State

“The 30th" meets Again Scenes of twenty years ago are recalled by war veteran as llie famous division of which he was a member holds its reunion in Winston-Salem this week. »!/ JOH\ A. PARRIS, JR. A THICK fop hangs over the dripping tree- of the Xaurov- ( Jolly Sector in France this fall night of IitlS and a man in rain- soaked mud-splattered khaki writes hurriedly in a little black book. This is the entry he makes as German shells hurst in the blackness of the skies ; “Sept. 2$. -We’re waiting for the Zero Hour. Then we’re going over the top. into a hell from which many of us never will return. We had our usual supjK-r, cleaned our guns and put everything ready. It's fairly quiet, some shelling. In a couple of hours it will he midnight. At I a. in. we move up near the Jerry lines. The lug push logins at 5:50 a.m. That’s the Zero Hour.” Acting Sergeant Albert И. Collins closes the little black 1юок, places it inside his tunic. A shell screams its tlight of death and Collins, the North Carolina doughboy, says a little prayer and then snuggles into his blanket. The Forward Movement Stirring from their lying-up posi¬ tions, the tanks ltegin their rumbling, clanking, forward journey through the fog-shrouded night, moving toward the land marked for death. Гр ahead is the llindcnburg Line, symlKtl of impregnability, hope <*f a German Kaiser to -lop the Allied Armies and foster his own imperial¬ istic dream of dominating central Kurope, maybe the world. Here in flic Nauroy-Gouy Sector lie lighting men; fearless men, brave men of the Thirtieth Division, that outfit picked from North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. To them lias been given the assign¬ ment to break the already famous llindcnburg Line, blast the hopes of Kaiser Wilhelm with fire and sword out there along the St. Quentin Canal. Collins turns in bis blankets, unable to sleep. Ahead is the biggest moment of bis life, the biggest moment of the World War. Паек home in America is a father, a mother, sister- ami brothers. Collins wonders if be ever will see them again. A shell wheo-ooos and snaps his thoughts. All aliout him are men of the Thirtieth Division. Hut be can’t «ее them ill tile fog. He peer* through the wet mists of Nauroy-Gouv amid the gas-stained brush ami then lie see a wraith-like form floating toward him. The form stops ami whispers and Collins noils that lie understands. It is :t a.m. Collins moves from bis blankets, mobilizes Company M of the 117th Infantry. Awaiting the Zero Hour The weary men begin their march up and to await the Zero Hour. “This is a time always to be rc- inom bored.” Collins writes in his little black book. Ahead lie- t bo llindcnburg Line- ami victory. On this September morn, the Southerners *o lately turned soldiers, stand in the fog, hear the blast of a whistle, the crack of n signal gun. They turn loose their deadly barrage and the march to end the World War is on. That is all history now— how the Thirtieth Division cracked the Hindenburg Line, sent Wilhelm hurry¬ ing through that rainy night into exile and to Doom. Acting Sergeant Albert II. Collins is 20 years older, a bit gray about the temples, a little heavier, and nor -o sure as he works high in his Winston- Salem office that the World War was fought to end wars. He leaned back in bis easy chair, lient bis head toward a war-chatter- ing radio and took from a pocket the little black hook he carried through the muddy, bloody fields of Kurope. A little black book scrawled in letters of blue, written hurriedly, written while history was being made. The men who fought alongside Albert Collins have changed, too. Si* has the world — but not in its at¬ titude toward war. Meeting in Winston Hundreds of the men who fought with Collin- ga f her in Winston- Salem thi- Thursday and Friday when the veterans of tin* Thirtieth Di- vision hold their annual reunion on tin- anniversary of the breaking of the Hindenburg Line. There are many who arc not there. They have answered the call of death, the call they cheated on the battlefields of Europe. "Europe is rumbling again with marching feet and wheeled artillery,” said Collins as he tuned down the radio and went back 20 years to that memorable morning in France. "There won’t lie any Hindenburg Line this time. There won’t he any fighting like wo did. It will be ‘worse, if anything." He turned the pages of the little black book, turned them until he came to one dated Septcinl»er 29 — the day tin* Hindenburg Line fell Itcfore the onslaught of the crack Thirtieth Division. Here is what he wrote for that memorable day : "Was aroused at 3 a.m. ami formed up and marched to the support truck and awaited the Zero Hour. (This time is always to 1ч- remembered.) At 4 a. hi. we moved out near the Jerry lines and waited for the signal gun and the barrage. We did ibis to keep them from getting us in their counter barrage which always comes. It was a foggy, ha/.v morning. Zero Hour 5:50 o’clock. One large gun at given point fired and before the sound hardly reached us thousand- of guns of all sizes opened up. Some threw smoke shells to cover our movement." And then a* if to paint the scene with words that only a witness could use, Collins turned from bis diary and these were hi- words: "Men seemed as wraiths, spectral shapes that formed before the eyes, only to slip eerily from sight into the (Continued on page twenty-six)