From the News

Dated: March 15, 1917

Chester Oney, who came back on a brief furlough on Thursday, served in the artillery, and gives an interesting account of how it is managed and what it is doing in France. It is impossible to conceive, unless seen, the number of guns along the British line. They are to be counted by the thousand, and it was literally true what Lloyd George said, that at the opening of the battle of the Somme on 1st July last, big guns were piled alongside each other as close as they could pack, forming a row of solid steel for miles. Even that does not tell all, for behind that row was another row of larger guns. In the Canadian artillery the unit is four cannon and two units make a battery. To each gun there are 6 men, and an officer to each battery. The men are on duty four hours with 12 off hours, a division of time which gives each in turn his share of night work. The batteries are as carefully concealed as the land permits; usually they are planted behind a ridge or in a forest. If spotted by the German airships they will be shelled. The smaller guns are ranged from 3 to 5 miles behind the front trench, the larger guns which need cement platforms and whose carriages run on rails, are 5 miles or more from where the infantry stand. The men in charge the batteries do not see what they are aiming at. The work they have to do is cut out for them by observers in the airships, who take photographs of the country they fly over. These photos are examined by the divisional officers, who learn from them with the enemy is doing and where a bombardment will have most effect. To the officer in command of each battery orders are issued, and he is to set his guns at such-and-such an elevation in their muzzles pointing at such an angle. This work of observing and giving details as to how the guns are to be pointed has been reduced to a science of such accuracy that a gun will, in two shots, be certain to strike a house or other selected mark. An observer, posted on an elevation at the front, telephones back the hits and how to change the aim. The loading and firing goes on continuously and if the day be any way warm the gunners have to strip. For a battery to send a thousand shells as presents to Fritz is ordinary work. In a bombardment, as one going before an infantry charge, the air above the enemy's trench is kept full of shrapnel. Much of the loss in these charges is due to the officers not keeping their men in time with the barrage -- that is marching behind the vollies the guns are sending to clear the way. In their ardor to get at the foe, they go faster than the barrage and fall victims to their own guns. The range of the guns that can be drawn by horses is from 5 to 9 miles, but the big siege guns can send huge shells 20 miles and more, and wherever they fall they scoop the earth deep enough to bury a house. How these holes are to be filled and the land fitted again for civilization is a problem. The German shells are inferior to those of the Allies, a large percentage failing to explode. When they descend on a soft field they generally fail. Another drawback to German gunners labor under is their defective airship service, the Allies having won the supremacy of the air. When a German airplane comes in sight, two dart from our lines to drive it away. The belief is strong at the front, that the Germans are beaten and the big men in Berlin are continuing the war in hope of something happening to save their face. It will not be submarines, for Oney declares that they are being captured daily. The week before he sailed 5 have been taken. The British government is doing all that is possible for the comfort of the men, they are well fed and every fortnight or so are given a rest in the rear camps, which are like cities extending for miles and miles. The transport service, in itself, is a wonder, and everything goes like clockwork. There is no rum ration in the artillery. Sometimes with a medical man think it tablespoonful advisable is served to each man. Of the doctors and nurses, Chester speaks in admiration, and he has reason, for he passed months under their care. His battery was posted at no great distance from a big brick house, 1 1/2 stories high, which was given them for quarters. Having finished their spell of duty one morning they went to wash and clean up. While so occupied a shell entered the window of the room they were in, and exploding killed six men and wounded himself in six places. A man who was outside shaving alongside the window the shell entered, escaped without a hurt, but the small looking glass was driven into the wall. The house was shattered. The doctors found he was wounded in one foot and in both arms the right the worst of the two. By great skill, part of the palm was saved with the thumb and one finger. The left arm, by its wounds from the elbow down, was paralyzed and is still under treatment, which gives promise of his having full use of the arm and hand. When he fully recovers a situation in the civil service is promised. His surprise that he was not instantly killed by concussion for the force of an exploding lyddite shell is counted sure death to all within ten yards. Asked how gunners save themselves from deafness and shock in working with their guns, he replied that when on duty they wear a clip that covers the ears and by standing on their toes when the gun is fired they escape the shock which comes from the heels been planted on the ground.