Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 2, 1919)
I rAOK two T UK GAZETTE-T1MK8. REPPXER. OREGON. TUrBSD AY. JAXt'ARY 2, 1919. IK Africans Strike Between River Meuse and Great Tangle of Forest New Divisions in Bi'tle Yanks Who Push Ahead North west A Verdun Never Knew Rigors of Win'er in France The M!oA-inf! very interesting and graphic account of the battle of Argonnr Fo-est j g'yen m "Stars and Stripes," issue of October 4, 191 8, and was hancVd u; bv i idi'.on H jgh.es. Corporal Riley Juday, who participated in this battle, sent the clipping o er from I' ranee. At C: - Fir- th; w ! V in. y ni:.;;y since war. y.i lirn winter in France in l'he. The at tack was launched without taxing a sii.gle one of the really veteran div isions of the A. K. F. Wiiat. is more, two of the nevly arrived divisions had never been in In fere, had never entered quietest sector, had never world ducked iheir heads before the bau- she.i wail i f a German shell nor gion the night before heirrt an American ttun fired in anger. One of these two new comers and n September 26. 191$. ,.r';ean Army, Pushed : . !'. it', success at St. i.-i, - , '. its second blow en a ; ;. -riii i est of Verdun . "': and irovo t'c.e Germans from y :. io':. and village, and from Hue y a lull sod valley they had held een the e tl.e fir.- weeks of the ,st ,1 such con course of g'xs a had had no pn. cedent in V ertcan Lister f.hn second -, and by day the finely this single 'tur.dred mill Infantry, hk-h swarmed forward 0ne of these fa. . will thrill a n hearts back home sree.i divisions, these through tlie i.iisl of Thursday raorn- slimen of tlie A. I'.. was met V.n.i el that day ! across se' unstated F Prussian Guard, and on cased thoce famous troops a.i kilometers of de- It was a ing id. ing, had fought its way far Into the on the first day liy a division of the wild forest of Argonne. had carried by storm 'he forbidding height of Montfancoii, had restored villtge after vil!p,e to France, and han sea: mote n an t;, ;yu prisoners irot tir.s' back through the chill Septem ber rain to the waiting pens behinu. The attack was made on a 2Q-mi',e front. The c.'imir.'.ir.iniie;; of the iirs'. two days announced that troops trom lz Sta' c, ; - Per.::' ylvanin., Kansas, Mi. GJi.ri. Ui ij, New aersey, Mary lard, Vii;.i:ia, Oiogou, VV usiiiugivm, Colorado, Wyo m iiit, and ;.intana were participutin;; ir. the aeli la ali ba' ' '.e-:inc there was not a gunner a: l.i- lanyard, not a co.'.lt sti ..:.'.i;:g to push bis kitchen forward, not a doughboy t;vn..l..0 'on-.ii .us the ...... ' sight to carry with him to bis grave refuge when the shelling began and out from under the edge ot the whence they had been afraid to comt mist, swarming like a multitude of out, so deep-rooted was their con ta'vny bees from some giant h.ve, viciion that Americans were accus lut and on and up tlie hill the Jou;;!;- touted to boil their prisoners In oil. 'joy; went 'There they would be found by Yanks In an instant, the wires hummed on a stin nullt for souvenirs, with the nrvs. Signals flew from Two famished Hoc-ties emerged as thr hill tops, pigeons sprang into the late as Saturday ft-oni a deep dugout air with the tidings and overhead the :!::-.: "a- not more then a good rifle hovering aircraft paused, wneeled shot from the dugout of a general ird started back. Soon from each of commanding an American reserve them would drop to some open 1old battalion. a gleaming cylinder, traceable in its Aside from these shell holes 'and passage through the air by i's flu-.- roninants of abandoned trenches, the iering streamer w ..bit", messages waterless, foodless land for several from the air to the waiting com- kilometers in depth offered not a manders in the rear. ; vestige of shelter, not a hedge or '(her on the Minute," even a clump of green behind which a gun might iiide, or in the rcaut The burden of all these messages proU,(.tioii 0f which a line of trucks was pretty much the same at 'tig tlie mif,ht move unobserved. whole 20 mile front. Take one I O,,. IV ..II f ,. I'ill.ioo nasr.ed baci; oy a corporal, squatting, telephone in hand, at his look-out ,s for the villages which the first: ''it-ion. Me may have tried to keep ftw ,iays recaptured, some are so his voice level and military. His completely obliterated that runners report, as it was raught. on the type- pasMHl through them in broad duy .vriter in some message center fai iiKht. never once dreamins ihut a behind, will some day gather dust village had stood there. j in the archives of the War Depart- ln0 meglfCnger. knowing that a! ment at Washington It read: gU!!,.rars p. C. had been set up in ! "Troops over the top with a yell a cenain town which looked impos on the minute." ;ng cr.ousii on the map, found when It meant that the line which had m caiae to the place that only a held at least that much ground for part of one wall of one house re- four long years and which had not niaiued to identity it. Against this moved an inch either way for more wall, a telephone was placed, than a year the line "as moving at "Where is the divisional P. C?" last, and toward Germany. the runner asked of the officer at the I!y the end of the sixth day the Yankees in the Argonne had pushed on in some places to a depth of 12 kilometers, and everywhere held fast their new won territory, despite an ever stiffening resistance which took the form of repeated small scale counter-attacks and the turn ing loose on the Americans of all the German tricks in machine guns. shrapnel, hand grenades, ruinueu wei fers and gas. ! On the extreme right the troops working up along that curve in the meandering Mouse, which fairly pocketed the enemy, had pushed through the troublesome w oods above Septsarges and reached almost as far as Brieeulle. Toward the center ih.e lofty height of Montfaueon was serving American observers as a waichtower, and the battle line had passed (.Merges. ! line in the Argonne they have named the Krlemliilde line, in honor of a bouncing lady who figured large in the Niebelungen Lied. Herbert Walbridge came in on Thursday last from Camp Lewis. He spent a short furlough here visiting his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Wat-bridge. BOTH HEROINES DESPITE WEALTH (88 ta SSSWSigiffl."IMWg Then, as the Infantry rushed for ward, smothering oc passing by the telephone. "You're in it now," replied the rear guard machine gun ne3ts and officer with a grin. ; 1'rgin to Spe.ik. 2:30 on Thursday mora- Jat. from every rid.e and hi:l froiti '..'- M"it-o to the Arjt.-r.ne, S,a:.t,hi,ruu t. ..pea it. From far 'o the uei' i know and heartened b, his own .r. fighting vie that to the giu a av.d ahead. west in ('haninanne and from he u..i. o.' '.'crduu .uere had :a.: ths ji::.d ;'. II;:::.:'. .".tlus t.ir three hourr. oast, and now and again ".f iur rn rrr.t rlr'!" had gone - w Hng overhead. The day had been one of shilling louds and occasional autumnal rain-v.- h re clear did not and the stars were brilliant, but over .vho was not iranin: e'.y :ite land a heavy " mist lay like the Unovledr at a. i . .'.ortu ine iirii.isli, Bel Yankees were lurgtng Xov.s Flashed ly Wireless. cl 'h. a fh'lVitis mist through y'g left the French were whivth the ever-thickening iraltic irio'T':' rhamntne; crept silently along the roads that -j .... t. . eid. 'men, quite suddenly, all the guns spoke at once, . t was the beginning of a three-h;,ur bemhardment whicn smashed German ruad ; and wires, vutc'. ujrman batteries, sought out i a. id i-uiverized Ge. .r.an P. "', fell j i I;e a rain of d'-ath cr r.i.iving Ger j nun troops, r.nrt drive s.-ut'liiig un ,;!",' srntifd all Uviu-t cr atures over there.' ; o Answer A v. likened. Ke knew that he and his v.e-o taing p.irt !n the largest tnidnen military mi.-veiuc... .' ' Western from had ever known thaw they were taking part in a battle which, with Intervals of quiet and taut ex.)ev tane, a.:e.i.-i.e.: t'rf-m i. 'l'aine to the North Sea. The Impression of a rain of blows under the enemy's sti. pitied head war i-onvyed thr-nrrh t't v. -roni the hi;;li wireless station on tne Eiffel Tower, in Taris, which sped t.i the utlcrmost reaches of tlie tingling tr-. nt ik. i Lilly thi ..ce;- .r. ;;:'0.-., in other sector;; of Frum-f. b it ;;;s-i th. v; 'A:. : i ucrr-.:-.! -Mi-r in far Mf'-edo: ia and the Hly L'md. The y i oof ot euch cmcertoil flght ln;,' fouiu be read on every slope and cres . on '!;:' Am j. .;. trout. It could be acted in die ic-b!eii:s with wl. li:h the fJormon artillery made an , i. - t our own during tiie that twj days of the battle. It ccr.lu be ii ited in the scramble with which reserves came to the rescue on the this d ar.d fourth days and in the na.ttre cf thse reserves. Here was part of a division of which the other part was mixed up with the French in Champagne. Here was another division that had been caught and thrown into the gap ou itc way fr. m Alsace to some part of the German line in Flanders that had been shrieking for Help. On Memorable Ground. And in all that battle-line from Yc.i!;::; to the other side of the great forest there was not a Yankee who dM not know lie was lighting on ground hallowed far beyond our power to add or detract; that he was stinting out from Hill 304 and Le Mort Homme of tragic memories; that he was advancing from blighted ' There was no answer. If there had been, it could not have been j heard. For as many mile a.-; um. 1 pui.u .-co, by t.'.ie nr.'riad. eeaceioss ilanbes in the night, . r.r own .Tans .';: cursing from every crest and ' rltmn. 1 1 nrt you could hear tlie : ( hi..: .':' 11!' OW'Il ; hcl!.-, lite Cl'llO from i'.i'i to iiiil, th" h;;;h swishint, . i :e water 11; tl;c swamns, tae angry ;a,.tU; a?aini th- hosliav'.u tiiid even, lametiuies, tlie shriil, ; sharp cnmmr.nds, in aril like f... . c'ail signal;; from some nearby bui tery. iiut as the lury r eacuuu u., cie'-'cendo toward dawn, all !!:.;; over-tones were lost in the instaal succession of the slu.ts. T'.ie cargo or many a ship, the strain and sweat of many a steve dore, the sale of untold thousands of Liberty bonds, the toil of many mil lions of devoted hands came into their own in that bombardment. Its intensity can bo estimated from the fact that the count of the rounds fired on one-third of the American front amounted to 10, OHO from the iarger guns and 70,000 from the 7;Vs. Its sound can be guessed by tlie fact that when, after dawn, tin firing subsided somewhat and t'.ie butteries were content to shoot only ne gun a minute, it seemed to the idlers underneath as though a itrange, restful hush had settled over the world. One of those toilers, a driver on the high seat ot an ammu nition truck, shivered inside his ': ather jacket and confided to his rounding up the msorganized Ger- Of other towns, such as Cuisy and man troops wh so retreat had been Montfaueon or Bethlncourt, more Is cut off by the barrage, every othei left, but not. enough on which to arm of the service took up the strain build anew, and sometimes you can of moving forward. At the end of recognize the church, whore weeds the second day. the counter attacks s-rcw rani; through the stones of the began, came thicker and faster In tht, floor, only by the remnants of days sueco-'ding as the resistance painted angels littering a heap of stiffened, brought with them fierce, stones which was once an altar, close band-grenade lighting as the itut it was neither in terms of battle line swayed back and forth, battle nor in terms of restoration Bra for the first two days, it was a that this terrain presented its most matter of pursuit, snd for all the serious problem during the first few Army, the sleepless task of kesping days of the battle. It was in terms up with the Infantry. 0f traffic. Moving Up Stmts Early. ! Roa,is over wlllch n0 Vehl.c,8i 0hd passed since the summer of 1914, That movement had begun at mid- roa,iH recognizable after four years ; ight 'he night before. At midnight oniy a3 serpentine paths weaving some battalions of 75's had fired a disconsolately among the shell holes, few rounds and then packed up to roa(is in which mine craters yawned start forward through the mud and paat an hasty bridging, these had to darkness, starting so early that be- reCcive and bear during the first fore sundown they were pitched on three days a volume of heavy, cease-new- hillsides and, without waiting t ie31. traffic that would have worried for camouflage or good emphice-;a (iozen Lincoln Highways. ments, were firing steadily into tne ie:eding German lines. 1 he pace set. for them can be That, is why the pioneers both j ranged by the fact that one regiment- , Engineer and Infantry went for al aid station, after patching up the days and nights without stopping to . first wounded at its old stand untilleep or eat. That is why the clink j 9 on Thursday morning jumped for- of pick and shovel working ahead of ! ward eight kilometers and was at the trucks, working under the trucks, work in Coisy by noon of the first will ever be music in the ears of the day. By sundown of thatfirst day the American Army. Theirs was the i Infantry lines in some places had task of getting the guns up, and get gone forward mo re than five miles, them up they did, faster in some : a :i! through the'maze of'tramc which places than in others, but still the i pifMrtred the cra;;v roads, the urgeiu guns moved on through the rain, .Most difficult of all had proved tlie Forest of Ant. nine itself, but into this treacherous woods the New York troops had fought their way foot by foot for a distance of over five miles. Fought their way? Hewed their way, lather, for the Forest of Argonne is t-tich a wild tangle of ancient trees, rank underbrush and barbed wire as no American doughboys have had to face since the first troops went into the trenches. j Chopping a Way Through. The path would baffle a rabbit, and the machine guns are strewn through the woods like snakes in the grass, but somehow the Infantry have pushed and fought and cut and chop ped their way through. Ahead of our line on the sixth day, the Germans had retreated to that third retirement position which they left half constructed in the late autumn of 1917, a position strong in its natural defences but reinforced to no such extent as the Hindenburg line, with which it cannot be tacti cally compared. It is rather a con tinuation of the retirement position to which the Germans were driven when the Americans sliced off the St. Mihiel salient. This retirement .A,. 'CffVA' X .... 51' ,1 it V s'Yiw ' Carrying on in their war bit until asked to discontinue. Mr. Vincent Astor and Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt Sr., two of America' wealthiest and best-known social leaders, have just returned from France. Doth "tended tables" in a "Y" hut at the front. Iloth braved dangers, and never asked for relief. Itoth were decorated by the French authorities They are here seen getting their first glimpse of the "beautiful lady." the Statue of Liberty, In New York harbor, as their boat arrived. In Terms of Traffic. fields immortalized by those dead steering-wheel: soldiers in horizon blue who stood fast there throughout the bitter iiii.nths of 1016 and said of the in vading horde: "They shall not pass.' Ahead of the doughboys, and hi- 1. :;;; rcn, that village on a hilltop wiiii'n is the highest point between the Aisne and the Moose, and from whose church steeple, one visible for miles and miles around like a thousands of synchronized "Oh, Lord, thanks be I m not on the other end of that noise." Just before ilnun. That noise readied Its most deaf- to them, loomed .uonttan-1 enng enmax m uio oisi m mnmi-un before the zero hour. That is Hie jeriod of most, painful orpectancy, when anxious eyes follow the creep ing minute hands mi thousands upon message ran back: "Guns before all els;?, and then f.iod for the guns. RaMons second, ammunition first." To get the Etuis up, meat ami eilVi. e ii;;i.v. vai l'y?ry'Jiing ex- ,ert anibu;aif,js must wail. If horse.? dragging the 75's through the mud should be d or, having djne their level best, should drop from : s;i i. -.1 hi human muscics .;i:is. push Ifeo SUH3 on their way. tf a big gun should capsize in sonic '.ell hUe red dcsrtiir cf moving uti is av-hiaod nositlnn. then it must nake thai i.i.cl. h..ie its pohi.ioa ami irrt Pre from there. 'More than once i;ese things happened. The problem of moving up tlie ns and th.; other supplies was aiade both supremely important and '.upremely ditiicult through the first hree days by tlie nature of the ter rain over which the Americans were fighting one of the most difficult battlefields in Europe and by the condition in which four years of battle had left that terrain. Here was a stretch of French country-side all little hills and val leys. In the summer of 1914 it was beautifully carpeted with green, field after field of well husbanded farms, with here and there a golden wheat crop embroidered with scarlet poppies, and here and there a village of stone homes with red-tiled roofs. Now it looks as though the hand of some grotesquely gigantic leper had reached out of the Fast and touched it. It Is a dead country. There are no homes, no life, no verdure. Here and there sonic crumbled stone where a bouse once stood, here and there the blackened nd the ammunition followed. Even had the roads been perfect from the start, the traffic problem j:::;! have still been eu nueus, and! those who went through it will never t'uget tlie paralyzing congestion, .'"very one helped. Every one had to : e'.p. The sight no one cauld stand was the spectacle of a long train of eiiibula'.ices stalled in the rain, the drivers raging, tho onlookers cursing, only the wounded within silent and nneomnlaining save when one of them might reach out and ask for a '. inoke or a pull on a passing canteen. Perhaps, when it meant just a short but impassable blockade, an officer would leap down from a truck ad cull for volunteers. "These men have paid the price," he would call out in the darkness, "and we've got to see them through to the hospitals. Maybe we can cut a road through this wire and mud that will skirt these foundered trucks blocking the way. Pitch in, everybody." Road Built in Twinkling. Then down from the trucks, out from under tarpaulins, emerging here from a hastily made bed beside the road or there from a roadside kitchen, the volunteers would come. The improved road would be made in a twinkling, the litters would be carried across its torturingly bumpy surface, the ambulances would trundle after and a little later the train of wounded would be creeping its way to beds and warm food and expert, compassionate hands. In such traffic jams, when an oc casional ill-advised cart full of officers' baggage would he chucked II 111 finger pointed to Heaven, the Grown Ptince watched in 1916 the vain blaURirter of L is countrymen. Now that watch tower is but crumbled stone crumbled Btone ot At 5:311 the first Taint sign ot dnwii would be. showing in tlie east, the long waiting would be done, the In fantry would be up and over the tap. And every one behind iliem, from the stump of a blasted tree. For tlie ! ruthlessly to the side, and when stub- watci-es. rest there is only a scorched, bbak j born drivers must be coerced to breed countryside, pitted with shell holes ; in them then and there the right com which some has been spread and , generals to the cooks. Knew in ins packed to make a road over whieii i proud and confident heart that for a American kitchens are trundling j time there would be only one prob with slum and coffee for American lem. For all the rest, there would doughboys. ! he only the problem of keeping up , .... . With the doughboys. Never Munv a l iench Winter. j T)en 5..J0 came and an observer, But to those Americans whose ; crouched in such a vantage point, prayer every morning and every j say, as any one of those look-outs night of their lives is that this young' which indent the parpapet on the Army shall do the home folks proud crest of Hill 304, must needs strain the factor in this battle of greatest ; his eyes through the mist that Interest is just the fact that the blanketed tho valley below. The initial attack on the whole 20-mile trenches and those within them were front was launched by divisions of completely hidden from view. Then, which not one couid tell what a a few moments later and it was a and mine craters like the face of tli moon. From these shell rear-guards turned holes their munity spirit, the strong-armed M. ! P. was the king of the road and the German hero of the hour, machin.: Every cross roads clamored for guns on the backs of the advancing him over the wires. Things went Yankees. From them, as the mists best where the M. P. at the corner of the first morning cleared away, was a square-jawed, hard-boiled Germans emerged In batches large Yankee who, when a truck seemed and small, to be taken into custody disinclined to do his bidding on the by the mopping-up parties and senl instant, would waste no words but to the rear to swell to thousands the. draw his gun Riiggestively and say: number of prisoners captured on the first day. i Still the Prisoners Come. I Not only that first morning, but "You do what I tell you or I'll blow what little brains you've got to the other end of Hell." At the End of the SLxth Day. With roads laid under and in off and on through Thursday, Friday front of the moving traffic, with such and Saturday, little groups of them m. P.'s to straighten out the tangles, would trickle out of the underground 8i0 wly through the mud and rain the hiding places whither they had taken gun8 moved up, Cattle Baying for Swift k Company Swift & Company buys more than 9000 head of cattle, on an average, every market day. Each one of them is "sized up" by experts. Both the packer's buyer and the commission salesman must judge what amount of meat each animal will yield, and' how fine it will be, the grading of the hide, and the quantity and quality of the fat. Both must know market conditions for live stock and meat throughout the country. The buyer must know where the different qualities, weights, and kinds of cattle can be best marketed as beef. If the buyer pays more than the animal is worth, the packer loses money on it. If he offers less, another packer, or a shipper or feeder, gets it away from him. If the seller accepts too little, the live stock raiser gets less than he is entitled to. If he holds out for more than it is worth, he fails to make a sale. A variation of a few cents in the price per hundred pounds is a matter of vital importance to the packer, because it means the difference between profit and loss. Swift & Company, U. S. A.
