Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/169

 , however, liaison with the infantry was never the bugbear we had feared. One had to be diplomatic. The gravest danger lay in a slip there.

We had, as a matter of fact, forward guns nearer the Hum than infantry battalion headquarters. We were ordered to place these as soon as we were in position. They were called pirate guns. Their code name was, appropriately, the goal. Their mission was to deliver harassing fire, to snipe at fleeting targets, to safeguard the battery positions from sound and flash ranging by making it necessary to fire only barrages from them. In other words the pirate gun went into action with its eyes open. The Hun could spot it by sound or flash ranging. The Hun did. Those guns were always shelled more or less.

Battery A sent in the first pirate gun for the First Battalion under command of Lieutenant Ellsworth Strong. The emplacement was an excellent one in the cellar of a ruined house in Fenneviller. It was heavily casemated. To guard against emergencies it was necessary to keep the limber and teams at hand in a stone stable.

The Second Battalion pushed its gun forward to a French emplacement in a piece of woods. Lieutenant Watson Washburn took it up.

We wanted to keep an officer with each of these pieces. We had too few. It was necessary to put them in charge of non-commissioned officers. It was a good thing. The results increased the confidence of the officers in their enlisted assistants.