June 20, 1918
By Lowell Mellet, UPI Correspondent.
With the Americans on the Marne. James A. Dunahue
of Newark N.J. felt around in the dark till he got hold
of a broken pick. Then he hit his sleepy German
guard over the head and two days later, yesterday he
made the following report to the second division HQ
on what it is like to be a prisoner in the German
Army:
"I went down the woods (Belleau Wood) and joined
my command, what there was left of it. They were all
spit upon and mixed up. I heard a whistle blow and
went forward. Every time that a flare would go up I
would drop down. There was a lot of rifle firing. Just
ahead I saw four or five men and thought they were
our fellows. I ran right into them and when I got there
one of them hit me on the head with something.
When I came to they took me up before an officer. He
said, "How many Americans are there over here" I
said thirty two divisions of Americans and forty
divisions of the French he said, "Ach Schwein,
Schwein.!"
BOOTED AND KICKED
'Then they booted me and shoved me away. Going
out I got a couple more kicks. They took ,me down
the road a piece. Detachments coming along would
give me the once over and say: "Ach American!
Schwein. I don't know how long I walked but it was a
long time. I didn't sleep all that night.
"Next morning I got an axe about the size of this
helmet handed me and without anything to eat they
put me to work cutting with them. They had machine
guns all through the woods. Then they took me
across an open field and back into another woods and
had me cut more brush. They were digging
emplacements. They were digging and setting
machine guns in it and try it turning all around and
then move to another place and then camouflage
that hoe with brush.
"That night I tried to sleep in an old covering. About
the time I would get started sleeping they would
come along and give me a boot and take me to
another place. Then they took me on another march.
HUNS IN YANKEE UNIFORMS
That evening three men in American uniforms
walked up to an officer and talked with him. Then
they turned and walked back toward the line. The
about seven French soldiers or men in French
uniforms walked up and talked to this officer and
then turned and walked toward the line.
"They would give me soup and black bread to eat.
That was enough to drive a man crazy. Then they
would sit in front of me and eat cheese and bread
and drink something that looked like coffee to
tantalize me. They kept me chopping all the time,
they had about 15 or twenty me carrying away the
brush while I chopped it. They were using to
camouflage the ditches they had ammunition in
them.
TOOK CHANCE TO ESCAPE
"I was there about seven or eight nights. I could not
keep track of the days. So between shoving me
around and kicking me around. I thought I would try
to escape and take a chance of being shot. So when
another sentry came on I watched him and he sits
down by a tree and looked like he was sleeping. I
moved a bit an no move out of the sentry. He just
kept right on snoring. Away. I just rolled over and got
a little closer and still no movement from him. I
reached right around and gets hold of an old pick
handle. So I hit him on the head with the pick handle
and not a sound or grunt out of him. I slipped right
away then. Then I ran across those Red Cross dogs of
theirs. They have a little canteen on both sides of
them. I went on a little piece and stayed in the woods
for a while when the dogs were around, but there was
not a whimper out of them. They were just running
around.
TRAVELED BY NIGHT
"I would go on and when I would run close to a bunch
I would drop down and stay still until they had gone
away, and then I would go on further. I would travel
by night and lay hid in the woods by day. It took me
two days to get up here. Well I kept on coming and
one day I found a bag with some old hard bread in it
and little pieces of cheese. I came across a stream
and soaked the bread and ate it.
"I kept on coming until I got up where the shells were
dropping all around me and thought it was all up
with me.
"I keep[t on going through and then I heard a sentry,
yell "Halt" and I said: "Don't shoot: I am an American
I went up to him and asked where Headquarters was,
then I got an M.P. and he took me up to A.P. M.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
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