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April 7, 1918 - Muddy roads kept Don Martin in Neufchateau

Don Martin diary entry for Sunday, April 7, 1918: 
Spent the entire day in Neufchateau. Roads so muddy didn’t dare to go out. Met [Henri] Bazin who is just back from the scene of the big battle. Wrote a story for mailing and packed up ready to go to Paris tomorrow to find out whether I am to stay at Neufchateau or go up to the front with one of the artillery regiments.


 Weather very bad.
        Don Martin wrote up and cabled the story about two German prisoners mentioned in diary on April 6, dated Sunday, April 7. It was published in the New York Herald on Monday, April 8, 1918.
BARRAGE CATCHES GERMAN PRISONER IN AMERICAN LINE
Falls Between Party of Raiders and Their Leader, Who Is Captured
By DON MARTIN
[Special despatch to the Herald via Commercial Cable Company’s System]
AMERICAN FRONT IN FRANCE, Sunday
          The two German prisoners who were captured last night by American soldiers when another German was killed in an attempted raid on the American trenches said the Germans had understood that the Americans were opposite them and they were instructed to make a raid and make sure.
          A heavy barrage was thrown by the enemy and a party of about a dozen privates, led by a corporal, started toward the American trenches. Instantly a barrage was put down by the Americans and it was so sudden that it fell between the corporal, who was piloting the raiders, and his dozen followers.
         The corporal was taken prisoner by an American corporal. On him were found a dagger with razorlike edges and an automatic pistol in excellent condition. The other prisoner was taken after he had been for three hours in darkness between the two lines. He had been sent out with orders to repair the wire defenses when noise from an American patrol startled him and his companions. The latter got safely back to their line, but he lost his way, and after groping in the mist and darkness reached what he thought was his own line. He peered over the trench, which happened to be American and quickly was make a prisoner.
        The German who was killed was shot by two Americans who were carrying rations. His body was brought back to the American lines along with the rations.
        An interesting story of an American soldier who lost his mind temporarily from the effects of a barrage fire and lived three days and nights between the first and second lines, to be mistaken at first for a spy who had stolen an American uniform, comes from an American sector. The man was found among the shell holes with no gas mask and unable for a time to tell much about himself. After being fed and warmed he convinced his captors that he was an American soldier. He had been in dangerous territory during three days and nights, but did not fully realize it until he came to.

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