The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-01-07

bNth ufiQtI dllltu OElCttS
This was purely an American drive.
The night preceding the drive we
were stationed in the woods about II
ldlometers from the front. That night |
we marched about 10 kilometers up to
where the artillery was located that
was to back us up in this drive. On
the way up to the front the corporal of
the automatic squad which / was in
sprained his knee by slipping in the
mud. which was very slippery and
deep. You little know how slippery
the mud in France is. The corporal
says, 81 am afraid if my knee is not
better in the morning I will not be able
to 90 with you fellows and if I am not
/ want you to take charge of the
squad. - This was no cinch for me-
being the first drive I was in, but of
course / said yes, as soldier never
saws no.
We arrived at where the artillery
was at II o'clock. Here we remained
in trench until SIS a. m. in drizz-
opened up and such a noise I never
heard. They rang for miles, as that
morning started one of the most sue
cessful drives in the war The big
guns kept up until clock that morn
ing.
At SIS a. m. the word was given to
60 over the top. We started over, my
squad minus their old corporal / won
dered many times what I would lead
| the boys into, but nevertheless we all
| finished the drive Everything went
fine until about two kilometers when
we ran into a bunch of machine gun
nests. The bullets landed all around
us but nevertheless we kept right on
| going and soon we had the guns and
the Germans marching back as prison.
ers and at the same time continuing
our advance. During the day we had
to jump trenches, fight our way
through barbed wire entanglements
and go through woods that were very
thick and where machine guns and
snipers We're constantly found Never
theless we soon cleaned these out.
We were constantly running onto
nests of Germans that we easily made
prisoners. A fellow named Burrows
from Orange. Mass, and myself got i:
icouple men that had just left their ar
tillery guns. They had many souven
irs and I hope that | will be able t,
show them to you before long, although
: | have lost many of them. During al
, this time that we were advancin,
: shells were bursting all around us
German and allied planes were con
! stantly over our heads although tn
allied planes kept the German plane
away from us most of the time.
ba re ha 10 l.,
! advanced 10 kilometers under the con
ditions | have described above, and w
I had as our booty hundreds of larg
guns and machine guns and 1900
e prisoners. That night we dug in an
4 tried to rest for the night althoug
e the artillery was active on both side
which kept us awake nearly all nigh
AT 5.l5 we again started over til
e top. This day we struck quite fe'
It towns and'I wish you could have see
/ those happy French people as we free
{, them from the German rule they ha
It been under for four long years. The.
y towns were full of machine gun nes
II that we soon had in our possession
The second day we took a Germa
quartermaster storehouse and if yc
think the German army was up again
q it. for food You are mistaken. TT
. quantity of supplies we found show,
they were not starving. In the Xxi
SO ehens in the towns we always -four
or large quantities of food They h;
lg some of the best jam / ever ate in n
n life.
n | wish you could have seen the nul
~ Der of narrow guages there are in tn
- section. They had the section so tn
- could get supplies in everywhel
About all we struck the second d;
was machine gun nests, as they stu
ted so fast the night before we cou
not catch them the next day. T
most excitement we had the secol
day was when we were going into
y, town which was filed with mach
lis guns. The enemy artillery opened
W, on our right and held up our advan
al until the troops on the right took t
do artillery and then we Immediately we
x in and got the town. We stopped o
as advance of the second day in WOO
on near a German aviation field abo
cd IL miles from Metz. We found a pi
ture of a bunch of German officers a.
lff the kaiser that was taken on this fe
nd Here our second day ended. havil
e. captured about 1000 prisoners.
is That night | was picked for one
es the men to occupy an automatic o,
p post which / had to do every night
long as we held this position. Eve
night | could hear the Germans tai
or ing and on moonlight mornings l cou
If see them walk along the horizon. T
ty only thing of great excitement til
IN occurred here was one dark night VIII
or an officer came to me and said two m
from my natrnl wore lost and add