Norwich bulletin., 1919-04-28
NORWICH VscTOPY ECMGS.
CAPT. FRANK E. WITHEE IS
 PATRIOTIC SUNDAY SPEAKER

Patriotic Sunday was observed at i the Trinity Methodist church on Sun day evening by an address by Captain Frank H, Withee, Field artillery of the
 First army, and two months under fire I in the Argonne and the Mouse drives.
 Preceding Captain Witness address, i John E. Stanton, a minuteman, speak i ing in behalf of the Victory loan. told
 of the need of putting over the present 1 loan.
 i Captain Withee spoke as follows: In i 1917, on July 18th. I was called into ! the service in command of the then 18th national guard company of Dan ielson and l had 125 of the best men ] that ever donned a uniform. We were sent to Fort Terry and assigned to the o6th regiment. my company forming the unit around which Battery D was 1 formed. Our trip across was unevent- i ful, taking seven days. We landed at Brest, famous Brest! We then went to the barracks built by Napoleon. To
 look at these barracks ] guess we were the first to use them since Napoleon quit. We had just got them cleaned
 up and habitable when We were order
 ed to move. We went via box cars to C.airemont Ferrand, where the artil- lery training took place. l was sent to an officers school near Paris and
 when l got back 1 applied for 3 trans
 lCis SOl II. w ho dSSiG,IltAt u llIC
 trench artillery, better known as the suicide squad. Tn order to be an efii-
 cer in command of this delie eLtful
 squad 1 was sent to another school where there were 5000 officers. Then 1 was sent to another camp. All went well for a few days and then someone , came around and. told all those who
 had not been up front to sign. } signed, and within three days ] had my ! 5a;,, tIo r,f
 Where the 56th was at that time. l did - not know. and no one else seemed to i. know, either. 1 started out to find it t learned they had been up through ? Chat teau Thierry and were driving l. northwest. l followed on after them !! as best l might. After four or five ! days l caught up with them near St t Mihiel and to celebrate my arrival they
 opened up one of the fiercest barrages [ of the war. There were 1900 guns ir U line on that front and all barking ano splitting death at the same time. The
 fire started at 11.30 and by 8 o'clock ; the prisoners were pouring into oul T lines-some singly others in groups z and some in companies of two ane Il three hundred. They all wanted to SC,
 the machine guns that had been shoot ing the 75s. The Americans had han
 dled the famous 75s with such rapidit.
 that the Huns thought we had enor A nous machine guns.
 n Our objective was Sedan in ten days V but we never reached it, as the armis n tiee was signed before we could ge ', there. It was a rainy day that tn ,a armistiee was signed. All the mornin h the Huns had been peDpering, us an if we had been replying in equally goo ,a measuref By my watch it was 11.0 ,t when the last shell was let fly. The Ie came a deadly calm after the roar o ,- battle. Everyone seemed awestrucl I, not knowing what to do next. Thi ,f wore off by 3 o'clock and before dar 26 our boys were swapping Bull Durhar h for spiked helmets with the German if Out of the 125 thta went from Dan 1r ielson all came back except one, an
 he died at Fort Terry. In closing, Car ,s tain Withee made a strong appeal fc n the Victory loan, saying that he kne " what it meant to feel that the peep ra at home were in back of you. H 1d urged the people to keep this spirit U