The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-04-06
The 77th'S Record

Ordinarily n funkhole. holding one or
two men, is four or five feet long and
three or four deep, scooped out by the
pack carrier shovel the cover Of IL
mess kit, a Boche helmet, bleeding
finger tips-anything that will lower
the doughboy and his buddy few
inches under the streams of machine
gun bullets that Craze the grass. Often
shell crater Is developed into a funk
hole. A platoon in funkholes presents
the appearance OF a magnified warren
Of prairie dogs.
Roughly paralleling the river - or
stream, for it was only thirty feet wide
and ten or twelve deep-were a rail-
road track through cut and the main
Rheims scissors road. Crumbled Ba-
zoches on the north bank was held by
the Boche. The DEVILS Chateau and
| the Tannery were part of an underlined
No Mans Land noisome with unburied
bodies. Fismes and its offspring. Fis-
mette. were few hundred yards TO
the west. The division front extended
from Mont Notre Dame to Fismes.
with headquarters at Mareuil-en-D Dole
! st. Thibaut Cherry Chartreuvre, ST.
Martin, Ferne des Danes and Vile
Savoye all served variously as brigade
regimental and battalion headquarters
And every one of these townlets-
skeletons of what they had been-were
constantly under German artillery
Gas, shrapnel and high explosive
rained over all the terrain from a bis
concentration of German and Austrian
field pieces on the Aisne plateau. And
their fire was such that the valley be-
came known as The He'll Hole"
German Airmen Supreme.
The Seventy-seventh was opposed
by four German divisions-the Fourth
Guard, the Seventeenth, Thirty ninth
and 216th. Their aviators were su-
preme commanders OF the heavens,
They flew over our battalion head
quarters near Vile Savoye so low that
their wings almost scraped the tree
tops. Then they returned to give their
artillery our positions, and within q
few minutes "whizzbangs"-h We
locity shells from the Austrian "SS,"
n little bigger than three inches
would crash In swift succession among
the men.
In addition to having direct obse--
walton the enemy knew every slope
every patch OF protective" woods,
every foot of the roads, every ahan-
doned dugout from his recent occu-
pancy OF that territory.
Ho knew, for instance, with an ex-
actness that put his shells within a.
| foot of his target, that there was n.
big natural cave In the rocks along
the winding road that descended ints
Vile Savoye. That knowledge netteA
him four officers and two non CONS cc
| the. S0sth in killed and two officers IN
wounded. All within n few minutes.
1t was the night OF August 81. lust
| previous to the relief of the Third
Battalion by the First. The Third was
| exhausted, two of its four compa uies
each having been reduced to platoon
size Boche pyrotechnIcs were jewell
ling the night as the officers of both
battalions met outside the dugout cave.
Here. gentlemen. we have the panot
| rama of war" said Lieut. Willard T.
Lusk, gas officer OF the Third Bate.
| TALON, in mimicry of an announcer an
| he swept n gesture toward the specn
| tacular heights opposite. ,,,
Almost with the words came the
, scream OF a whizzbang. Fortunately It.
was dud-it didn't explode. Some OF
the officers dropped where they stood.
| Others darted for the mouth OF tho
| cave. Now the Austrian batteries
! roared with salvoes./ Shells burst al
the very cave entrance. When tho
strafe ended Capt. Belvedere Brooks
Lieut.. Lewis Lederle, Lieut.. Lusk ana,
Lieut.. Edward +. Ora ham. liason off,,
| Ger Of the So5th Field Artillery. were
dead. Iieuts. Purser f. Adams anna
James NJ, blackwell were wounded. the,
former severely. by some miracl.
Capt. Lucien $. Breckenridge ara,
Lieut. Edwin ~ Lewis were untouchedr,
(TO be continued Ia meet Senoays
SUM
4 ~.