Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-09-01

!
| q little station. The only thing that
we had to identify us where we were
to go, consisted of a long yellow ticket
scratched all over with minute direc-
! tons, which none of us could read.
! Here l was informed by a French
guard that this was the regulating
| station and the American regulating
! officer was waiting to see me.
| hoped off the train and ran back,
| finding Col. Hja'mar Erickson, who
! afterWard became a very dear friend
| of mine and later commanded the
regiment, He was busy trying to
| figure things out with the French
chief de la care again complicated by
| his inability to speak French.
My lord. major. why aren't you
the Seventh field artillery" was Col
onel Erickson's greeting
! AS he was giving me the plans and
maps I heard "a whoop from the train
outside. ! ran to the door and found
| for some reason, best known to him
| self, the French engineer had started
up again and my battalion was rapidly
! disa ppearing down the track.
started on the dead run after them.
| Fortunately some of the Officers saw
! what was happening, and by force of
arms succeeded in persuading the en-
/ gineer to stop the train.
That night we detrained q couple
| of days march from Chaumont En-
! Vixin, where division headquarters
| were to be. We hiked over through a
| peaceful country, the most lovely We
had yet seen in France, billeting for
| the night in a little town where a
whole company of mine slept in an
| old chateau. At Chaumont we stayed
for some few days maneuvering while
the division was fully assembled.
| From Chaumont we marched north
| for four days to the Montididier sec
| tor. ! never shall forget this march.
! Spring was on the land, the trees were
/ budding, wild flowers covered the
ground the birds were singing. Our
| dusty brown column wound up hill
and down. through patches of woods
! and little villages BY us all day to-
ward the south streamed the French
refugees from villages threatened, or
already taken by the Hun. Heavy
| homemade wagons, drawn by every
kind of animal and piled high with
| hay and farm produce, furniture and
odds and ends of household belong
! ings trund4ed past. Tramping beside
them or riding on them were women
and children, most of them dazed and
with haunted look on their faces.
At other times we would find them
camping by the road, cooking a scan
ty meal from what they were able to
carry.
To us in this country, thanks to
| Providence, not to our own fore
| thought or character; this description
| is only so many words. Unless one
| has seen it, it is impossible to visual
! ize; the battered village, the column
of refugees that starts at each great
battle and streams ceaselessly toward
Paris and southern France, the apple
orchards and gardens torn beyond
, recognition, the desolation and de-
! struction seemingly impossible of rep
araton
Nothing would have been better for
our countrymen and women than for
each and every one of them to have
spent some time in the war zone.
When | think of men of the type of
Bryan and Ford, when think of their
self satisfied lives of ease, when |
think of what they did to allow disas-
ter and death to threaten this coun-
Try, it makes me wonder more than
, ever at the long-eltferiug kindness of
humanity which permits such as they
still to enjoy the benefits of citizen
ship in this great land which they
! have so, signal y failed to serve.
When we took over the Montdidier
sector 1t was not, and never did be-
come, the type found in the parts of
the front where warfare had been go
Ing on without movement for more
than three years. Trenches were shall
low and scanty, and dugouts were
almost lacking. Indeed from this
time on, with one exception, the di-
vision never held an established sec
tor, The line at Montdidier had been
established shortly after the break
through by the Germans, by French
territorial division which was march
ing north, expecting to relieve some
friendly troops In front of it. They
suddenly encountered head-on the
German columns that were marching
south. Both sides deployed, went into
position and dug in where they were.
The First division took over from
these troops.
The first morning we were in the
Montdidier sector, the Huns shelled
us heavily. Immediately after they
raided part of our front line held
by a platoon of d company, command
ed by Lieutenant Dabney, very good
fellow from Louisville Ky. The Ger
mans were repulsed with loss. We suf-
fered no casualties ourselves except
from the German bombardment. The
next evening we picked up the Ger
man sergeant commanding the party,
whom we had killed.