Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1918 — Page 2

BAYONETS THREE HUNS, BRAINS FOURTH, SAVES DAY FOR BRITISH

♦ “Bob” Hanna of Vancouver Wins Victoria Cross for Bravery in Action—One of the Most Thrilling Narratives of the War, if Not of All Time—Blows Up Hun Machine Gun . a and Fights Single Handed in Trench.

No. 75,861. C. S. M. Robert Hanna. Canadian infantry. For conspicuous bravery In attack when his cdmpany met with most severe enemy resistance and all the company officers became casualties. A strong point, heavily protected by wire and held by machine gun. had beaten off three assaults of the company, with heavy casualties. This warrant officer, under heavy machine gun and rifle fire, coolly collected a party of men, and, leading them against the strong point, rushed through the wire .and personally baydnetted three of the enemy and brained the fourth, capturing the position and silencing the machine gun. This most courageous action displayed courage and personal bravery of the highest order at this most critical moment of the attack, was responsible for the capture of a most important point, and but for his daring action and determined handling of a desperate situation the attack would not have succeeded. C. S. M.’s outstanding gallantry, personal courage and determined leading of his cofflpany is deserving of the highest possible reward.—From the British Official Gatette. .. . . Fought Huns Single Handed. And so Sergeant Major (Now Lieutenant) “Boh” Hanna, of Vancouver, B. C., received the Victory cross. The reprint from the Official Gazette reads almost like a hundred other thumbnail sketches of the bravery, of the boys in the trenches, but the last few lines give it more or less distinction. To Hanna it merely was a day’s work. To the men of the twenty-ninth Vancouver battalion the Victory cross, which is securely pinned to Hanna’s waistcoat, is emblematic of one of the thrilling personal narratives of the entire war, if not, in fact, of all time. Stories of gallantry and self-sacrifice will be told while the world endures, but it will remain for a new race to roll up a single record to overshadow that of Hanna, who dropped In atrench all alone and single handed fought the cream of the Prussian guards—the men who never were defeated till then and who went down one after another before this mediumsized young lumberman from the forests of British Columbia. One moment Hanna’s life worth a penny. A few minutes later he had saved a battalion, and a little while later he was transformed on the field from a sergeant major to a lieutenant. The government has had Hanna sit for his portrait for the National Gallery. Over the Top Twenty-two Times. It all happened at the battle of Vimy Ridge. This particular incident took place at Hill 70. Hanna had been in many of the worst battles of the war. Before the valiant Canadians settled down to their part of this slaughter of Vimy Ridge Hanna had been “over the top” twenty-two times; had been at grips with the Germans on numberless occasions, and, although stumbling amid death and bursting shells for days at a time, had escaped Injury. Vimy was a. bloody spot. The Canadians were there as they were at the Somme, Ypres, Lens and Passchendaele. Near Hill 70 was a stub of a trench which the Canadians had come to realize was the worst spot they had to face. It w’as only a link and hardly could be seen, but it was known to be a nasty point, and the twenty-ninth battalion was told to take it. For two hours, waiting for dawn, the battalion crawled out on its belly in No Man’s Land, waiting to rush over and surprise the Huns, whose trench was 500 yards away. Unknown to the Canadians the Huns were crawling out from their dugout to initiate the slime movement against the Canadians. At the same moment two barrages started — one from the Germans and one from the Canadians guns. The two lines of crouching men arose and plunged

BEYOND BAGDAD WITH THE BRITISH FORCES

Blindfolding a Turkish prisoner before he is taken through the British trenches at Jebel Hamarin, in Mesopotamia. • ” A** ' ¥

toward each other. The bayonet clash was brief. The ground quickly was strewn with dead and the Gerrpans backed up to the stub of a trench which was, to the soldiers, like the root of an aching tooth. Wire entanglements stayed the pursuit of the Canadians, who, however, hewed their way through. He Blows Up Machine Gun. Six hundred and fifty men went “over the top” with Hanna. Perhaps two-thirds of this number went on toward the trench, but this remnant was decipiated by a machine gun which the Huns had set up on the parapet. The crew of this gun played it on the Canadians like a hose and all the officers were killed or Injured. Hanna plugged on in the face of the dreadful tire. He had a Mills bomb and this he hurled at the machine gun and smashed it, killing or injuring the men ;who were feeding, in the bullets. It had done its deadly work. Hanna was standing alone. All about him were lying his comrades, either dead or badly wounded. Part of the battalion had spread and, he assumed, would come around back of the trench and enter it from the other end. He jumped into the trench and in a second saw a row of stalw’art Prussians coming single file —this was necessary because of the narrowness of the excavation —toward him. They rushed him. As the first one was about five yards away he pulled the trigger on the only cartridge he had in his rifle. The cartridge was well aimed and No. 1 of the Fifty-fifth Prussian guards was out of the war forever. The second one charged over his fallen comrade, but met the bayonet held in the viselike grip of the young lumberman from Vancouver. A third Prussian —also of the Ffty-fifth—-dropped down in the trench as If he had collapsed, but as this was no time for taking chances Hanna, now realizing that he was alone in a nest of the enemy, used his bayonet with effective results. A fourth Prussian appeared almost .from nowhere. He had the stock of his rifle in both hands on a level with his shoulder afid, was preparing to drive the other end home in the form of the Canadian. But Hanna was too quick for him. There was a momentary grinding of teeth, a clash and the fourth Prussian measured his length on the earthen floor. Blows Up Two Dugouts. Hanna then tells of what happened during the next few minutes. “I then discovered that I was alone in the trench and I was wondering where the other meh were. I moved along, and at the entrance to a dugout, which was, of course, dark, I heard she buzzing of voicds. I, of course, knew that I was in a dangerous position. I had no bombs. I had used my last one on the gun. I looked around and discovered a German bomb. About that time I heard the Prussians coming out of the entrance to the dugout and I waited till they were about on top of me when I let the bomb fly. It went off right in their faces. It was quiet then. “I moved on a few feet further and saw another dugout entrance. It was the other end of a U. There I heard more voices. It didn’t look very promising for me. I hunted around quickly and found two more German bombs. I threw the two into the dugout, holding them Just long enough so they ex l ploded a second after they my hand. There was no more noise In this dugout.” . Hanna’s Story stops here when he

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

A LUCKY TROOPER

This Canadian soldier who was eeeorated for bravery was saved by a revolver which he had taken frqm a German prisoner. During a fierce battle on the West front a bullet'from the enemy struck the captured gun which he carried, smashing it. He is here seen wearing his gas mask and a big, broad smile shortly after he received the medal for gallantry.

TECHNICAL AIEN ENEMY NATIONAL GUARD OFFICER

Denver, Colo. —Although he is said to have an even dozen brothers serving as officers in the Austro-Hungarian army, George A. Stadler drills four nights a week as ranking sergeant of Company F, Third regiment, Colorado National Guard. Technically, Sergeant Stadler is an alien enemy. He had not completed his citizenship pt the beginning of the w’ar with Germany. Before coming to America Stadler served four years as an officer of the Austrian army. His first two years as a military student were under the direction of German officers.

tells it. He w’as the only man of his company to be left by the withering fire of the machine gun he had stilled with a lucky throw of a bomb. There were no officers anywhere about. Some soldleys of another battalion appeared presently, and he took command of them and led a charge through the entire trench, “cleaning it up,” as the saying goes. He Saves Two Battalions. The whole maneuver was quickly understood. A battalion which had been despatched to join the Twentyninth had gone by the trench. Some of the Twenty-ninth also had gone by. Hanna alone had stopped at the objective. Those who had not gone too far had not been' able to get far enough. The Prussians had figured on the Canadians passing the trench. Their program undoubtedly had been to rise from their dugouts and with the machine gun, which they did not expect to lose, wipe out the men of the tw’o battalions. It all might easily enough have been done but for the pluck and the quickness of Hanna: It was some time later w’hen the young man from British Columbia w r as called to brigade quarters. The commander had learned all about his daring exploit. The young sergeant major, who twice before this had been recommended for honorable mention, w’as promoted to the rank of lieutenant and now he is back in France waiting for another opportunity to add to the glory of Canada, and. as he proudly says;~lo~ do what an Irishman should.

BROKEN HEARTS PRICED $2.98

Jury at Dawson, 111., Fixes That Price in Breach of Promise Suit Dawson, * Ill.—A “broken heart” is worth only $2.98 here. Such was the verdict of a jury trying the breach of promise suit brought by Miss Myrian Cooper against Thomas Peddie. Miss Cooper asked $35,000 heart balm. It took the jury five minutes to decide the case aftfcr the defendant proved he “wasn’t always” mentally responsible. The Red Cross benefited by the trial to the extent of $70.50. The court permitted them to charge an admission fee from the public.

Answers Questionnaire at Front.

Paterson, N. J.—A questionnaire, duly answered, was returned to the draft officials here from the firing line ” . s » in France. William Donlevy of this city, enlisted before receiving his questionnaire. It followed him to camp, across the Atlantic, and to the firing line, a distance of approximately 11,000 miles.

Scientist Has Discovered Wau to Stop Enormous Waste of Fuel

a MERICA sends billions “up in smoke” yearly because of the enormous waste in the fuel used by our indus~tries. On the other hand, there is a man in Washington who has discovered I how to turn smoke into I money and he is now busily engaged teaching the rest of the country how to perform the same trick. He does this by means of devices which, through electrical precipitation, not only reclaim vast wealth from the smoke, dust and fumes of smelters and other plants, but at the same time redeem thousands of acres of near-by land. As a matter of fact, the curb which he has put upon the smoke and dust nuisance —his original aim—now actually blds fair to be, in some directions, the primary reason for the running of certain of our industries. The smoke wizard who has accomplished these remarkable things is Dr. Frederick G. Cottrell, chief metallurgist of the bureau of mines. Doctor Cottrell’s experiments began several years ago when, as a member of the staff of the University of California, he was called upon to solve the problem of helping a smelter located on San Francisco bay. The waste gases and vapors from this smelter, resulting from the sulphuric acid parting process used in treating gold and silver bullion, were declared a nuisance by neighboring farmers and seemed likely to provoke costly litigation and possibly lead to a shutdown of the plant. The gases discharged into the air amounted to substantially 5,000 cubic feet per minute and held in suspension an Important proportion of sulphuric acid in the form of a fine mist. The corrosive action of the sulphuric acid was shown throughout the entire zone swept broadcast by the shifting winds, pnd both the agriculturists and the people generally had ample reason for complaint. The smelter was a profitable one and the management was anxious to find some way to abate a nuisance that was both a menace to health and hurtful to vegetation. Laboratory Meets Industry. Doctor Cottrell’s preliminary work brought up some puzzling situations. Up to a certain stage matters went well enough on the miniature scale of the investigational tests, but beyond this was the question of meeting the practical situation presented by a large commercial smelter. A big part of Doctor Cottrell’s achievement lay in spanning the gap between the laboratory and the industrial plant and in finding ways to control the enormous pressures of the necessary electric current, mounting up to 100,000 volts. - The problem was solved, however, and so well was the precipitator installed at this smelter designed that it has been doing Its work satisfactorily ever since. Further, by mere chance Doctor Cottrell attacked at that plant what is commonly admitted to be the most difficult of all problems of smoke or fume abatement, viz., the precipitation of acid mist. The good results obtained in this first instance soon became widely known and a new line of application was opened a few years later when the great copper smelter at Balaklala, Cal., was threatened with fume litigation by the United States forestry service. “Fume,” or fine particles in the form pf smoke, and sulphur dioxide gas, invisible to the eye, given off from the stacks of the smelter, had swept the neighboring country bare of vegetation for miles, and it was a case of either a shutdown or a suppression of these destructive discharges. A full-sized plant of the Cottrell type was, accordingly, installed. The voluine of the gases treated averaged

Character Told by Tongue.

Someone has discovered a -new science that he has named “Glossomancy.” Americanized, it is tongueology. The owner of a short broad tongue is untruthful and unreliable. The owner of a long broad tongue is shallow, superficial and a great talker. The owner of a small, round and .plump tongue is mediocre, commonplace and colorless. The owner of a short and narrow tongue is quick-tem-pered yet affectionate and as sudden 'n hate as in love. The owner of the

TURNING SMOKE and DUST INTO MONEY

between 200,000 and 300,000 cubic feet per minute, and during the filtration tests made of the gases throughout a period of nine months it was found that the electrical precipitator recovered between 80 and 00 per cent of the suspended matter. With improvements in detail of construction, the efficiency later was raised well up into the nineties. Great Wastage in Smofte. The general public has only the faintest notion of the wastage represented in the fumes and smokes from belching stacks quite apart from the beneficient economies following from their abatement where the nature of these outpourings is harmful to man and vegetation. In the smelting of lead the fume contains anywhere from 3 to 10 per cent of the volatilized metal in the form of lead oxide and lead sulphide, with compounds of arsenic and antimony. This percentage is well worth recovering. Doctor Cottrell is authority for the statement that not less than 36 valuable substances are found in fumes which, if not collected, would be lost during the smelting and refining of various ores, etc. At Great Falls, Mont., there was at one time a daily loss in dust from the stacks of one of theTarge smelters of 3,775 pounds of copper, 106 ounces of silver, and 0.71 ounces of gold. By an adequate provision for dust recovery, this smelter was able to save ip the course of a single year metallic values amounting to $130,263. The blighting gas, sulphur dioxide, given off from the stacks of copper smelters can be transformed into useful substances by turning the gas into sulphuric acid or sulphur. Sulphuric acid is largely made here by treating pyrites, and we now consume annually in the neighborhood of 6,250,000 tons of 50 per cent sulphuric acid. To a great extent this corrosive fluid is a prime constituent in the preparation of fertilizers, especially where phosphate rock is treated for this purpose. It Is also used in converting the ammonia by-products of cooking ovens into ammonia sulphate. Sulphuric acid is in great demand by explosive factories, oil refiners, steel mills and varied industries engaged in the making of heavy chemicals. Sulphuric acid is likewise extensively employed by smelters and the latter are paying as high as S3O a ton today for the stuff. Sulphur dioxide is used in the preparation of wood pulp for paper making, both as a disintegrating and bleaching agent. In dealing with noxious or objec-

long and moderately pointed tongue is frank, loving, truthful and affectionate. Now all this may or may be true, but I will advise yon. young man, to quit eyb-gazinfc and study her tongue.—Scblopo, the Scribe.

There is going the rounds in Paris a characteristic story of M. Caillaux. The other Sunday afternoon he appeared for the last time before the committee of eleven, charged with investigating his case. He had, as usu-

Caillaux's Aplomb.

by Robert H.Moulton

tionable gases not! necessarily harmful a! new aspect of precip-' itation arises. Thei electrical treater cam handle only fluids or substances in theshape of particles, and cannot cause the' precipitation of gases,! per se. But these' gases can be made to 1 condense upon mists’ In the forn) of steam or finely sprayed wa-i ter or upon extremely I fine pow’der or dust| purposely thrown in-i to the sw’eep of the! gases to effect this.l In this way It Is pos-' slble to deal with va-' ried conditions and!

to abate nuisances that bid fair to cause the shutdown or removal of costly plants. In dealing with dust alone, the first direct effort along this line had to do with a Portland plant near Riverside, Cal. An electrical treater was installed there a few years ago by way of experiment, and a couple of years later was collecting something like a hundred tons of dust dally. Prior to that the dust had been scattered broadcast and settled upon the groves of adjacent orange growers, leading to extent slve litigation. Analysis of the recovered dust disclosed the presence of! an appreciable percentage of potash,, but this attracted no marked attention at the time. Since then, particularly! now that It Is no linger possible for us to get potash from our prima source, Germany, this element so essential to a balanced plantfoou Is ini great demaiid. Last year the plant at Riverside started full blast to actually create dust as its first concern in order to recover the potash which previously had been only a by-product In the manufacture of cement. Cement Becomes By-Product. This is certainly a romantic development of modern Industry, where an apparatus installed for the purpose of saving the life of the factory turns out to be the center of operations around which the entire plant is adjusted. In other words, the cement becomes for the once the by-product and the profits on the potash furnish an ample revenue, while the cement is just so much additional gain. Anyone at all familiar with the average cement plant and the gray powdered appearance of the near-by territory can realize the boon that w'ould be conferred by the general adoption of electrical precipitators not only in preventing the escape of the dust but in saving the potash which is so much desired. Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole story of Doctor Cottrell’s success is the fact that he has presented to Smithsonian institute at Washington all of his valuable patents relating to the electrical precipitation of dust, smoke and fumes. The purpose of this munificence on his part was that any profits resulting from the practical application of the patents shquld go to the upbuilding of a fund to aid in the advancement of scientific research. In short, to help genius and to develop inventions where the needful financial aid might otherwise be lacking.

al, staggered every one with the absolute coolness with which he met all' charges. But when he left the chamber, in the darkness and falling snow, no cab was to be found. “Saprlsti,” cried the deputy, as he looked in vain for a friendly “fiacre.” Then an idea struck him, and he approached a motorcar containing detectives. “It is you who are shadowing me?” he questioned. “Yes, monsieur.” “Very well., then; take me home," said M. Caillaux, as he entered the police car. —London Chronicle,