ON Sunday, April 7th, we moved to one of the pleasantest camps we occupied during our sojourn in France. The little town of Villers-Helon is off the beaten track ten kilometers south of Soissons and like many villages of France consists of one small chateau and a group of farm buildings, peasants' houses, a few stores and a buvette all bordering on the one street.

The chateau was occupied by a crabbed old general of the War of 1870, who was the village tyrant. Every time he saw a peasant, who wasn't working for him, on his property or near it he would fly into a rage and anathematize him at great length and considerable detail.

The villagers themselves were about as cordial and pleasant as one could possibly wish for and as far as I know there were no strained international relations while we were there, such as had so often occurred.

The town was overflowing with a lively band of youngsters who besieged the camp daily in quest of chocolat, biscuits and ''blacjacque," which was the urchins' terminology for all brands of chewing-gum.

However, life here was by no means one sweet song. The bitter was mixed with the sweet. A change of French officers, decidedly for the worse, together with the news that no more transfers would be granted, gave us plenty of material to complain about. While here at Villers-Helon we took one of the longest and hardest convoys of our experience. This was the so-called "Chalons trip," which occupied Saturday, Sunday and Monday, April 13-15th.

Starting at half past six Saturday morning we went to towns along the Aisne above Vic to pick up a regiment of infantry which was to be taken back en repos. We drove all that day and all that night, stopping only to replenish our fuel supply, and at dawn came to Vitry-le-François where the troops disembarked.

Immediately after dropping them we started on and at nine reached the outskirts of Vanault-les-Dames where the convoy halted for three hours for breakfast and a rest. The breakfast was quite simple. Before we left camp each man had been issued four sandwiches and a can of beans to last him for three days. Most of us were holding the beans in reserve and therefore breakfasted heartily on one dust-covered corn beef sandwich and water from a neighboring farmyard. For the remainder of the three hours we curled up in our blankets on the grass by the roadside and slept as much as passing traffic and inquisitive bugs would allow.

At noon we were on the road again and late that afternoon picked up more infantry at Vertus. These were fresh troops who were to be transported to Choisy-au-Bac from which point they would go into action.

The second night on the road was a repetition of the second night on the Montdidier trip---all were so tired they could hardly sit up at the wheel.

Two questions are often asked in connection with these long night trips. The one that is most frequently asked is,

"How can you see the road driving at night without any lights?"

On clear nights there was enough light radiated by the stars to see the outline of a dusty road against the darker background of the grass, but on rainy nights it was very difficult to see and often the driving meant actually feeling your way along the road---French roads are usually high-crowned and it was possible to tell by the feel of the truck under you whether you were too close to the ditch. Then too, many of the highways of France are bordered by rows of poplars and it was possible to tell from the narrow strip of sky overhead where the road was. It must be remembered that at night the speed of a convoy was rarely over ten miles an hour, which is slow enough to make it possible to come to a stop usually before getting into trouble. Seeing the truck ahead on either a rainy or dusty night was one of our greatest difficulties. Often a truck, which had fallen behind the rest of the convoy, and was hurrying to catch up, would run into the rear end of the car ahead in the dust and darkness. These collisions meant smashed radiators and a truck to tow back to camp.

It has also been asked if it is really possible for a man to drive in his sleep. Of course it is not possible for a man to guide a car when he is in the ordinary relaxed sleeping condition. Many a man has fallen asleep while driving only to be waked up a second later by the jolt of his car hitting a curb or running headlong into a ditch. But it is possible to drive and yet be unconscious of doing it. Two incidents will illustrate this point, though they leave unexplained how it is that you can stay on the road and yet be totally unconscious of anything on it. One of these incidents occurred to me during the second night of the Chalons trip. I distinctly remember passing through La Ferté Milon in the dark. Just after leaving this town I evidently fell into that semi-conscious state for I can only remember following the dark shadow of the car ahead for what seemed to be about five minutes. Suddenly I "came to." The darkness and the car ahead were merely an illusion and it was then broad daylight. The convoy was not in sight. I had been driving for three-quarters of an hour following an imaginary car during which time the convoy had gone out of sight and dawn had come.

The second incident is along the same line as my experience. A convoy had stopped in the twilight of the early dawn to wait for one of the cars, which had dropped behind, to catch up. After a few moments we saw the car approaching. The driver was in this same semi-conscious state and though he was keeping the truck on the road he saw nothing on it and ran, full power on, into the rear end of the last truck of the hailed convoy. It was a most ridiculous sight for it was so light that we could see him coming for fifty yards or more and thought of course that he saw the standing line of trucks and would come to a halt. Until the force of the impact woke him up he thought he was following along with the rest of the convoy.

Incidents of this kind occurred too often in our experience to be refuted or called impossible.

The convoy, with its load of troops, rattled along all night long and shortly after dawn stopped on the road near Pierrefonds for breakfast. This meal---stew---had been sent out to us the night before from camp supposedly for supper and was, on account of its long absence from the stove, only lukewarm; but we were all so hungry after our long hours of work in the cold and wet---it was only a little above freezing and had been raining much of the time---that no one questioned the propriety of lukewarm stew for breakfast.

After this strength-restoring repast we again proceeded on our way and a little later came to Choisy-au-Bac, our destination. Here for the first time on our long trip we felt that we were in the war again, for until approaching that town we had not heard a shot.

It was welcome news when word was given to head for camp and thither we went, arriving shortly before lunch. During the fifty-two hours we had been gone we had covered approximately 450 kilometers as against the 300 kilometers covered on the trip to Montdidier.

During the next few days, which we spent in camp, we picked up a little news with regard to the progress of the fighting. The Germans had penetrated at the juncture of the English and the French lines to a maximum depth of fifty kilometers and had captured thousands of prisoners and a large quantity of cannon and stores. They had been halted but the situation was serious.

Of special interest to us was the news from Soissons. The town had been under bombardment almost continuously since the day we had been shelled out of camp. One of the shells had hit the Lion Rouge Hotel wounding the chef and one of the waitresses. Another had burst in the courtyard of the house in which our Q.M.C. supplies were stored, blowing in the windows and making things most uncomfortable for the men in charge.

Two more convoys at the end of April carrying a trench mortar battery and ammunition to the east side of the pocket the Germans had made in this first drive showed that activity had not entirely ceased in that sector.

The first three weeks in May was, for us at least, the lull between the storms. We spent most of the time in camp doing the usual routine work. The monotony was relieved occasionally by entertainments given by the "Y" and also we had two very superior concerts by French military bands.

Some of the men took advantage of this period of inactivity to go over to the Lafayette Esquadrille hangar at Chaudun and fraternize with the aviators. Several were given rides and even taken out over the lines.

Our pleasant sojourn in the smiling village of Villers-Helon came to an abrupt end during the last week in May. For several days the papers had been reporting that the Boches were massing their forces for another attack and on May 26th the thunder of the artillery preparation broke out on the front immediately north of us. The same day we were told to be on the alert for any orders that might come and also to be ready to break camp. An order was also given to the townspeople to be ready to evacuate at any time.

In the face of these ominous orders the baseball game and sports we were planning for Decoration Day were quickly forgotten and everyone settled down to work.

THE second of the great German drives started on May 26th. That night a convoy was called out to move a French regimental headquarters up to Couvrelles and in the execution of this order they ran through the back edge of the gas cloud which the Boches had put over. The gas extended as far back as Berzy, which was nearly 20 kilometers from the front.

The following evening at nine came an order for sixty cars from the groupe which were on the road five minutes later. Our orders were to evacuate the headquarters and baggage of the Sixth Army from Soissons for the town was doomed and everyone but the troops actually engaged in the fighting was leaving. The last few civilians, who had lived there during the past month of almost continuous shelling, now came and besought us to let them bring such worldly goods as they could and go away with us in our trucks, but these were so loaded with the army impedimenta that there was no room for anything else.

During the loading shells were slamming into town at short intervals. Most of them were directed at the station three or four blocks away; others fell in the vicinity of the bridges on the other side of town; and still others whined overhead on their way to the railroad junction outside of the city.

Shortly before dawn we were loaded and left Soissons for Oulchy where the headquarters division was to be taken. The roads were crowded with troops going up into action and with refugees fleeing before the advancing Germans.

During the afternoon a convoy from Groupes Robinson and Bernhart came out of a bad situation very fortunately. The road over which they were returning to camp was crowded with a French artillery train on its way to the front. Suddenly ten or fifteen Boche planes dropped down out of the sky and swept up and down the road raking it with their machine-guns. The artillery suffered badly losing a number of horses and men, whereas the convoy came through practically unscathed. Several of the trucks had bullet holes in them but only one man, Jimmy Means, had been hit, and he only slightly grazed by one of the bullets.

Just as we were about to turn in that night orders were received to break camp and clear out as the Boches were coming. We worked all night packing up and as we pulled out of town at dawn a battery of 75s in the orchard behind the chateau started in firing, whereby we knew that the Germans were not far distant.

The trucks with the camp baggage went on to our new camp and the others went to pick up the Sixth Army headquarters at Oulchy where we had left them the day before. The Germans were expected in that town in another 4 hours. We left the headquarters company in Trilport at ten that evening and then on this, our third night without sleep started out to find camp. We rejoined the rest of our outfit at four that morning at Dhuisy and being too sleepy to bother looking for our various companies turned in where we stopped. It was then Thursday morning and we had been on continuous duty since six o'clock Monday morning ---I believe this stretch of 70 hours without sleep was the record of the Reserve.

The next afternoon word was received that the Germans were advancing so rapidly that the authorities deemed Dhuisy to be an unhealthy place for us to remain any longer and therefore we packed up and started for the rear again.

Our stop for the night was made in the beautiful little town of Jaignes.

The following day two very interesting convoys went out from camp. The first carried a load of shells for the 75s to a fork in the road between Licy and the now famous Belleau. It was a busy spot that afternoon. The French were retreating too rapidly to use established shell dumps; the ammunition was taken up as far as it was deemed safe for a truck to go and then transferred directly to the caissons.

In addition to being a loading point for the caissons this fork in the road was the advance station where the wounded walked or were carried out to the waiting ambulances.

During our unloading a regiment of infantry came out. They had been fighting a losing battle for two and a half days and were thoroughly worn out and very discouraged. In the action they had lost two hundred men. They told us that two Germans seemed to spring up wherever one was killed.

Just as we finished unloading and started for home the Boches began to shell the road but by the time they had missed it with their second shot we were scuttling home as fast as the trucks would go, and when the third shell slammed in we were almost too far away to hear its explosion above the roar and rattle of the trucks. It was on this evening, May 31st, that we first saw American troops in an great numbers. On the way back to camp we passed the Second Division infantry being taken in trucks to the sector near Chateau-Thierry.

A second convoy leaving camp later that same day had one of the most nerve-racking experiences in the history of the Reserve. They had just finished loading ammunition at the depot of Crepy-en-Valois and had started for their unloading point when a Boche bombing squadron arrived on the scene it was then ten in the evening. Circling over the park and the departing convoy the planes dropped magnesium flares of such great brilliancy the countryside for miles around was illuminated so that everything was plainly visible, and then the aviators proceeded to bomb and machine-gun their objectives under the most favorable circumstances.

The ammunition in the park was ignited by the bombs and in a few moments things became so hot for the convoy, which was then on an exposed road, that the men had to abandon the trucks and take cover in the field. Fortunately neither the bombing nor machine-gunning took any toll, and there were no casualties to trucks or drivers.

We started on the last step of our great retreat at half past three the following morning---June 1st. This took us to Barcy, a most uninteresting and unsavory village seven kilometers due north of Meaux.

CAMP AT CROSSROADS, BARCY

LOADING PARK

One would think that after the way the battle had been going since the Germans launched their series of attacks beginning the middle of March, everyone would be feeling very pessimistic about the war. Our fifty kilometer retreat was not a source of rejoicing by any means, but since the Germans had been stopped everyone was confident in ultimate victory. The Central Empires had made a colossal effort to gain a decisive victory and had failed. Every day the Americans were pouring into the battle line in ever increasing numbers and the effect upon everyone was electric---the balance of power was tipping decisively against the Boches. The optimists were predicting the war would be over in two months.

OUR memories of Barcy are not altogether the pleasantest for it left a great deal to be desired as a billet. The water supply came from a hand pump of a well sunk in the middle of a particularly foul barnyard, and in addition to having a most unappetizing flavor it was actually so hard that soap would not lather---and to those who have had to shave a long neglected beard with cold water and a dull razor this last feature concerning the water may be significant.

Our kitchen was situated at a crossroad which was a very handy location to be sure, but somewhat dusty, since there was only a very small arc of the compass from which the wind could blow without blowing all the dust raised by passing traffic into the simmering kettles.

Then, too, this was the fly season and these little pests were most annoying. As much of our work was done during the nights we had to count on making up lost sleep during the daylight hours. The flies were not bothersome at night, but during the day they swarmed over the face and arms of anyone attempting to sleep and not only tickled most annoyingly but made rest impossible by biting.

While at Barcy most of our company slept in pup tents. The beautiful weather that had prevailed throughout the 75 days of the retreat held almost without a break for the entire summer, which was a happy circumstance for us because from March, when we were driven out of our barracks in Soissons, until September we had no other roof over our heads than the leaky tops of the trucks or our flimsy pup-tents.

Our work while at Barcy falls into three distinct phases. First it consisted of supplying ammunition direct from the railheads to the caissons; then we hauled the ammunition which was to be used in the Second Battle of the Marne, storing it in innumerable parks all over the countryside, until it seemed as if there was a case or two of shells under every shrub for miles around; and the final stage of carrying this and other ammunition to the batteries came in July when the Allies began their big push.

Refugees still filed past us during our first days in the new camp, and one morning our doctor's services were requested by one of these poor people to assist in the arrival of a little patriot who was born by the roadside.

A beautiful instance of the phenomenal luck of the Reserve in coming through a bad situation unscathed occurred on the night of June 3rd when a convoy of trucks from Groupes Ordway and Wilcox were unloading ammunition in a park at a fork in the road into May-en-Multien. A French staff car coming up the road switched on its headlights to see which fork to take. The light fell directly on the trucks and park and that brief moment was all that a German plane immediately overhead needed. The bombs scored direct hits on a convoy of nine French-driven Pierce trucks which were waiting to unload, and also set off all the ammunition in the park.

THE MORNING AFTER AND---

TWO DAYS LATER

The ten or fifteen American drivers, whose trucks were practically unloaded, drove their trucks out of the park, all of them getting out safely. Only two of the men, Bowers and Chase, were hit, and they only bruised and slightly cut by bits of the exploding ammunition; whereas ten Frenchmen were killed outright and nine trucks blown to pieces. The foolish officer, whose headlights brought about the disaster, paid for his folly with his life, the first bomb being a direct hit on his car.

About the middle of June another milestone in the annals of the Reserve was reached. Several men from the various companies went to the infirmary with high fevers and no recognizable symptoms. A week after the first men in our company went to the infirmary with this mysterious fever there were but ten men out of the forty-five left on their feet. This fever was discovered to he the 'flu. Our lucky star was still with us: out of the entire Reserve there were very few cases of pneumonia and only two of these proved to be fatal.

During the week following this epidemic there was fortunately very little work on the road and none of that at all exhausting. This period of idleness was accompanied by a wave of discontent and several ungentlemanly exchanges of opinions were made between officers, non-coms and men.

During the latter part of June a detachment of the 42d French field artillery moved to town and this group of men were responsible for one of the most glorious Fourths of July some of as ever spent. They staged a banquet for us at their mess hall with such liberal hospitality that by the time the speeches were called for at the end of the meal most everyone there was fluently eloquent in either or both languages. The crowning event of the day was the rendition o of "Carry me back to Ole Virginny" by our inimitable quartette, who interpreted it so freely and sang so fervently that our French audience mistook it for our National Anthem and immediately stood up and came to attention!

Our plan of giving them a return celebration on their National Holiday, July 14th, was interrupted by later developments in the war.

From the amount of ammunition which we had carried to storage parks during June and the further evidence of heavy traffic of all kinds on the roads it was apparent that an Allied push was not far off.

During the early days of July several French gun crews, hauling up the new 155mm rifles, which had a range of twenty-two kilometers, stopped in at our kitchen for coffee, giving us a chance to look over their guns. Large numbers of these long-barrelled rifles as well as the big 210s went up the road past camp pulled by the giant Renault tractors. The introduction of these big four-wheel-drive tractors into warfare made it possible for large caliber cannon to be used in the field almost as readily as the so-called field artillery.

A troop convoy to Champlieu on the night of July 6 -7th and an ammunition haul the following day to a park above Viels-Maisons both evidenced great activity. On the latter trip we saw for the first time the speedy little French two-man tanks, which were scuttling off into the protecting forest from the railroad station where they had just arrived. The flexibility and ease with which these baby tanks could be handled was amazing. One of them came chugging up the lane in which one of our trucks was standing and without slowing down went crashing through the bushes at the side of the road with less than six inches of clearance between his caterpillars and the truck on one side and a house on the other.

TANK ON WAY TO FRONT	HEAVY ARTILLERY IN ACTION
GERMAN PRISONERS BEING TAKEN BACK	DEAD BOCHE

During the next week there was a lull in the convoy activity of our company which was broken by the beginning of the Second Battle of the Marne on July 18th. Three days before this started, the Germans either began an offensive of their own or tried to force the Allies into a premature beginning of theirs for there was very heavy artillery action.

The first indication we had of this was on the morning of the 15th when we were awakened by a shell whining its way into Meaux. Six or seven more shells were thrown in by this gun, which like the howitzer used in shelling Soissons, could be heard distinctly before the whine of the shell. On the 17th the intensity of the firing increased greatly and during that night---a beautifully calm summer night-the roar of the cannonade could be heard in Paris, seventy-five kilometers from the front.

All the next day ambulances and motor trucks full of the wounded streamed down the road to Meaux. The infantry had attacked that morning and already the Boches were in retreat.

At midnight came a call for all available trucks to carry up more food for the 75s and for the first time in the history of the Reserve the advance had been so deep and rapid that the convoys went up into the newly won territory.

Sunday, the 21st, one of our convoys took shells to a French battery near Belleau Wood where the Americans had done such splendid fighting, and though a human life is a human life it did seem to bring the war closer to home to see men of our own blood and in our uniform lying there in the fields just as they had fallen. On Tuesday, July 23d, came a call to take up a load of 75s to a battery near Neuilly St. Front. At Dammard the convoy had to halt for a few moments while a corvée of Boche prisoners finished removing a demolished house from the street so we could get through. Running across the countryside was a belt of destruction approximately a kilometer wide which marked the high tide of the German invasion. Within this area the towns were totally demolished and only blasted stumps remained where trees had been. Beyond, in the territory over which the Germans had so rapidly advanced and were now so precipitately retreating, the destruction was not so complete.

At Neuilly St. Front the lieutenant met us with the information that the battery for which we were hauling the shells had moved on up since the order had been received at our office and we were to follow on up while he went ahead to locate it.

As we left Neuilly we came on the heavy field artillery blazing away at the Boches, the guns for the most part unprotected by camouflage. The Germans were on the run now and the batteries moved up so often that they did not stop to conceal their guns.

Burying parties were at work in the fields gathering up the dead and interring them. Burial at a time like this when there was so much of it to be done, meant simply identifying the corpse if possible, rolling it into the nearest shell hole, covering it with a foot or two of earth and marking the spot with a little wooden cross.

Most of these bodies had been lying exposed to a broiling hot July sun for a day or more and were in various stages of decomposition. On the lull above Latilly a German artilleryman, killed probably three days before, was lying in the ditch by the roadside in a horrible condition. The hot sun had bloated his body until it seemed in danger of bursting through his uniform; and his mouth was full of the ever present maggots, which were eating the lips away from his discolored face. Flies buzzed around the rotting carcass in swarms, and in the heat of the calm summer afternoon the stench of the putrifying flesh was most nauseating.

Off in a field away from the road was the wreck of a German bombing plane which had been shot down in flames. The two occupants of the plane were lying by the wreckage badly mangled and in the later stages of putrefaction.

In a hollow nearby was the remains of a German or French picket line: a dozen or more horses which had been killed where they were hitched. They, too, were flyblown and putrid. Farther on were four more horses lying where they had been killed in the act of drawing a caisson up the road some days before. The atmosphere was overburdened with the stench of decaying flesh.

While we were parked along the road outside of Latilly waiting for the lieutenant to come back and direct us to the battery, the Boches dropped six shells into the village, killing a Frenchman walking up the road. Most of their attention was being paid to Grissoles a kilometer farther on.

A few minutes later the lieutenant returned to direct us to the battery. As the road above the crest of the hill on the other side of town was exposed to the lines the main part of the convoy was left in the shelter of the hill and the cars taken up two at a time to unload.

The battery of 75s to which we were carrying these shells was one of half a dozen others drawn up in the field beside the road with no attempt at concealment and was busily plugging away while we were unloading.

On every side there was great activity. Batteries moving up to new positions toiled up the road; a group of freshly taken prisoners marched by, guarded by three or four smiling poilus; behind them came two more prisoners under guard carrying a wounded Frenchman on a stretcher; and as we started back for camp the battery, to which we had taken the shells, received its orders to move on up closer to the ever advancing lines.

Throughout July this work continued, convoys going out from the groupe, if not from the company, every day, and each returning with the report of having gone on just a little farther than the previous trip.

Our last convoy from Barcy was one of the most interesting of our experience. During the afternoon of August 1st the 103d heavy artillery of the American 26th Division notified the French that they were running out of ammunition and were in need of more shells for an attack at dawn the following morning. In taking up these shells the Reserve made, if I am not mistaken, its only ammunition haul for the American Army.

The battery to which these shells were to go was in the forest of Fère-en-Tardenois. Darkness overtook us at Grissoles. Beyond Coincy we came into the zone occupied by the batteries of heavy artillery. These were drawn up in positions just off the road, and in the darkness it was impossible to see them. For an hour the convoy crept along this road blinded and deafened every few moments by having these six inch guns suddenly cut loose right alongside of the trucks. The concussion of their discharge momentarily upset the carburetion of the motors, making them choke and backfire.

At Beuvardes we passed a regiment of American infantry on its way up to take part in the morning attack and about one in the morning reached the ammunition dump. A week before this spot had been a German shell dump and the woods were full of Boche shells of all calibres which were intended for the drive that was to open the road to Paris. So precipitate had been their retreat before the Allies' push that they had not had time to remove the million rounds of shells which were stored there. During the days and nights since they had withdrawn, the Boches had attempted by means of shell-fire and bombing to ignite the abandoned munitions. The ammunition was still intact but four of the American detail working in the park were in the hospital as a result of it.

Just as we started back for camp the morning barrage was laid down. Our trip back through the batteries which had blinded us on our way up was made easy by the coming of dawn.

When we reached camp there were rumors afloat that we were to move and two days later this rumor materialized.

ON Sunday, August 4th, we broke camp in the midst of a drizzling rain and set forth for a destination unknown to most of us. That and the following night were spent at Sacy-le-Grand and on Tuesday orders came which took us up into the Somme sector. The trucks and the camp baggage went on to our new billets at Lihus while the others were hauling a load of shells from Breteuil to Chaussoy-Epagny.

On August 8th, two days after our arrival in this sector, the British and French attacked on the front north and east of Amiens with such success that in the afternoon of the same day we hauled shells to the spot where the front lines had been that morning. Returning from this trip to Berteaucourt along the great highway leading into Amiens we ran into the heaviest traffic we had yet experienced. Artillery, infantry, loaded lorries and empty ambulances were on their way up, while going in our direction were ambulances and truck loads of the wounded, troops coming back out of action and long lines of German prisoners. It was reported that the Australians had taken captive an entire German division-general, staff officers and all.

We were back in camp at three-thirty in the morning and noon started out again with orders to take a load of shells up to Vaumont, a tiny village behind Montdidier. By the time we reached there the French sergeant in charge of the park was nearly crazy. Usually the fuses for each lot of shells were loaded in the last truck of the convoy carrying them. Through some error on the part of the loading park the fuses for all the shells carried by the convoys loading there that day were withheld until the very end. As we were the last convoy to be loaded the entire lot of fuses was sent along with us.

Consequently there was a long line of caissons waiting at the park when we arrived. They were loaded with shells but could not leave until they had the fuses to go with them. It was a little after three in the morning when we pulled into the park and the barrage was due to open up at three-thirty. As soon as each caisson received its quota of fuses they galloped out of the park and up the road to their batteries----one of a very few times I ever saw them move faster than a walk.

This park was up in among the 155s and when the barrage opened up we all agreed that in intensity the firing that morning surpassed anything we had heard.

Two days before the British and French had attacked at Amiens, and on this morning the French were driving at Montdidier. They met with success and by evening had advanced to a depth of eight kilometers.

During that night, August 11-12th, the Reserve suffered its first fatality since it had been taken over by the American Army. A convoy from Groupe Galette was bombed near Moreuil on its way back to camp. Four of the men were wounded and one of them, H. J. Kuszmaul, whose leg was nearly blown off, died of his wounds two days later in the hospital. Had there been facilities for handling a serious wound within reach at the time of the accident his life could probably have been saved.

The following night-the 13th day of our 13th month in the field---our company suffered its first casualties in almost the same spot that Groupe Galette had been bombed.

Scoles had charge of six cars which had finished unloading ammunition at Hangest-en-Santerre at midnight and were on their way back to camp. At Plessier they noticed that the anti-aircraft searchlights were going and as the convoy proceeded along the exposed road between that town and Moreuil the beams of the searchlights converged above them. A moment later they could hear above the rattle of the trucks the roar of the plane's motor and then six bombs crashed down on them.

Scoles dropped off the first truck to see if all were safe and only five of his six trucks were present. Full of apprehension he walked back to the spot where the bombing had occurred. There was the missing truck head on in the ditch, its top blown in and nobody in sight.

The drivers had taken cover in the field after being wounded by the bomb which had blown in the top of the truck. Oddly enough both of them were wounded in the calf of their legs.

Scoles backed the truck out of the ditch, drove the men to a hospital---a French hospital---where he gave instructions that the wounded men should not be evacuated from that hospital until our lieutenant came the following morning-and then drove the damaged car home himself. For his coolness and presence of mind in taking care of the men on his convoy he was justly decorated with the Croix de Guerre.

Inspection of the trucks which had been bombed showed that four out of the six were riddled with éclat and the one on which Corenski and Forman, the wounded men, had been riding had its top caved in by the blast. How the two men escaped being killed is just another instance of the phenomenal luck of the Reserve.

There is little of interest to mention in connection with the convoys which went out during the next few days. They were all much the same, consisting principally of ammunition hauls to the parks at Hangest and Faverolles. Montdidier was a great shock to us. The previous autumn when we had been there, it was a thriving town miles from the front. During the fighting which had taken place in and about the city during the last five months hardly a building had been left standing. The beautiful town had been reduced to battered, smoking ruins.

Our camp at Lihus had been moved up to Hardivillers on August 11th in order to be nearer our field of activity. On the 19th I went on furlough to Aix-les-Bains, and when I returned to Hardivillers on the last of August there were no signs of the company. I was just beginning to wonder how I was to get up to the new camp when one of the officers from our headquarters rattled into town in his Ford to pick up a few odds and ends which had been left behind. I persuaded him that I was included in this category and he took me back to my groupe which was now stationed at Bus, a battered little village off the beaten track east of Montdidier.

Here the company had found shelter in some of the less battered buildings and dugouts. As the nights were beginning to get cooler and there was an increasingly heavier fall of rain we were glad to be again with roofs over our heads. Our work of hauling shells continued without a break. Often on our way back to camp after dark the sky to the northeast was aglow with the light of the burning villages which the Boches had fired as they retreated.

RUINS OF MONTDIDIER

MINE CRATER

By the 11th of September the Boches had been driven so far back that our convoys were taking ammunition across the Somme to a park at Douilly. On these trips our load had to be limited to two tons as the pontoon bridges would not bear the weight of a full five ton load. The roads were in an almost impassable condition from the shelling, heavy traffic and rains, and driving over them at night became more and more difficult. Considering the possibilities for accidents and trouble there were remarkably few of either.

Our ammunition hauls were varied from time to time with ravitaillement convoys to the ever advancing French Armies.

Further encouragement with regard to the progress of the battle came from the American Sector and the reports of the St. Mihiel drive. Our hopes for a speedy termination of the war daily rose higher. The Boches were on the run and the notorious Hindenburg Line was broken beyond repair.

On September 22d word came that we were to move to a different sector and on the following day we set forth for the unknown.

IN the middle of the afternoon of September 23d we pulled out of battered little Bus and started a long trek into the Champagne Sector. The first night on our journey we spent at St. Martin-Longueaux and at midnight the following evening reached Port-à-Binson. Here my connections with Groupe Lamade came to an end and with three others I went to Groupe Browning which was then stationed at Dormans.

During the latter part of September we supplied ammunition to the parks at Arcis-le-Ponsart and the Bois de Dole. The Germans were making a stand along the Vesle River and it was not until early October that they withdrew to the old positions along the Aisne.

The first really significant sign that the collapse of the Central Empires was near came on the first of October when the papers announced that Bulgaria had surrendered unconditionally.

It was at this time that the Reserve first carried the French two-man tanks. Groupe Lamade hauled thirty-four of these tanks from Somme-Suippe to the front near Medeah Farm, where the Boches had a strong foothold. The following day the French took the farm.

By reason of this advance the Germans were flanked and were forced to withdraw from in front of Rheims. For over four years this town had been within rifle shot of the Boches and was a dangerous place for convoys on account of the continual shelling to which it was subjected. But on October 6th the enemy had retreated 15 kilometers and once again the city was open to traffic.

On the 11th our groupe moved up again to be closer in touch with the ever advancing armies. During our three weeks here at Savigny our work was about equally divided between ammunition and ravitaillement hauls.

The Germans were in full retreat over the whole front and were withdrawing so fast that the French found it difficult to keep in contact with them. This matter of keeping in contact was rendered extremely difficult by reason of the scientific manner in which the Boches had destroyed all means of communication as they fled. All bridges were, of course, dynamited and the tracks of all the railway lines were torn up. The roads had been blocked by felled trees and, more effective than that, by means of mining. These mines were usually planted at such strategic spots as crossroads and their explosion left craters that ranged in size from twenty or thirty yards across and three or four in depth, to huge chasms a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards across and thirty or forty feet deep.

The smaller craters were filled in and thus made passable but the larger ones were much too big to repair in that manner. To get around these it was necessary to build plank or corduroy roads connecting the broken ends of the road. In either circumstance it was difficult to get over with the loaded trucks. In the ease of the smaller craters the earth with which they were filled was so soft that the heavy trucks could hardly pull through them; and in the case of the large craters the trucks had great difficulty in getting over the slippery plank roads and often broke through the guard rail at the edge and slid into the soft earth at the side. When this occurred it was necessary to unload the truck, tow it out of the mire and then reload it, a most unpleasant task on a rainy night.

On our ravitaillement hauls to Juvincourt and the ammunition hauls to Prouvais, both on the north side of the Aisne above Berry-au-Bac, we ran into great difficulties on account of these mine craters.

Several of the convoys unloading at Prouvais, which was visible for miles across the flat country, were shelled out of the park and had to wait until dusk to unload.

During the night of October 22d, there occurred at Berry au-Bac a traffic jam which delayed an attack the French were planning, for fifty-two hours with disastrous results. Groupe Lamade had been given the job of carrying 225 tanks from Rheims to Lor, 30 kilometers north, and the trucks carrying the tanks were routed over the bridge at Berry-au-Bac, which was the only bridge of a ten ton capacity within miles. This bridge, however, was not strong enough to hold the combined weight of a five ton truck and a seven and a half ton tank, and when the convoy carrying the tanks arrived at this point the trouble started. At first the trucks broke through the plank road leading to the bridge, and when this had been repaired and strengthened it was found that the trucks did not have enough power to pull their overload up the steep corduroy road on the other side of the bridge. There was further delay while someone went after a Renault tractor to help the struggling camions up the grade. The colossal strength of these big tractors is almost unbelievable. The trucks carrying the tanks were being towed by empty trucks and even with their combined power they were unable to get up the hill. When the tractor came it was hooked onto the two trucks, which were then unable to use their power on account of the slow speed of the tractor, and this remarkable machine towed the two trucks and tank ----a combined weight of seventeen and a half tons-up the steep slippery grade from the bridge to the road.

While this was going on the vehicles bringing tip ammunition and supplies for the attack were held up until there was a solid line of traffic from Berry almost to Rheims, a distance of ten or twelve kilometers.

The following night while the last of the tanks were being taken up to Lor the Germans were shelling the wood in which the tanks were being unloaded. The last company to unload was Company C, which was commanded by Lieutenant G. L. Edwards, Jr., who was to leave for the States the next day. His company had finished unloading and started for camp, but to make sure that all of the trucks were safely out of the park he went back on foot to take a last look, and in the performance of this last duty of his overseas service he met his death. A shell burst within three feet of him wounding him so badly that he never regained consciousness. He died in the hospital at Guignicourt the next day and was buried with military honors in the hospital cemetery. The entire Reserve mourned the loss of one of its finest officers and gentlemen.

When the attack finally did come off it was so costly in lives for the amount of territory gained that no mention was ever made of it in the papers. Two incidents in connection with the action were told us later by an American serving with the French artillery.

On account of the fifty-two hour delay in the attack the Germans were prepared to meet it when it came. They had discovered a defense against tanks which was most effective. In the early days of tank warfare they had used deep ditches as a defense, but these were difficult to construct and could be made useless as a defense by a few well aimed shells or by filling them in with bundles of sticks brought up by the tanks; another defense used was steel cable stretched between concrete pillars; the final and most effective defense was the use of contact mines. The ground in front of the trenches fearing an attack by tanks was planted with these contact mines, which exploded whenever they were hit by a tank or other heavy object. The Boches had mined the ground in front of their trenches so effectively that 80% of the tanks used in the attack were destroyed.

The second disaster was the massacre of two regiments of French infantry which were waiting in a ravine a few miles from the front for their orders to go up. Somehow the Boches found out they were there and for five minutes concentrated all their artillery which was within range on this one ravine, wiping out the two regiments almost to a man.

On October 28th our groupe moved for an eventful few days to billets in Rheims. Here we lived in luxury for one wonderful week until our officers found it necessary to move away on account of the liquor question. Wine was more plentiful and easy to find than water---it was to be had free for the stealing---and anyone who has had anything to do with the average American doughboy knows that he has not the faintest idea how to drink decently. Our cooks weren't sober for the entire week and it was almost impossible to find enough men to take out a convoy who were in such a condition that they could sit up without the aid of a prop, to say nothing of being able to drive a truck.

Our work on the road continued, consisting mostly of shell hauls to Prouvais and Poilcourt and ravitaillement convoys to Juvincourt.

The Germans' last foothold in France was in the sector north of here, where they had positions which, by the nature of the country, were practically impregnable. Here they stuck until on November 5th the French flanked them on both sides and thus rendered their position untenable.

As soon as they were driven back from these positions we moved up from St. Brice, a suburb of Rheims where we had stayed for five days after leaving the Champagne City, to new billets at Asfeld.

It was from Asfeld, on November 9th, that the last wartime convoy from our groupe set out. We left camp at half past four in the morning, waited all day at the loading station at Pignicourt for the officer in charge of the park to find out what we were to carry, and finally were loaded and set forth in the darkness for the tiny hamlet of Forest, 80 kilometers north, with the pleasant prospect of an all night struggle over roads which from shelling, mining and rain had become all but impassable. All but one car, which sank up to its hub in the soft earth filling a shell hole a mile from our destination, reached the unloading station. As our friends of the 10th Division Infantry for whom we were hauling, had not arrived when we pulled in at midnight there was nothing to do but wait for them.

Our lieutenant arrived on the scene at 1 a. m. with hot stew which he had brought out to us from camp. Gathering around the cheerful glow of an open fire in a battered little cottage, which we had appropriated for the night, we ate our midnight meal and then curled up in a tangled mess of humanity to get such sleep as we could before the wagons from our lost division should arrive.

Heaven only knows how the forty of us ever found space to lie down in that tiny room. The lieutenant slept in a drunken looking clothespress; three of the men snored loudly on a mangy looking bed in another corner; one of the more limber members of our company went to sleep on top of a round table which was no more than three feet across; the rest of us were sprawled out in a tangled mess of arms, legs and feet on the tile floor.

At half past three the door suddenly burst open and the good-natured sergeant of the 10th Division popped into the room. Although he had walked 20 kilometers across country to get to us he was still in good humor and made some witty remarks, typically French, about the way we were sleeping.

The lieutenant, from his bed in the clothespress, opened one eye long enough for the sergeant to see whom he was addressing and asked him 'wher'n 'ell his wagons were.' The Frenchman replied that they would arrive in the morning and then, thoroughly tired out with his long hike through the cold and the mud, joined the merry company and was soon snoring more loudly than anyone.

The fourgons arrived at sunrise and soon afterwards we were on our way back to camp. By way of amusement on this return trip I counted the dead horses which lined the roads. There were fifty-three of these carcasses all in the advanced stages of decomposition, and also one poor German whom the burial squads had overlooked. It was quite evident that he had died a violent death; some good Samaritan had gathered up into a blanket such of the pieces as could be found and left them in a ditch by the roadside for somebody else to inter.

The following day, November 11th, we received the official announcement that "La guerre est finie!"

IT was interesting to learn later that the Armistice came as a surprise to most of the people in America. To us it came so gradually that we did not rush wildly forth into the street yelling at the top of our lungs, nor dance on the sidewalk, nor upset taxicabs in glee as they did in Paris.

We had witnessed the first breaking of the German lines in July, followed by the later successes from one end of the front to the other in August and September. On October 1st Bulgaria had collapsed; a month later Turkey threw in the sponge; at this time Austria was making peace overtures with the Italians and on November 4th signed an Armistice with them. The morale of the German army, if not of all Germany, was tottering badly and on the 5th collapsed entirely when they lost their last foothold in the Champagne Sector. On the 7th the German envoys---Erzberger, Winterfeld, Gundell and Count von Oberndorf came to discuss terms with the Allies.

It was no great surprise after such a prelude to learn that the war was really over. We merely said "is it possible?" and started discussing our chances of being sent home. Some of the optimists were predicting that we would eat our Christmas dinner in the States!

The war was over, but there was work ahead for us ---had we been able to foresee the drudgery of the coining winter we never would have been able to face it. As it was, we were continually thinking that our release was just a short time ahead, and with this hope to buoy us up we were able to carry on.

Commandant Mallet, realizing that with the cessation of hostilities there would be a let-down feeling in the Reserve, issued on the day after the Armistice the following Décision, which was designed to keep us from taking too big a slump.

Added to the natural hazards of long night trips and ruined roads was the chance of our ancient and honorable trucks, which were worn out with the pace at which they had been going during the last five months, breaking down miles from camp. Hardly a convoy went out that didn't return with one or more cars on the end of a rope.

Our function after the Armistice was to transport the supplies which in ordinary times were shipped by railroad. The railways of this territory had been so scientifically wrecked that it would be months before train service could be established.

On November 18th our groupe moved up to Novy and during the following month our work consisted entirely of ravitaillement convoys from the railheads at Le Chatelet and Neuflize south of Rethel to the warehouses in Sedan and Mézière-Charleville, the depot at Carignan and even such distant and remote points as Bertrix, a little town 15 kilometers over the Belgian border. Most of these trips were utterly devoid of interest and excitement, though there are one or two incidents worth mentioning.

On November 23d, nearly two weeks after the Armistice, a convoy returning from Belgium witnessed an occurrence which illustrates how it was that the French came to call the Germans "Boches." As the convoy entered the little village of Montigny they were startled by a terrific explosion which wrecked one of the houses on the main street. A mine with a delayed fuse had been planted under this house by the Germans and here, two weeks after the cessation of hostilities, the infernal machine exploded, wrecking the house and killing two innocent old peasant women. Numerous such incidents were reported in the papers.

Another bit of excitement of a different nature occurred in the muddy freight yard of Neuflize where one of our convoys was loading. At the same time a trainload of steers was being driven from the freight cars to a nearby slaughterhouse. Several of our men were watching the amusing spectacle of seeing steers sit down on their haunches and slide down the runways into the muddy yard. Mixed in with the gentle and submissive beeves was a real, honest-to-goodness bull, who was in a bad humor alter his travels. He cleared the runway with one jump and landed with a snort and a splash in the middle of the freight yard. With hardly a pause to look around, the bull started after the first man he saw. Brown dodged with the dexterity of a Spanish bullfighter and made for cover. The bull having missed his first objective immediately started after another of our company who escaped by a hasty ascent of a large pile of baled hay. With his appetite for blood still unappeased he made after a decrepit old French territorial, who was not agile enough to escape. The bull tossed him and trampled on him and probably would have gored him to death had it not been for the quickness of the only man in the freight yard who had a revolver. The Frenchman was removed to a hospital and the bull to the packing house.

On December 12th we moved up to Bazeilles where the French marines made the last heroic stand against von der Tann's Bavarian troops in the War of 1870. Here our "home by Christmas" hopes vanished into thin air and as the months wore on our spirits sank lower and lower.

During the winter the outfit suffered several unnecessary discomforts. In the first place our diet became monotonous and unhealthy. Due to the fact that there were no green vegetables to be had for two months, over half the company suffered from indigestion and hives---two conditions which are ruinous to dispositions. Then, too, our shoes, which were hardly ever dry, went to pieces and the shoe shortage became so serious that we finally had to beg shoes from the Red Cross in Sedan.

The monotony of our daily routine was broken occasionally by pleasure trips in the lieutenant's staff car to the little Belgian town, Bouillon, where there was a hotel with an excellent cuisine. There were also entertainments given under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. at the theater in Sedan.

The outstanding convoy of the winter was a three day trip in the middle of the coldest spell of the entire season. We started at four in the morning of February 13th to carry troops and baggage from Bouillon to Amiens. It was one of the best run convoys we ever had, for, on account of its length, the cars undertaking it were the pick of the Reserve. The trip out was done ahead of schedule every stage: Rethel the first night, La Fère the second, and Amiens the third. Coming back the empty trucks broke all records over the smoothly packed snow and some of them did the entire distance in one day's run.

On one of our ravitaillement hauls we witnessed a modern version of a well known scene in Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities." One of the trucks was loaded with casks of wine and during the course of the journey the bung of one of the barrels was jolted out and the wine flowed on to the floor of the truck. The first we knew of this leak was when we started up a slight grade in Mézières. There was a shout from the populace on the sidewalks and immediately people came tumbling out of doors, windows and passing vehicles with buckets, cups, vases, wash-boilers, pitchers, in short anything that would hold a liquid, and knocked each other down in their efforts to get a position at the tailboard of the truck from which was pouring a veritable torrent of wine. By the time the leaky cask was located and plugged almost the entire fifty gallons were gone, and the truck was surrounded by a joking, jostling crowd crying for more!

On March 21st came orders which moved our groupe from Bazeilles down to Auzeville, a God-forsaken mudhole ten miles west of Verdun, where we spent the two miserable months of the early Spring. Discipline and dispositions were then at their lowest ebb and life was most unpleasant.

On April 1st came the first real indication that we might go home sometime before the summer was out. We were set to training young Frenchmen to drive the trucks.

Finally on May 6th we turned the trucks over to them, and from then on we were all cheered up by the developments with regard to our going home.

On May 15th, fourteen or more months after they were applied for, our sergeants' warrants came through.

During the next four days the various groupes of the Reserve gathered from near and far and on the 19th we were transported in trucks, as we had so often transported French troops, to Poix-Terron where our box car pullmans were waiting for us. After a cold night on the hare floors of the empty cars we were lined up and inspected and finally pulled out in the late afternoon amid much cheering, headed for Le Mans.

METHOD OF UNLOADING BREAD

PINARD AND POTATOES

Our week at Le Mans was just one darn inspection after another until everything was arranged to the authorities' satisfaction. On May 29th orders to leave for the embarkation camp were received. The main part of the Reserve went thither while a small detachment of us, who were to be mustered out in France, went to St. Aignan where we gained our freedom on June 3d.

I have heard but little about the Reserve's voyage home. A letter received from one who made the trip contained a few caustic remarks about the use of sea-going tugs as transports, bunks by the boiler room and cold beans for breakfast on a rough morning. But after all, these trifling discomforts were sunk in the joy of getting hack to the freedom of civil life and the comforts of home!

A NEWS item in the January 31, 1919 issue of "The Stars and Stripes'' stated that the U.S. Army during its entire participation in the war used approximately 3,500,800 shells including shrapnel, high explosive and gas. Compare that figure with the quantity of ammunition and other material hauled by the Reserve in merely the last six months of the war.

Over 6,000,000 shells of all calibers; 23,488 tons of infantry ammunition; 180,000 troops; 259 tanks; a number of 75mm batteries and caissons, and trench mortars; and a large quantity of baggage and ravitaillement.

From April 1, 1918 to January 1, 1919 an aggregate total of 1,061,102 kilometers was travelled by trucks of the Reserve---a distance equivalent to 26-1/2 times the circumference of the globe.

During the war the Reserve served on the front from Amiens almost to Verdun, and the territory covered has an area of approximately 52,000 square kilometers.

If all the trucks of the Reserve were parked in one line with the regular spacing of 5 yards between trucks, they would form a line 6-1/2 miles in length. A convoy of the entire Reserve on the road would he approximately 15 miles long.

Decorations held by members of the Reserve include two Legion d'honneur, one Medaille Militaire, seventeen Croix de Guerre, a Section Citation and a number of Certificates of Merit.

The longest convoy of the Reserve was the trip from Bouillon to Amiens and return, February 11-14, 1919, a distance of close to 475 kilometers; on this convoy stops were made for the night. The next longest was the Chalons trip, April 13-15, 1918, a distance of 450 kilometers with three hours of rest out of fifty-two on the road. The third place is held by the Montdidier trip, November 20-22, 1917, during which the Reserve did 300 kilometers in forty-nine hours with only one hour for rest.

The unofficial long distance record for continuous duty in camp and on the road without sleep is held by certain members of Groupe Lamade who, during the Great Retreat in May 1918, went from six o'clock Monday morning until four o'clock Thursday morning without sleep---70 hours.

The record for the number of hours on the road for all available trucks is held by Groupe Wilcox. In August 1918 the trucks of that groupe were out on convoy 669 hours out of a possible 744.

The casualties of the Reserve show that two of its members were killed in action, two died of disease, and about ten were wounded.

It is remarkable that with all the jumping on and off moving trucks on convoy no one was seriously hurt. Drivers of the Reserve ran over and killed two Frenchmen and one Englishman, but in all cases these accidents were not due to the fault of the drivers.