Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 198, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1918 — HOW A PARISIAN AIR RAID FEELS [ARTICLE]

HOW A PARISIAN AIR RAID FEELS

Red Gross Inspector Tells Thrilling Story of Desperate Moments. NOISE ACCOMPANIES ATTACK Yank Engineers Go About Unperturbed While Rescuing Injured—Victims Are Sent to the Sisters of the Poor. Washington.—Writing of a German air raid on Paris, one of the American Red Cross, inspectors gives a thrilling account of’ how American troops and Red Cross workers give aid to the city In such despqpate moments. He describes an air raid In this fashion: “Nowhere is there any sound but the echoes of footsteps. Not a street light is to be seen, not a single ray of light —nothing but the inkiest and most impenetrable darkness. Then all of the noise In the world seems to break loose. Clang-clang-clang booms the tocsin — like a gigantic pneumatic riveter working on a colossal bell. Whooo-o shrieks the siren, running up and down the scale in an awful wail. “The streets come to life. Doors open and slam shut. The sidewalks are full of ghostly figures hurrying toward the caves, where the inhabitants have fitted up cots and bunks. They get up now to make a sitting place for the newcomers. The children go to sleep with their heads on their mothers’ shoulders, and a girl in the uniform of a street car conductor swaps yarns with a Pollu in dingy blue. In the last raid the front trucks of her car were thrown from the rails by the displacement of air caused by an exploding torpedo. The car and Its Inmates were unhurt. The Pollu looks a mite Incredulous and murmurs: ‘I can well believe you, mademoiselle.’—^—

Archies Barrage Sky. “Outside the noise continues for about three or four minutes and then subsides as a new noise starts —the Archies, or antiaircrft guns, which commence to bark furiously from half a dozen different points. Searchlights rake the sky. The Archies continue their clamor, but they are not firing at anything, merely keeping up a barrage fire to prevent the Boches flying over the city. “Suddenly there Is an earthrocking whoom. No doubt as to where the Boches are. Whoom, whoom, whoom! One Involuntarily ducks and tries turtlewise to cover his head with his shoulders. A hideous noise resounds up and down the deserted street — falling walls, and the tinkling and crash of showers of broken glass and roofing tiles. “Through "the glass and litter of the street an American Red Cross camolnette comes plowing its way. One of the city firemen stands on the running board. “ ‘Anybody here from numbers 49

to 51?’ he calls. A half dozen voices yell out that there Is. “ 'ls everybody here from those numbers? Was there anyone left in either of those “There Is an anxious calling back and forth and a rapid counting of noses. ‘All here,’ Is the answer! Send Victims to Poor Sisters. “Good! Not much left of those two buildings. Don’t enter the ruins Until they have been Inspected by the engineering department Go to the Sisters of the Poor if you want food or a place to sleep. “A half-mile away a bright red glow gets larger and larger and lights the sky. A fire has broken out In the railroad yards and Is making great headway. Several cars of oil are burning fiercely and spreading to cars of merchandise. “Two railroaders' have got hold of a switch engine and are shunting out whole strings of cars. “ ‘Do you know anything about these French engines, sir?’ asks the Impromptu engineer. ‘I can’t find the d brake.’ “The fire is eating Its way toward a pier on which stands a line of drums of gasoline. “‘Come on, boys! roll these kegs o’ gas outa here,’ yells the corporal, and the line of drums starts trundling down the pier. It Is Infernally hot, and the average man knows just how hot gasoline can get before It begins to misbehave; but the line never wavers. ' “ ‘Roll ’em along, boys! Keep ’em going. Everybody has got to die sometime.’ “Little by little things become quieter. The fires die down. The Archies stop. Now the tocsin sounds again, this time with slow, stately measured beats. This Is the ‘all’s clear’ signal.”