Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-11-24 | Page 17 | Great Work is Done by Two-Man Tank

GREAT WORK IS DONE BY TWO-MAN TANK i WITH T I IF, AMERICAN FORCES IN FRANCE. Oct. oil. (Correspondence of the Associated Press) American fighters In the French two-man tanks ran Into some hot work in .front of Romagne during dur-ing the American army's advance alonfj the west bank of the Meuse early in October Oc-tober and Sergeant James Avertt of Birmingham. Ala., with his "buddy," did his share In giving the Hun his due. Avertt's "buddy" was killed in the thick of the fight by a bullet that entered a peep hole in the side of the tank and struck him In the face. It was during the American "push" in the Argonne sector. Avertt's tank went along with a lot of other "brother" tanks In line with the American infantrymen crowding them in the rear. Avertt was the machine gunner of his tank, whilrt his "buddy" ran the engine and steered the tank. "I was so near a number of Germans encountered in a shallow trench that I could see the terror on their faces when my gun began to let fly bullets almost in their very faces," Sergeant Avertt- said. "These were the first bodies I ran Into on this drive and I certainly let them have It as fast as my old machine could fire, nnd that was some fast, and 1 just kept going ahead and pound! nc away until every last one of them was stretched out on the ground. "Passing beyond this hastily dug trench, in the meantime watching my 'brothers' on my right and left and at the same time keeping lab on the doughboys dough-boys coming up. 1 got sight of a Hi tie batch of Germans behind a hump in the hill along the roadway, or what had boon a roadway before our heavy artillery opened up that morning. These wero machine gunners, I soon learned, and bullets began to splash off the tank'a sides, particularly those which struck a-glancing a-glancing blow. "I ordered my tank 'buddy' at the wheel to keep after those gunners If it. cost us all four wheels. He 'lid. and wo went up after them sort of sideways, and I gnt around on to the side nf that hump, and my 'brother' on the other side wax doing the s;ime thing, and we wiped thai, bunch oul In a Jiffy bid i eve it was by enfilading fire, as the officers call It."