Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/114

96 modern conduct of fire. On May 27th we went to the range to shoot. There were just enough horses at that time to draw one battery out, and the second battalion got them for E battery, which had won the gun drill competition and had been selected to fire with the first shots on the range.

C battery tried trucks. They got the pieces and caissons as far as the macadamized road went. There re- mained, perhaps a mile and a half of sand. The trucks wouldn't touch it. The cannoneers looked at the deep ruts and the heavy pieces.

“We have been honored with this first job to fire," they said to each other.

They put their shoulders to the wheels. They kept talking about that honor. They wondered why they had ever gone into the artillery to be so appreciatively singled out. They managed, however, a little limp themselves, to get the carriages to the position in front of observatory 3, where others had dug emplacements and sunk trail logs. The details located the guns, got the aiming sticks up, and ran wires to the observatory and into the range telephone system.

Captain Roger D. Swaim, of the New England National Guard was the First Battalion's firing instructor, and Capt. Kelly, of the same organization, the Second's. They met us at the observatories at 7:30 Monday morning, and we started.

We had so much ammunition that we forgot to gaze at each shell as if it were a precious pearl being cast before swine.

The projectiles went away in quick salvos, and after the first few we know that while we weren't perfect we could bracket a target and get real effect on Then the instructors criticized, the colonel did the same, and the majors usually had their say. Those who hadn't fired looked