Putnam patriot., 1921-04-15

One rather dreary day early in February we reached Verdun. It was at the end of a week spent in the de- vastated zone. We were cold and tired and the rather particular noises of the Hotehkiss motor in which we were travelling had begun to wear a little on our nerves Verdun, oddly enough, is not one of the totally de- stroyed cities on the battle front, though reasons for it's semi-salvation lie entirely within the technical knowl- edge of the artillery man since scarce ly three miles from the city for four and one-half years without ceasing was waged the bloodiest battle in the history of the world.
 It was at Verdun that we saw what we chose to call the grave of the Third Unknown
 One leaves Verdun by an excellent rebuilt road which leads to the citadel, that blasted area which in 1914 held the line of fortresses which were de- signed as Frances impregnable wall against German invasion. Our little chauffeur, Francois, had fought
 at Verdun. ; It had many memories for him. And when the city had dis
 appeared and we were high on the
 hills outside it was Francois who took us in charge and told of the nights and
 days in that burnt out hell. For the Forts of Verdun today remind one of nothing so much as a region at peace after every element of evil has made it it's victim.
 From the point at which we stood, we saw the remnants of Douamont, captured and recaptured at tremen- dous loss, and to the right were the piles of stone and sand bags which had been the bloody Fort de Naux. There is no life at Verdun now. The land is still scared as far as the eye can reach from the incessant rain of projectiles. Trees raise only gaunt stumps a few feet above the ground, while here and there a tottering cross, still marking a grave, breaks the in- finite desolation of the horizon. To the left, at one of the high points, one sees the scarcely completed monument raised above the "Tranchee des Bay onets," that line of steel which marks the resting places of a whole company of French soldiers inundated by a landslide just at the moment of ac- tack and then, still a little further away, one finds the grave of The Third Unknown.
 Six hundred thousand French sol die9s fell in the defense of Verdun. of these six hundred thousand. fout hundred thousand still reman, uni identified, unknown, ''inconnu. " Shortly after the armistice when the work of reparation commenced care ful effort was made on the part of the French government to identify as many graves at Nerdun as possible. The work soon became hopeless. So torn and shattered was the earth " incessant shelling and constant fight ing, that where the hodies had been buried at first had only too frequently been passed over and repassed over again until no trace of the graves re mained It was then that a decision was made to divide the battle-ground into certain surveyed sections knoNn 10 have been occupied at one time and another bv various divisions of the French army. From each of these sections the bones of the heroes were collected in a common casket and these easkets, destined to rest be- meath a great monument that will crown the battlefield, now lie within a simple Red Cross barraek, or "Os- siarre" not far from the scene of the bitterest fighting.
 On the day that We visited the "Os- siarre" we had the good fortune to be the only visitors and consequently we had the privilege of an hours eon- versation with Father Noel, chaplain of the chapel and more commonly known as 'Le Cure de Verdun. Fa- ther Noel is,. by his own confession, scarcely thirty-tive years old. He looks all of fifty. His big frame is a bit stopped. his hair is whitened and the marks of five years of ineeSsant abor among the dead and dying on he field of battle are deeply Gut on a lace of exceptional beauty and spirit lahty. For Father Noel came to Yer iun with the first forces and he did not leave until the Armistice had si- enced the incessant cannonade.
 Simply and quietly amid the rude