The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1919-03-06

fensiye by the Yanks from being
neat a Job as the nifty cleanup 0
the ST. Mihiel salient, is the state
ment OF Sergeant Roll Philips, 55tt
Artillery brigade, 114th Regiment
B battery, who has just returned
his home in this city. from France
with nine months service and tw
wound stripes to his cerdit.
Argonne Slaughter Pen.
"The Argonne was slaughter pen
for our men as we'll as for the Jer-
ries," said Phillips. after the first
advance it was a question of trans
portation that couldn't ,tansport
There were no roads and the mud
holes were bottomless I have seen
as many as 20 horses hitched to one
gun, Feed for the horses, Chow for
the men and ammunition for the guns
all ran short as the fight went on
The men were hungry, the nufses
were snake-poor and we were idle
for lack of ammunition much of the
| time. This was all due to a lack of
road systems.
"At st. Mihieli there was literally
network of hard roads The men
were fresh, the horses were fresh
and Fat and we cleaned EN- up in
short order We would have done it
in the Argonne if we had had the
roads,
MuzzIe to Muzzle.
Sergeant Phillips fought with ten
different divisions, seeing action at
Chateau Thierry st. Mihiel, Verdun
and the Argonne. His two stripes
are for being gassed and shell shock
ed.
Continuing the story Sergeant Phil
lips said, "Only one time in my ex-
perience did we get to fire point
blank on Fritz battery That little
duel was the hottest thing we ran
lllJO. uSlS WcIS iOul uetllSllOo VI
German guns against our one bat
terry of 75s. We were in sight of
each other both out in the open and
we finished all four of them in about
10 minutes There was no range
finding. 1t was simply guage your
gun by looking through the open
sights, and then let them have it.
Infantry in Trouble.
"Our battery with the rest of the
divisional artillery, was stationed
back in the woods where we had been
whanging away at tagets we couldn't
see. The infantry had filed by, had
gone over the top of the hill and
down into valley. They had passed
by a bunch of camouflaged machine
gun nests over on our left flank. 4
"The Boche infantry was set on the
side of the opposite hill. Suddenly
the order came for B battery to ad
vance. We limbered up and went |
forward as rapidly as possible and |
soon came out of the woods into the |
open country. There was nothing |
between US and the Boche but a
long slope down, then a little valley,
then up on the other side. Not
tree grew in that space. Our infant
ry was trying to advance up that
bare hill.
Duel Opens Up. I
1--WE wheeled and unlimbered our
guns. Over near the crest of the OPP
posite hill we could see four Boche
They were firing right
lown the throats of our infantry.
Their infantry was playing on our
men with rifles and from our flank
hose machine gun nests were taking
IN awful toll We could see the kha-
,a-clad men going down by the score
rom the three concentrated fires
CAS- best | could judge we were
bout three quarters Of nile or
possibly a mile from the Dutc'mel.
yhen we opened up, point-biank
heir guns were trained on the in
antry. We were giving them all we
ad from each of the four guns, fir
lg from 10 to 10 rounds a minu e
er gun. Before they knew we we
lere. we had knocked out several
f their guns, but the remaining one
lrned back on US and we had it hot
nd heavy. We could see every flash
{ their guns and could see our hit
was the spectacular bit of war that
rtists paint, but which is seldom
zen on the battle field In about
, minutes we had si,enced Their
ur batteries of artillery and were
'opping high explosives on the ma
line gun nests. In half an hour we
I'd cleaned up that bunch of trouble
Id all was we'll
Does an Annette KeIerman.
"In the Argonne l got so I could
II by the sound about where the
rivals were going to hit Lots of
mes we didn't hunt cover because
: knew the she'll was going to land