war zone.
How a certain military contingent
marched sixty miles in the teeth of a
blizzard son its nerve and hot stew -
was on chapter today of the story of
how the Sammies are enduring the naid
ships of the fighting man in the best
possible fashion.
1t has been bitter cold. But the cold
snap relaxed slightly today. The snow
storm paused and sickly pale sun
shed its feeble warmth over a vast
white desert over which the Americans
are putting up defensive fight against
the cold.
At noon thawing snow sent trickles
of water down red tiled roofs and cave
spouts of the billets gurgled mock
ing spring song. There is worse wealth
er and more of it coming soon-there-
fore the Samples are profiting by bit
ter experience. They are preparing to
shut out the snow and wind and shut
in the heat.
A young French soldier, home on
leave from the front and before the war
employed in New Orleans, found a
group of shivering Alabamans billeted
in his father s barn.
"'You fellows aren' t wise to this
game" he said. we been doing it
for three years. There's no use crawl
ing into the hay unless you stuff paper
in the chinks in the walls and build in
the window frames with loose bricks
like the French soldiers do when they
are billeted in deserted villages near the
front. Just watch and you'll know the
trick
The Frenchman kicked away and dis
wall. In fifteen minutes he finished the
job and plasterless masonry filled the
window aperature, through which
snow had formerly drifted,
The certain militia contingent on
completing its sixty mile hike found
its new billets intensely cold. But with
in a very short time the men had plug
ged up all the holes and started red
hot fires in portable fire buckets.
Hundreds suffered on this march
when their shoes, already badly worn,
began going to pieces. The steel hob
nails intensified the cold. Many men
in the contingent had insufficient un-
derwear and socks, while they marched
all day long in the teeth of a blizzerd.
Their Officers were not surprised
when some dropped from the ranks suf-
fering from frost bitos.
:" Only twenty one of my men failed
to finish" A" said a colonel. "The others
did that sixty miles on their nerve
and hot stew"
The housing facilities throughout the
American zone consisted of village
houses, barns and wooden "Swis
barracks. The latter are flimsy, but
when the snow is banked
high around the sides, the cracks sealed |
and the stoves burning.
"We live like gentlemen in these
huts,' said a Fall River, (Mass.) boy, |
showing an orderly row of cots with |
each man s equipment nearby.
9 We sleep in our underwear and with
our blankets rolled around us. But it s /
fierce getting up in the morning, when
the fires are out.
Thousands Of American troops are
billeted in barns. They do not live like
gentlemen. Many seldom undress except
for the periodic hot baths which are
not only available but compulsory. Face
washing TO all the troops these days is
IN Arctic ordeal and shaving is a tor
-ure-unless the soldier is lucky enough
to gtt warm water from the cOokshack