The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-03-30
Story of the Division, From Camp
Upton to the Armistice. Tells of
Military Triumph by Selec-
tive Service Men

ness of Liverpool. We reasoned that
their welcome might have been put in
TO words thus:
so you're on your way TO the front,
Yanks. Hurry along! Our Tommies
are in tight places there. The Boche,
you know is threatening the Channel
ports. And our Tommies are fed
up-'orribly fed up. Hurry along,
Yanks!"
We were soon to learn how COM
pletely war worn Tommy actually
was.
At south Front Barracks.
Reaching Dover at o'clock that
night, we took up quarters with the
British at the South Front barracks
on the famed white cliffs. Enemy
bombers flew over on frequent night
raids and the historic city was
shrouded in darkness and silence as
our hobnailed boots resounded rhyth-
mically up the narrow, serpentine
streets that achieved the hill.
The following day. Sunday, the lit
tie English town strolled In its gala
dress in the sunshine, while barely
audible from across the Channel the
big guns of Flanders mumbled and
grumbled low, like an i'll humored
giant reused prematurely from his
That night at the one pretentious
hotel the ,timid American officer, egged
on by his amused British colleague,
saw and i'll cases learned what II was
! TO, kiss the English barmaid. y COM
lets -
told-a confection we'll worth the two
hobs" where mere sugar was at such
a premium. The men were no less
shy. The largest feasible number were
! given passes from the barracks, and
| flooding the souvenir shops. the tea
rooms and the tobacconists, they won
| quick entree into the towns social
! life. Little time was afforded for the
cultivation Of acquaintance. however,
| for on the next morning April 90, we
crossed smooth Channel to Calais.
1t was a recently bombed Calais.
| The Boche had attempted 20 dismem-
Der that favorite OF his targets, a ca
thedral. The monster missile had
struck and shattered two residences
across the street. The picture was not
unlike that OF dolls houses whose
| fronts swing open on hinges. Save
that here, in the suddenly violated pri
vacy Of home, the floors sagged
toward the heaped up cellars. And
the dolls, alas, were women and chill
iren and old men.
one preferred not TO look long al
| these skeletons of homes, rudely torn
! open to all eyes-at that drunken
! dresser. spilling its white things al
that big chair about to glide down mo-
| mentarily over the crazy floor into the
debris OF the cellar. Perhaps some one
had been sitting in that very chair
a mother, maybe, reading how the
| fighting Jared ut the front.
Watching Enemy Planes.
| We were under British canvas for
two days, just outside the city. in one
of those iocularly called rest camps
And we accGHe ;ha BRITISH f,.lack,nG
in sense of humor,
On our second night on French sol
We knew what it was to have Boche
! bomber overhead. Sirens walled
searchlights N-rayed the skies, and
| the "archies''--the anti-airCraft guns
or-Cr-crumped their sudden stars into
| the armament. Tho townspeople sour
lied in vcXation rather than fear tc
their pOStes dc ScCOHrS. their bomb
, Iroofed cellars. The doughboys came
out from their tents, pleasurably eX'
cited, 10 watch this novel aerial dis
play and wait for the thunderouS
crash But the Boche dropped no
iron ration" that night. He seemed
TO be saving all his noise for England.
| 1t became apparent now that We
were not only to train with the Brit.
! ish, but that we were to use theiI
equipment as well. And that indicated
that we were to fight with them.
Dolorously our men turned in the!l
model, salvaged, apparently, ant
SCARED from service. Equipped viii
British gas masks and helmets, we en-,
trained for an area about twenty-five
miles back OF the line at Ypres. I
was the first brief experience of oul
troops with the French box car, Tho
notorious kind that bore the inscrip
ton: "CheveauX. S: IIommes, 40.
which, as translated by the boys
meant; "If you're going TO put pre-
cious nags in here, keep it down It
eight Of them; but If it's men, cram IL
forty" And It was commonly said a
the front, such was tho scarcity o
horseflesh, that one live animal wal