Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-10-27 | Page 38 | Perfect Team Work Big Aid to Victory

PERFECT TEAM IRK BIG AIDTTD VICTORY French and Americans Fight in Unison Like Oldtime Comrades. SUCCESS IS ATTAINED Stirring Incidents Given of Concerted Action During Bloody Engagements. By FRED J. B OLLME YER, Universal Service Staff Correspondent. PARIS, Sept. 20. (By mail.) The perfect unity with which the Americans Ameri-cans and French worked in their advance ad-vance over the Marne and up to the Ourcq was one of the reasons for the gigantic success of the offensive. American Amer-ican officers tell of how Yankee divisions, di-visions, acting as the pivot for the French armies on either side, advanced in perfect harmony with the French. They relate any number of incidents where American officers took the places of fallen French leaders, and where French officers took command of American Amer-ican units when the latter Js officers fell dead or wounded. One of these stories, told by Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Timothy Ryan, formerly an attorney attor-ney in Cleveland, Ohio, who was slightly slight-ly gassed, is typical. His particular unit was on the edge of the American forces in the advance and immediately next to the French forces. The officers offi-cers of the latter a company of Moroccans Moroc-cans had fallen and, lacking leaders, there was a bit of confusion. "Sergeant Clark T. McConnick of New "York, who was in my platoon, stepped over to the head of the Frenchmen French-men and, crying, 'En avant! ' led the 150 Moroccans, who are among the best fighters in the allied armies, up steep heights; storming and capturing a village, vil-lage, with the assistance of other American Amer-ican units. Inspiring Spectacle. "It was a wonderful spectacle watching watch-ing this khaki-clad sergeant, coatless and shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, el-bows, charging at the head of the Moroccans. Mo-roccans. This incident, brought about on the spur of the moment, was duplicated dupli-cated on other parts of the line. "There was no hitch anywhere. We worked together in perfect unison, the exploits of one side being an inspiration inspira-tion to the other. All of the Americans are full of praise for the brave Frenchmen, French-men, who, after four years of it, fought with such brilliancy. The French are just as good today as ever. ' ( Our regiment, which had been in the line previously, thought we were going into rest billets, but we were suddenly sud-denly ordered to go up to another point and to be ready to 1 go over' at 4:35 in the morning. We marched all night, in the rain anil darkness, along roads jammed with traffic, slipping, stumbling. stum-bling. Finally we reached our distina-tion. distina-tion. It was just 4:30. But in five minutes we went over and the fellows, despite their long hike, fought like wildcats, held up by the excitement. "Surprised, the Germans surrendered everywhere along the front lines. They came so fast that the officers merely waved them back with their walking sticks. By actual count our regiment in two days' fighting took 2180 prisoners. prison-ers. In addition, our fellows accounted for hundreds of Germans in killed and wounded. Beer Garden Found. "In our advance we ran across a regular reg-ular German beer garden in one place. It was situated in a little clump of trees. There were little white tables and white chairs about and plenty of beer, which the Germans left on the tables in their haste to retreat. In a big dugout further on, probably used by officers, there was a player-piano, which, no doubt, the Germans had taken from the chateau near by. "We had practically no hand-to-hand fighting. Tho Germans wouldn't fight that way. They used artillery and machine,' ma-chine,' guns until we came ou them, and the surrendered. 'jjfrat everyone has said before about the Germans refusing to fight in close quarters, about their throwing their hands up and yelling 'Kameradl is true. "We came across a big German field gun manned by three German officers. The rest oi the gun crew had tied, nut theso three officers kept firing point blank at us. And when we, got tbein they could do nothing else but surrender, surren-der, knowing that wc had them at our mercy. 'But they were such a gamo lot that the fellows were content to take them prisoners. Ah a rule when a German continues to battle, tho American, crazed by the fact that the Hun has killed his comrades, usually lets him have it. But these fellows were game and prepared to die the only ones w found who were reconciled to death. The others cry ' Kumerad! ' to save themselves after doing al possible damage. dam-age. ' '