The evening world. Newspaper, April 17, 1918, Page 14

oot ao WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1918 An American Soldier’s First Trench Detail and His Real Great Thrill First Time ‘‘Over the Top’’ Ane ne ne “Bill Smith,’ Composite Private-Officer of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, Tells How an American Soldier Feels When He Goes Into the Trenches for the First Time, and‘ Finds Himself Within Bayonet Reach of the Foe ‘ — In Back of Ail Our Minds,’’ He Says, ‘Is This One Thought: That It Is Better to Be the First | to Go In and Have It Over With Than to Wait Behind and See the First Come Out!” By Martin Green (Staff Correspondent of The Evening World.) Oupyright, 1918, by the (The ng World.) = ng Co yw York Bre at WITH THE AMERICAN FORCES, { SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, March 18, N order to get an idea of how an American soldier feels when he goes into the trenches for the first time, | have talked to many officers and} men who, a year ago, were part of the busy mercantile and industrial! } life of New York and other cities, looking on the war as a more or less| impersonal matter, which we might get into some day, but probably wouldn't. A year has changed the currents of their existence, and some of the currents will never flow back to the shores of the United States. They are now part of something they had read about thousands of times—something that was at first so dimly remote that it was almost like fiction, something that drew part of the greatest war in the history of the world. tive safety of rest camps to tell about it. of night, flounders along through the crooked, grave-like passageway until he finds himself descending what his sense of touch tells him is a roughly constructed flight of stairs, and comes to rest in a cave far under- ground—sometimes a dry, warm cave, often a cave with a foot or more of water on the earthen floor and planks floating about on the surface of the water and serving as‘a precarious footing for the occupants. Sud- |: denly the realization comes that this cave is to be his home for at least | ten days—the place where he will have to eat and sleep, and that some-| where above his head and a little way toward Germany is the front line trench he has been hearing about, talking about and thinking about ever ince he left the training camp back home. The next step of his experience is actual work in the trenches-—most fit night work, for it 4s only at night that tae lines are strongly held on wither side. His time cowes, and he moves out from his hiding place into the open and is guided to his position at @ firing post or a machine gun post, or whatever sector of the defense his platoon commander selects for Bim, and all at once he finds himself standing on a platform cut {nto the outer side of the trencl—tho side toward no man’s land—and peering through a slit in the sandbags or a carefully camouflaged opening in ao earthen parapet, through a maze of barbed wire, over a streteh of ground that looks bare and peaceful enough, into and through another maze of Rarbed wire from 60 to 800 or 500 yards divtant, and he knows that beyond that distant barbed wire is the front line trench of the German he has crossed the sea to fight. At last he is face to face with the enemy. NO REAL THRILL UNTIL THEY GO “OVER THE TOP.” In times of peace men write books about their feelings when first they view the natural or artificial wonders of the Old World, Billions of ‘words have been written descriptive of the mental sensations aroused by the first sight of Mount Vesuvius, the Acropolis, the Alps, the Bastile, the Tower of London, the Sphinx, the Pyramids. Probably billions of words will be written after the war descriptive of the sensations of men when | they come, as it were, Within bayonet reach of a foe who has the repute of being a skilful, daring, unscrupulous and resourceful fighter, At this time, however, the Americans undergoing that experience are too busy to write about it, and even had they time to write it is doubtful if they could write at length. The sensitized plate of their memories has received the impression, but time alone will develop the picture, Of all the men I have questioned on thiy eubject not one would admit that he felt a thrill when be found himself, rifle in hand, peering out into ® landscape illuminated at intervals by the white, searching light of flares oF Tockets; some say they felt a thrill when they made thelr fret trip over the top and moved on the enemy's lines, but only a small percentage of our goldiers has been over the top. I have grouped and condensed the most fntelligent and descriptive of the accounts I have gathered—there is a curious sameness, by the way, in most of them. We wil] take a composite oMcer-private and call him Bill Smith and let him tell the folks at home bow it fecls to go into the trenches, Before taking up the narrative of our friend Bill Smith, T want to say | that the time honored velief that soldiers champ and pant with eagerness | to go into the fray and slay their fellowman has been shattered by this war. There are some natural born fighters who fret for an opportunity to g@et into close quarters with the foe, but they are exceptions 1 haven't met any of them. Honest]y and with no feeling of shame, the tntel- Hgent American or British or Canadian or Australian or French soldier | will tell you that the fabled blood lust of the fighting man simply isn't | there, so far as he {s concerned. 1! should say that the average American! goldier goes into an action or a position which may cost him his Hfe tn about the same state of mind wh sess him were he wheeled into an operating room to have his appendix removed. ARTILLERYMEN ONLY REAL BATTLE ENTHUSIASTS. There is enthusiasm about combat among urtillorymen, possibly for the reason that there is excitement in their work the clouds of smoke and the knowledge that every | toward the enemy carries certain destruction if it lands at the right spot, | ect as a stimulant. They are the essence of action in warfare, and so engrorsing is their occupation and so r te are they from the probability @ physical contact with the enemy that they forget all about the enemy artillery which may drop a shell on them at any minute and literally blow all or some of their company off the face of the earth The flying man is naturally anger; otherwise be would not be when called upon for duty, no matter how hazardous it may be, but it is} @eldom that he complains of untoward natu which prevent him from taking a flight that men in Vrance than the towns at wight and drop Lowbs, bul when along in the afternoon one of thelr com: ich would pos being The nolse of the guns, shell they send howling daring and niore or less heedless of in the alr service, Me never filnebes 1 condition There who fly over has been planned are no braver | Unglish youth the Rhine nearer and nearer until it became a reality—they are]: They have faced death and returned to the compara-| : After all, the soldier from America is not in the}: a, until he slips into a narrow path through the earth in the darkness | | AMERICANS shies, Ax), GEN: MENOHER eee aN IN TRENCH ANO FIELD OFFICERS OF A DIVISION: LEAVIN COM MONI CATING UFRE NCH+ @ Rear ne Qn Ruatie ) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, Going Out on Night Patrols _\Under the Flare Lights t| Exposed to German Fire Makes the Heart Jump anane. 1918 OND FRENCH FRONT EIR PAT IGN: manding officers makes a flight to test the air and returns with the infor- mation that the valleys are full of mist and-that the German citles which have been picked as the objective of a raid are certainly hidden in vapor and possibly could not be located, the frank and honest aviators, might bo expected to register disappointment, do nothing of the kind, They call a night which develops weather conditions unfavorable to their plans a “wash-out,” and they are just as well satisfied with a wash-out as with A favorable report which will send them whizzing through the sky to the eastward in the gloom of dusk, their planes laden with bombs of assorted sizes and assorted danger life and property in the Valley of the Rhine, “GOING TO THE FRONT” REAL NERVE TONIC. Now to return to Bill Smith, This is what he says: “Of course, we know long in advance that we are going into the trenches, An order comes to our officer in command, and he sends it along, and we begin to pack up our equipment and get ready to move. The news is welcome, because the ceaweless round of camp duties and drills and life in billets sure does get on the nerves after weeks of it, The camp wakes up, There {s a tonte in the information passed along, ‘We are going to the front.’ I venture to say that there is no work connected with war more expeditiously performed than the packing up preparatory to the movement in the direction of ‘out there’ where the big guns are booming and the German is getting a taste of what the United States fight who can do in a “Everybody {s up on his toes and there is a lot of whist!! and sing- Ing and skylarking. Discipline 1s somewhat relaxed. Remember, we are perhaps a hundred miles behind the front. The realitles of conflict are still far away. We watch our transport and combat trains depart and we settle down to awalt with actual impatience the order to move to the town wheretour long special trains are waiting to take us to action, At last the word comes, and we marep out of the villages that have been our hames for weeks or months, and the women and children and old men gather along the roads and cheer, and we shout ‘Au revoirs,’ and they shout ‘bon voyage,’ and {t 1s not until we are well along on the way to the point of embarkation that we begin to feel a touch for the simple little settlements and the simple puzzling, have left behind about the old homes back tn the l of homesickness , If somewhat puzzled and Strangely enough, we don't think A, Our minds dwe! people, we on ofr most recent environ we are | the old homes tn the L A. before lon although none of us realize tt “They don’t give us tourist sleeping cars or first class carriages for travel to the front. Mostly we travel in freight cars or cattle cars, which are probably comfortable enough. {n summer, front thus far have been made in cold weather, nothing colder than a French freight or cattle | spring All our movements to the| And, belleve me, there fs vin {n winter or early “Quite naturally the soldier is in his element when his surround! are uncomfortable, Every man tn the command begins to grouch. W are so busy kicking about our hardships and tribulations that we forg all about 6ur destination, and it is not until we end of our ride that we begin to tell ea to the front AN HONOR TO BE CHOSEN TO TAKE FRONT LINE, that is, the are told to climb out at the h other again that we are goin “We don't know where we are privates don't know, and not all the officers know, Unless we detrain in a big town, we don't know what part of France we are in except In a general way, All the little towns look alike to us, We march out over the country to a village which is being vacated by the men we are ation, to relleye, Sometimes and sometimes we we hear the big guns ay we approach our st t, None of us knows whether he belongs to the ‘battalion which has b elected as the first to go into the tre: Phis 1s an uncertainty that keeps our mind busy until the first battalion to proceed to the front is selected. All the| members of that battalion immediately express their satisfaction, and ail} the members of the other battalions immediately begin to cuss their luck because they have to wait, but take it from me, and this is the low down op the situation, the fellows Iu the battalion pickod to make the break are not so gosh darned pleased as they seem, and the fellows who are picked to remain behind and take their turn later are not so gosh darned disap- pointed as they seem, elther. “Well, belonging to the battalion and the company selected by the command to take the front line, we feel a sort of gratification, because it is really an honor to be so chosen, And {n ‘back of all our minds is this one thought—that it 1s better to be the first to go in and have {t over with than | to wait behind and see the first come out. It doesn't take long for this thought to dominate every other thought, and it isn’t very long before we ve enough interest and variety all around us to drive anything but fleeting thought out of our minds, Gas masks are inspected, steel helmets are checked up, equipment ts gone over and weapons are examined with minute care. We aro told time and again that a dead soldier is a dead loss to the country, and a wounded soldier ts only partly an army asset, and that while some of us may be hurt or killed, the chances are all in favor of our escaping without a mark if we will only be careful and keep under cover and always have our gas masks r@ady and never relax our vigilance, Time after time and time after time we are advised, commanded and entreated to take no chances of any kind. We are not to let the enemy see us; he is to be kept in ignorance of the fact that there are Americans in front of him untll such a time as the orderly progress of warfare reveals the fact to him. Finally, just before we start for the front, the K. O.—the big chief of the regiment—gives us a heart-to-heart talk, the general tenor of which {s that a soldier who needlessly exposes himself to death or injury {s actually an aid to the enemy. All this talk doesn’t impress us very much at tho time. FIRST GLIMPSE OF TRENCHES FULL OF NEW INTEREST. “We are a silent bunch as we slip out of the camp and follow men who know their way to the trenches. The atmosphere and the surround- ings are strange to us. Most likely, if we are going into an active sector, there is artillery action on both sides. We look with all the interest of a 4 hick at his first circus at the flashes of light away offgo our front, where the Germans are shooting at our positions, and we listen with keen atten- ton to the sharp, business-like whine of our shells passing over our heads, any of us have never heard big artillery before. and heard the whine of machine gun bullets in our practice camp, but as we approach the front and hear machine guns cracking and mac gun bullets singing their way across the fleld of action, the guns and the bullets have an entirely new sound, In practice firing, the machine gun, after it has ceased to become a novelty, takes its place simply as a part of our equipment, ranking, say, with @ wagon or a spade or a mye or a Manket. It is not until a soldier hears a machine gun combing the atmos- phere in search of a human target that he reaches knowledge of what an impressively personal thing it 4s, gu “In most cases tro novelty of the situation keeps the soldier's mind off the realities, It is not until he crawls into his bunk to take his first leep at the front that he begins to think about the rmans out there, about a block or so away, and he is a blase bird !f he falls asleep right away. The keener a-man’s imagination, the harder it is for him to woo slumber on his first rest at the front. He shuts his eyes and breathes heavily with the idea of making the other fellows think he 1s asleep, and most of the other fellows are doing the same thing. His mind works with the rapidity of a five-frane note disappearing from a soldier's bankroll on payday, He finds himself surprised at the variety of subjects that shoot into his attention only to be forced out by something else. Unconsciously he recalls the stories he has read and heard talked about of raids on the renches, of high explosives falling on dugouts and burying everybody within, of Germans entering the trenches and tossing bombs and grenades and gas containers Into the dugouts. If the sector is active, he feels an {onal jar denoting the explosion of a shell somewhere in his vicinity. Now and then he hears the crack of a rifle from a firing post almost directly above him. Or he hears that sharp, compelling series of machine gun reports, and he gets to counting them. ‘There go three shots,’ he will say to himself, ‘That time he flred only two.’ One-two-three-four-five-six- seven-elght-uine--he must be shooting at something.” ocean We have heard machine ; \After a Green Soldier Has Seen a Few Casualties in His Immediate Vicinity He Grows to Regard Them as Part of the Game— Trench Warfare May Shorten a Man’s Life, but He Lives in the Trenches All the Years That Are Destined to Be Clipped From His Allotted Span in the Future—- There Is Never a Time When the Strain Is Re- laxed, and the Soldier Goes Back From His First Duty at Outpost Older and Soberer Than When He Went In. “The soldier doesn’t think much here of home and mother. If his mind wanders in that direction, something always happens to jerk him back to his Ittle old dugout on the front line. Somebody comes in or somebody goes out. A restless guy rolls over in his sleep, or, being awake, rolls over to try to be more comfortable. Some fellow is talking in his sleep and the soldiers who are awake try to make out what he is saying, but he {s just babbling. GAS MASKS A “BLESSING IN DISGUISE.” “Sometimes thero {s a gas alarm. The trenches and dugouts resound with the raucus growls of big automobile horns, which are attached to up- | Tights in all sorts of places, When a soldier hears the horn he gets into | his gas mask pronto. There is no more uncomfortable apparatus in war- fare equipment. The thing must fit closely or it {s no good. The bands on | the back of the head, the rubber face covering with its two round gnome- like isinglass eyes, the pin that goes over the nose and shuts off the wind and the grip you put into your mouth all comblipe to produce a sensation of smothering to death. If you want to get an !dea of what a gas mask is, clamp a clothespin over your nose, wrap your head tightly in a blanket and breathe the combined fumes of carbolic acid and bichloride of lime into your lungs through a plece of rubber hose, Oh, how the soldier comes to hate his gas mask. “He hated the lifebelt that he had to sleep in coming over on the transport. He begins to wish that the ship had gone down when he gets | his first gas alarm and is repeatedly told that he mustn't remove the mask | until he hears the signal announcing that the danger is over. But such is the perversity of the soldier mind that the soldier, knowing full well the deadly effects of German gas, will. often take a chance that it is a false alarm rather than subject himself to the discomforts of his m It 1s a fact that many men never realize how valuable the mask is as a life preserver until they are gassed. If they recover, you can bet your life that they stick to the old mask thereafter. “In case it is just an ordinary session in the dugout, the soldier finds his first sleep periog the real experience which transforms him from a greenhorn into a seasoned warrior, He soon becomes accustomed to the sound of guns, to the explosions of shells, to all the mysterious rustlings and shufflings and creakings and groanings of the trenches and the dug- outs. In a couple of days he can lie right down in the firing post and go to sleep, with his companion at the peephole standing, rifle in hand, astraddle of bis chest; and if his soldier companion happens to step on | him, he gives a grunt and goes to sleep again. “Tt 1s not until the soldier actually gets into the trenches that he finds | why he was so persistently and vehemently ragged back in camp about | the necessity for keeping under cover. Life in the trenches is lke life in a powder mill where the rule prohibiting the carrying of matches {s dis- obeyed. It takes some time for a green soldier to realize that trenches were built solely for protection and that he {s never safe unless he keeps his head below the parapet—and even then he is in danger from shells or bombs dropping {n on him, After he learns his lesson he Mes pretty lowe AMERICAN’S CURIOSITY HARD TO RESTRAIN, “There {8 no more curious animal than the young Amertean. When he first goes Into the trenches he wants to see everything there is to be see ine times out of ten when a soldier on his first tour of duty takes his first peek at the enemy lines through a periscope he will voice his disgust at the narrowness of the view afforded and climb up and look over the top of the trench—if there {s no officer around. It is not until he hears a bullet imbed itself In a sandbag a few inches from his nose or clip a chunk of dirt off the parapet beside him and go whistling to the rear that he admits to himself that Fritz is a pretty watchful guy and is always on the alert for a sign of movement across the way. It is very seldom that a German soldier is seen exposing himself to view in the front line or eom- municating trenches. The German officers, we are told, have a way of dealing with soldiers who give the snipers or riflemen or machine gun men on the other side an opportunity to take a crack at them unlese they are advancing In a raid, “Well, that’s about all there ts to the introduction to the trenches. Man can accustom himself to any surroundings, If the soldier isn't shelled much or gassed or is not called upon to be continually on the watch for en expected attack from the other side, he falls into the routine with more or less of a feeling of contentment. However, there {s never a time in the trenches where the strain is entirely relaxed, and no matter how quiet the sector may be the soldier goes back from his first tour of duty at the out. post of the line a much older and soberer man than he was when he went in, I don’t care how brave a man 1s, he unconsclously soaks in the atmos phere of ever-present danger. If the sector is active and shells keep scoop- ing out great holes in the earth around him night and day, as has been the ¢ in severa) sectors of our lines, his nerves get on edge and his face becomes drawn and haggard. He is not only mentally older but physically older when, fortunately, unscathed he hears the welcome order to move to the rear and to rest, GOING OUT ON PATROL ALWAYS TENSE EXPERIENCE, “Going out of patrol, crawling on his belly over no man's land to repair wires or take a look at ‘the enemy’s territory or engage in a fight with a German patrol which is suppe to be doing some crawling of {ts own |s probably the most tense and heart quickening experience the green soldier goes through, He even becomes accustomed to that after he has ked over the top a few times, but he n r does reach a stage at which he can suppress a sort of a sob in his throat and a feeling of sinking Just aft of the buckle of his belt when, flat on the ground half way across no man's land, he suddenly finds himself exposed to the caleium Mght effect of a flare sent up from our lines and floating serenely through the air. He may, in fact, be well concealed, but he can’t get rid of the feeling that he stands out to the view of the Germans like a Hudson River night | boat, The sigh of relief he emits when the light of the fare dies down and all is black again comes pretty close to blowing a hole in the ground right under his ehhh, “The second tour in the front line is a matter of routine, but the strain is repeated especially if the sector is active, and that strain, repeated again and again, counts heavily; We can see it in ‘he French who are working with us in some of our positions and have been in the war for two or three years-—I am talking about young Frenchmen of about the average age of our goldic ‘hey look like middle aged men. The contrast between (Continued on Page 17.)