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Show Gen. Pershing Watch Boys Take Trenches i American Training Quarters In Tranco, Wednesday, Oct. 3. (By tho Associated Press.) MaJ. Gen. Pershing Persh-ing today watched a battalion of MaJ. Gen. Slbert's command as It stormed and took threo supposed enemy trenches, which had been named Wilson", Wil-son", Taft and Roosevelt for tho occasion. oc-casion. Tho exercUo was part of a program of battalion problems which Is being carried out dally and will bo developed gradually Into regimental, regi-mental, brigade and divisional attacks. at-tacks. In addition to Oen, Pershing several sev-eral French officers witnessed today' maneuvers, after which they wero criticised by American and French observers and by the general himself. Ho said that In taking tho three trenches, tho soldiers, ho noticed, did not uso their rifles. This he thought a mistake. "You must not forget that tho rlflo is distinctly an American weapon," said tho general. " want to see It employed. There surely will be plenty of opportunity for Its uso and If you are unfamiliar with the weapon you will lose those opportunities. oppor-tunities. Bayonets and bombs are all right and very valuable, but rlflo flro still has a place In modern warfare." war-fare." The general said ho had heard of soldiers In this war who had been chasing Germans a hundred yards or more for an opportunity to bomb or bayonet them. If they had thought, they might have stopped and shot them easily with tho rlflo. Americans for Musketry. Somo time ago tho American army authorities here decided to devote much attention to musketry, but neither the French nor British Instructors In-structors are Inclined to spend much time on that phase of warfare having been accustomed to tho tactics of attacking at-tacking solely with bombs, bayoneta nnd machine guns. American soldiers sol-diers always have been flno marksmen, marks-men, however, and the officers still beltovo In rifle fire for both offensive and defensive purposes. The practice attacks today wero made under theoretical creeping barrages bar-rages timed to movo forward at a given pace. The men, used live bombs as they advanced. The Wilson Wil-son trench proved rery easy, only six casualties being cleared from tho field during Ha-occupation. A green rocket announced success and then tho attackers rushed forward against the Taft trench. Hero again success was achieved quickly, being signalled by a red rocket. It required a second sec-ond wave of attackers, who "leapfrogged" "leap-frogged" over the troops holding the Taft trench to take the Roosevelt trench and the two redoubts flanking flank-ing this final objective. A three-starred three-starred rocket announced the fact that the Roosevelt trench had fallen and that the position had been con solidated with machine guns in strategical stra-tegical position for a flanking fire to beat off counter-attacks. The operation oper-ation required Just an hour; ', |