Evening star., 1939-10-03
Cassidy
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out of the Warndt Forest, east OF
Berus, where I was told counter
attack by a German infantry patrol
had been repulsed.
French officers estimate the total
German casualties on the west front
since the war started a month ago
at about 5000, of which 500 to 600
were believed to have been killed.
French losses we're described as
smaller.
French strategy has been one of
strictly local attacks to rectify their
own lines, obtain information on the
opposing forces and cripple the Saar
coal and steel industry. In these
they consider they already have
achieved important successes.
There were no indications that
any general offensive was in pros
pect from either side in this heavily
fortified region.
Ask About Neutrality.
Everywhere the first question
French soldiers asked American cor
respondents was: when Is the
United States going to revise the
Neutrality Act?"
American correspondents were the
first to come to the front. We were
a party of 10, accompanied by two
military attaches of the United
States Paris Embassy, Col. Horace
Fuller and 1t. Col. Sumner Waite.
We came just as you would go to
a Sunday picnic, getting up early
to pack our things and then drive
of by automobile.
The difference was that the things
we packed we're steel helmets and
gas masks, at the request of French
officers, as we'll as heavy boots,
trench coats and field glasses.
Prepared Long in Advance.
Another difference was that the
trip was prepared long in advance
with such ritual as signing state
ments absolving the French Army
of any responsibility for our lives.
After a hard ride over military
roads to the east we reached the
battlefield in rolling farmland
studded with forests, streams, fields
and villages like the New England
countryside.
A dull humping sound was the
first evidence of war. 1t came from
French artillery fire.
Close behind the front we left our
cars and plodded through red mud,
ankle deep, in a path leading
through pine forest to the advance
observation post Of the colonel COM
manding the attack.
The scene was the Meten Valley,
dominated by the Berus Heights
rising 500 feet about 2 miles within
German territory west of Saar-
bruecken.
German Town Seized.
The action was typical of western
front fighting thus far.
On the previous day French in
fantry had seized the German from
tier station of Uberherrn, a town of
$500, in surprise attack just south
OF the Berus Heights. They also
had taken st. Oran, a tiny German
settlement of two farms and a
chapel, north of Berus.
On the Berus crest French guns
pounded a German pillbox obser-
vation post controlling the heights.
French infantry under cover of
woods on the valley edge were swing
Ing carefully east in an effort to cut
around to the town Of Berus behind
the heights.
AS I watched, French guns fired
rhythmically, with each detonation
sending echoes through the valley,
A white stone tower which once
marked the heights already had been
destroyed. Smoke rose at every hit.
At the close of a half-hour bar
rage one gray pillar of smoke
marked a smash at the very point
OF the German observation post,
Then after a brief pause came
what French military communicates
call German reaction"
German Barrage Brief.
There was a faint humping noise
from the opposing lines, shrek in
the air, and German shells fell in
the hills behind us. The German
oarrage was very brief and action
came to pause.
AS we filed back to our cars a
heavy silence settled on the valley,
1t was only at night that French
shock troops would move out to
improve their positions anew.
Driving south from the Berus
battle-ground into the Warndt For
est we were forced to cross a bare
ridge in sight OF German bat
teries. The five cars Of our party
separated and raced at top speed
into a clump of trees covering the
road ahead of us.
The caravan was not fired on.
AS we reached French OUTPOST
in the recently captured Warndt