Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-07-17
No Wonder Germany Quit
NUMBER THIRTY-FIVE

"The Boche had an idea when the
Americans first got into the trenches
that we did not know anything about
soldering" said Major Frank Z.
Mahin. of the Army Recruiting Sta
ton, 325 Market street, HARRISBURG
"Rut they had failed, as usual, TO
take into consideration the fact that
the American Regular Army, small
as ii was, knew thing or two about
military affairs and had passed out
their knowledge under high pressure
to all the newly raised troops. me
result of the Boche opinion of the
Americans was that we had beautl-
full chance to put something over on
them and maybe we didn't take full
advantage of such opportunities.
For example, the latter part OF July
l got word that our own divisional
artillery had finished their training
and were coming in behind us IN u
few days. That was chance that
couldn't be lost so l began to pre-
pare my little stunt. AS soon as our
bows came in behind us they started
fire of registration on different
places in the Boche lines. 1 figured
that within four days of their arrival
the Boche would feel certain the
American artillery was in and would
start looking for them and strating
them on the slightest provocation.
The fourth night l went out eXplor-
ing and found the exact direction
one battery was firing and also found
that a bout 600 yards in front of this
battery was a meadow which would
lust suit my purpose. We got busy
at once and by daylight, directly un-
der where the shells had been flying
we had a dummy battery set up. 1t
was in the middle of the meadow
a rotten poor place for battery and
consisted of piece of chicken wire
camouflaged, with the ends of four
old, rusty, broken pieces of stove
pipe sticking out Then a numper
of men had spent half an hour or
so walking back and forth from a
patch to the dummy battery in order
to wear plainly defined trail
through the grass. Other men had
taken tree boughs and beaten down
the grass in front of each gun
You know when a cannon is hred
the rush of hot gases follow the
shell out of the barrel and on strik-
ing the air spread out with great
force to the front forming what is
known as the blast The blast of
two or three shots will lay the grass
in front of the gun absolutely fiat
and this shows plainly on an aerial
photograph. Now the Boche, dur
ing the night, had undoubtedly got
ten the exact direction from which
our fire was coming and also had
gotten the approximate distance, so
when they found the dummy battery,
it's location would be practically cor
rect for the battery that had really
N..... a 1..,lF - a. ~
the morning a Boche plane came
over, flying low and looking for the
Yank battery. Pretty soon he saw
it, dipped, shot down very low,
circled a couple of times and then
started back for Germany as fast as
he could go. We lay there in the
woods and laughd at him for we
knew he was thinking to himself
that there is where the stupid Ameri-
can pigs get what is coming to them.
Some thought the Boche would open
up inside of twenty minutes but the
majority thought it would take long
er as they would want to first verify
the reported location by the firing of
the night before. Sure enough it
took them about forty minutes, but
when they did open up they did one
beautiful job. When they decided
to call it a day there was nothing
but huge hole in the meadow where
the dummy battery had been and we
figured the Boche had expended
about $4,000 in ammunition to de-
stroy four worthless old sections of
stove pipe, and I presume their re-
ports for the day showed a great
victory and the destruction, total and
complete, of battery of American
artillery"