Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1916 — “PRINCESS PATS” LAST STAND MADE IN ROLLING WAVES OF POISON GAS [ARTICLE]

“PRINCESS PATS” LAST STAND MADE IN ROLLING WAVES OF POISON GAS

End of Famnus Regimfint in Funie-Filled Trenches at Ypres, Told by Corporal William B. Kysh, One of the Survivors of the 1,126 Veteran Fighters Who Joined Jhe Organization in Canada—How “Slim” Perry Died.

Paris.—This is the story of the beginning and the end of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light infantry — “the finest fighting force the world has seen." It begins on a bright, brisk day a year ago last September, in Quebec, when the regiment, with every man wearing a previous service ribbon, swung on board a transport amid a babel of sound and riotous colors. It ends in a crescent shaped trench at Ypres, on the eighth day of last May, amid a green vapor of strangling poison and gray surge of German infantry, with bayonets fixed, writhing over the broken sand bag ramparts. There the men of “Pat’s Own” wrote their names into history and disbanded at the command of the greatest of all commanders —Death. Of 1,126 picked men who stood proudly in review before King George and Lord Kitchener at Salisbury Plains as they strode down the lines only 93 are uninjured. There’s still a regiment of "Princess Pat’s Own" In the trenches on the west front. But in place of the sturdy men garnered from the marts of the world are fresh faced youths, just from the scholastic halls of McGill university, in Canada. They’re upholding the traditions—so newly made —of the men who went out before them. Yesterday Corporal William B. Kysh of “Princess Pat’s Own” —that regiment which went to the front a little more than a year ago—told the story of its beginning and its end. He told ft in jerky snatches between quick Intakes of cigarette smoke, while a hand, scaly and maimed from shrapnel, stroked his yellow face. A Regiment of Veterans. “I’m sorry I can’t tell y’ more of this,” he apologized. "I never was much of a spieler at best —and now, I’m rotten. Nerves gone, y’ know — can’t eat, can't sleep.” Yet corporal Kysh was a seasoned soldier, as were all of his comrades, when he took the king’s shilling in Quebec and donned the British uniform. He was Sergt William Kysh of the Twenty-ninth United States volunteers in the Spanish-American war, and Corporal Kysh of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders at Ashanti. In between he has been a purser on board passenger steamships running to Europe and the far East. He was born in England, but he Is a naturalized American, as were so many of the men who died at Ypres or before Ypres was reached. “Princess Pat’s Own” left Quebec on September 17, 1914. After three weeks at Salisbury Plains the regiment was attached to the Eightieth brigade, making up part of the Twenty-seventh division, composed otherwise of British regulars just back from service In India. The transfer followed the review by the king and Lord Kitchener. The Britfield marshal, they say, as he passed down the line and saw the service ribbons across the coats of “Pat’s Own,” said, softly: “Now I know where all my old fighters are.”

Into the Trenches at Once. The first week In December sawTße regiment off to the front There was a march from Winchester to Southampton, and there the. troops embarked on board the Cardiganshire for Havre. Havre was reached in the darkness, and after one night’s stop the regiment marched to Bleiringhen, behind the firing line. All day long they dug reserve trenches. And then that night the word came to relieve Dickelbusch. All of these points are within a radius of twenty-five miles from Ypres—where the fiercest fighting on the western front was progressing. Twenty miles the regiment marched, arriving at Dickelbusch at night, footsore and weary. This was on December 18, and hardly had they messed when the command came to occupy the trenches. The French who had been holding them needed relief? So into the trenches the men crept, crawling along flat on their stomachs, when the star shells from the German lines made the heavens red; rising and scooting when welcome darkness rode down again. For 72 hours they icrouched in the trenches of Dickelbusch under a rain of shell and shrapnel fire, with pnly emergency rations to sustain them. This was their baptism of, fire.

“Back Into Hell at Hill 60." “Well, we left of the trenches after 72 hours and matched bach to WestOuter, where we rested for 48 hours; then back into hell again. For this time that was where we went—into trench C 10 on Hill 60. “After 48 hours back we crept to West-Outer again to spend bur Christmas there. We left some dead and some wounded behind. I guess it was 11 killed. Snipers and band grenades got the others. So we went back and forth, thinning the ranks a little each time, until- February 28. Then we made our fl rat charge. “Our artillery swelled the Germans for two days while we lay in the trenches waiting for the word. They answered back, of course, and once in a while one of dur fellows would go, witti an arm ofl or a head smashed in.

At four o’clock in the morning the word came to charge. We scrambled over the trench and ran toward the Germans, 60 yards away. They swept us with machine guns and bored us with hand grenades. Big “Jack Johnsons" screamed from behind the lines at us, and over our heads went back our own artillery’s answer. The Germans came up over the trenches to meet us, and we used the bayonet. We slipped and fell; rose and fell again, stabbing and cutting; there was no chance to shoot. oCold Steel Routs Germans. “Then the Germans gave way. They can’t eat cold steel. They were piled up in the trenches, dead and dying, so thick that it was untenable, and after a while we had to abandon the place we’d won, and go back to our own trench. “We left seven or eight men behind in the little strip of twisted mud between the trenches. And from C 10 for days afterward we watched those fellows lie there and change from dead men into things. I wake up these nights and see one of ’em. “Well, we charged the Germans again on March 4. We lost more men, and again had to abandon the trench we won. The dead were too thick and the stench was too terrible. That’s what is meant when they say the trenches are ‘untenable.’ In this charge Colonel Farquhar of our regiment was killed.

“We had to stay in C 10 for six days after this. We were shelled, shelled, shelled. Day and night they rained about us and behind us, cutting off relief. We lost 65 men killed and a number wounded. Then we got out and the King’s Royal Rifles relieved us. From then on until May 3 we went back and forth, in and out of trenches. We mined ’em and blew ’em up; we sniped a little and threw hand grenades. “And then we were ordered to Ypres. We marched into the trenches there without delay. “We went in in a rain of artillery Are and got caught in a vortex from our own artillery and the Germans’. An observer gave the range wrong to our artillery and we caught it. One hundred and twenty of our men went down before the range was righted, but we kept on and occupied the trench. The Germans were right across from us, about 200 yards away. We held a crescent-shaped trench, and on May 5 we routed the Germans, but we had to duck back, tor the fire was too heavy and their trench was useless for protection. “From then until May 8 the Germans shelled us. They poured tons of lead about us. No one could leave the trench; no one could stick his head put. Our nerves went dead from the concussions, and our eyes were glazed from the sights about us. The dead lay under our feet and the wounded crept back as best they could to where they could get first aid. __ First Attack by Polson Gas. “Early on the morning of May 8 the Germans charged. We knew they were coming, and we were waiting. They came over their trenches in quarter columns, a.solid, swaying mass of blue gray. They shouted and ran forward as we mowed them down like

gras*. Our machine guns, four to ths section, jtist waved in a semicircle and waved back again. We fired our Lee-Enfield3 as fast as we could pump them, and no bullet was wasted. in piles in front of the trencheq, and the piles were always wriggling around as some of the injured underneath tried to creep out. A whole battalion of them were put out of the way before they drew back and formed for another charge, behind cover of their trenches. “And this time we saw poison gas for the first time. It was the second assault, about eight o’cloc l - in the morning. We could see that something was coming off, and then suddenly there spouted up a thick green cloud, that hid everything in front of us. The fellows under the German piles wriggled harder than ever and everybody in jur trench asked: 'Well, what’s cornin’ off anyhow?’ The wind was wrong for ’em, and the Germans went back, and there was quiet until ten o’clock.

“This time their gas came in. It rolled along the ground like a moving wall about eight feet high. Behind it we knew the Germans were coming, but we couldn’t see them, so we let fire through the cloud. The gas had holes blown in it and the force of the bullets swayed it a bit, but before we knew it the gas was rolling in the trenches. . _ /

The End of “Princess Pat’s Own.” “I heard men cursing at one end of the trench where the gas struck first, just as a shell buried me, and then I got the gas myself. I got it light, for I was half buried, but the fellows about me screamed and rolled up as if they were burned, cursing and praying. It caught you by the throat and burned its way into your lungs; then you couldn’t breathe out, and you burst or slobbered. I crept back on my stomach, for I had 4 * bit of shrapnel in my stomach and a bullet in my leg, just as I saw the Germans, dropping ever the sand bags. The fellows who could stand knifed ’em with bayonets or bit end fought them. I saw four of my pals —right fellows they were—lying almost over each other, all of them with gas in them. “ ‘Oh, Christ, Kysh! ’ one ’em called, ‘get me a drink. Get me’ — and a German drove a bayonet clear through hi 3 tboat and lungs before he could finish it. And then the same German knifed the other three boys. “That was the end of ‘Princess Pat’s Own.’ Long before the Germans came the last time there weren’t sixteep men of the sixteen platoons of thq, regiment who could defend themselves. I fired 170 rounds myself from my Lee-Enfield, and she was so hot I couldn’t hold her. I crept back and somebody put me on a Maltese cot and got me to Dickelbusch. I spent Six months in a hospital at Beechbury Park and then came over to Quebec, where I got my discharge." And Corporal Kysh, still moving the hand that was raked with shrapnel over his yellow face, lighted another cigarette.

"There’s lots I could tell you,” he said after a minute. “But I’m not much good at talking; then my nerves are rotten. I tried to go to work today, but I had to call it on'. I just went down to the French line and told ’em I’d have to lay off a bit until I could get eased up some.” How “Slim” Perry Died. And then he told the story of how “Slim” Perry died. “Slim” was the younger son of a well-knowr English family, who had lived several years in New York. At the start of the war he hurried up to Quebec and enlisted. “He was a sidekick of mine. Finest lad ever. Always out for the eats whenever the bully beef palled. He could pick up a chicken or fresh meat any old day? We were side by side at Ypres, and he just turned to me and grinned after the first attack of Germans had failed. “I got to see ’em run, Kysh,” he said, and peeked over. A bit of shell got him right across the head and took it off to the mouth. He fell against me and I laid him down. When I got out of the hospital I went down to see his mother and sister; His mother hadn’t heard from him for a long time and asked me where he was. Well, I had to tell her. Rotten, eh?

"Oh, they were a fine bunch of soldiers and gentlemen, from old ‘Mickey’ Welsh, who’d seen service in Egypt in 'B2, to Perry.' ‘Mickey’ was resting in a little scooped-out holo at the bottom of a trench, and be looked up at me. "‘Corporal, ‘ he says, ‘we thought we’d seen war. What muckers we were! When I get out of this I’m going to lead a quiet life —’ and he got up and got a bullet through the eye—took the eye clean out.” Corporal Kysh is still wearing his service shoes; big, broad brogans of oiled leather. / “Pretty fins kicks,” he observed, and lighted another cigarette. “Well, I guess I’ll eat some more eggs; can’t have any solids, but how I’d like a steak, eh?” - ■