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Show MEN ENCOUNTER DEADLY GAS J3 tJ 5 3 dti AMERICANMASKS EFFECTIVE UTAH artillerymen taking (he gas mask drill. The masks have just been properly adjusted and the men are ready j to fjo into the "passed" trenches. d -f I j J n r ' 1 Soldiers Have Experience in Poison-Laden Camp Kearny Trenches. By FLOYD A. TIMMEEMAN, Staff Correspondent, CAMP KKARNY. Tal.. Feb. A band was playing in the l iah I'SiLj1. It was nicht. and the cheery voices of the soldiers fi'led the air as thi v h.'i; )'il.v tramped their way to tlw Knights of 4"1ojumb,.is 1 1 n i il t r r to enioy a minstrel min-strel show. Pianos tinkled in the mess balls and the artillerymen -routed about them to boom forth one loud chorus before joining the flow of men for th evening's amusement. looks and kitchen details hurried with their work of cleaning up after th evening mess in order not to rciss a single joke or soij, for the minstrel show touihes a res: onsive chord in a soidier's makeup. make-up. It was a jolly scene indeed. At the as defense buildinc a mile away there gathered some 15't artillerymen' artillery-men' and four correspondents. They huddled together in the darkness and stroke in whispers. It was a secret meeting and the men were preparing to participate in the first real gas assault as-sault ever stage 1 in the United States under war conditions. In direct contrast con-trast to the scene a mile away, there was no jollitv. there was no joking, and the stern faces of the officers and men refle.-red seriousness at every move. Smoking was even tabooed in order that their position might not be piven away. Out in the darkness to the west a network of trenches wound and curved over many acres. There were American Ameri-can and "German lines and a duplication duplica-tion of the famous " no-man "s land"" of Europe. In fact, these trenches were formed from a map made npon the battlefield bat-tlefield of France and every detail was carried out in constructing them. Out in that no-man's lard of brush and constructed shell craters and in the German trenches only a few yards from the American first line there lay the men forming the attacking; party. Beside Be-side them, were piles of gas bombs, giant firecrackers and long steel cyl-inders cyl-inders containing the deadly gas which to breathe for but a few minutes meant death or serious injury. The wind was just . right for the Germans. A gentle breeze had sprung from the north and swept direefly over the American lines. Everything was set for a perfect attack. Beside a small desk in the gas house sat Lieutenant-Colonel William C. Webb, who was commanding the American Amer-ican troops, and at his side was Lieutenant Lieu-tenant FTank 0. Bird, his adjutant. A telephone at Colonel Webb's elbow connected con-nected him with points in every trench and from here he was. to direct the entire en-tire work on the United States forces. The men standing about the building were the American contingent. Protectors Adjusted. A signal was gien and the men filed into the house fur their aiaks and out again into the darkness. Here they adjusted ad-justed them to their face- to be .-.ire thev were working properly, for they knew enough about the r:is game to bo careful in te-ti;.g a mask before a'-teinptii'g a'-teinptii'g to use it during an attack. The' cu res; on lents a!-o tested theirs. A sharp command from Colonel Weld) brought the men to him, and he explained ex-plained their work and gave them their final instructions. This was followed l.v a brief talk by I'olnnW Vale, division di-vision gas instructor, who g-ivo tho J soldiers warnings to be careful to the extreme, lie ended his talk with the cheerful words. There are but two kinds of soldiers in a gas attack the Oiiiek and the dead." The men filed off in the darkness iu sin.le file and the scraping ot their chocs could be heard as thev slipped into the line of trenches to take up their positions. Colonel Vale turned to us. "Now, bovs.'' he beg.u. "don't think for one moment th.: this gas is camouflage, camou-flage, nti-i do:i t trv to rrove it by removing your masks. It vou do. you'll be .lead in ten minutes. And furthermore, auy correspondent who takes even one whiff of it for experimental experi-mental purposes wiH spend the next two weeks in th camp base hospital, in absolute quiet, with an hourlv dash of oxygen. Now you will be carefuL won 't you ? " Get the Hardest. We did not answer for nearly a minute. min-ute. The lumps in our throats would not permit. In the end two of lis managed to weakly answer. "Thanks.'' while the remaining two failed to answer an-swer at all. Colonel Yale turned to us again. "There will be two attacks tonight, one to take place in a few minutes, and one an hour later. Now, I suppose you correspoueients will want to witness one from the house here and one from the front line treurhes. The second attack will be the worse.' Now, which one do you prefer?'' "The first one.'' we answered in unison. But we were doomed to ciisap-pointment, ciisap-pointment, for already the bombers were attacking the American party, and we were too late to see the whole show of tho first attack. So we decided de-cided to await the next and get used to our masks. If you have ever had the bad fortune for-tune of being nearly drowned or suffocated, suf-focated, you have a good idea of the first impression of donning a gas mask. The natural way for the average aver-age person to breathe is through his noe. So, consequently, when you clamp his nose tight with a contrivance resembling one of mother's snapper clothes pins, he strives to pet air through that member until he finds it impossible, and then opens his mouth. It is so with the mask, but the complication compli-cation of he mask and its accessories, t-nn trot ha, IK- .r,lloH or, rt nAnall. get olaok in the face before you remember re-member you have such a thing as a mouth. How to Clean Glasses. A black rubber cloth incloses your face with a. ninety-pound or so grip, which greatly adds' to the "comfort,'' and a chin strap keeps you from bucking. buck-ing. In your mouth is a rubber mouthpiece, mouth-piece, attached to the end of a hose. Its size and design are censored, but it can be said that it was not made for a babv 's mouth, and when adjusted puts all end to the conversation. That is. it does to the amateur mask wearer. Gas instructors have told us that their men have learned to sing and even whistle with their masks on. Thev must wear a different kind in Europe. You peer out through two miniature windows, which are forever becoming fogged, so that the world without becomes be-comes a blur. You wonder how in the world you can clean them without removing re-moving your mask. Then you walk over to the instructor instruc-tor and gurgle to him. He thinks you are singing a Chinese song and starts to dance. After several minutes he gets wise that you are asking him about your windshields, and he shows you how to clean them easily without removing re-moving your mask. Vou simply press iu the rubber cloth from the outside and scour them off. It's just like Columbus Co-lumbus and his egg simple when told but the average amateur would blink for hours and wonder how he would clean them from the inside, when he couldn't remove his mask. ' Bombing Begins. From' the darkness near the gas house we watched the first attack. Hardly had the men gained the trenches when tho enemy began to bomb them with gas shells, which exploded ex-ploded upon concussion and sent their deadly contents about the trenches. This continued for nearly half an hour. Then came a noise from the vicinity of the trenches which sounded like "the squaking of many geese. It was the danger signal of the dreaded gas cloud. A rocket went whizzing from the American t rvnch'1 a second warning. ''There it eornrp," blioutod Colonel Weld., and ho pointed toward tho en-rniv en-rniv trenches. Wn nil turned our eves w here he poi n ted and saw a t hick , reen ish eloud ne and t- lowly .sweep toward our positions. ' ' t. 's perfect, ' ' roHimeiited Colonel Weld), ns the thick !iae ittrloM'd the American trenches. The warninus kept up a continual bedlam bed-lam Ot IIDIM', At Colonel Weldi'i puprstion -Kf took ofr our ninskf. The at r about ns crr-ried crr-ried the forties of the jjiis. It made our nose tingle, as wo inn a led it. Beiipr more than a quarter of a milu out-ddo the course taken hv the cloud we were at. We kept our n::isk? in the alert posit ion, however, in ea.e the wind should swerve the cloud toward us. Six Carried Out. Pining the next twenty minutes there w'ici men carried from tho trrnehe. Thev had tasted of the as dund and were bein- rushed to safety. Their oreseuce of mind probably saved their lives. Had they become panic stricken when they took the first whiff they would have taken more. Instead t hey held their breath and adjusted their maUs properly and waited until the, stretcher bear, rs arrived. Thev are now on the job anin, thanks to their presence pres-ence of mind and the modern as musk. Purine both attacks t'tah men participated, partici-pated, but there wr.s not a Utah man carried from the trencher. A relief spiad was forming in the darkness to our left. Thev later filed off in the Hirer tinn of the trenches. Colon! Ya'e hailed us and told us that our time had arrived. Jle detailed a M'!i:';int to HceoTupany ns and we stumbled stum-bled off throupb the darkness with a feeling that wr were looking for the last time on the e;ood old world. Wc rea' hed the trench and the man in front of me half slipped and half fell into it. We followed just us gracefully. Bump Along Trench. Alons: tho turn in p, winding trench we stumbled, scraping our skins on pro-iectin pro-iectin boar-Is and tripping over the duek boards which cover the bottoms as a protection against mun. At times we splashed into water up to our knees, which aided to our cape of cold feet. Past rows upon rows of crouching. , ;vaitin soldiers we went and as we met ! each one we remembered the caution we had received. It was to turn our face? awav from a rTson in passim, so thaf 'nr mask would not be swept from our face in the darkness. It seemed as if we had walked miles when at last the trench turned sharply to the riu'ht and begnn to get more shallow. We were then in one of the mm muni cat ion trenches and could fpintly see the front lines ahead. Also ahead could be seen the bursting giaut .rackers which represented the barrage eurtain thrown by the enemy to cut our front line position from our support. sup-port. It was well done and if it had been real shrapnel we would never have passed through it alive. Gas Bombs Fall. We were blowing like ?n many porpoises por-poises through our masks after the long. fn:t walk. Just at this time when we thought that surely we must be in the heaviest gas the sergeant ahead told us we could remove our masks. He bai been testing by allowing a small amount of air to enter his mask by inserting his finder. We removed them and stumbled along. A short distance ahead the trench turned and deepened and as the sergeant reached the turn he yelled "Gas." We slapped on our masks and proceeded. Just as we reached the front line trench and turned into it a bombardment bombard-ment began. Showers of gas bombs fell among us and exploded at times so close that they stung our legs and feet. A whizzing rocket was sent up beside us which covered the trench with a bright glare. Then we saw the heavy gas cloud reach the brim of the trencn and sink in around us. It was almost impossible to see. Soldiers about us bean grabbing canvas shovels and after beating it down into the bottom of the trench they would shovel it out as if it were dirt. We were then among the Utah men, but did not know it at the time. Attack Repulsed. Lieutenant Martin P. Mnlvev stood at a near-by station taking samples of the gas so that it might later be anaJyzed to determine what kind the enemy was using. Lieutenant "William Crawford of F battery was directing the soldiers as they shoveled the gas. Awaiting the attack of the enemy and on the lookout to find the position of the bombers on "no man's land," so they might rout them with hand grenades", were Hugh Dunbar, Hebe Young, Sergeants Arnold C. Kiehins and Lawrence Timpson of E battery; Privates Elmer Bosen and Chester W. Doolittle of D battery. Sergeant Ser-geant David O. Thienit. Corporal Edward Ed-ward L. Maughn and Privates Garland B. Woodward and John E. O'Donnell of C battery, and Privates Michael B. Crawford and "William H. DeWolfe of A batterv. The cfoud lasted for more than ten minutes. Every man stood at his post ready to repulse the enemy should he raid the trench. The enemy had hoped to cut off the front line trench from the Bupport by a barrage, and pneceeded. Then they hoped to launch their gas attack and so demoralize the front line men that they could easily effect a capture. cap-ture. Here "the enemy failed, for the soldiers semed to thrive on the cloud instead of going down nnder its poisonous poison-ous fumes in scores as the enemy had planned. Enemy bombers who had the trench under surveillance, reported that the pas failed to have its effect, and the enemy decided that it would be no easy matter to tackle a trench full of live American Sammies. Masks Axe Effective. The gas was still heavy in the trenches as we filed out with the lines of soldiers. It was a long, tedious walk back. Throughout our entire tour it was not evident that for a minute we were in the midst of the deadly gas, so perfectly did the masks work. The Utah boys will have nothing to fear in tbo way of gas in Europe with such a perfect per-fect mask. Once out in the open air at the gas honse again we were told to remove them. It was a gTeat relief to tear the mask from otrr faces and breathe again the cool, unadulterated ozone. While the modern respirator is made for business, there is little allowance allow-ance made for comfort. But at that it felt real comfortable when the gas settled set-tled about us and when a few deep breaths meant the undertaker. |