Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-09-29
TODAY - AND
ONE YEAR AGO
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and went back again. The comlepte
| list OF the divisions engaged in this
gigantic battle were the 1st End, 3rd.
4th, 5th. 26th, 2Sth, goth, 32nd. 33rd,
S5th, 37th, 42nd, nth, 18th, 10th. soth,
send. S9th, Goth, 91st. In all about one
J million two hundred thousand men took
part. Towards the end of the battle
we were using about 1000 guns. In
all we fired four and a quarter million
shells, about the same number as were
fired during the entire Civil War.
But despite the horror of the dead,
of the wounded. shattered men, of the
desolated country, there was something
that battle that defies description.
Clever war correspondents have visited
| the front and written wonderful de-
scriptions but they came up for a few
days from Paris, rode around in lin
cuisines, tramped through the mud for
. a few hours or a couple of days and then
went back to Paris and tried to describe
a battle. No one can possibly grasp
what it really was like either from
words or from photographs. You had
to be there, part of the vast machine
to be able to grasp what it really was
| like. In spite of the mud and cold,
in spite of the gold fish Canned SAL
mon) and 'corned Willy (corned beef),
in spite of death and wounds, no one
who was there can think of it now with
| out a thrill
At the End
! can never forget one night when we
moved in alongside of a camp of re-
placements, waiting to be assigned to
! fill the vacancies in some division. There
were veterans of the 1st Division, with
their two service chevrons, back from
hospital for another whack at the Boche
! wounded from the divisions who fought
! in the Marine salient and in the ST
Mihel. cured and back for duty, and
| there were pale, clean faced lads just
from the States, curious, interested in
everything and little frightened. For
a wonder it had stopped raining, though
the clouds were still hanging low. The
requirements had just come in and were
standing around in groups watching the
sights. To the north the horizon was
| lighted by a Pickering glow that re-
minded one of summer lightning below
! the horizon. At frequent intervals
there would be a brighter flash from
some great gun hidden to our front
And with that Pickering light there came
a steady roll of high pitched thunder,
interrupted by deep base booms like
the beating OF a bass drum In fact
there were many different tones in this
diapason of sound. tones which Wagner
| in his widest flights of operatic tones
and undertones would never have dream
ed trying to initiate. No stage scene
nor orchestra could begin to produce
such sound and scenic effects. And then
above all other sounds would come a
! whistle, swiftly changing to a wild
screech and ending in a sickening crash
as great she'll passed overhead and
| bust quarter of a mile in rear. Slowly
the light and sound to the north died
away. but to the northeast it increased
/ in volume and extended southwark until
it was flaming and rumbling clear down
\ to the southeast of us on the other side
of the river. And slowly, like a great
| wave it died away in the east and
rolled on to the west along the line in
| front of us until it extended far to the
northwest Then 1t subsidized until high
above the rumble could be heard the
staccato bark of machine guns. And
from where we watched, in the midst of
desolation worse than Dante's In
ferno, all the foreground was lighted
so that we could see the shell holes. the
barb wire. the broken wagons, smashed
rifles. helmets, garments. all of the
wrectage of battle, from half mile or
more to the north. And we all stood
there for hours. watching when we
should have been sleeping, but we were
viewing a spectacle that only the priv
ileved ones had a chance to see