El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1919-06-06

HONE is the sweetest word in the
Il language today to the officers and
men Of the 340th field artillery. who
arrived at Fort Bliss Thursday even
ling TO be given a rest after their Iong
! tedious ride. then a gladstone welcome
and finally within IS hours. their re-
lease from service.
/ One Of the returning soldiers. Pvt
r. Z. King. headquarters company. OF
/ seattle. Wash. wears the distin-
guished service cross and the French
Icroix dc guerre. which he was awarded
+ for capturing, singlehauded. II Ger
mans and marcning them a distance of
/ one mile back to the American lines.
7 His citations state that he advanced
lon German dugOut alone with a
handful Of grenao-s and Q pistol,
amidst heavy machine gun and shell
/ fire and surprised the Il Germans He
I is q modest fellow
Hero Tells Story.
His own story follows:
You know no man in the world has
courage enough TO march alone
against i enemies. all Of whom are
armed Well, I did not know there
were II Of them To tell the truth. 7
thought there was only one. I saw
that fellow poke his head out of an
opening of the dugOut and / fired at
him was an observer for the ad-
vance guard. so I went out to observe
what that fellow was doing.
when got there and saw there
was a flock Of them. I almost lost my
senses, but not quite. I figured quick
~ that they could not see how many
Of US were outside because Of the
large walls and other structures
around, so 7 yelled down to them to
march out or I would blow the whole
placeTto hell cussed so fast and
loud that they must have thought
Pershing himself was on the job That
scared them, anyhow. and they came
out one at a time, leaving their guns
behind
They tried to put one over on me
when they realized I was alone. but
gestured with the grenades and with
pistol, which made them think twice.
Then I made them fail in line and or
dered them TO trot back TO the Ameri-
can front That was more sport than
a little. ] made them run so fast they
stumbled over shell holes in their
path"
Captain Praises Men.
Capt J. W. Getsinger, Of Phoenix,
Ariz-, one Of the four officers with the
regiment. and the only one from the
southwest spoke highly of the fight
ing spirit of the men. with the follow
ing story
In the latter part of October, in the
EuTegin sector. batteries c and D.
consisting of eight guns and their
respective sections, had two Of their
guns blown to pieces and the attend
ant men either killed or wounded
Despite this the remainder Of them
kept on firing unremittingly- They
would joke at times while enemy
shells burst all about them
Battery T achieved a record. when,
on the night before the armistiCe was
signed, il fired y shells in 50 sec
onds- The previous record was p
shells a minute"
Pvt Thomas H Beard, battery +. Of
Miami. Arizs. gave a vivid description
Of how the men fell when gassed- He
said
we were surprised by gas shells
one day in the early part OF October
while at ThiaucOurt Half Of the men
in battery T were disabled before they
could put on their gas masks. Those
fellows just doubled up. fOamed at the
mouth, and lay there as though dead.
Some of them turned black from the
effect Of the gas. but fortunately We
got most away and saved all but
about half a dozen"
Germans Feared Americans
When asked about the feeling Of the
Germans when the Americans occu-
pied their territory. Pvt Beard said
They were as kind 10 rs as broth
ers. hut we could see that behind it all