The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1919-02-27

relieve the fellows that were holding
the line, just went in with them. The
the Boche put a barrage down on us
and sent over raiding party into our
front line trenches. They got one pri-
soner, This made things bad for our
morning. If this fellow got yellow
and tell what the boche will try to
make him tell, they will move all their
guns which our artillery has spotted"
over the top, our barrage which is set
on their, old gun position will be use
less. and they will just NOW us down.
We laid in our holes all that day and
to the jumping off place and at five
O'Clock. think it was, our artillery OPEN
ed up and such barrage. I've had
never seen before. That lasted just
should have been there, Joe. it was
as pretty a sight as one could wish to
see. 1t was a perfect day. and those
bayonets sure looked pretty. glittering
dangerous as it was pretty. for Cantig-
ny was strongly fortified and the Ger
mans didn't like to give it up. We
run them out of the town and estab-
it. The boche didn't like this a bit SC
he formed his counter attack. which we
knew would. come, but he didn't get but
about half way across NoMan's- Land
for him. He tried the same stunt six
times and finally gave it up as bad
job.
the army Of the A. f.. r. had made. And
it is therefore Americas first victory.
We held this position four days, and
We're relieved by the 26th Infantry.
>, Went It, 4. back in reserve, STAYED our
then back to the first line that we had
established on May %. The Division
was finally relieved on l think July T..
And we st started some where unknown
going to Orleans for rest. We We're
in some little town some where in
France. taking life easy, when one day
about hour before noon, we got or
even give us time to eat our dinner
that was ready. We rolled our pack
marched out Of town couple of kilo-
meters and there were about a thousand
Nj. G. and ammunition and ourselves
and We're off for some where else. After
riding that afternoon and night, we fin
ally unloaded in a big forest just be-
that the Boche was either making a
drive or that we were going to make
one.
BY our ride on the truck we had got
ten lost from our rolling Kitchen, and
weren't allowed to eat our emergency
ration. 1t had been twenty-four hours
since we had eaten anything and we
were getting awful hungry.
About "a hours later our wagon train
got in and the cooks fixed UP a big feed
and believe me we sure put away a
bunch of them This was on the 18th
of July. We all changed clothes that
is those Of us that had clean under
got an extra issue of emergency ration,
fixed up our light pack. which contain
ed four boxes of hard tack, four cans
OF c monkey y,t meat at our shelter bat and
guns over and oiled them, inspected the
ammunition, got all the pistol ammun-
ition that we thought we could possibly
ark we sa at So un t5 our to eft
place. That was an awful night, rain
ing and darker than stack Of black
cats: Our whole Battalion was in
other fellows pack to keep from getting
lost. All the roads We're so crowded
with everything from soup kitchens to
tanks that 1T took all night to- hike
position about four o'clock, now it was
about 80, for we started over at and
l know we hadn't been there over 80
minutes. Just about ten minutes be-
fore the zero hour the Boche must have
heard our tanks coming up for he start
ed bombarding us or trying to- but
we were on. the brink Of very steep
NIL ana pnere WASH very many or MS
shells fell where we were, either went
clear over or hit on top.
About this time our artillery opened
up. The big guns Smelling the boche
artillery and the small ones laid a roll
ing barrage on the German first line.
and we started over the same minute
the artillery opened up.
Our M. G. Battalion. had been split UP
in a company. put with each battalion
Of infantry and the third battalion of
% was the one that my company was
with and we were the first wave.
Well the first couple hundred yards
we lost quite a few men but after that
our barrage had knocked out the boche
artillery and there wasn't much damage
from artillery, but there was the dead
ly machine guns But again we We're
so close up Behind our barrage that,
Heinie didn't have much time to get
back to his gun after the barrage had
raised.
Joe, was having the time of my life
then, was right in the front wave TAX
ing a. crack at every Boche that jump
ed up, with my forty-five, and had had
a lot of practice shooting too, so don't
think that l missed them all.
AS said there was lot Of fun to
this but there was a lot of work too,
for had my pack. canteen, pistol,
bolo, about 200 rounds Of ammunition
and our machine guns. Say was
sweating like "a negro at an election.
After chasing them about an hour we
came to a deep wide valley. and the bot