The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1919-07-13

soldier might, II he so desired, wash the
lathcr from his face at the hydrant; the
wind was blowing and would dry his
face nicely.
First Traces Of Real Fighting.
Here, also. we found our first real
traces of actual fighting-machine gun
and rifle bullets imbedded In the tree
trunks In an orchard. But the French
told US the fighting had been very
light.
The evening of the Sth word came
that all of our l4lst Infantry and part
Of the l42nd was In action, and that
the first battalion of the l4lst had been
nearly wiped out. This latter we later
learned to be untrue. although that first
battalion did suffer severe losses be.
cause of the fact that they expected to
relieve the Marines at st. Etienne but
the Marines had been forced back sew
eral miles and enemy artillery was in
action whore it was thought the devil
dogs" would be holding the line.
The morning of the 9th found us again
on the road.
Trucks were loaded with rifle and
machine gun ammunition, hand gren-
AIDES ana pyrotechnics Rifles and belts
were placed where they could be easily
reached, likewise gas masks. and the
tin hats" graced our Craniums.
Up the Nevers Sedan highway we
rolled to Suippes. which we found to he
town with no inhabitants except sol
diers. The civilians had left long ago
and dared not come back, for the town
was still within range of the big guns.
Headquarters of the Seth Division was
established here temporarily, with what
there was of the motor transport pool
and the mobile ordnance repair shop.
out of Suippes the highway became
a maze of traffic. Everything magina-
bile was travelling that road. There were
two streams of traffic going each way.
with officers cars and ambulances
lodging in and out trying to make bet.
ter time than the balance of the slowly
moving streams.
Through the ruins of the village Of
Souain we went in the twilight with
the traffic threatening every minute
to become hopelessly congested.
Not a house was standing in Souain
hardly "A wall, and French and American
soldiers were preparing to spend the
night in such cellars and dugouts as
they could find.
Hello, Thirty Sixth
We had been instructed to tell no
body who we We're or where we were
going, for fear we would give informa.
tion which the enemy might use to our
disadvantage.
TO inquiries as to our identity. or
where we were going, we made such
answers as "Were shock troops of the
Salvation Army or Were hunting
water for the elephants" or any foolish
answer that we could think of, and don't
YOU know we did succeed admirably in
keeping everybody from knowing who
we were, and of course no one guessed
that we might be going to the front
except the Germans, they had all the
information necessary.
One demonstration of this was no
ticed when battalion of our division
was greeted, the morning after they had
reached their places in the line with a
big sign reading Hello Thirty Sixth. "
Germans Blow Up Road.
BY the time we had reached Somme-
Py it was absolutely dark and since all
was forced to travel
without lights the going was extremely
However, the engineers had cleared a
roadway through the ruins of this vii
lage.
In act from Suippes up the Engineers
had been doing some great work on
the roads, repairing damage done by
shells and mines.
At the point where the Hindenburg
line intersected the road a mine had
been exploded, probably as the Marines
advanced. 1t must have been n terrific
charge, for the dirt was blown ont
deep by 50 feet in diameter at the top
Engineers had put in plank roadways
on either side of this in order that traf.
fic might continue while the hole was
being filled and heavy road building ma
chinery was in action at that early
date.
We left the national highway at
Somme-Py and followed a road leading
to the left. Our own infantry was
in single file up this road to
the front, while the Marines who had
been relieved were marching in the
same formation back to the rear areas.
\ Quiet Night.
We could now see the flashes from
the big guns and could follow the course
of the line for miles by the star shells
and flares. 1t seemed to us. green as
we were in such matters, that both
sides were putting over the most terrific
barrage of the war later we learned
by comparison that the artillery was
rather quiet that night and that light