Skip to main content

May 28, 1918 - Don Martin writes about Americans bombarded with gas shells


Don Martin diary entry for Tuesday, May 28, 1918: 
Stayed in Neufchateau and wrote letters and some mail stories. Spent the evening at the club.
           Don Martin on Tuesday, May 28, wrote about American forces being bombarded with gas shells. The dispatch was published in the New York Herald on Wednesday, May 29, 1918.
‘WEARY OF WAR,’ GERMANS’ PLEA TO AMERICANS
Prisoner Who Deserted Says Many of His Comrades Are Eager to Quit
TROOPS SHIFTED FROM EAST FRONT
Enemy Trying to Convince Pershing’s Men of the Presence of a Big Force
By DON MARTIN
[Special cable to the Herald]
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY IN FRANCE, Tuesday
            German prisoners taken by the Americans say that most of the men opposed to the Americans returned from the Russian front. Their leaders want them to keep the Americans constantly harassed and to cause the suspicion that a great German force is near at hand. One German who deserted yesterday said many others want to desert, as they are weary of war.
            The net result of the powerful gas attack launched against the Americans yesterday in the Luneville sector and later when patrols attacked in this sector was five dead Germans and no deaths of Americans.
            The Lorraine sector gas attack lends strength to the belief that the war will develop even more frightfulness, due to the Germans’ fiendish determination to fight with the deadliest gases. Here the Germans set off five hundred large phosgene gas shells from projections recently implanted in the sector in order to give to the Americans a taste of what the Canadians got at Ypres.
            It is known the Germans are employing electrically connected batteries, connected so as to fire simultaneously large gas shells which contain each more than three gallons.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

October 14, 1918: Don Martin’s funeral service in Paris

        A funeral service for Don Martin was held in Paris on Sunday, October 13, 1918, at the American Church, rue de Berri. The New York Herald published this report on Monday, October 14, 1918. MANY FRIENDS AT CHURCH SERVICE FOR DON MARTIN Simplicity and Sincerity of Character of “Herald” Writer, Theme of Dr. Goodrich’s Sermon                     Funeral services for Don Martin were held yesterday afternoon in the American Church in the rue de Berri. They were simple and impressive. Before the pulpit rested the coffin, over which was spread the American flag. Floral offerings were arranged around it. Flat against the wall behind the pulpit were two American flags and the tricolor, and on either side were standards of these two emblems. Uniforms of the United States army predominated in the gathering of 200 persons composed of friends Mr. Martin had known for years at home and friends he had made in Fr...

Welcome to Don Martin blog on Armistice Centennial Day

Welcome to the World War I Centennial Don Martin daily blog, on Armistice Centennial day, November 11, 2018. Don Martin was a noted war correspondent reporting on the American Expeditionary Forces in France in 1918. Regrettably he died of Spanish influenza in Paris on October 7,1918, while covering the Argonne Forest offensive. He missed the joy of the Armistice by a month. Beginning on December 7, 2017, this blog has chronicled each day what Don Martin wrote one hundred years earlier – in his diary, in his letters home, and in his multitude of dispatches published in the Herald newspaper, both the New York and the European (Paris) editions. The blog, for the several days following his death, recounts the many tributes published, his funeral in Paris and his trip back to his final resting place at his home in Silver Creek, New York. To access the daily blogs, click on the three red lines at top right, then in the fold-down menu, click on Archive. There are 316 blogs from D...

September 30, 1918: Don Martin assesses war situation, and visits recaptured Varennes

           On Monday, September 30, Don Martin sent a cable sent to the New York Herald beginning with his review of the war situation in France, and then reporting on his day at the front in and around Varennes-en-Argonne. It was published on Tuesday, October 1. ENEMY EXHAUSTED BY FOCH STRATEGY OF VARIED BLOWS Enemy Forces Bewildered  and Never Quite Certain of Plan of Defence 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, Monday                  Competent observers who long feared to believe their own convictions are now fully convinced that Germany is in a most serious predicament – not only because of her desertion by Bulgaria, but because of the general military situation on the Western front. To-day this situation is far more favorable to the Unit...