Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-09-19
No Wonder Germany Quit
BY MAJOR FRANK c. MAHIN
or the Army Recruiting Station

"The day we came out of the st.
Mihiel offensive l discovered that
everybody in the battalion had one
or two brand new German five mark
notes except me. | started inquir-
ing where the souvenirs came from
and found that sergeant in one of
my companies had been passing
them out. ! sent for him and asked
him where he got all the Boche
money. lie told me that when his
platoon took the Boche artillery
headquarters in the Bois Gerard,
after u nifty scrap with the artil-
lerymun, they were policing up dug
out and shacks when he noticed a
small safe. OF course, with the in
eVitable American curiosity, they
had to see what was in the safe.
The sergeant got it open and found
it to contain one hundred envelopes,
each envelope enclosing two hun
dred of the five-mark bank notes.
These envelopes he put in his shirt
for, .fntnre reference ana during the
, succeeding days had been passing
them out indiscriminately through
out The division. When l talked
wth him he had only about Il hun
dred and fifty of the bank notes
left. of which | acquired two. | did
a little calculating and informed
him that he had one hundred thou
sand marks in his possession, worth
Fat the then existing rate of eX-
change about seventeen 5houSand
dollars. You ought to have seen
his face when he found that he had
given away young fortune. The
shack in which this money was
! found was a German paymaster's
| office, as | had seen it and gone over
| Il lot of the accounts and documents
| looking for information. which were
| found there. OF all the people he
had talked with and given Boche
money to, no one had even sug-
! geSted to him that these pieces oil
green paper were money and worth
som ething in real honest-to-good-
| ness American coin. That sergeant
was quite Il character, fine fight
! ing man and a good leader, so good
! q leader, in fact, that l recon
mended him for II commission. lie
! had another curious experience dur
! ing the st. Mihiel drive and one
which came mighty near being
! fatal to the American arms. The
second day of the offensive we were
dug in waiting orders to push on
| again as soon as the troops on our
left were up on the line. At five
O'Clock, when the attack was at Its
| height, a man in the uniform of an
American first lieutenant came into
| the trenches we had dug for main
| line of resistance. He entered at
| the extreme left of the battalion
coming from the direction of the
adjoining regiment. The left unit
| of the battalion was one platoon OF
| com pany ID, whose lieutenant had
| been wounded, and was then under
command of a sergeant. The other
| platoons of that company were on
! the south side of the Bois Gerard
| our main line being on the edge
/ in battalion support. This supposed
officer ordered the sergeant to i'm
mediately fall back through the
woods with his platoon and take ur
a position on the south side. Though
| the sergeant did not know the of
! ficer he obeyed the order. leaving q
gan of nearly two hundred yards in
| our line at most critical moment
The pseudo officer then went on and
ran into platoon of company G
| commanded by my friend of the
| Hoche money fame. When he re-
ceived the order he just reached
for his trusty old 40 automatic ano
one Roche spy was no more. lie
took part of his platoon and moved
over into the gap just in time to
1 meet the Boches as they poured
into our trench. The Boches lef
eight dead and four machine gun!
in our trench and then deciding tha
discretion was the better part o.
vaIor they beat it. A mighty few
moments later all of ID compan!
arrived on the scene from the soutl
side of the woods, as | had alread,
heard of the spy and sent then
through as fast as ever they could
go. So even with all their clever
ness a sergeant spotted the tricl
/ ,stantly and being an American die
not have to wait for any orders. bu
acted instantly andsvigorously to th'
utter confusion of our trick!
enemies"