The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-28

the shops on April 25, 1918, less than a month from the time of the Good Fri day slaughter in the French church. Tested at Sandy Hook N. J., five days later it proved complete success It hurled its immense projectiles more than 9 miles
 If our guns had been built in Paris we could have had them at the front in three days They were made to move by rail, and to be ready for almost i1nme- diate action. But they had to get to France first and the difficulties of fight ing a war 5000 miles away were i'm. pressed upon us by this necessity for transporting them.
 NO SHIP BIG ENOUGH
 No ship was big enough to carry one of them set up. Each had to be taken to pieces before loading.
 The last of the mounts was completed May 25-a new record for quick con struction.
 But getting ship to take them over was no easy task. The first ship as signed was so badly battered up it had ro go into dock for repairs; the second ship the Texel-was sunk by a U-boat near our coast. It was June 29 before the Newport News. heavily laden with ma terial, sailed for France.
 The guns were received in France with amazement There was some fear eN- pressed lest the attempt to transport them to the front by rail might result in their crippling transportation, because ot their tremendous weight But the fear was needless.
 News of their coming, doubtless, reached the Germans.
 The proof of that is found in the ex- traordnary thing that happened next
 STOP SMELLING OF PARIS
 The German mastodon of guns had been registering on Paris with fair regu- larity. By series of nice calculations and daring observations it's position had been located in the forest of St. Goban, on a plateau north of the Aisne.
 South of the Aisne was the forest of Compiegne, and to this place of conceal ment the American guns were headed. able to search out the cover of the Ger man masterpiece.
 They were barely under way before the shelling of Paris ceased, and when bat tery No. reached it's position in the for est of Compiegne about August 21 it was greeted with the news that the day before the Germans had hastily. with drawn their pet, From that day until the armistice no more shells fell in Paris
 The Germans knew that the giant freak could not stand up under the fire of the 4-inch 1,400-pound shells which the United States navy guns were preparing to drop in it's neighborhood, and dis played that discretion which has been named the better part of valor.
 TRIBUTE TO AMERICAN GENIUS The story of the work accomplished by 1 the United States naval batteries in the latter weeks of the war. in the days which were crucial and held victory or defeat in their hours of anxiety, is a story that would bear detailed telling. Following operations with the French and American armies from Soissons to Verdun shelling bases, ammunition de- pots and railway yards they wrought de- struction far behind the German lines, cutting communications and disrupting their transportation system playing a conspicuous part in the taking of Laon and Tergnier in the Meuse-Argonne of fensive, in shelling Montmedy and Yonguyon and in cutting the German main artery between Metz and Sedan. They remained in action to the end, their last shot falling into the German lines at almost the very moment when the armistice ended hostilites. Their record was a triumph of American genius and naval efficiency.
 (Another article by former Secretary Daniels will be printed tomorrow.)