And they thought we wouldn't fight. Gibbons Floyd Phillips
in my room at the post would rattle with her opening barks, and from that minute on until noon the Seventy-fives, battery upon battery of them, would snap and bark away until their seemingly ceaseless fire becomes a volley of sharp cracks which sent the echoes chasing one another through the dark recesses of the forests that conceal them.
The targets, of course, were unseen. Range elevation, deflection, all came to the battery over the signal wires that connected the firing position with some observation point also unseen but located in a position commanding the terrain under fire.
A signalman sat cross-legged on the ground back of each battery. He received the firing directions from the transmitter clamped to his ears and conveyed them to the firing executive who stood beside him. They were then megaphoned to the sergeants chief of sections.
The corporal gunner, with eye on the sighting instruments at the side of each gun, "laid the piece" for range and deflection. Number one man of the crew opened the block to receive the shell, which was inserted by number two. Number three adjusted the fuse-setter, and cut the fuses. Numbers four and five screwed the fuses in the shells and kept the fuse-setter loaded.
The section chiefs, watch in hand, gave the firing command to the gun crews, and number one of each piece jerked the firing lanyard at ten second intervals or whatever interval the command might call for. The four guns would discharge their projectiles. They whined over the damp wooded ridge to distant imaginary lines of trenches, theoretical cross-roads, or designated sections where the enemy was supposed to be massing for attack. Round after round would follow, while telephoned corrections perfected the range, and burst. The course of each shell was closely observed as well as its bursting effect, but no stupendous records were kept of the individual shots. That was "peace time stuff."
These batteries and regiments were learning gunnery and no scarcity of shells was permitted to interfere with their education. One officer told me that it was his opinion that one brigade firing at this schooling post during a course of six weeks, had expended more ammunition than all of the field artillery of the United States Army has fired during the entire period since the Civil War. The Seventy-five shells cost approximately ten dollars apiece, but neither the French nor American artillery directors felt that a penny's worth was being wasted. They said cannon firing could not be learned entirely out of a book.
I had talked with a French instructor, a Yale graduate, who had been two years with the guns at the front, and I had asked him what in his opinion was the most disconcerting thing that could happen to effect the morale of new gunners under actual fire. I wanted some idea of what might be expected of American artillerymen when they made their initial appearance on the line.
We discussed the effect of counter battery fire, the effect on gun crews of asphyxiating gas, either that carried on the wind from the enemy trenches or that sent over in gas shells. We considered the demoralising influences of aerial attacks on gun positions behind the line.
"They are all bad," my informant concluded. "But they are expected. Men can stand without complaint and without qualm any danger that is directed at them by the foe they are fighting. The thing that really bothers, though, is the danger of death or injury from their own weapons or ammunition. You see, many times there is such a thing as a faulty shell, although careful inspection in the munitions plants has reduced this danger to a percentage of about one in ten thousand.
"At the beginning of the war when every little tin shop all over the world was converted into a munitions factory to supply the great need of shells, much faulty ammunition reached the front lines. Some of the shells would explode almost as soon as they left the gun. They are called shorts. The English, who had the same trouble, call them 'muzzle bursts.'
"Sometimes the shell would explode in the bore of the cannon, in which case the cannoneers were usually killed either by pieces of the shell itself or bits of the cannon. The gunners have to sit beside the cannon when it is fired, and the rest of the gun crew are all within eight feet of it. If there is an explosion in the breech of the gun, it usually wipes out most of the crew. A muzzle burst, or a breech explosion, is one of the most disconcerting things that could happen in a battery.
"The other men in the battery know of course that a faulty shell caused the explosion. They also know that they are firing ammunition from the same lot. After that, as they pull the trigger on each shot, they don't know whether the shell is going out of the gun all right or whether it is going to explode in the breech and kill all of them. That thought in a man's mind when he pulls the firing lanyard, that thought in the minds of the whole crew as they stand there waiting for the crash, is positively demoralising.
"When it happens in our French artillery the cannoneers lose confidence in their pieces. They build small individual dugouts a safe ways back from the gun and extend the lanyard a safe distance. Then, with all the gun crew under cover, they fire the piece. This naturally removes them from their regular firing positions beside the pieces, reduces the accuracy and slows up the entire action of the battery. The men's suspicions of the shells combined with the fear of death by their own weapons, which is greater than any fear of death at the hands of the enemy, all reduce the morale of the gun crews."
Now, for an incident. A new shipment of ammunition had reached the post. The caissons were filled with it. Early the following morning when the guns rumbled out of camp to the practice grounds, Battery X was firing in the open. At the third shot the shell from piece number two exploded prematurely thirty yards from the muzzle. Pieces three and four fired ten and twenty seconds later with every man standing on his toes in his prescribed position.
Ten rounds later, a shell from number three gun exploded thirty feet after leaving the bore. Shell particles buried themselves in the ground near the battery. Piece number four, right next to it, was due to fire in ten seconds. It discharged its projectiles on the dot. The gun crews knew what they were up against. They were firing faulty ammunition. They passed whispered remarks but reloaded with more of the same ammunition and with military precision on the immediate command. Every man stuck to his position. As each gun was fired the immediate possibilities were not difficult to imagine.
Then it happened.
"Commence firing," megaphoned the firing executive. The section chief of number one piece dropped his right hand as the signal for the discharge. The corporal gunner was sitting on the metal seat in front of his instruments and not ten inches to the left of the breech. Cannoneer number one of the gun crew occupied his prescribed position in the same location to the immediate right of the breech. Gunner number two was standing six feet behind the breech and slightly to the left ready to receive the ejected cartridge case. Gunner number three was kneeling over the fuse setter behind the caisson which stood wheel to wheel with the gun carriage. Gunners four and five were rigid statues three feet back of him. Every man in the crew had seen the previous bursts of dangerous ammunition.
Number one's eye caught the descending hand of the section chief. He pulled the lanyard.
There was an eruption of orange coloured flame, a deafening roar, a crash of rendered steel, a cloud of smoke blue green, and yellow.
A black chunk of the gun cradle hurtled backward through the air with a vicious swish. A piece of the bore splintered the wheels and buried itself in the ammunition caisson. Thick hunks of gun metal crumbling like dry cake filled the air. The ground shook.
The corporal gunner pitched backward from his seat and collapsed on the ground. His mate with fists buried in his steel seared eyes staggered out of the choking fumes. The rest of the crew picked themselves up in a dazed condition. Fifty yards away a horse was struggling to regain his feet.
Every man in the three other gun crews knew what had happened. None of them moved from their posts. They knew their guns were loaded with shells from the same lot and possibly with the same faults. No man knew what would happen when the next firing pin went home. The evidence was before them. Their eyes were on the exploded gun but not for long.
"Crash," the ten second firing interval had expired. The section chief of piece number two had dropped his hand. The second gun in the battery had fired.
"Number two on the way," sang out the signalman over the telephone wire to the hidden observation station.
Ten seconds more for another gun crew to cogitate on whether disaster hung