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Show COKPORAL JOHN E. HOLDEN of Salt Lake, wounded while leading a squad to secure more am-; am-; munition. All the squad but Cor-I Cor-I poral Holden perished. COflPORAL HOLDEN IS WOUNDED 11 BATTLE Young Salt Laker Shot Several Sev-eral Times While Leading Lead-ing Squad. "The battle where my squad perished was on the outskirts of a ruined village; the whole village seemed to burst into fire and the machine guns were active. Then a,, big shell burst near my face and I was caught by a couple of machine gun bullets. Well, I thought that was my finish and I evidently was lucky to come through." That Is how Corporal John E. Holden, Seventeenth United States regular field artillery, soh of E. H Holden, 737 East First South street, managing editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, gave. his parents-the parents-the first intimation that he had been wounded and Is now in a base hospital recovering, somewhere in France. The wounds were received while leading lead-ing a column back from a vicious attack at-tack to secure additional ammunition for the American forces. Holden's force was completely wiped out. Three of the wounds, one in (he eye and two which fractured the jaw, are serious and painful, pain-ful, though not necessarily dangerous, while the soldier himself discounts the wounds in the arm and shoulder. Corporal Hxlden is 22 years of age and took a prominent part in high school athletics ath-letics before enlisting in the 1-ldth field artillery. Pie advanced rapidly' to sergeant. ser-geant. When the opportunity for 389 Utahns to go abroad ahead of the 145th regiment came in June, Holden was one of the first to take advantage of the chance, though all the men who volunteered volun-teered did so with the understanding that they would go back to the rank of pri-vaie, pri-vaie, to make the trip. He was a member mem-ber of A battery of the 145th field artillery artil-lery and a member of the Fourth company of the June replacement draft, which went across ahead of the regiment, lie was not long in securing advancement overseas and was made a corporal. In his letter, written from Base 24, A. P. O. 753, Corporal Holden says: "I am now in a hospital and have seven wounds to get healed. Two are in the face, one of which broke my jaw; the other went into my left eye. The other wounds are on the shoulder and arms and do not worry me now. As my teeth are wired, T have been living on fluid diet. "But I have been able to sit up a little the last day or so to write and let the folks know where I am. The battle where my squad perished was on the outskirts of a ruined village. At first I was fortunate and received only slight wounds In the legs, but just when we were going to continue onward the whole village seemed to burst into fire and the machine guns were active. Then a big shell burst near my face and T was caught by a couple of machine gun bullets. bul-lets. Well, I thought that was my finish fin-ish and I evidently was lucky to come through. "The battle was a memorable one. The French had failed on three occasions to rout out the Germans from a large mountain. So they gave us a chance. We took the mountain in about six hours and were still gaining ground. "Our division, however, got ahead of the game a little and we had plenty of return checks. The second night I was leading a column down the road to haul ammunition. Shells were dropping near, but not close enough to frighten until we reached the outskirts of that village. Then came the deluge." |