The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-03-29
, AMERICANS were
BUTCHERED, SAYS.
Ex-RICHM0NDIAN
Corporal Bone Writes He
Dare Not Describe Mouse
Battle Fully.

Corporal Earl c.. Bone, formerly of
this city, and recently with the Thirty
first Artillery Brigade, under the COM
mand of Colonel Burgess, in France.
Corporal Bone is brother Of A. j.
Bone of this city.
Some of the fellows were little
nervous at first" he explained, but
there were no towards. The boys
worked like slaves. In our artillery
every man had his part to do and did
il. Why, at Mount Faucon, place
the French had been trying to capture
for four years, and had said it never
could be done, our boys began their
attack at II o'clock at night and had
il cleaned up by o'clock the next
morning. With caps and coats thrown
away, and stripped to the waist, our
boys swore and sweated and shot I'M
til Hell itself could not have with
stood the onslaught. The discipline
was perfect. The water all about us
was poisoned with gas and dead
bodies were all around US. What food
We had was brought to US IN tanks
and the boys doing the work went
straight ahead"
Went In at Chateau Thierry.
In describing the action he saw Cor
poral Bone said: ts.
1--WE were o-.1ered to the front in
July and went - at Chateau Thierry.
When we entered our lines it was
wheat field. The Germans were still
driving toward Paris and we had to
retreat from the field next morning.
Here ] got my first glimpse of the
awfulness of war as lost my pal, one
OF my very best friends. He had both
legs torn off with she'll
"All next day we lay in little one
man pits with heavy artillery firing
on us. That night we got our position
in line in the Thrty-first Brigade with
Colonel Burgess commanding. We
started our barrage on Chateau Thi-
cry on July Is and here we first be-
gan TO turn them back.
After We got the Germans out of
Chateau Thierry, which took us a lit
tie more than two weeks, our drive
ended at Fare de Tardenois. In the
meantime our artillery had caught up
with our doughboys, who had been
chasing the Germans so fast that we
could not keep up with them, and here
we began the second battle of the
Marine. This battle was not so fierce
as Chateau Thierry, but lasted three
time and were never relieved from
the second battle of the Marine until
the Argonne. We lost abou. twenty
five percent of the men in cur regi-
ment.
Writed Is Wounded
The Argonne was the hardest bat
tie we were in. ] was wounded by
shrapnel-one piece struck in the leg
and another hit me in the shoulder,
about o'clock in the evening when
three of us were on scout duty. We
were lying in shell hole and an Aus
TRAN IS burst about fifty feet above
our heads, farily raining shrapnel on
us. One other man of the three was
also wounded. We had been ahead OF
our position trying to find the loca-
ton OF German sacrifice gun which
we found to be located in q dugour
with the muzzle sticking out the side
and camoufaged with brush. When
the gun was fired the conclusion wig
gled the limbs of the nearby trees and
in that way we located it, We were
all three able to crawl back to our
commander and give him our data.
That was the last of the sacrifice gun.
our boys soon had line on it and
knocked it to smithereens with direct
hits. IT was work like this by our
boys everywhere that won our battles.
Out Of Lines Three Weeks
Il was only out of the ranks three
weeks, having beer sent to the evac-
uation hospital at Verdun, and not on
back.
When | rejoined my regiment they
were at Dunseuse on the Mouse river.
Here the Americans were killed by
actual thousands. 1t was the worse
slaughter we experienced anywhere, |
and which one would dare not tell
about fully. The Germans were sta
toned just across the Meuse from US
and we gave them no quarter. We
found German dead chained to their
own machine guns as we moved Oil
here. | saw this with my own eyes
and we could never understand why
they remained chained there, when we
found the keys to the locks in the
pockets of the non-commissioned of |
ficers.
When we got all our artillery up
and opened fire across the river, we
almost tore the hill completely off. |
From then on the Germans did not
make much of stand until they got
TO their border.
Armistice Gave Them Rest
We drove right on and We're in |
Belgium, still driving them when the |
armistce was signed.
The only thing the Germans beat !
US on was in celebrating the armistice |
nothing like 1t ever happened be- !
fore or since. They shot up their own !
ammunition dumps and the next day |
they showed us their mines and We
shot them up. The second day after |
the signing of the armistice they be-
gan to retreat and We saw no more |
of the Germans.
The most pitiable scene l ever wit
messed was at the hour the armistice |
was signed when our dead, boys killed |
in the last few minutes of the war /
were lying all about us. To think |
that they had found their way through |
hell to the very last minute, and then t
had to die in the moment OF victory"
Corporal Bone explained that he I
made a study of ""Cooties." "We had |
the everyday American body louise,
then the real French coolies, and last
and worse, the German flea. He &C.
tnally had service stripes down his /
back. The French coolies seemed to
have thousand legs. We had them
4. r.. Il