Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-05-15
REGIMENT LAUDED
BY COLONEL MINER
1ooth Artillery Fought in Fox
holes, Right at Front, Wounded
Commander Explains
IGNORES HIS OWN DEEDS
Doesn't Deserve Personal Glory,
Officer Who Lost Leg at
Argonne Insists
IGNORES HIS OWN DEEDS

found in the Twenty eighth Division.
II is the story Of the regiment because
its heroic crippled colonel insists that
IT be about the regiment and not about
him,
MAKE it all regiment and no col
onel.' commanded Colonel Asher Miner
as the parting word of an interview
when he had told about his boys in the
Tooth Field Artillery.
He sat there, his left leg gone be
low the knee. his face Scared by
wounds on his breast, an inconspicuous
ribbon. that told its tale to only the
initiated or the curious. For he lets
few know that he has the Distinguished
Service Cross and absolutely none know
from how he won it.
So at the colonel's command this is
the regiments story. the story of how
700 Wyoming valley National Guards
men. most of them Wilkes Barre clerks
and business men, machinists and
miners. learned so effectively how to
use the French seventy fives' that
they dccimated a whole German division
at the Vesle in n five hour lombard
ment. 1t is story of constant tip
toe alertness to answer that red signal
rocket of distress when the Iron Divi
sion dOughboys were hard pressed by
bochc counter attacks up front and
needed barrage.
Won ,HOnOrs at Argonne
And its climax, if Colonel Miner
could be made to tell his own story, is
in those two days in early October on
the eastern edge of the Argonne forest
when battery of his regiment moved
right up on the line with the doughboys
and sniped at German machine gun
nests less than 1000 yards away. 1t was
there that he won his cross and his
wounds, "aIong with the rest of the
boys he put it.
He was in New York on a sick leave
from Walter Reed Hospital. to see his
bows again the day they came back on
the Mongolia. Mrs. Miner was nerv-
ously watching the clock to see that the
tea to which she was taking him would
not be nfringed upon by the inter
viewer,
At first he talked from memory about
those early days in France, but when
the action began and the casualties
started, he reached for little red diary
for help. There is a great story in that
little red book which only the Miner
family perhaps will ever know. For it
contains "only uninteresting details.
according to the colonel, and besides he
isn't out of the army.
He was talking without the book as
he started. after making it very clear.
that he would talk only about the regi-
ment.
'We landed in England on May 80
and after camping there three or, four
days went to France through lie Havrc.
About june : we were sent to Camp
De Meucon. in Brittany. There We
received our French equipment, seven
ty-fives and our horses. We went into
training with the French artillery then
and did some hard work until August Z.
when we were ordered to the front.
u. Baptism of Fire
1--WE detrained at Mezy sur Marine,
about five miles east of Chateau
Thierry. and marched eight miles to a
place called Fresnes.
at was here we had our baptism of
fire. We went through an air raid
without a casualty. A machine gun
battalion near us suffered pretty severe
ly. but our men had kept under cover
during the day. The machine gunners
had not and drew the air raid and suf-
fered from it.
Next day we went into positions,
the First Battalion near Fismes. at
Death Valley and the Second Bat
talon at Courville. The next night
the First Battalion was moved over to
Courville. 1t was that night. August
II. that we had our first casualties.
Lieutenant Williams, a Nanticoke boy
of Headquarters Company. was out with
detachment laying telephone wires
for the First Battalion. He was hit
by shrapnel and> several men were
gassed. Shell fire killed two and
wounded several. The batteries re-
manned there two weeks, always under
fire. with added annoyance from air
bombs, at times.
September 3, while we were crossing
the Vesle river, Lieutenant Pritchard.
Of Philadelphia. was wounded. He died
next day. We crossed the river on a
temporary bridge built by the engineers.
Batteries A and G crossed under heavy
fire. while Battery B covered the cross
ing. and later crossed one carriage at
a time"
1t was then that he picked up the
little red book and from then on he
constantly consulted his diary, written
daily in the field for names and f;eures
and records of the brave things his
boys did.
Reads From Diary
September g." he read from the
book. ''At noon we were ordered TO mt
over barrage at p. m. to support the
Seventy seventh and Twenty eighth Di-
visions, who attacked with a French
division. During that fight we had
pretty heavy casualties, he commented.
turning from the book.
That day, he said, II saw the in
fantry of the 109th, 110th and 111tb
advance up hill in the face of heavy
machine gun and artillery fire. 1t
was magnificent thing the way they
did it. On the left they drove the Ger
mans almost to the Aisne river, but
on the right the advance did NOT go
so far. That was the Vesle- Fismes
offensive, with the Aisne as objective.
THAT night we were heavily BON
harded. and in Battery T., reading from
the book again, there were two killed,
eighteen wounded and fifty eight horses