Tuesday, Oct. 30, 1917
As The Saratogian reports the first combat engagement on land between American and German troops, a Saratoga County man comes home to tell of his own war experiences.
“The first verified death from an American bullet fired by a Sammy in trench war was that of a nineteen-year-old German Landsturmer,” reports United Press war correspondent J. W. Pegler. The German dies in a U.S. field hospital of wounds sustained during his capture. Elsewhere, American units are exchanging artillery fire with their German counterparts across No Man’s Land.
The first American wounded in combat is an unnamed Signal Corps lieutenant, but Pegler reports that his wound is slight.
Luther A. Wait never made it into the trenches because “it was against orders for anyone to go into the trenches unless they had business there.” Wait drove an ammunition truck, delivering munitions to depots within a mile of the front lines. He crossed the Atlantic in July but is back in Saratoga Springs this week.
Wait tells The Saratogian that “the most unpleasant and nervous part of his entire experience was the trip over on a slow, unconvoyed boat. Ten days were occupied in making the trip and the nerves of the men were in no way quieted by the appearance of schools of whales in the Bay of Biscay, for every time a whale appeared he looked like a ‘sub’ rising up out of the water.”
As a truck driver, Wait “had no regular routine to follow, working only when the order came. This doesn’t mean that I had any time on my hands for generally we were out with the trucks about five days a week, from eight to twenty hours a day as the occasion demanded. The remainder of the time was occupied in keeping the machines in shape.”
Wait’s work wasn’t particularly dangerous because “we were never sent out while the roads were being shelled.”
While Wait didn’t get a chance to experience trench warfare, he tells an interviewer that “the spectacular part of the game [is] being fought in the air. Sometimes hundreds of machines may be seen in the air and there are many battles fought thousands of feet above the ground.
Anti-air craft guns are largely used but they very seldom bring down a machine. Their use is principally to keep the enemy machines away from the ground, thus preventing them from taking photographs.”
After talking to French veterans of the trenches, Wait reports that “I’ve seen some men who had been wounded as many as three times but who were still anxious to get into the fight.”