June 17, 1918 - Don Martin has cable rejected by censors

Don Martin diary entry for Monday, June 17, 1918: 
Woke up with a very bad throat and hoarseness which is worse than anything similar I have ever had. Went to a French hospital to have it looked at. The doctor said there seemed to be nothing wrong with it. Then went to an American physician who says I have tonsillitis but nothing serious. I certainly feel very rotten. [Edwin] James  [New York Times] tries to help but he is impossible. The chances are he will try to scoop me. I stayed in all day.

           A telegram has survived that Don Martin prepared on June 17 to send to the New York Herald, which was censored and returned to him with a censorship letter. Being under the weather with a sore throat might have influenced the way he wrote but the reason for censoring his message is not obvious. The censor understood what the message was, he wrote the subject as “urging speed in sending aeroplanes and gas shells. ” Why that was censored is a matter of speculation. 

          The two documents give an insight into how the censoring of American war correspondents was functioning, while the telegram shows how compressed cables were to reduce cost; the editors at the New York Herald wrote the headlines and transformed the telegram into a newspaper article.

PRESS CENSORSHIP

Bureau de la Presse, La Bourse, Paris

Report of Censorship Action to Correspondent

June 23, 1918

To:      Mr. Don Martin

            care NY Herald

Herewith a memorandum of action taken on press ‘copy’ received by American censor at this office for censorship. Action is indicated by check-marks on list below.

Nature of ‘copy’:--(a) mail article or (b) cable [checked]

Title or Subject Matter:

cable urging speed in sending aeroplanes and gas shells

Date and Hour Received by American Censor:  June 17

telegram stopped on advice of G2D, G.H.Q

telegram (never deposited with telegraph co. for transmission) returned herewith

                                                                                          D L Stone

Telegram

Herald, New York

With the American Army

Americans home should reward gallantry heroism willing sacrifice boys front by speeding manufacture aeroplanes, gas shells other things essential successful prosecution war against foe desperate resourceful as Germany period Not only should be furnishing boys planes to see operations enemy but should have them here quickly no time delay investigation talk Machines needed period No American machines any account in France yet army Americans fit fliers here waiting period over our front which one vital spot whole front aeroplanes fly unopposed seven Boche machines wheeling saucily over our lines one forenoon period Americans demonstrated world have no superiors field battle are marching maelstrom death without whimper or fear period seeing their courage sacrifice one wishes people home develop speed construction and shipment commensurate with spirit shown these brave boys period war growing intensity as Germans consolidate for last gigantic offensives period Is duty Americans send aeroplanes now Duty also send millions gas shells so we can thwart ghastly Boche programme to gas way victory period last stages war likely be fought gas masks period Germans constantly developing new more deadly vapors intend overwhelm Americans this way if possible period American genius if not already successful this direction should sweep all aside and devise gas superior Germans period then should send shiploads immediately period Manpower determining factor all wars but gas aeroplanes certain be tremendously important if not vital closing stages present world conflict 

Don Martin

           His diary does not note it, but Don Martin sent another cable dated Monday,  June 17, that was published in New York on June 18. Given his poor health, the stories seem to be based on what he learned a few days earlier about the fighting in the Belleau Wood and in Bouresches.

How Americans Defeated Attack

by 2,000 Picked Huns in Belleau Wood

Meet Advance with Machine Gun Fire Until Enemy Line Melts and Falters, Flares Showing Them Dragging Great Numbers of Dead from the Field.

By Don Martin

Special Correspondent of the Herald with the American Forces in France

[Special Cable to the Herald]

WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, Monday [June 17]

                The Germans prepared to make a night attack on Belleau Woods last night. Two thousand picked men were chosen and threw out a savage barrage for an hour with heavy explosives and shrapnel. The moment it lifted the infantry started through a gully toward the wood.

             The Americans, who have a brilliant record on this front, met the advance with machine gun fire, sweeping the gully with a veritable hurricane of steel. The Germans kept coming for a short time. Then their line melted and faltered. Then flares showed the survivors staggering and scrambling back to cover, which was raked by American artillery. The flares later revealed the Germans dragging a great number of dead from the field. Two other attacks were made at the same point and both were repelled.

               I passed the afternoon with injured members of an American unit which has done heroic work. One group of fifty men represented thirty-six States. It has been through hell for fifteen days. All tell with a sob in their throats of the bravery of a man from Chicago who was shot through the arm, but stuck for two hours to his machine gun because without him the weapon would have been out of commission. Weak from loss of blood, with shells breaking everywhere, he stuck till a piece of shrapnel struck him in the back, sending him to the hospital. He will be back.

Bravery of a Small Patrol

           Among hundreds of grim tales of the war, the exploits of a lieutenant of a small company of men stands conspicuous as commended for bravery. He was told to get German prisoners or in other ways to ascertain the identity of a German division opposite. With seven men accompanying him he crawled through a ploughed field at dead of night, through No Man’s Land and a hundred yards inside the enemy lines.

                He left a sergeant and five men at a lonely spot with instructions to make no move unless commanded. With a corporal, inch by inch, he crept through the brush to a roadway, where he saw two German sentries. The lieutenant and corporal advanced on their bellies, determined on a capture. When ten yards away, they made a noise which startled the Germans, who cried in German, “Halt!” They retorted in German, “Surrender!”

                 One sentry replied: --“Hands up!” and began to shoot. The lieutenant dropped, feigning dead, and the corporal also. The sentries fired twelve shots in the direction of the noise, but missed, and the corporal then emptied his automatic at the Germans, who were riddled. Their bodies were too heavy to carry, so they seized their papers, which were scant, but sufficient to show they were members of the 236^th regiment, which was supposed to be out of the line.

                 The report says: -- “The sergeant and the men deserve credit for remaining silent while the shooting was going on a short distance away.”

                    Even then the whole outfit has a perilous trip back through German territory, but succeeded without incident.

                      The French admire their pluck and say the Americans probably got their idea from American red men, who are the champion ambuscaders of all time.

                   One of the Germans killed was about forty years old and six feet two tall. The  other was about thirty. Both were large, well fed and fully clothed.

                      I am able to tell another story of the scores which thrill all. Five Americans with a lieutenant at their head were taking forty German prisoners back when a German picked up a potato masher and hurled it at the head of the lieutenant. The others threatened to attack when the Americans turned a machine gun directly on them. The Germans left will tell that story.

Firing on Ambulance

                  There are several reliable stories of Germans firing on litter bearers and Red Cross ambulances. A German Red Cross man, who was badly wounded, was brought to an American hospital. He had a dirk in one pocket and a revolver in another.

           The Americans who were in the fighting at Belleau and also at Bouresches say the Germans resort to every trickery. They shout “Kamerad” and then, when they see an advantage, shoot their captors. Their methods are sowing hatred in the hearts of Americans which is liable to prove costly to the Germans.

                 I talked with some Americans who were first in the village of Bouresches, which was captured from the Germans and which they still hold. They say the Germans left their own dead unburied and also left the bodies of a man, a woman and two children in the street.

               Throughout the entire fighting in Bouresches an aged man and a woman lived in a cellar unhurt. They used to milk cows which were killed today by a shell. The Americans take kindly care of the old couple, who they say would rather be killed than leave the town they were born in.

                The Germans have ceased their gas attacks on the Americans northwest of Château-Thierry. This proves that the only way to fight the Hun is an eye for an eye. On Friday night the Americans sent 6,000 ordinary gas shells into their lines. On Saturday night a thousand large ones were sent into the back areas, giving the Huns a powerful dose of their own medicine.

                  It is no secret that the Germans were figuring on gas as their big weapon for the rest of the war. I would suggest that the Americans make haste to perfect a gas equal to the German gas and ship vast quantities of it here.  It may prove vital in the determination of the conflict.