The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1919-08-05

tne mOSt part Sill uuDuTieu. Inc
trenches are full and the ground
covered with bodies in all stages of
decomposition, from skeletons, who
were killed in the early part Of the
war to those who were killed while
we were there. The allies buried
their own dead as soon as possible,
but the Germans were left until some
future time, when the business of
killing and getting killed was not so
important. In all our positions after
the first drive we occupied territory,
that had been hurriedly abandoned
by the enemy and we always found
their dugouts full of dead and dying,
and of course they would have to be
cleaned out before we could occupy
them. We would carry or drag the
bodies out and pile them into the
nearest she'll hole. and shovel some
dirt on them, just like burying a
bunch of dead dogs, have actually
known of several cases where men
would get to a dugout late at night
and be too tired to clean it out and
sleep with five or ten dead F'ritzies
for company.
I suppose you have seen the ad-
vertisement in the papers or maya
zines for a certain brand of tobacco
which says, "Your nose knows
Well, that is the way with the whole
battle front in France. When you
get within FIVE miles of the front
line your nose knows" The smell
is something awful, seems like at
times I can still smell it. f'A III
( / suppose all the boys from there
who went over were in the infantry
and you don't know much about artil-
lery, so I will try and tell you q little
about it. Artillery, today is real
science. You know In the war of the
revolution and even down to our
civil war, whenever an artillery unit
went into position they loaded their
old muzzle loading cannons with
scrap iron, rocks or anything else
that happened to be handy and could
be rammed into their guns; pointed
them in the general direction of the
enemy, trusted in God and pulled
the lanyard. In the artillery of to-
day things are somewhat different.
Everything is worked out with math-
amethical precision. If should tell
you that at every new position we
took up, we used a solar transit and
took an observation on the sun, or
If the day was cloudy we took an
observation on polaris, at night, you
would wonder what that had to do
with firing a big gun. Well, we did
just that very thing. With the long
range guns that we used in France
and they were not the longest range
guns we had over there only firing
at extreme range about ten miles, of
course we never saw the target we
were firing at. Aviators would fly
over the enemy lines and take photo
graphs and those were plotted on
battle maps, showing the position
of the enemy works, his trenches,
artillery positions, machine gun
nests, railroads, cross roads, etc.
Then our gun positions would be
plotted on that same map. Then
after we had laid base line and
established our north and south by
solar it was practically an easy job
for azimuth or direction and scale
the range from the map YOU would
be surprised how wonderfully acurate
we could place our shots. Sometimes
a captive balloon will be sent up
from the battery that is firing and
an observer will watch where the
shcts strike and signal down to the
battery that is in action, up or down.,
right or left, which ever the case
may be, and correct for errors in that
way. But If the orienteur data is
correct and the base line and north
and south correctly established the
gun will put the shots wherever
they are wanted In the Argonne
fire on cross road where the Ger
mans were bringing up ammunition
and supplies. We started firing at
midnight and at daylight a ballon
went up for observation. He signalled |
down that the shells were falling |
where the cross road should be, but |
he couldn't see any sign of the roads.
After the action was over we went. |
forward and found that the ground |
for 500 yards around where the
cross roads had been was literally |
blasted away Nothing less than
tank could have gotten thru there
after we quit firing. So you can see
that artillery work of this day is as
said before, matter of science.
when | first went over to France
was a sergeant and chief plotter in
the coast artillery corps. When we
went to the front | was made bat
talon orienteur sergeant, and my
iuties were to lay out the base lines,
establish true north and compute the
lata for the orientatien of the guns.
had detail of two sergeants, two
,orporals and four privates. We had
| big white automobile for transport
alton of our instruments etc.
We always went ahead of the rest
If the battalion and saw everything
hat was to be seen. We had eight
" inch guns in our battalion, of
english make called Howitzers and
hey sure delivered the goods. They
lred a projectile weighing d 800
POUNDS containing that high expli-
i've called INT Gf had more paper
would write that name out for you,
ut it is too long and doesn't make
ny difference to you anyway
Our battalion was the only ,Ameri-
an unit in France using that make
# pIIn and wa ware tho haaviact |