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Show BERT WILLIAMS' DEATH IN ACTION IDAHO BOYS WHO WAS THERE Word has been received at the local forestry offices confirming tho report made some three weeks ago that Bert Williams who for a matter of three years was a member of the staff of the local office, died of wounds received re-ceived In action In France. A letter from one of tho members of his company written to Chas. Hackney of Mountain Home, Idaho, is full of interest and describes the battle in which William lost his life. The writer, writ-er, Frank Thornburg, Co. D, 1st Gas Regiment, says; "Well, wo have been in and out again and I am still O. K. Wo gave them H while were .were in it only 36 hours but had to keep walking walk-ing most of tho time to keep up. Getting Get-ting ready and all, wo put in four days and three nights In rain and mud, wet all the time, no sleep, and two days on -rations kindly supplied by Fritz. Our ration truck got stuck six or eight I miles behind us. It was rather tough but 'Oh boy,' it was worth it. They Go Over the Top "I will always take off my hat to the doughboy; never was really with him before. We went into the front line trench at 9 p. m. to get ready to do our bit. At twelve, the doughboys filed in, stood in water or thin mud half-way to the knees all night with never a murruur. At 8 a. m. they dropped everything they didn't have to use to fight with some of their raincoats and (Iron) rations, though it was raining, and went over the top as If they were on dress parade. It surely was a grand sight. We had already bidden them godspeed in our own peculiar way, and were free to go back, but watched until they went over a hill half a nlllo away, when, to our great joy, wc saw, Instead of the stretcher bearers and wounded which we expected, groups of Boche prisoners prison-ers coming in, in fives, tens, and hundreds; hun-dreds; a hundred being guarded by two doughboys, and sometimes only one. Of course, we could not see much of tho field of action but what wc did see was surely most satisfying, satisfy-ing, and from later reports it was just the same everywhere along our lines. We have seen no papers yet. Enter Enemy's Barracks "We went over what has been No Man's Land for four years. Trees were blasted and shot down that had once been a beautiful forest. After we got out of that, wo passed along a good road through a beautiful forest of beech, off the hill to an encampment which had been filled with Doches 24 hours earlier. The enemy barracks were empty but we occupied the officers' of-ficers' quarters. Souvenirs! I could have loaded a truck. But we had already al-ready marched eight miles without breakfast with sixty pound packs, and moro weight had little attraction. We had breakfast on Fritz's hardtack, cold canned goulash and coffee, took a bath In his shower bath and swimming pool, tramped down to the village, visited his officers' club, two moving picture houses, ono for the officers and one for the men. Saw no pictures of course, saw no wine at the club, only empty bottles, but we did not pay any admission to the show, nor had we a card to the club. Had Civilian Garden "The only people In town were women wo-men and old men. I saw one thing for which I give Fritz credit. At several sev-eral places I saw signs 'Civilian garden. gar-den. Entrance forbidden.' Tho lower low-er end of the village was- blown off the map by ourown artillery, but I suppose the Boche tried to hold it. There wore three or four good machine ma-chine guns In tho street. We had expected ex-pected to keep, on going but ahead was a level plain as far as we could see and the Hun doesn't stop in a place like that so wc were of no us.e. "After a night's sleep, we came back to the billets we formerly occupied occu-pied about twelve miles behind tho original line. We got there night before be-fore last, worked all day yesterday getting our stuff straightened tup and expect to move tomorrow, though of course we can't tell. "The only drawback to the whole trip was Bert Williams' death. The company was split up and he was about two miles from where I was. U seems that his section was to follow the first wavo. lie must have gotten separated from his men. The only thing they could learn was from a; doughboy who said some big blonde, whom they had never seen before, was leading them at a good pace when he went down with about three machine ma-chine gun wounds and some shell fragments. frag-ments. He apparently lived to get to a hospital, for the captain found his grave in an American graveyard at a hospital. Will try to locate it before we get away from this section. We were mighty sorry to lose him as ho was a fine fellow, as you know, and a good officer, well liked by his men. I was not under him directly but was with him in action several weeks ago and know him to be even better in action than anywhere olso."t |
