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Show DISLIKE IS GENERAL FDR TRENCH MORTAR Doughboys Usually Refer ! I to the Weapons as the "Stovepipe Artillery." By HENRY G. WALES, Universal Service Staff Correspondent. WITH THE FIRST AMERICAN ARMY, Oct. 30. (By maiD Nobody loves the trench mortars! The artillery disowns them, the infantry infan-try will have no part of them, the cavalry, cav-alry, of course, aro so few and far between be-tween that they don't matter, and the aviation is in a class by itself, far removed re-moved from all other branches of the service; ser-vice; in a higher sphere, the aviators say. "Juyt before this Verdun show came off a trench mortar section was sent up to where my platoon was in the line," said Lieutenant Poindcxter of Chattanooga. "The second lieutenant in charge of the stove-pipe artillery came over and told me he was sent there lo help me r rid my men, and wanted to co-operale with mc the best ho could, "Fie told me his trmioh mortars could easily cover the opposite se.-tor and he showed mc on the map just where he figured fig-ured he could place his stove pipes, and just where they could plant their flving Pigs among the bodies. But I loid 'him there was only 0110 thins I wanted him j and his men to do, and that was to sit1 quiet all day in the dugouts, and not to1 show themselves on account of snipers and to keep their stove pipes out of sight of boche aviators." The same Is true in all armlen, with the British and the French, and also with the enemy, according: to documents found and prisoners' statements. Trench mortar outfitH draw artHlerv fire liko garbage draws flies. Let a few German "minnies" lob over a few projectiles projec-tiles and In less than a couple of minutes the allied batteries in the vicinity are pounding away at the particular fegmvnt of trench whence the meinenwerfcr were fired. 'Oct away from here," the donchbovs yoll when they s:"! a trench mortar out-lit out-lit filtering down the bavous, or communicating commu-nicating trenches, toward the front lino, dragging thoir tubes with them. ) The infantry has long ago nickn.nnied the "minnie-men" tho stovepipe artillery, because a trench mortar looks like nothing in the world so much as a solid, substantial substan-tial length of stove pipe with a base lo it. Life is no bed of roses for the tronoh-mortrtr tronoh-mortrtr crew, either, an they fretjuentlv got slmiied (onsiderablT before thov puh out and have the purly strictly in the ii-ii. us 01 tiio imarnrv. 1 reocli mortars very seldom stay very long in h, tronch sceincnt after they have registered. They know they will be the target for the enemy's field guns and will be spotted by the enemy's aviators If it is daylight. So Ihcy fire a few ro nds and then, go down the line, to some other point. The infantry pref' rs to have tho tronch mortr.ru work at 11 ret, t, if they tritdst on functioning. Thn, Fomotlmrsthe boches can't tell cxaolly whore the flying pigs are coming- from. Often when a couple of sections of "minnies" get. to work at night tho dnughlKjys climb out of the trenches thread throuch the lanes in the barbod wire entanglements and lie out on tho ground in "no man's land" unli! Kritz petM through KtraflpR- tnnIr TJOi5)Urmg where the stove-pipe artillery was em-pl:iced. |