ht from Luneville on the
evening of March 15, and registered the next day. The First Section gun
crew was composed of Sergeant Bolte, Corporal Fred Howe and Privates
Nickoden, Freeburg, Mosier, Wallace and Hodgins; the Second Section crew
of Sergeant McElhone, Corporal Clark, Privates Donald Brigham, Meacham,
Nixon and Herrod.

March 17, 1918, was remarkable not because it was Sunday or St.
Patrick's day so much as because on that day Battery E's camouflage
burnt. In the course of a 10-round reprisal fire, about 4 p. m., the
flame from the muzzle of the Second Section gun set ablaze the grass
woven in the wire netting overhead. In a second the covering was in
flames. The dry grass burnt like tinder. The men beat the blaze with
sand bags, but could check it but little in the face of the intense heat
and thick smoke. By tearing off several strips of netting, they
succeeded in preventing the fire's spreading to the other end of the
position. Within a short space of time the first platoon's camouflage
was changed from yellow grass to black ashes. The work of seven or
eight days was undone in as many minutes.

On so clear and bright a day there was grave danger that the position
would be betrayed to enemy observation by the flames, or by the black
scar they had left, or even by the men's activity in repairing it. A few
bursts of shrapnel gave warning of the danger. Immediately as much of
the burnt surface as could be was covered with rolls of painted canvas
on wire netting, such as the French artillery used. Then all the men
were set to gathering grass in the fields back of the position. Not long
after, about fifty men from D and F batteries came over to help, and all
the available men were brought out in the chariot du parc from the
battery's horse-line at Luneville. So eagerly and rapidly did all of
them work that the old netting was restretched and woven full of grass
by midnight.

During the next two days the firing was small, only a few rounds
occasionally. The chief work was digging the abris and carrying up beams
and concrete blocks from the road for their construction.

On March 20 the battery was engaged in tearing down enemy barbed wire,
firing 216 rounds per gun during the day, in preparation for an attack
that night. At 7:40 p. m. commenced the actual bombardment. A few
minutes before that time 75's began to bark from the woods to our left
and in the rear of us. The reports gradually grew in number. At the
a