Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1918 — YANKS DON’T SCARE [ARTICLE]

YANKS DON’T SCARE

Clock Shells in Long-Range Bombarding of Paris. Sporting Instinct of Uncle Sam’s Soldiers Lead Them to Play Timekeeper to Guns of Hun. New York. —“American soldiers in Paris clocked the shells from the 72-mile-gun when the Germans began bombarding the French capital,” was the report by Albert Ogden of Columbia county. New York, one of the-Y. M. C. A. secretaries arriving at the New York headquarters of the national war works council of the organization, after having experienced three days of the sensational “express gun” shelling. The question has been asked: “How did the Americans act when the long-distance shells hit Paris?" “The Americans did not take to cover when the ‘Alert’ was sounded, but went out into the streets, consulted their watches and ‘clocked’ the intervals, between the shots by the longrange gun,,” said this “Y” man. “One of the shells hit the building in the Grand boulevard, a block from the •Y’ pavillion, one of the three hotels we conduct in Paris. Our men held their watches on the shots and figured out that-They arrived once every 15 minutes, practically on the quarter hour by the clock.

“The French could not believe at first that Paris was being shelled, and not being bombed in an airplane raid. The French airplanes went up, circling around until they were almost out of sight looking for the Germans. It was not until later that they realized that it was a case of bombardment. I saw the mark of one shell where it had cut through a house, a horizontal mark, and not from above. I also saw a sliver of a shell. “The long-range shooting is followed by nightly air raids. The American soldiers .have become utterly indifferent to them. One night recently there was an air raid and the ‘Alert’ was sounded, the police and firemen blew their whistles and I heard a soldier protesting against being wakened up and told to get into the cellar. .His voice bellowed down the air shaft: ‘Bring that cellar up here.’ ”