Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-03-15 | Page 2 | American Artillery Foils the Germans

KB ARTILLERY GEjllS Four Groups of Teuton Gas Projectors, in Addition Ad-dition to 200 Already Destroyed, Are Quickly Quick-ly Blown to Pieces. POISON PLANS OF ENEMY UPSET Observers Locate the Point of Danger and ' the Gunners Do the Rest; Correspondent Witnesses Explosions. WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY IN" FRANCE, Tuesday, March 12. (By tho Associated Press.) Four groups of German Ger-man gas projectors, in addition to the group of 200 projectors already reported destroyed, have been discovered and like-wiso like-wiso blown to pieces by the American artillery. Probable German plans for gas attack on a comparatively large scale against the American positions northwest ; of Toul have thus been upset. ; The new groups of projectors wero discovered dis-covered from aerial photographs taken by American observers in French airplanes. j The effective action taken against them was due to the quick work of tho ob- i servers, the intelligence officers and the j artillerists in turn. i The American artillery on this front j has been more active than ever in the past fifteen hours, and its shells also found lodgment in a number of ammunition j clumps, which were blown up. Many ex- j tensive explosions are reported. CORRESPONDENT SEES EXPLOSION. ! The correspondent, standing on a hill, witnessed one dump, situated in a wood, go up in a brilliant flash and a groat puff of whitish smoke, a tremendous report following a few seconds later. Kxploslons and fires were also caused by our shells in villages and a number in tho woods behind be-hind the enemy front. During a retaliatory shelling for an enemy en-emy bombardment In which a number of gas shells fell on our battery posit lone, the American guns silenced certain German Ger-man batteries by pouring in a faM and extremely accurate fire. Our artillerymen artillery-men stayed Jn their dugouts until the gas shells, began to fall, when they put on their masks and manned tho guns while thus protected. Some mustard sheila were mixed with the others that fell, and later a few of our men walked through this type of gas without their masks on, TORE GREAT GAPS IN ENEMY WIRE. The American artillery also tore great gaps in the enemy wire and leveled various vari-ous portions of the first- and second-lbm trenches, forcing the enemy virtually to abandon them. Details of the recent raid which have Just leen developed show that while numbers of Germans were killed by shell lire when the box barrage was in effect, and others later by the creeping barrage, there were also a few of the enemy shot bore and there during the tlnn our men were in the trem-bes. There were tnu n Americans among the raid I ng party of fou r officers and seven t y men, who did not see a single German soldlnr. All tho men in the raid seemed purl icularly Impressed Im-pressed with the way the American bur-rage bur-rage worked. "It worked like a clock," said one hoI-dler, hoI-dler, whose borne is In Teas. "It. rnnde you feel you could no right, on to lieiltn behind it. The. only trouble about this show was that v. o did not see enou;;h of j Fritz, lie must have beat It like a rab-i rab-i bit, bpcaustj I did not see' a single one all the way back to tin: second line, although al-though some of the other 'ellowH did." Americans All Escaped. The men went in 1 f.O yards on a 1 0U-yard 0U-yard front. None of Ihe Ainericuns was ki!l'-d and none Is missing, ft Is certain thji t five Germans were kll)id In the lighting. Artillery fire of quite a. lively character also Is continuln;; In the s'-ctor east of I,unfville. So far as is known, the Germans Ger-mans have not yet rerjccupled their first and second lines Ib'-re. JJoth the I.unevlJlr pector and that of Toul have been much occupied with i nipers today, as well as last jukIi'. Jn the forni'-r sector one sniper wns detecfd in a tree alter a period In which he had done fa li ly effect I ve work. fine of tli American sharpshooters crawled cautiously to a vantatre point In No Man's Land and opened up on bint. (Continued on Pago Two.) wiciifir FOIL THE CEBMMB (Continued from Page One.) The second shot hit the German, whose body dropped to the enemy wire, where it hung for the rest of the day. Machine Gun Cross-Fire. Northwest of Ton! rille tire and grenades gren-ades dislodged a German from a sniper's post In a t-htil hole and also silence I tiie enemy in a marhine-gun emplacement on the front lines, who had been annoying our men with bursts of tire. The American Amer-ican machine guns, by a crossiire. aain drove out the Germans from a number of listening posts. An American aerial observer in a French airplane crossed the German lines tli is morning at a low altitude and used his machine un effectively on the second line. Other .Americans were in the air all day, many of them over German territory, terri-tory, tine aerial battle is reported. The American observer emptied one gun at a German plane, but without apparent result, re-sult, as the enemy was hurrying toward the rear. Another machine in which the A merican observers were manning t he guns went up to meet German airplanes which had crossed the lines, hut the Americans failed to get close enough to shoot with any chance of scoring a bit. The Germans are doing much work behind be-hind their lines. Additional camouflage construction is going on there, and an exceedingly heavy traffic is in evidence at many places, especially at night.