Part 2

IT WAS in November, 1915--we were at Kemmel Hill, when the wet weather started in. I remember one night I was sent out of the trenches to the Dump, near the dressing station, for rations. We had no communication trenches then, owing to the heavy shelling we were getting from the German artillery, and we never had the guns to come back at them. We had to go out at dusk through the fields, known to us as "overland." We got down to the dump all right, but coming back the Germans saw us, and they turned three machine guns on us. I was about fifty yards from the front line when the barrage started. My pal was just behind me. About four yards from us was an old French trench, with about three feet of water in it. I jumped into that with my pal. The Germans kept the barrage up for about a half an hour and as soon as it stopped I made my way for the front lines.

Just imagine what condition I was in when I reached there. I was soaking wet, but the rations were worse. Well, anyhow, I had to do my sentry duty, just the same, because if one man was shy those days it put all the work on some of his comrades. I could not get a change of clothing so I took off my pants and wore my blanket like a Scotchman would his kilts. It's wonderful to me the hardships a man can contend with. We could get very little water up the front line and water means an awful lot to a man over there. Well, there was a creek running from the German front line across No Man's Land and into our trench, and coming over No Man's Land it ran over quite a few dead bodies. We were told by our medical officer not to drink this water because the Huns might have put poison into it. But we had to get water some place, so we all took a chance and drank it, and I am still alive and just as good as ever.

We were in the trenches for six days at a time. What good times we used to have when we were out in our billets. It was there we used to get the chance to have a good feed from the Belgian peasants. "Eggs and chips" was our favorite dish. Even when the men are out of the trenches they have to be ready in case of an attack. One night we got the orders from the front line that the trenches had caved in and of course we had to go up and help the boys build them up again.

It was this night, while carrying up sand bags, a bullet struck my right arm. I made the front line all right, but as soon as I was dressed by the stretcher bearer I was sent back to the dressing station to the medical officer to receive attention. I was then sent to the field hospital, and the next day I was removed on an ambulance train, and sent to the base hospital in Etaples. I might state that this hospital was an American hospital. How wonderful it was to me to find myself back in a nice white bed again. I was there for two weeks and then sent to a convalescent hospital for another week.

At the beginning of December I found myself on the way back to the front line. Of course all my pals who were still there were glad to see me again; but, believe me, it was hard to leave that nice white bed and go back "somewhere in the mud." I made the best of it. I knew it was doing my duty, as every soldier does.

I had quite a few narrow escapes after that. One day as I sat in the trench a German high explosive shell hit the next bay to where I was and when they explode they throw up with them all loose stuff that is in their reach. This one threw up an old French bayonet which missed my head by about two inches, but as long as it did not hit me I should worry.

Our routine there was, six days in the front line, six in the billets and six in the reserve. The only thing I did not like about the reserve was, that the poor fellows that got killed in the trenches, if there was anything left of them to give a decent burial, were brought out of the trenches at night and put into an old barn near the dressing station until the next morning for burial. It was our duty to watch the bodies so that the rats would not eat them. Just imagine, about six fellows lying in an old barn all riddled with bullets and shrapnel, and the wind blowing, and the rain coming through, and to go and look at these poor fellows with a flash light. Some with their heads and arms blown off--but we had to do it.

From Kemmel Hill we were moved in March, 1916, to St. Eloi, where we put up a good scrap against heavy odds. I pulled through that all right. I remember we took some prisoners. There was a little Scotchman in my company who was always looking for souvenirs and he brought a big German down the trench and made a grab for his hat. The Dutchman made a grab for it and said:

"If you want to catch a cold, I don't."

I thought that was very funny, but Jock did not.

From there we moved to the Somme and it was here that the first British tanks were used. I got it again on the morning of September 15 from a German high explosive, was buried, receiving shell-shock and some wounds. A few days later found myself in a hospital and had a wonderful time, but I found that the doctors would not let me go back to France, so I was returned to Canada.

I was in Canada two weeks when I came over to the good old U. S. A. to help recruiting for the British and Canadian Army. I have worked on the Liberty Loan drives, Red Cross, Knights of Columbus and all other drives to keep the boys over there. One thing, to my sorrow, during the Fourth Liberty Loan drive was that I sold all the buttons of my overcoat to each person who bought a five-hundred-dollar bond. The only thing that worried me was that I never had enough buttons, but as we all know a fellow would not want to have two or three hundred buttons on his coat to fasten. I only wish I was in France to stay to the finish, and come back with the rest of the boys who are left.

A "DEVIL DOG'S" STORY

BY PVT. AL. BARKER, NO. 118, 43D COMPANY, 5TH REGIMENT, U. S. MARINES

THE U. S. declared war upon Germany April 6, 1917. I was going to college at the time. I went to spend a week-end in New York City and happened to be in Union Square where recruiting of soldiers, sailors and marines was taking place. A captain of the U. S. Navy was speaking on patriotism. As I stood there and listened a thrill went through me and I decided to enlist at once. I chose the marines because they were always the "first to fight." I was sent to Paris Island, South Carolina, for my training, where I spent three months, and on August 12, 1917, I was sent to Quantico, Va., for my overseas equipment. On August 21, 1917, I sailed for France.

The trip across was a very eventful one as we were twice shot at by submarines, but we succeeded in eluding them. Nine days later we arrived at Brest, France, where we were all stationed in barracks. My first real training began in France; drilled from morning to night, together with such things as trench digging, bayonet fighting, grenade throwing, and all other things necessary to an American marine. This lasted about three months. My first real encounter occurred when we were ordered to the Belgian Front with Australian Anzacs. There I had my first glimpse of the Germans. We battled with them for twelve hours and I received a bayonet thrust in my right foot which laid me up for three weeks, and I was sent to base hospital No. 3 near St. Lazarre. After I recovered I was again sent to the Belgian Front where, in the next encounter with the Germans, I was captured and sent to a prison camp, built in the German trenches. I was there with eight other marines, for twenty-one days, when a French air squadron descended upon the Germans and killed or wounded all of them. A French aviator--I do not recall his name--took me in his machine and we flew 102 miles to the French forces.

Being weak from loss of blood and sleep I was kept there a week, and then sent back to my own company. My fellow-marines had given me up for dead, and were more than overjoyed to see me. A few days later I was selected as a sniper with a few others, and we advanced to a point as near the Germans as possible. Together with another marine, Jack Kneeland, who later saved my life, I climbed a tall tree as near as possible to the German trenches and stationed myself there very comfortably.

We could see the Germans setting machine guns in position to be used against our forces. We both had our rifles and plenty of ammunition, so we began to pick off the men who were operating the machine guns. These machine guns are the most disastrous and dangerous things in warfare. We succeeded in putting four of these guns out of commission when we were discovered by German snipers, and had all we could do to defend ourselves. I received a bullet wound in my knee and fell twenty feet to the ground. The other marine, Kneeland, quickly descended and protected me with his own body, and although he received three bullets he carried me to safety. As we were far from any hospital we were treated in the trenches to the best of the abilities of the doctors there.

We had Germans all around us, and, although we kept up a heavy fire, we could not persuade them to come out and fight us as men. They preferred trying a means to defeat us which insured their own safety, and that was to try to starve us out. For six days we lived on hard black bread and dirty water. Our commander, previous to this, had sent out a marine, who had volunteered, to get through the German lines and bring us help. We never dreamed that he would succeed in getting through, but on the seventh day we saw several black specks in the air but thought nothing of them until they came close, and we saw that they were American airplanes come to our assistance. The fliers descended as low as possible and threw us food in water-proof canvas bags. They also dropped bombs on the Germans and then flew away after promising to send a company of marines to our rescue. This promise we found in a note contained in one of the bags of food. It also told us to keep up our courage as we would surely be saved. All this time I was laid up with the wound in my knee, but I could hear our boys firing at the enemy, and they had all they could do to keep me in bed. Five days later I was aroused by an attendant and was told that an American scout had succeeded in making his way into our trenches, and told us that our relief was on its way, and would be here at any time. I felt much stronger after I heard this news and felt that I could fight the biggest German and finish him.

The detachment of marines arrived after we had been in these trenches for sixteen days. We now outnumbered the Germans, so we speedily put them to flight. After the conflict we counted 421 German dead bodies and we also took 1,200 prisoners. Our loss was sixty-two dead and thirty slightly wounded. We were then sent to a rest camp where we spent two weeks, and I had my wound treated. At the end of our two weeks I was able to walk about, and was sent to the western front near Cambrai where the Germans were gaining, and we were instructed to stop them.

This time we did not fight from the trenches but in the open field, and there were plenty of human targets for both sides. It was a terrible battle; shells were bursting in the air, cannons were roaring and there were loud reports every time a shell hit the dust. I was operating a machine gun, and, as a machine gunner's life on a battlefield only lasted an average of twelve minutes, it must have been a miracle that saved me from being killed. My other two comrades were killed immediately and I was left alone to operate the gun. A German sniper took a shot at me, but instead of hitting me he put my gun out of order. That left me with only a revolver, and drawing this I kept popping away at every German I saw. At last we were given the order to advance and for the third time I went "Over the Top" to glory. As we pressed on the enemy gave way little by little, and by twelve o'clock, at noon (the battle had started the day before at the same hour), we had either killed or taken all our opponents prisoners. We were then given a much needed rest. We spent a month in a rest camp and were then sent to Chateau-Thierry, about forty miles from Paris, where we engaged in a battle which proved to be the turning-point of the war. I think I shall remember this fight all my life. We had drawn up all our ammunition trains, food supplies and other munitions and were gathered around our campfires telling stories. At a little past midnight we were told to get ready. I was in the second division and we were ordered to advance first. Suddenly someone fired a shot; whether it came from our lines or the enemy I did not know. The battle had begun. With two hundred others I was cut off, and we found ourselves surrounded by the enemy. It was all hand-to-hand fighting, and more than once I felt a hand creep to my neck, or a cold blade touch my face, but always managed to ward it off. Five hours of hard fighting still found us in the midst of the Germans. Whispering a few words to my nearest companion, we made a dash and cut our way through the thick masses of the enemy. Having no cover, we gathered together the bodies of German dead and piled them one upon the other and used them as protection against our enemies. While here a gas bomb exploded and I fell back unconscious. When I came to myself I was aboard a ship bound for the good old U. S. A. As I was so badly gassed that I would no longer be useful as a fighter, they were sending me _home_. I made a good recovery and I thank God for my life.

That is my story, and if I had to go through it again I would do it gladly for my country and the flag.

IN THE VERDUN SECTOR

BY CORP. FRANK J. SEARS, CO. A, 9TH INFANTRY, 2D DIV., A.E.F.

IN THE winter of 1917 we found ourselves marching along a little road somewhere in France. It was cold and dismal and the hail came down in sheets, but we marched on and on. I looked at the fellow alongside of me and could not tell whether he was ready to laugh or cry. There was not much talking en route. I didn't feel much like talking myself and couldn't understand what made me feel so downhearted. It was the day we all looked and hoped for our chance in the battle. When we took over our sector, one kilometer from St. Mihiel, the French told us it was a quiet sector and to keep it that way. The first four days we did not care how quiet it was so long as we were allowed down in the dugouts. The shells whizzing past our heads annoyed us a little, it being our first experience. It took us a few days to become accustomed to our new home and the noise of bursting shrapnel. We knew we were not going to stay there long. In the American Army we never do linger long in one place as there is no retreat in our army.

There was only one direction for us to follow and that was toward Berlin.

The idea of the French telling us to keep Verdun sector quiet amused us, for, while we had no desire to start anything for a few days, there wasn't a "yellow" man in our bunch. Yet we hesitated, before we became accustomed to the noise, to take our first chance at, what we termed, slaughter. However, one night, about seven days after we took over our sector with the French Army, a "Fritz" sent over one of his 77 shrapnel shells which wiped out our entire mess shack. That was a bad mistake on "Fritzie's" part for it was a serious offense for anybody to tamper with the Sammie's "chow." No matter how hard a night he has spent he will always get up an appetite where there is anything to eat. That night we formed a raiding party. We crept out of the first line trench with three squads. It was our first entry into No Man's Land and we had heard so many strange tales about this place, we shied at everything we saw. We split up into squads. Our password was to knock three times on the helmet. So we parted. I went off to the right with a squad. Each man covered his ground, trying to find out whether the Hun had any intention of making a raid next day. The trenches are protected by barbed-wire fences and when the Huns intend going "Over the Top" they cut the wires on the previous night, and it was our duty to find out whether or not these wires had been cut. The barbed wire was O. K. on the ground we covered, so we started back to meet the other squads. We did not go far, for about ten feet away we heard a noise, which is something unusual on a raiding party in No Man's Land. We stopped short and looked at each other. We did not know what to do, for, as I have said, this was our first experience. One of the boys said to me, "Give them the signal." I knocked three times on my helmet, but received no reply, so one of the boys said he would creep over and investigate; but it wasn't necessary, because just then a skyrocket went up into the air. Every soldier knows that this means to get under cover quickly for the rocket would light up the sky and make nice targets of us for "Fritz." Luckily for us there was a shell-hole to jump into, for as soon as we laid low, there came the "pop," "pop," "pop" of the German machine guns. We laid there in the mud, through what seemed to us like an eternity, but which was in reality only about two hours. However, luck was with us, and we finally crawled out of our hiding place and arrived behind our own lines once more.

Editor's Note.--For his gallantry in this raid, of which he says nothing in the above article, Corporal Sears was awarded the "Croix de Guerre" by the French Government.

--H. L. F.

THE HUN I WAS SURE I "GOT"

BY CORP. FRANK J. SEARS

IT WAS sometime last April, 1918, when we got the order we were going over. Our artillery opened up with a full barrage. We took the right flank, and another regiment of infantry took the left. The marines took the center. We had been told time and time again if we had to use the bayonet to pull it out quick. But somehow or other I was doubtful about that. We were having a real American hand-to-hand fight with them when I got my eye on one, something we very seldom do. Just as I got near him he threw his gun down, and his hands up, and yelled: "Kamerad, Kamerad." I said "Kamerad, hell," and became so excited I gave him a long jab with my old American bayonet and hesitated before making an attempt to pull it out. When I tried to, it was too late for it was wedged in too firmly. I put my foot on him and pulled and pulled, but the body lifted right up with the bayonet, so I thought I'd try my luck without a bayonet. I released the bayonet from my rifle and left it as an American souvenir to the "Fritz"; one which he will never be able to appreciate. This is all I remember of that battle.

LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

BY CORP. FRANK SEARS

LIFE in the trenches is made up of "cooties," "rats," "mud" and "gas masks."

We had heard from fellows who had been there before us what we thought were jokes about "cooties" and trench rats, but it was no joke to me when I looked, for the first time, at a rat almost as big as a cat. It was lying in my bunk and I heard it squeal. Looking down I had my first view of a trench rat. I threw a heavy hob-nailed shoe at him and he merely changed his position and looked around to see who had interrupted him. After that it wasn't strange to wake up and find them running across you. But I will say that if it were a matter of choice, I would select a hundred rats in preference to two "cooties," for the "cootie" is an unreasonable bird, and when a Sammie has come back from the lines exhausted, he lays down in the hopes of snatching a few hours' sleep before being called on; but the "cooties" have no respect for Sammie and they pester him until he has no more idea of sleep, only to start in and hunt for the "cooties" that are annoying him.

You have all more or less had fever, but I guess there are none of you, over here, who knows of the "mud fever." We all used to shy at mud, during the rainy season in the year 1917. After a heavy storm the boys hated to go out to drill, as the mud got so bad there that the only way of getting out from the drill was by going on sick report in the morning. I remember the morning six buddies and myself went over to the infirmary. I happened to be the first one in line. The doctor came up to me and said:

"What's your trouble?"

At first I said, "I don't know, sir," and he said:

"Well, what are you doing here if you don't know? Where do you feel sick?"

And I told him all over. So he called the pill roller over and told him to take my temperature. I sat down and the pill roller put the glass tube in my mouth, which always "balled the detail up." He then held hands with me for a while and I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was taking my pulse. He then gave the final report to the "skipper" who came to me and said, "You have the 'mud fever'." He then turned to the orderly and said, "Give him two C.C. pills and mark him 'DUTY'." That's how I happened to get over the mud fever. We became so used to mud, up in the lines, that if our "chow" did not have some mud, or muddy water, in it we could not digest it. It was just a case of mud all over: eat, drink, sleep and wash in mud.

And now for the "old reliable," which tortured us while wearing it, but without which we should have been lost. The gas mask!!!

We were not fortunate enough to have ever received the American gas masks and have never seen one over there. The first two American divisions received English and French masks. The English mask looks like a false face with two big glass eyes, and a nose clip which resembles a clothespin, and keeps the gas from going through the nostrils. There is also a tube which goes into the mouth, with a hard piece of rubber on it to make it air-tight. This mouthpiece is a long caterpillar tube which connects the mask to a tin can containing a chemical composition of charcoal, rocks, sand and other medical decoctions. There were times when we endured these masks from eighteen to thirty-six hours. Sometimes we would just get the order to take them off, and, thinking the danger passed, would get ready to eat, when the command to put them on again would be given. This is done by means of horns at intervals along the whole line of trenches. Each horn gives the signal which is repeated right through the lines. It is a wonderful relief after having a mask on a long time to be able to breathe fresh air again.

TWO YEARS IN THE YPRES SALIENT

AS TOLD BY PRIVATE ALBERT FRANKLIN EDWARDS, NO. 6857, 1ST BATTALION, 1ST BRIGADE, 1ST DIV., CANADIAN INFANTRY

Editor's Note.--These were the first Canadians to go overseas in the Great War.

--H. L. F.

I WAS born in Canada, but had lived virtually all my life in the United States. I thought war was coming and returned to Canada to be ready to do my bit when the time arrived; and I was just in time; arriving in Toronto on August 3, 1914. On August 4, 1914, I was at dinner with seven other boys when the word came that war was declared, and the whole eight of us determined to get in it without delay, so on the next day, August 5th, we enlisted in the Canadian dragoons.

After two weeks in the dragoons I was transferred to the infantry, went into training at Toronto, and afterward at Valcartier, which occupied the next two months.

One Sunday morning we were called for parade and thought we were going to church, but were notified we had to pack up for overseas service. We went to Montreal where we took a boat down the St. Lawrence to Halifax. We there joined the convoy consisting of 33,000 men of the artillery and infantry.

We sailed for England on October 22, 1914, and as nearly as I can remember took about sixteen days to make the trip to Plymouth. Though slow the voyage was without incident worthy of mention.