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Show AMERICANS GIVEN UNSTINTED PRAISE' Colonel of French Regiment Sends Fine Report to Commanding Com-manding General. WITH THE FRENCH ARMY IN FRANCE, Tuesday, April 23. The valor val-or and steadfastness of tho American troops during the German attack at Bi l n prej last Saturday Is given unstinted un-stinted praise in a report forwarded to i he general commanding by the colonel col-onel of a French infantry regiment which took part In the Seicheprey engagement. en-gagement. "I Visited Renneres wood after the counter-attack in which the position was re-captured, and eramlncd the situation In detail,1 says tho report. "Everywhere traces of hand-to-hand fighting show that the American soldiers, sol-diers, despite two hours of heavy bom-bardment bom-bardment by large caliber guns, defender! de-fender! themselves valiantly. Machine Gunners Die Fighting. "In the vicinity between the front trenches and the communication trench connecting the Jury and Renneres Ren-neres woods, two American machine gunners died fighting on their weapons wea-pons after covering the ground around With German dead. The enemy suffered suf-fered great losses, thanks to this heroic he-roic resistance. "Everywhere there are signs of Ger- man wounded having been carried off, while many German bodies remain because be-cause the retiring enemy was unable to remove them. Numbers of the dead belong to the German storming detachments." detach-ments." Splendid Spirit of Combat. The French soldiers who joined in the fight declare that the Americans displayed a splendid spirit of combat. They relate that north of Seicheprey an American detachment was separated separat-ed Into small groups and was cut off from its company throughout tho eight Behind the Americans and on their left flank were German units, but they J could have n'tired to the right How ever, they elected to slick and fight. Squad Holds Out With Grenades. In Seicheprey a squad of Americans ! found several cases of grenades with which they put up a terrific fight and held out the entire day on tho northern north-ern extremity of the village. They refused to surrender when summoned to do so and. at the end of the fight - j ing. only nine out of the original twen-1 ty-three were left, A cook, surprised by the Germans and half stunned by j a blow from a grenade, seized a rifle and continued firing until he fell dead. Hospital Blown Up. Toward evening a hospital which had been established in Seicheprey was blown up along with the doctors and ambulance men. The chief surgeon of the American regiment engaged "uuiru iu me sxi wiui riencn ann American ambulance cars as soon as he learned of the occurrences. The res rue party parsed through a severe barrage fire but eventually reached the village where they tended to the I wounded for many hours under a heavy enemy fire. An American lieutenant with only six men patrolled six hundred yards of the front during the entire day and maintained communication with the battalions on his right and left. Many other incidents of bravery are recorded record-ed by the French. |