Don
Martin diary entry for Sunday, August 25, 1918:
Stayed in today. Very warm so hung around the hotel most of the time.
Had dinner across the river again with [Lincoln] Eyre [New York World], Wales, [Carroll]
McNutt [Colliers] and a lieutenant named Langstaff who has just come out of the
line.
Although not mentioned in
his diary, Don Martin had a big writing day on Sunday, August 25. He wrote two
long pieces for mailing to New York. The first—3,600 words—was written in the style
of a Sunday newspaper article, and it was published in the New York Herald on Sunday,
September 15. It is a stirring tribute to the “American fighting man”, and in
it, he put just about everything he had written to date about Americans in the
war.
HATS OFF TO YANKEE FIGHTING MAN! ADMIRED BY FRANCE AND ENGLAND, FEARED
BY GERMANY
Don Martin Writes a Stirring Tribute to the American Soldier, Whose
Worth, He Says, Has Been Proved To Be Vastly Greater Than Our Allies Ever
Dreamed.
HUNS READ THEIR DOOM IN THE STREAM OF NEW TROOPS POURING TO THE FRONT
Our Successes Due To Many Factors, Herald Correspondent Declares, but
Are Due Primarily to the Man in the Tranches, the Fighting Man
By DON MARTIN
Special Correspondent of the Herald with the American Armies in France
(Special to the Herald)
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, August 25
The American
fighting man!
France and
England have their hats off to him.
Germany fears
him.
The Yank, the
Buddy, the Amex, but, better still—and this is the name he likes and the name
that will stick—the American, smiles, grins and goes on with his job. For he is
here to whip the Hun. As they say in their song:--
“We’re here
because we’re here because we’re here to lick the Hun,
And take it
straight from Uncle Sam, we’ll stay until it’s done.”
The American fighting man is
just a youngster—a boy, the French call him. But he has the energy of a dynamo,
the valor of a knight errant, the courage of a Spartan and his muscles are of
steel. He is like a perfectly trained athlete—a thoroughbred. Europe has never
seen anything quite like him. The Canadians and the Australians are of the same
type, but somehow they haven’t quite the same sang froid, the devil-may-care
manner. They fight, however, with the same snap and savagery, as their record
most eloquently tells.
Even those Americans whose
love of country, whose vanity and pride in the boys of their native land, led
them at limes to become boastful of what the Americans would do when they
appeared upon the field of battle have been astounded at the virility and
brilliance of the Americans both in resistance and attack. Their predictions
and even their rosiest hopes have been more than justified.
The French poilu—the fighter
to whom the whole world must pay reverence after his wonderful record and his
tremendous sacrifice of the last four years—while never questioning the
sincerity of the Americans, doubted their ability to hold their own with the
trained veterans of France and England, now sing songs of praise of the boys
from across the sea and salute every time an American officer passes.
Every one realizes now that
William J. Bryan made an extravagant but well meant statement when he said that
Uncle Sam could raise an army of a million over night. He was wrong, but he was
on the right track. If three months ago—certainly six months ago—some one had
said that America, because of the adaptability and vigor of her young men,
could before the end of 1918 have an army of a million men ready to use as
shock troops he would have been ridiculed much more than William J. Bryan was.
But see what the situation is. The Americans are shock troops. The French recognize
it. The Germans in an official document, the gist of which I cabled to the Herald
several weeks ago, classify them as shock troops of the first order. What a
transformation! No wonder Germany shivers every time she hears that more Americans
have taken their place in the line. She has already read her doom in the lines
of Americans who have advanced over her sturdiest assault divisions—Prussians
and Bavarians.
The successes which have thus
far marked Uncle Sam’s participation in the decisive battle now in the final
stage—the second battle of the Marne—are due to many things, among them
splendid training at home, genius in organization and excellence of care, but
primarily it is due to the man in the ranks—the chap from California, Maine,
Florida, Wyoming or any of the other States. These fighters have an initiative
which has opened the eyes of the French. They are possessed with the do-or-die
spirit which sends them headlong into machine gun nests or lines bristling with
bayonets. The fear of death or injury seems never to enter their thoughts. The
seething infernos into which the front lines are frequently transformed—with
gas fumes settling upon an area churned
to a depth of several feet and the roar of shells making verbal
communication impossible—do not unnerve these hardy youngsters. It is amazing
what they stand, what they have done and what they are certain yet to do.
The mere thought of throwing
these apostles of peace, this army of boys recruited from factory and farm,
from fireside and forge, into the maelstrom of the most hideous war of all time
was appalling to many. They waited almost breathlessly for the first reports
from the front where the Americans were engaged. Everyone knows the answer the
boys from the United States sent back—a ringing answer which, like another
American answer of another period, “echoed round the world.”
They received their first
real baptism south of the Marne, southeast of Soissons and just northwest of
Château-Thierry. Had their line not held, the German offensive of July 15 would
not have been transformed into a defensive and the story of to-day might be a
sad one for the Allies. It is not to be assumed or inferred that the Americans
turned the tide. They did not. But they helped and their presence made it
possible for the brave French and the sturdy English to pound away with their
maximum strength. I was told by an authority that cannot be doubted that of the
entire allied force engaged in the great operation beginning with the drive
north on July 19, France furnished more than eighty percent.
In Perfect Health
The secret of the success of
the American on the field is due fundamentally to the perfect health of the
fighters. There are no weaklings among them. As the physicians and physical
culturists say, perfect health is essential to cool nerve. The nerve of the
Americans has all but shocked the French with whom they have fought. General
Foch in a recent discussion of the soldiers of the Allies said of the
Americans:;--
“As for the American troops,
you may tell your people at home that
they are admirable. They ask nothing better than to go to their death.
One can only make this criticism—that they push on too fast. I am obliged to
hold them back. What higher compliment could be paid to troops? Their only
request is to march forward and to kill the greatest possible number of the
enemy.”
But a more substantial
tribute was paid to them by General Foch when he made two American divisions
part of the French army which was to push forward in the Soissons region in
mid-July—this vital region where the fate of the entire battle was likely to
hang. And not only did he entrust them with this delicate sector but he placed
the most famous of all French crack units—a Moroccan division—between them.
These Moroccans are what the soldiers call fire-eaters. They are powerful
physically, have no regard for human life, their own or any one else’s, and
when they are told to gain a certain objective they either get there or die in
trying. They are trained especially for assault work and when not needed to
bridge over a crisis are at rest far back from the line.
It was with these demons of
warfare as peacemakers that the American divisions took their place in the line
near Soissons. The signal to advance came. With their native war cry upon their
lips these dervishes of war hurled themselves forward upon the enemy. They
swept the Germans back. They kept on and on. They hammered away until they had snatched
four kilometres of ground from the startled and temporarily demoralized Hun.
A staggering and
disconcerting example for young men who had until then known little but the
minor phases of battle! When the day’s fighting was over word came back that
the Americans to the north and the Americans to the south had gone ahead at the
same speed as these unbeatable Moroccans, and in the days following the
Americans, whose experience was gained at Cantigny, at St. Mihiel, at Belleau, Bouresches and
Vaux, kept abreast of their swift African comrades. Everywhere the story was
the same. Told to reach a certain point, the Americans reached it.
I have tried to get the point
of view of the American in the ranks and sought to understand him. Epitomized,
their expressions are:--
“We came over here to give
the Hum a licking, and the way to do it is to do it. You can’t lick him by
making faces at him. The folks at home want the war over, but they don’t want
it over till we have done a good job, and we’re out to do a good job.”
It may be a private from a
sweatshop on the east side of New York, an Indian lumberman from Northern
Wisconsin, a bank clerk from Boston, a teamster from St. Louis, a brewery
worker of German ancestry from Milwaukee, the son of a German merchant in
Cincinnati, a railway trainman from Chicago, a Sunday school teacher from
Indiana, a farmer from the Middle West, a mechanic from Pennsylvania, an
Italian bootblack from New York city, a Greek candy maker from Syracuse, a
Polish laborer from Buffalo, a slow speaking Yankee from the Berkshires in New
England, a lawyer from any one of ten
thousand villages—he fights with the same vigor and pluck as the man next to
him. And when he is wounded he smiles and takes his injury as a reward instead
of a penalty. I have seen hundreds of wounded Americans, some slightly and many
frightfully torn and battered, but I have yet to see one with a look of fear or
pain on his face. It sounds odd to say, as all the correspondents constantly
do, that the Americans enter the hospitals smiling, but it is a fact.
Killed His Assailant
Only yesterday I saw a young
man brought into a hospital with a badly wounded leg. Before the war he kept a
small shop on a side street in New York city.
“I killed the Boche that did
this,” he said proudly. “He hit me with a potato masher (a hand grenade) and I
drew my gat’ (pistol) and shot him while I was lying on the ground.”
It can be frankly stated that
because of his small stature and appearance this man would not promise a great
deal to the average man as a soldier, but he had proved to be one of the best.
I asked him how he liked war, and he said:--
“I was a little afraid at
first, but I don’t mind it at all now. Most of the boys like it and I’m
beginning to like it myself. I hope I can get back in a little while.”
A sergeant was brought in at
the same time—a fine looking man of about twenty-three. His right leg had been
almost shot away by a shell fragment. He asked for a cigarette and then told
briefly what had happened. He was leading a detachment of men well out in front
during a skirmish when he was struck. His men fell back and of necessity left
him because of the heavy fire. He lay there for fourteen hours—from six in the
morning till dark—waiting for succor, which came when his comrades were able to
go out into the dangerous region. This sergeant, whose name must be omitted now,
managed to stay the blood from his terrible wound and to patch up some sort of
dressing. It was a difficult job, in view of the fact that if he had moved
conspicuously he would probably have been shot by German snipers who commanded
the spot.
Because of his splendid
physical condition the sergeant recovered from the shock and it appeared that
he had every chance of recovery. He was in severe pain, but he made no
complaint and did not even wince when told that this leg would probably have to
be amputated.
To the nurse who was tenderly
caring for him he said:--
“I wish you would see that my
mother and my wife do not know how badly I am hurt. It will be better to say I
was hurt a little and then some time later I can write to them. I wrote to my
mother a few days ago and told her I had done up some souvenirs for her and
would send them. Then we were ordered out quickly and I took the package to my
dugout, where it still is. I wish it could be sent to her some way.”
Because of the long exposure
and the delayed attention to his wound this brave young sergeant, who in
private life was a mechanic, died. Gangrene developed.
I saw another soldier with a
torn foot. He sat upright smoking a cigarette while the doctor treated the
wound. It was a painful operation, but had one been able to see only the face
of the soldier one would have believed that the wounded man was being amused rather than hurt.
In a hospital not far from
the line one night a young soldier, perhaps not more than nineteen, was brought
in. He had been shot through the stomach and his death was a matter of but a few
hours. He knew he was badly hurt, but did not know at first that he could not
live. He had an almost angelic face, and it was easy to see that he had been
brought up in good surroundings. He said to the surgeon who had been speaking
in a kindly way to him:--
“Doctor, do you think I shall
die?”
“Made Good, Anyhow”
“My boy,” said the surgeon
with just a tremor in his voice, “You are pretty badly hurt, but we are going
to do everything we can for you.”
The surgeon turned
away—always in the midst of suffering and death these surgeons have tender
hearts which are often deeply touched. The boy was silent for a few minutes.
Then he nodded to the surgeon.
“Doctor, you’ve got my tag,
haven’t you?”
“Yes, that has been taken
care of.”
Then turning his head
slightly—the last move he ever made—he said barely above a whisper:--
“Well, I guess I made good,
anyhow.”
Another soldier who lost both
legs and suffered a serious body wound was asked if he wished to send any word
to his folks.
“You mean it’s curtains for
me,” he said almost saucily.
“It’s best to tell you,” was
the answer.
“Well, I’m certainly out of
luck.”
I was having mess one day
with a group of military policemen. I sat under a tree with a good looking man
who seemed disgruntled about something.
“Don’t you like the job
you’ve got? I asked
“I certainly do not. I’m an
expert horseman, been in the cavalry, in fact, and here I am stuck away in the
military police. I want to get in the cavalry where I can do something.”
“But you’re safer where you
are than you would be in the cavalry, aren’t you?”
“Safer? Yes. But who wants to
be safe? I came over here to fight.”
This private was once a
constable in Harrisburg, Pa.
In an evacuation hospital
about ten miles back of the line one day the major in charge of the command
came in and addressed the seven surgeons working there as follows:--
“Major ----- and Lieutenant
------ (both doctors) were killed last night by a shell in the field dressing
station. Two surgeons are required to take their places. I want to explain that
this place is practically in the line and only those who volunteer will go.
All Volunteer
From the lips of each of the
seven—all men in the prime of youthful life—came the words in chorus:--
“I should be glad to go,
sir.”
It is interesting to record
that the two men who went have escaped death and injury up to date.
Another instance of the
fearlessness of the American was furnished recently when an American company
concealed in the edge of a low woods was assigned to capture four machine guns
which were in the fringe of another woods about a quarter of a mile away. The
Americans knew their task would be simplified and rendered much less deadly if
they knew the location of the guns. These fountains of destruction had been
silent, but it was known that they awaited only a move to let loose their
stream of death. Volunteers were asked for—a half dozen—to start across the
open space to draw fire. This amounted practically to a sentence of death, but it
meant the saving of many lives in the aggregate. The company commander asked
who wished to go and every single man in the company volunteered. The rest of
the story is not pleasant to tell. Four of the six gallant volunteers were
buried not far from where they made their heroic sacrifice, but the concealed
positions of the machine guns were revealed and the company captured them with
a minimum loss.
There are thousands of
incidents which show that the American fighter to-day in France is a chip off
the old block—a sturdy prototype of the men who fought at Lexington and
Concord, at Gettysburg and Antietam. The boys know what they are fighting for
and they know they are going to win. They know that many have been killed; that
many more will be killed, but their determination to whip the Hun is only
intensified by the losses of their comrades. Their bravery has been one hundred
percent from the start.
Friendly Criticism
As was the case with the
Canadians and Australians, the Americans are being criticised, but in a most
admiring way, of being impetuous to the point of recklessness. They are impetuous.
They are possibly reckless at times, but nothing is to be gained by trying to
put a stiff bridle on them.
The French fight with
brilliance, but economically. They know the value of men. It was necessary that
they have a full realization of the importance of saving men, and they have
saved them; and it is a good thing for the other nations that they did, for if
they had thrown their men into the furnaces of war in the early years Germany
would be in a vastly different position than France, with her reduced but
powerfully virile troops, and England, with her splendid army, have been able
to pace her with Uncle Sam’s aid. If France desired to win a certain goal and knew
that by doing so in a week she would lose a thousand men, while by waiting a
month she could reach the same objective with the loss of five hundred men, she
would wait, even though a slight military advantage might be gained by
attaining the goal in the shorter period.
If the Americans start for an objective they
reach it or die in the attempt. If the slightest military advantage is to be
gained by speed the soldiers move with speed. But it must not be inferred that
men are wasted. If an encircling movement, for instance, will achieve the same
result in three days that a direct assault would obtain in a day, the
encircling movement is resorted to because it reduces the losses. Uncle Sam’s
officers are not overlooking any opportunities to conserve manpower, nor are
they throwing away the lives of their men. It is no doubt true that the
Americans will take a long chance. Some there unquestionably are who will go
straight instead of going around.
Whether it be impetuosity,
recklessness or just bravery, it is a spirit and dash which have sent a shudder
to the hearts of the Germans. They met the American in the great second battle
of the Marne with the confident expectation of running rough shod over him.
Their Defeat Is History
It is history now—that defeat
of the Prussians and Bavarians by Americans who had done practically no
fighting before. These young giants, many of them from the Northwest, licked
the Prussians in their tracks. They outshot them, they slew them with bayonets
and they smothered them with grenades and rifle fire in the machine gun nests
where the Prussians were making a desperate stand.
The soldiers are sportsmen to
the core. Even though they hate the Boche with bitterness and actually find joy
in slaughtering him, they do not take advantage of the enemy. It is a gross
libel to say that they kill prisoners. They treat prisoners with decency and
ofttimes with kindness.
The Germans have studiously
sought to convince the German soldiers and the world generally that the
American is a bloodthirsty soldier—the most bloodthirsty of all-and that he
takes no prisoners, or if he does he afterwards kills them. This propaganda is
circulated among the soldiers in order to prevent them from surrendering and it
has without doubt gained wide credence. The American is violating no rule of
war, but he is fighting a savage war because the German started a savage war,
and before it is ended the German will find that the American stands ready to
meet the Hun on any battle ground with any kind of rules, applied to both
sides, which the Hun desires.
There is no gainsaying the
hatred of the American for the Hun. I heard one of them recently, gazing at
more than a hundred German bodies near the village of Sergy, say:--
“That’s the way I’d like to
see every German here and across the Rhine. They started it.”
On a trip recently to the
region immediately south of the Vesle, where Americans were engaged in constant
and brisk fighting with a strong German division, I saw the body of a young
American. He had been killed the day before. His gas mask lay beside him. On
it, penciled in large, rather irregular letters, were the words:--
“For God and Humanity!”
He was typical of the American fighting man.
Don Martin’s second mailed dispatch
of August 25 was another of his “Sidelines”, a collection of stories and
vignettes. At 1,900 words, together with the first dispatch and photos he also sent,
it filled the whole of a page in the New York Herald Sunday, September 15,
edition.
SIDELIGHTS AT THE FRONT
By DON MARTIN
Special Correspondent of the Herald with the American Armies in France
(Special to the Herald)
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, August 25
Americans continue to astonish the people of France. First they surprised
them by the quickness with which they learned the science of war. Next they
amazed them by fighting like veterans in the early engagements such as
Seicheprey, Belleau, Cantigny, Torcy and Bouresches. Then they absolutely
astounded them when they, the Americans, met the Prussians—the guardsmen and
grenadiers—and whipped them to a finish.
The American is more or less an enigma to the easy-going French poilu. He
knows nothing of fear. He speaks of a Prussian with the same contempt as he
speaks of an Austrian. He digs a trench or buries a horse without complaint. He
works in the sun without a whimper. He chops wood, patches holes in the roads,
drives trucks, plays the piano and fights with the same spirit. A French
general said to me recently:--
“If the American makes up his mind to do a thing he does it.”
A few days ago seven American privates did something which no Frenchman
would ever think of doing. They were on a train bound for Paris and wanted to
get off about a mile outside the city limits. The train slows down at the point
to about thirty miles an hour. The Americans stood on the running board of the
first class coach and waited till the train was passing a stretch of crushed
stone. That apparently appealed to them as a softer place to strike than solid
earth. One jumped and remained upright. From every window French officers were
looking at the exhibition of daredevilism. A second jumped. He rolled thirty
feet. Then, one after the other, the rest of the soldiers let go of the side of
the car and struck the ground. Four of the seven turned somersaults and stopped
with their heads and shoulders against the adjoining track. But all arose and
smiled, waved their hats and started across the tracks for wherever it was they
wished to go. A French officer of rank shook his head and said: “Afraid of
nothing, the Americans.”
* * *
In one of the oldest and finest chateaus in France I had luncheon the other
day with several American artillery officers who had just taken over the place
for a headquarters. The place was built four hundred years ago and in the main
has not been altered. Within a stone’s throw is a ruin—the remains of an
earlier chateau built in 750. It is one of the most picturesque spots in France
and seems entirely out of keeping with the young Americans who swarm over the
entire panorama. One expects to see knights in armor stalking about the spot or
musketeers dashing up to rescue some handsome lady from the enemy. Instead one
sees in a corner of the yard an American goulash kitchen; one smells the ubiquitous
Americans stew with the odor of tomato sifting through it; one sees a little
farther off a game of baseball; inside one hears the strains of American
popular songs being played on a piano which probably cost many thousands of
dollars and for some strange reason was saved from the Huns; one sees
sombreroed privates lounging about.
“I’d like to have this place out in Washington, where I come from,” said
one of the soldiers. “People would go a long way to see it, but they wouldn’t
have it for a home on a bet.”
Mediaevalism is stamped upon most of the settings in which the Americans
have been fighting during the last few weeks. It is nothing unusual to see,
standing among the shattered ruins, a tower of solid masonry dating back a
thousand years. It is the common thing to see a date like 1650 or 1780 or 1800
on a gable of a farm building. In the tiny villages one may see any time wells
which date back three and four centuries. It is all new and strange for the
Americans, but they are making the best of it. One of them said to me, as he
looked at a building dated 1462:--
“Gee, that was built before any one even knew there was such a place as the
Western Hemisphere. We’re pikers, but at that I guess we can fight some, can’t
we?”
* * *
Among the soldiers who did some of the most brilliant fighting in the
recent big operation against the Germans were lumbermen from northern Wisconsin
and Michigan. They are a most interesting group of men, giants in strength,
almost feminine in their modesty and courageous to the tips of their toes. They
matched strength with Prussians and the Prussians were humbled. I went among
them the day they were taken out of the front line to get some of their stories
of the fighting, for I knew from what I had heard that they could tell many a
thrilling tale of heroism. But I got none. They refuse to take credit for
anything.
“It was Bill, or John or Bob that did that I guess. I don’t recollect
anything like that,” was the average reply I got.
I observed that the edge of the iron hat which one of them wore was dented
and torn, evidently by a bullet. I asked the soldier what caused the mark.
“A bullet,” he said. “I got three at the same time and wasn’t hurt a bit.
Funny how things happen. I was chasing the Germans, shooting at them, when the Germans
flanked us with machine guns. One bullet struck me in the hat and went through
another fellow’s leg; a second one hit the shovel on my back, and a third one knocked
my rifle all to pieces. But I wasn’t hurt a bit.”
“What did you do then?”
“Well, the fellow next to me who got hit couldn’t use his rifle, so I
grabbed it and kept on going till we reached the place we were heading for. A
lot of the fellows got killed, I’m afraid, but we did the job they gave us to
do just the same.”
This about describes the get-there-or-die spirit of the Americans—the
spirit which is earning the enthusiastic and undying admiration of the French
and causing demoralization among Germany’s crack troops.
* * *
The fury of the artillery fire which drove the Germans from the Paris-Metz
highway—one of the finest roads in France—in the vicinity of Château-Thierry
and forced them to evacuate Hill 204, which commands Château-Thierry, is well
shown by the havoc the shells caused among the handsome poplars which line both
sides of the road. These trees are about seventy-five feet apart and are about
eighteen inches in diameter. In a stretch about four ordinary city blocks in
length forty-seven of these splendid trees were cut off. In some instances the
top part of the tree was carried across the thoroughfare, but in nine out of
ten cases the top part fell beside its trunk.
This road, which is familiar to thousands of American tourists, was badly
torn, but within two days after the French regained possession of it the holes
had been filled and the surface was as smooth as ever. The road along the north
bank of the Marne from Château-Thierry west, which is also well known to
American automobilists, was badly damaged, but it again in perfect condition.
The roads on the south side of the Marne were not pitted by shell holes. From
Château-Thierry east for many miles one sees only wrecked villages and shell
torn fields, with masses of German ammunition everywhere.
* * *
The American private keeps France guessing constantly. He always seems to have
money and in comparison with the frugal French poilu is a hopeless spendthrift.
When a regiment is billeted in a small town for a week or two the American
soldiers swarm in and out of the stores, completely overturning the dull
routine of business and quickly buying out everything there is for sale. In
Paris it is a quite common thing to see a half dozen American privates enter
the Café de la Paix, the Café de Paris or some of the other fashionable
restaurants where only men with fat purses are supposed to go and order a
luncheon or dinner as elaborate as would be ordered by a boulevardier. The headwaiters
look surprisedly at the soldiers, for it is a thing unheard of for French poilu
to go into these restaurants of fancy prices. The Americans know what they
want, know how to ask for it, know how much to tip the waiters and always pay their
checks with large bills. But there is nothing remarkable in all this. There are
thousands of soldiers in the ranks who are wealthy. There are any number who
have prosperous businesses in the United States. Such is a draft army!
* * *
The American mule is living strictly up to traditions. He is here in full
force, doing his share of the war’s work, and, as usual, doing it well. He
hauls ammunition to the front. He traverses shell sprayed roads without
hesitating and now and them, just to let folks know he is a mule, balks.
The other day I saw a young American soldier with a balky mule on his
hands. The animal apparently intended to back up, but changed his mind and
decided not to move at all. The driver was a soft-spoken young man who, I
learned, is an invoice clerk at home and unused to profanity. He teased,
coaxed, whipped, pushed, kicked the mule, but the mule’s mind was very
evidently made up. The young man looked the situation over, then in a matter of
fact way began to pour out the stiffest line of profanity I had heard in weeks,
and that is some compliment to his versatility and loquacity, in view of the
fact that I had spent much time among the soldiers. He cursed for about a minute
and at the same time beat the mule with a whip. Seemingly moved by the driver’s
diplomacy, the mule moved on about his business.
“I had understood,” the driver said, “that the only language a mule
understands is profanity, so I suppose I shall have to study up on it—but what
would the folks back home say if they should hear me? Yes, or even see me—a
mule driver. From an invoice clerk to a mule driver. Think it over.”
* * *
Some day some one will write the story of the ammunition trains, and a good
story it will be. Like the litter bearers, the runners, the men who carry food
to the front line, the drivers of these ammunition trains are the war heroes
unsung. Their trains are bombarded with bombs from airplanes and in broad
daylight they are frequently stormed by airmen with machine guns. Yet the
ammunition carts go rumbling serenely along bearing the material without which
the men at the front would be helpless. Most of the travelling is done at
night.
During the recent fighting it was necessary for some batteries to be
supplied immediately with shells. Without them what seemed like certain victory
might be turned to defeat. So on a rainy night, a train started out. There was
no room for traffic coming from the other direction to pass. No lights could be
used. The captain in charge of the train sent two men ahead, each puffing a
cigarette, and with these tiny points of fire as beacons, the driver of the
first cart kept to the road and those behind kept immediately behind him. In
this way the ammunition was carted over a narrow tortuous road a mile long and
the situation was saved.
A short dispatch dated August 25 was cabled to New York and published
inside a black-lined box on page 2 in the New York Herald on August 26.
AMERICAN ARMY FAST REACHING SIZE TO CRUSH THE GERMANS
By DON MARTIN
Special Correspondent
of the Herald with the American Armies in France
[Special Cable to the
Herald]
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, Sunday
It is impossible to describe
the joy of the Americans everywhere in France at the announcement just made in
Washington that there now are thirty-two divisions of United States troops in
France ready for the battle front. A trip along the entire front, however,
would cause one to believe that the American strength here was underestimated.
While realizing that in the
fighting which has been going on since July 19 France has furnished eighty
percent of the total force engaged on this side, nevertheless it is conceded
that America is fast swelling her ranks here and constantly adding to them gallant
and indomitable troops, making possible a sufficient force under General Petain
to carry out the programme which is bound, sooner or later, to crush the
Germans.
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