Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-07-03
Clifford WoIking, Fifth Cav
airy, Operated Automatic
Rifle in Fight at Juarez and
In Chase That Followed.


Clifford WolMng NJ troop. Fifth
cavalry, gives detailed account of
the routing Of the Villa forces by SOL
diars from Fort Bliss after their al
I tack on Juarez and their flight into
the interior of Chihuahua, in a letter
to mis- father, w Z. Wolking, COZ
/ West Silver avenue.
The letter in part follows;
After a short nap Sunday after
noon l got ready for c, r. and then
WAS not sure / would be allowed to go
anyway. We had supper and then
! thought I'd better go down and see
about the automatic rifle as the one
| had then had a wooden pin where
there should have been steel one.
| The supply sergeant was loading up
| magazines when / went down and
after | had seen to getting a good
new rifle and the special belt that
| gees with it | helped load up maya
zines The night before we had
magazines aIong but they were not
! Li'lrd and ! was surprised that he
VAS goirC 10 that trouble Sunday
rj&ht lHIt as it happened it was
! mighty folTtrate that he did.
Sergeant Bowman came down ard
got 4 gun and Corporal Bupien also
had one. We each had about nine
magazines or $50 rounds of ammuni-
ton " IT, us There was for each of
us a @H"li, + 10 carry most of the magl
azinCs.
''Bcfotc w got all these loaded up
lit was GEOUt oClock-sOme one
came down ara said we were to saddle
IN at once. We finished as quickly
sa,,dIed M ard the troon barber tool;
nv good sized. Man So had IN take
old ,nono,'
we tr0tt,d nearly the whole three
or eur mics to the river where we
EnItrl ard rrapared to spend the
| r,ent as we had tha nrevious ono r,r-
fore LONG iii, nontoon warors Of The
Eighth tneineers moved mast ne "a
thh ri;.er bar,l< and started to unIooa
\ little later We mounted ana started
down the river and some outfit-i+
was o r'c5Ccly and too darl, "a see
wiz cr-startad 10 ford tho ri,or in,t
wherc he had becn ana 81 we know
wn were really goinp into Nevico This
tIo,n
81 tool, the nrecautior to +ia y
handkerchief around tbe somewhat
omen r,ech.nisp, of tbe provri,,g a,,y
i To- he I In to L, ~
nu+ of u figbt I,, a dirt,1 ,,,n ;s 7
cn1,}d ht1r II
..nftor marching dow, +bo ri,-o,.
| half r,i1r we came to a nloce whore
We could ford NJ +roon uos Tho cor
one in cclumn-for which 7 was
tbanlfu1--for aIready whom v,o croe.-
cd the nossino Of tbcea ahood or us
had started tho sand Of tho eon1
har ca that when a horse mt down
his foot If o1Iatyad and SHOOT, like iaI1v
\ and when we got to the other side +Uo
horses one after the other inst ohead
az me sunl. down 70 their bellies and
hardly pot not T tool, the hint and
,,,,.rnd to the ripht a LITTLE ana there
the bottom was etiu fairly firm
"Tba machine gnr troon Ieading
Their mules laden with . ana rounds Of
an1m1,rftion an.ece. was less fortu-
notn than WI. T,,.o of tho ,o,,1ee eonl-
ont of sigbt-with tha valuable loads
As soon as we were all across-that is
~ sa, al tha cavalry for, II yos onlv
MS who crossed there-the signal
corns detachment nut I'm their v,jrc-
rcee ontfit and Colonel ,romnkirs who
was in charge CT 'he cavalry had a
talk with Fort Bliss, General Err
why
"Tbor we nrocoaded toward Tuarez
uithCrt incident for several miles AL
tborch II was midnight the peopIa
wore IN in MANY of the honses we
( noesod ord ei1an+lv matched nc yporcI,
wv Al one Mace we PASSED a horse
+bot had baen killed n counIe Of davs
before wing in the middle Of the road
"Ahout this time we hoard consider
able artillery fire over TO the south Of
ruarez and thought it was villa she'll
ING that town. Later we learned that
4 vas the Fiphty-second field artillery
she1ling the race track where Villa
was cnnprepatinp his troops nrepara-
tory to Withdrawing from Juarez
which he had almost completely
otl,an
Here we stopped and the wireless
was set up again and the colonel again
ranorted 70 the general
srThan Tieutenant smith was sent
ont with a natroI of six men from NJ
troon toward the west and soon after
u,o hoard a number of shots in that
direction NJ troop mounted and
etartad ont with orders to go to the
1000 tracl, and see what we could
COO
"After we had gone about a quar-
fer of a mile we rode out from behind
a bigb adobe wall into a stretch OF the
road unshaded bv trees and flooded
with the white moonlight. Just then
a volley of shots rang out and more
followed. The captain commanded
fight on foot and we jumped off ana
rushed to the side of the road some
of us being in such a hurry that we
did not hand over our reigns to the
one man in the four who stayed
mounted. AS a consequence most OF