The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-09-27
EAT SOME GOOSEIT WAS "HELL"
If You Monday That Is Way
You'll Have Money All Year. Der the ArgOnne.
That Is Old Superstition ScrapThat Is
by Many People, What All Say.
IT IS MCHAELMAS DAY BROKE BACKBONE OF HUNS
Catholic Churches Sept Boys
Observe Feast Day. Lived Under Fire.
It's Origin Is Given Many Man Who Lived Thru Whole
Famous Authors. Period Tells
That Is Way Soldiers Renhem'
her the ArgOnne.
1t Was Great Scrap-That Is
What All Say.
BROKE BACKBONE OF HUNS
Night of Sept. 90 Kansas Boys
Lived Under Fire.
Man Who Lived Thru Whole
Period Tells of 1t.

Hell"
Simply spoken and without the
slightest seeming of being an exple-
tive. the word is the description given
by a doughboy of the Thirty-fifth di-
vision w1en asked what the second
day of the great Argonne Offensive
was like.
1t is just a year and a day since the
troops of Kansas and Missouri. the
erstwhile tin soldiers" of regular
army parlance went over the top in
the attack on Vauquois hill. 1t is just
year and a day since the fighting
men OF Kansas and Missouri swept a.
fighting horde of Huns from a great
"impregnable" and made the first dent
in the famed Hindenburg line
At 2:30 o'clock on the morning of
September &c, 1918, the maws of more
than 5000 masse1 guns beIched fire
and flame and sheets of steel on the
German lines. Almost hub to hub the
cannon stood in serried lines behind
the twenty-five-mile front of the
American First army where it faced
the German lines in the Argonne
wood.
Broke Hun Spirit.
At $50 o'clock in the morning of
September &c the barrage lifted, and
the warriors of Kansas and Missouri
began the advance which finally broke
the Hun heart and ended with a sec
ond Sedan. 1t was the first real hell
hour for the troops of the Thirty-fifth
division-it was the American hour of
destiny.
The doughboys had lain in the
iump-of lines all night long. And
when the barrage lifted in the morn
ing the bayonet hands of the Thirty
fifth were waiting and ready.
The day was damp and foggy-the
air was so full of the lowering damp
ness that it was impossible to see
half a score Of PAGES in any direction.
The churning shellS of the barrage
eddied the fog clouds until the rend-
ing flashes of the bursting shell
looked like & long line of crafty dane
ing, whirling dervises. The ground
shook and trembled as tho in the
grasp of giant hand. The ground
fairly foamed like the waves of the
sea in the long line of the barrage.
1t was behind this sort of protection
that the infantrymen of the Thirty
fifth division advanced to the attack
on Vauquois Hill-the Dead Mans hill
of the French.
Over in IS Minutes.
In forty-five minutes the famous
hill which had cost the lives of tens
of thousands of poilu was overrun by
the men of Kansas and Missouri. The
warriors of the western plains had
done in forty-five minutes what the
French had been unable to accom-
plish in four years of bitter war.
Nor did the infantrymen stop here.
They thrust forward taking Cheppy
and Very, and Varennes, and the line
o
advanced more than three miles from
where it was in the morning of the
same day.
But the Thirty-fifth had outrun its
artillery; had outpaced the Twenty
eighth on its left, and outdistanced
the Ninety-first division on it's right
Tho Thirty-fifth was the outthrust
limb on the log of the First army ad-
vance. The men of the four infan-
try regiments-the 18th. 13Sth, 18th
and 140th-were out in front and ex-
posed to shell and machine gun fire
from three sides. Incidentally the di-
vision maintained this sort of position
turnout the six days of the offensive.
When night fell that evening-Sep-
TENDER Is. 191S-the Thirty-fifth men
were dug in, lying in trenches hastily
constructed with bayonet and mess
tin. They were tired and hungry. apd
all the time were under the direct fire
Of German artillery and machine guns.
Back behind the advance lines that
night the engineers worked with might
and main in the endeavor to make
passable the shell and mine torn
roads The artillerymen cried bitterly
as they tried in vain to drag forward
the heavy guns and limbers which
spelled safety and protection for the
( doughboys at dawn on the fatal 27th.
II was to no avail. Labor as they
might, tug and haul with heart and
soul nerving the muscles. 1t was i'm
possible. The guns could not come up.
Prayed for Protection.
| And when morning came, just one
/ year ago today, the national guards
men of Kansas and Missouri lay in
their trenches praying for the protect
! ing hail of steel to come. But there
was no protection and the advance
was ordered. Twice and three times
was the attempt made during the day.
| Each time the Germans moved the
advancing troops down. Then at 2
o'clock in the afternoon of the 9th,
the first shells of the belated artillery
! of the Americans screamed overhead.
At $3.50 o'clock in the evening the
fourth advance of the day was ordered.
and the infantry men swept forward
protected by a thin barraEe hurled by