Omaha daily bee., 1919-05-25

BEE: MAY rs, 1919.
courage; in the battle of the Cham
payne they completed it.
In one of those faded little ,helc
messages, scrubbed with a stub o
hard pencil with scarcely any point
Capt. Julien M. Strassberger, com
handing the lo7th's machine CUR
company, supporting Companies T
and F, wrote at $50 a. m. and sent
to the battalion commander: "Boche
dead piled around here sky-high. lis
ne passeront pas"
Tanks Get Into Action.
But the fate of the right of the
line began to hang in the balance.
German tanks had been able to get
up here and the allied artillery was
not having the destructive effect that
it had in the center and on the left,
The Maryland trench mortar bat
terry, manning their little guns out
there on the ground the boche was
now crossing, had fired $50 bombs
during the morning, scoring direct
hits on four tanks and putting them
out of action. Seven more tanks
had crawled through and were lum-
bering down the valley between the
two slopes. The T-millimeter guns
Of the 10Th put them all out of &C
ton.
Machine guns were spraying the
Germans, hand grenades bursting in
groups of them, rifles were splitting
at them from the parapets, but still
they came on. And when the peril
of the right wing seemed very real
and the Germans were piling to the
top of the ridge faster than they
were dying, the Alabamians made
the first counter attack,
First Counter-Attack.
No more splendid exhibition of
reckless, indomitable courage was
produced in the whole war than this
counterattack on the proud Prus-
sian troops by the Americans from
the sunny southland. No Amer
leans had ever done it before.
The Alabamians went in by
platoons, winding through the
trenches, crawling over heaps of
dead French, Americans and Ger
mans, and labyrinths of tangled wire,
into the melee. Of the first platoon
none ever came back By the time
company of French reinforcements
arrived, with orders to retake two
lost positions, 1t. Hoxie Fairchild,
with an Z company platoon, had al
ready retaken them. The French,
with another platoon under 1t. M.
L. Marklin, retook third
Thus they were still fighting while
the sun rose and the air grew warm
and the day advanced, and the first
shock of the last German offensive
had fallen on men who would not
yield an inch.
Left Held Its Ground.
And what, throughout all this, of
the left of the line, where the old
Goth New York-"the fighting harps"
and the old guardsmen from Ohio
we're holding on?
The Third battalion of the 165th
under Major William wild Bid
Donovan Oater lieutenant-coloneD,
and the Second battalion, under
Major Alexander Anderson. were
over there fighting like wildcats.
Standing right beside 1t. Thomas
NJ. Young. as the Germans came on.
a man had been killed. Probably
it was Sergt. Tom O'Rourke; he was
one of the first New Workers killed
in that fight. At any rate, Lieu
tenant Young saw the German who
had killed him--a sniper-and within
a few minutes Young had killed the
German. He was elated. Boys, |
got my first German" he shouted,
and the next second a grenade killed |
him, and the boches were up to the |
wire. By noon they had gained a
foothold seven times in the New
Workers. trenches, and seven times
they had been hurled out. That eve
ming at E o'clock they tried it again
and were beaten off,
Had No Air Support.
All night bombs and shell fell on
The fighting lines and rear areas;
steady showers of them on hospitals, !
owns and roads. There was no rest
rom them, especially the bombs.
By day the sky was literally dark
With German airplanes; every French
plane had been chased away.
The German aviators would hover
he trenches like hawks circling. to
bounce on chickens, then, swooping
ow, cut loose with machine guns
md showers of steel darts upon the
reads of the infantry. Carrying
parties with ammunition had to
lodge these planes as they would
warns of bees. Stretcher bearers
arrying wounded men through
renches and along roads were shot
lown by low-hying aviators.
At e o'clock on the morning OF
uly 10 the Germans attacked again
N the left. and after they had heen
lriven off for the fifth time the men
# G. company, commanded by Capt.
Ohm T. Prout, were too mad to
tand still. Whereupon the second
plendid, wild American charge was
made, as worthy of immortality as
he counter attack of the Alabamians
N the first day. /
wild Irish Charge"
The enemy was taking cover from
american rife fire when 1t. Kenneth