wounded. Then we wondered if we would get relieved. At 9 o'clock we got a message congratulating us and saying the Algerians would take over at midnight. We then began to collect our wounded. Some had been evacuated during the day, but at that, we soon had about twenty on the field near us. A man who had been blinded wanted me to hold his hand. Another, wounded in the back, wanted his head patted, and so it went; one man got up on his hands and knees. I asked him what he wanted. He said, "Look at the full moon," then fell dead. I had him buried, and all the rest I could find. All the time bullets sung and we prayed that shelling would not start until we had our wounded on top.

The Algerians came up at midnight and we pushed out. They went over at daybreak and got all shot up. We made the relief under German flares and the light from a burning town.

We went out as we came, through the gulley and town, the latter by now all in ruins. The place was full of gas, so we had to wear our masks. We pushed on to the forest and fell down in our tracks and slept all day. That afternoon a German plane got a balloon and the observer jumped and landed in a high tree. It was some job getting him down. The wind came up and we had to dodge falling trees and branches. As it was, we lost-two killed and one wounded from that cause.

That night the Germans shelled us and got three killed and seventeen wounded. We moved a bit further back to the crossroad and after burying a few Germans, some of whom showed signs of having been wounded before, we settled down to a short stay.

It looked like rain, and so Wilmer and I went to an old dressing station to salvage some cover. We collected a lot of bloody shelter halves and ponchos that had been tied to poles to make stretchers, and were about to go, when we stopped to look at a new grave. A rude cross made of two slats from a box had written on it:

"Lester S. Wass, Captain U. S. Marines, July 18, 1918"

The old crowd at St. Nazaire and Bordeaux, Wass and Sumner killed, Baston and Hunt wounded, the latter on the 18th, a clean wound, I hear, through the left shoulder. We then moved further to the rear and camped for the night. Dunlap came to look us over. His car was driven by a sailor who got out to talk to a few of the marines, when one of the latter yelled out, "Hey, fellows! Anyone want to see a real live gob, right this way." The gob held a regular reception. A carrier pigeon perched on a tree with a message. We decided to shoot him. It was then quite dark, so the shot missed. I then heard the following as I tried to sleep: "Hell; he only turned around;" "Send up a flare;" "Call for a barrage," etc. The next day further to the rear still, a Ford was towed by with its front wheels on a truck.

We are now back in a town for some rest and to lick our wounds.

As I rode down the battalion, where once companies 250 strong used to march, now you see fifty men, with a kid second lieutenant in command; one company commander is not yet twenty-one.

After the last attack I cashed in the gold you gave me and sent it home along with my back pay. I have no idea of being "bumped off" with money on my person, as if you fall into the enemy's hands you are first robbed, then buried perhaps, but the first is sure.

Baston, the lieutenant that went to Quantico with father and myself, and of whom father took some pictures, was wounded in both legs in the Bois de Belleau. He nearly lost his legs, I am told, but is coming out O. K. Hunt was wounded in the last attack, got his wounds fixed up and went back again till he had to be sent out. Coffenburg was hit in the hand,—all near him were killed. Talbot was hit twice, but is about again. That accounts for all the officers in the company that I brought over. In the first fight 103 of the men in that outfit were killed or wounded. The second fight must have about cleaned out the old crowd.

The tanks, as they crushed their way through the wet, gray forest looked to me like beasts of the pre-stone age.

In the afternoon as I lay on my back in a hole that I dug deeper, the dark gray German planes with their sinister black crosses, looked like Death hovering above. They were for many. Sumner, for one. He was always saying, "Denig, let's go ashore!" Then here was Wass, whom I usually took dinner with-dead, too. Sumner, Wass, Baston and Huntthe old crowd that stuck together; two dead, one may never be any good any more; 'Hunt, I hope, will be as good as as ever.

The officers mentioned in Major Denig's letter, with their addresses and next of kin, are:

Lieutenant Colonel Berton W. Sibley; Harriet E. Sibley, mother; Essex Junction, Vt.

First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates; Mrs. Willis J. Cates, mother; Tiptonville, Tenn.

First Lieutenant Horace Talbot, no next of kin; Woonsocket, R. I.

Captain Arthur H. Turner; Charles S. Turner, father, 188 West River St., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Captain Bailey Metcalf Coffenberg; Mrs. Elizabeth Coffenberg, 30 Jackson St., Staten Island, N. Y.

Captain Albert Preston Baston; Mrs. Ora Z. Baston, mother; Pleasant Avenue, St. Louis Park, Minn.

Captain Lester Sherwood Wass; L. A. Wass, father, Gloucester, Mass.

Captain Allen M. Sumner; Mrs. Mary M. Sumner, wife; 1824 S Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Holcomb; Mrs. Thomas Holcomb, wife, 1535 New Hampshire Avenue, Washington, D. C.

Second Lieutenant John Laury Hunt; Etta Newman, sister; Gillet, Texas.

Iowa.

Captain Walter H. Sitz; Emil H. Sitz, father; Davenport,

First Lieutenant John W. Overton, son of J. M. Overton, 901 Stahlman Building, Nashville, Tenn.

Major Egbert T. Lloyd; Mrs. E. T. Lloyd, wife; 4900 Cedar Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

Major Ralph S. Keyser; Charles E. Keyser, father; Thoroughfare, Va.

Captain Pere Wilmer; Mrs. Alice Emory Wilmer, mother; Centreville, Md.

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Hughes; Mrs. A. J. Hughes, wife, care of Rear-Admiral William Parks, Post Office Building, Philadelphia, Pa.

Lieutenant Overton was the famous Yale athlete, the intercollegiate one-mile champion.

U

CHAPTER XLIII

ENGLAND AND FRANCE STRIKE IN THE NORTH

P TO July 18, 1918, the Allied armies in France had been steadily on the defensive, but on that date the tide turned. General Foch, who had been yielding territory for several months in the great German drives, now assumed the offensive himself and began the series of great drives which was to crush the German power and drive the enemy in defeat headlong from France.

The first of these great blows was the one which began with the appearance of the Americans at Château-Thierry. The Germans had formed a huge salient whose eastern extremity lay near Rheims, and its western extremity west of Soissons. It was like a great pocket reaching down in the direction of Paris from those two points. Against this salient the French and Americans had directed a tremendous thrust. The Germans resisted with desperation. It was the turning point of the war, but they were compelled to yield. Town after town was regained by the French and American troops, until, by August 5th, the Crown Prince had been driven from the Marne to the Vesle, and the salient obliterated.

On August 7th General Foch delivered his second blow. During the fighting on the Marne it had often been wondered by those who were observing the great French general's strategy, why the British seemed to make no move. Occasionally there had been reports of minor assaults, either on the Lys salient, far north, or on the Somme and Montdidier sectors, lying between. It had not been noticed that in these minor assaults the English had been obtaining positions of strategic importance, and that they were steadily getting ready for an English offensive.

But their time had now come, and on August 7th the armies of Sir Douglas Haig began an attack against the armies of Prince Rupprecht on the Lys salient. This was followed, on August 8th, by another still greater Allied advance in Picardy, between Albert and Montdidier.

Both of these attacks met with notable success. On the Lys salient the English penetrated a distance of one thousand yards over a four-mile front, and followed up this advance by persistent attacks which led to the reoccupation, on August 19th, of Merville, and on August 31st, of Mont Kemmel. On this front the Germans had weakened their strength by withdrawing troops to aid other parts of their front, and the British were constantly taking advantage of this weakening.

The Germans had found this salient a failure. It had failed to attain its objective, the flanking of the Lens line south. They therefore were steadily retreating without any intention other than to extricate themselves from positions of no value, in the most economical manner. The quick operations of the British, however, led to the capture of many prisoners and guns.

The English offensive in Picardy was a more serious matter, and from some points of view was the greatest offensive in the war. The Allied front had been prepared for offensive operations by minor attacks which had secured for the Allied troops dominating positions. The attack was a surprise attack. The Germans were expecting local attacks but not a movement of this magnitude. The surprise was increased because it was made through a heavy mist which prevented observation. It was preceded by tremendous artillery fire which lasted for four minutes, and which was followed by the charge of infantry and tanks. The German artillery hardly replied at all, and only the resistance of a few rifles and machine guns fired vaguely through the fog met the charging troops.

The attack was on a twenty-five-mile front and on the first day gained seven miles, captured seven thousand men and a hundred guns. On the following day there was an advance of about five miles and seventeen thousand more prisoners were captured.

The Germans were now retiring in great haste, blowing up ammunition dumps and abandoning an enormous quantity of stores of all kinds. The English were using cavalry and airplanes, which were flying low over the field and throwing the German troops into confusion. Over three hundred guns, including many of heavy caliber, were captured. The ground had been plowed up by shells and thousands of bodies of men and horses were found lying where they fell. A feature of the attack was the swift whippet tanks which advanced far ahead of the infantry lines.