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Show COMRADES Iff CAMP AI TBI RETURN Six Salt Lake Lads Who Trained and Fought Together To-gether Are .Back, Enlisting, training and fighting together, to-gether, and then returning home together, to-gether, is the unique record of sir Salt Lake boys Carl A. Brown, SI'S Third avenue; Leland J. Holt, 950 East First South; Are hie L. Sutton, 134H East Filth South; Gordon C. Wiriek, 953 Ninth East; Ernest Hard, 219 Douglas avenue, and Milton W. Hansen, 1327 Lincoln avenue. The boys reached their homes yesterday, after being discharged dis-charged from the service at Fort D. A. Kusbell, "Wvo. Immediately after the declaration of i war in 1917 the six boya, who were then , attending the East high school, en-i en-i listed in the regular anny and wen1 sent I to Fort Winneld H'-ott, Cal. There j thev trained until Thanksgiving day, 1917, when they .started on their trip overseas with the Twenty-lirht battery of the First antiaircraft sector. Submarines atacked the ship bearing the Salt Lakers, but gunners got one of the submarines and the ship proceeded pro-ceeded unharmed. They landed in France, and, after a short training peri pe-ri oil, were sent to the front. Out of the fifteen months in France, eight were spent in continuous lighting on various fronts, from the Swiss nonief ,to Verdun. Luring their period in action ac-tion the guns were under continuous shellf ire, and often the battery was within two kilometers of tho preceding infantry. (inn attacks and constant shelling failed to break tho morale of tho battery, and not one- of tho Salt Lakers was wounded. Tho battery escaped es-caped with a very small percentage ot casualties. On N ovembcr 1 1 the bat tery was near Flori, on tho Verdun front. At 9 o'clock in tho morning the, French officer of-ficer command in g the sector gave orders or-ders to fire all the iimniunit ion on hand as quickly as possible. Tho men did not understand tho reason for the order, but obeyed, and more than -IdO shells apiece were fired by each gun ot' tho battery. Ail t ho guns in t lies world seemed to bo t hundering along t he . front, it appeared to the Salt Lake boys. Tho noiso was deafening until 11 o'clock, when the sharp command eanio, " LVaso firing!" The Snlt Luke boys say that, tho tombliko silence that prevailed an instant, later actually hurt, it was such an extreme change. For a few days the battery remained in its position, the men gradually be-! ginning to real're that tho war was really over. Jieleased prisoners i'iliiiii across tho line by hundreds, members of all the allied nations, in a semi-s' semi-s' a rvcj condition a rid elothod in rugs. Tliey were fed at, tho organization kitehen and every assistance, was given them by the battery members. Later tho battery was moved buck into billets behind I he 1 i nes, n ml eventually even-tually was ordered home. They sailed from T'.revt, on February 20, the original six Snlt. Lake bovs still together, and vesterday they reached their homes, leaving the train nt Salt Lake and pa rl itig for t he f i rst t i ino si nco they had ;joi tied t lie n rmv. Tho record of the battery shows elt; von ( ierma n aero a lies officially ;-.hot down ami a counties number crippled crip-pled and broueht, down behind the Herman Her-man limvi, where no official confirmation confirma-tion could be gained of their fate. The work of the battery won praiie from liiL'h army officers, both French and English. |