Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/298

258 drifted into that vast blurred background of devotion and sacrifice against which the American soldier fought.

Between the Vesle and the Aisne the Second Battalion was even more fortunate than the First. Major Wanvig's command didn't have a single casualty in the Perles positions. Hun airmen gave it one bad night, and might have done a lot of damage.

A bomber created the impression that he had located the emplacements, for he dropped a number of flares over them, and followed with two bombs in the ravine, which missed Battalion Headquarters, and one on the slope close to the guns, which splintered a number of trees.

A group of men from Battery D had a close run of it. They had made themselves comfortable in a large German dugout whose only overhead cover was a sheet of elephant iron. At the first flare they decided there might be safer places, and sought one. When they returned a few moments later, after the plane had throbbed away, they found their pleasant home, a mass of twisted elephant iron, ploughed up dirt, and ruined equipment. The third bomb had made a direct hit on the dugout in which they had just before been crowded for warmth.

The regiment fired as persistently here as it had done in the Les Près and Chery positions. Barrage after barrage was thrown ahead of our infantry on La Petite Montagne, which because of its pivotal situation was of great strategic importance. Before it was captured the order came for the regiment to move to other pastures.