Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1941-03-15

attempted to pass the outpost. Private
Grayson Of D company, after chal-
longing the intruder several times, shot
the lieutenant, and the balance Of the
party made a hasty retreat. This event
opened the long looked for incident
that AeuinaIdo desired, being rein
forced with the fact that the first
shot was fired BY the Americans. Al
most Immediately, the line around the
city was a solid mass Of splitting rifle
fire and the fight was merrily on.
During the night the American de-
tenders of the city remained for the
most part in well entrenched positions
and at no place were the insurgents
able to effect an entrance. The attack
from without the lines was timed to
exactneSs, by a cowardly and vicious
assault by soldiers and civilians on the
Americans within the city. For months
before the outbreak. arms and am
munition had been smuggled In, and
many of Aguinaldo's chief aides with
hundreds of his men were all ready
for internal attack Within a compare
lively short time after the Nebraska
private opened the engagement, Manila
became a seething inferno Of exploding
bombs, rifle fire, assaults, arson, snip
ing and treachery, and soon its streets
were cluttered with its dead and dying
disturbers.
Cruisers Shell Positions
Everywhere the city in darkness,
mingled with the sounds Of incessant
strife with the natives, the reaSSuring
tread of determined men assigned to
places of action, the sharp staccato of
the machine guns, flashes of fire from
rifles here, there and everywhere, snip
ers from the houSetops and b2rricaded
windows firing upon the moving troops
below, while surrounding the city in
vast semi-circle, gorgeous but terrible
illumination of the sky, rejecting the
struggle for very life on the firing
line. Mingling with the inceSSant bark
ing of the musketry was the reasSur-
ing roar of the regular and effective
bombardment of the instructors po-
sition from the United States war
cruisers then in the bay, and the all
seeing eye. Of the powerful searchlights
of these stolid fighting machines,
sweeping the field searching out the
nests of the fiendish fighters on the
enemy's line.
such, in brief, were some of the
impressions, burned that terrible night
into ineffaceable memory. With the
approach of the first gray dawn of
the morning, the American defense had
assumed the offensive and the advance
was on. l Company OF LeWlSLoWn, dur
ing the night had occupied a most
important and dangerous position, in
front of which Aguinaldo had massed
many of his best troops, and but for
the stubborn and resistless defense,
made that memorable night by these
two companies. the story Of the out
break might have been sadly different.
Meyersick Is Wounded
advancing from the position held
overnight at San Lazzare cemetery, the
Montana regiment deployed on botn
sides Of the Dulumbyau road, main
thoroughfare, and drove the inSurrec-
tors before 1t, taking up a position
on a new line between La Iona church
and the Chinese cemetery. 1t was in
this advance that William Meyersick,
for whom the local camp is named,
received the wound from which he
died on Feb IS, the first member Of
the Montana regiment to meet death
in action
Following the establishment of the
lines, nothing of Importance occurred
during the next few days, the battle
Of Caloocan, on the 10th, being the
next important engagement, and the
Lewistown company again suffered a
fatality in the death of Frederick Hall
in the advance on Caloocan. Hall had
been assigned from company to duty
with fine First Montana hand