Sidney D. Light's WWI Diary, Postcards & Letters, 329th Battery Book Accounts

        Here in the days of old the Kings of Anjou flourished, died and left their mark on history and the landscape. High on the hill one of the largest and most impregnable of their strongholds still stands–the Chateau de Saumur—started in 900 and finished some time in 1400—a monument to feudalism and the patience of centuries. This castle has figured in romances of the Williamson quick-scenery type and still takes up considerable space in Baedeker’s guide, deservedly so. It is a marvel of masonry.

        Built of cut stone on the sheer face of a cliff, it has all the features of legendary architecture, clear down to the dungeon with its torture rack and chute for the disposal of surplus corpses. There is the huge outer wall more than 200 feet high in places and wide enough on top for a wagon to pass. There is the provision tunnel, which drops 250 feet straight down from the courtyard and comes out 12 kilometers on the other side of the river. The immense inner court, the little village within the walls; the museum of antique treasures; the guest chambers, the tower, from which you can look down upon one of the prettiest valleys in Europe.

        Over there is the Chateau du Suozay, where Margaret of Anjou ("the most unhappy of queens, wives and mothers") died in 1482. Yonder stands the Grande Dalman, a huge box mound of granite—in a land where there is no granite—said to have been erected by the Druids in the days of Very Old. Most every spire or ancient windmill had its story or its legend. And, curiously enough, practically every noticeable point in the landscape has its co-ordinates now and can be used in connection with artillery maneuvering or sketching, which brings us down to the burden of our story.

        It was here in this history-laden country that our A.E.F. officer candidates went to school. Sixteen Three Twenty-Niners---all picked men---went there to learn artillery (better to get a grasp on the subject which is the deepest and most scientific in all modern warfare) and incidentally to uphold the reputation of the regiment. Not one of them fell down. Orders came along from Washington squelching commissions after the armistice, but they didn’t keep our boys from bringing home the equivalent.

        The artillery school proper was located in what used to be the famous Saumur Ecolé de Cavalérie, the French school of equitation, famous internationally since the latter part of the eighteenth century. This was taken over by our Government along in January, 1918, and devoted to the diligent instruction of artillery. To begin with only a handful of officers were turned out monthly. By the time our men reached Saumur over 2,000 men were in training there and more than 600 being graduated every month.

        There were two firing ranges, run at a cost approximately $30,000 a day; an immense topographical department, with all the equipment known to modern artillery; fleets of French camions for field service transportation; bicycles for the same purpose; teams and MATERIEL for mounted drill and maneuvers; a miniature range for firing practice; aerial photographic displays; an enemy MATERIEL exhibit; an electrically operated "Probable Error" marvel, etc., etc.

        System and efficiency marked the place. Everything was run on a result-getting basis. Schedules for a week ahead showed exactly what was to be done and where classes, etc., would take place; and the schedules went through rain or shine. Candidates were grouped by divisions and instructed by sections---about twenty men to a section.

        Men from all over the A.E.F. (and that, of course, means from all over the States) were studying there and "monkey-business" was not in the curriculum. Many of the brainiest men in the U.S. Artillery were instructing and lecturing there and it was our pleasure to know and receive instructions from some of the brightest and best known men France had in the war. For example, Captain Dreyfus, the man who invented "the study of probabilities" in artillery, practically, and who was the first to figure out the correct "dope" on the big gun Germany used on Paris.

        Equitation, instead of being a nuisance, was a glorious pastime there. We couldn’t get half enough of it. In place of the conventional army "rabbit," we rode upon blooded racing steeds and famous French chargers, many of them trained to hurdle higher than it’s healthy to ride. Huge riding halls, covered with a foot and a half of powdered tanbark, were the scene of these activities. We ate in comfortable mess halls with sure ‘nuff dishes. Our barracks were kept clean by regulation FEMMES DU CHAMBRE.

        We had our setting-up exercises under the snappiest British sergeant that ever bit off an order. He had been a physical instructor before the war and he could galvanize a wooden Indian into action.

         We worked and studied; served the pieces and fired problems on the range. We did Italian resections, located gun positions by traversing, etc., etc. We got on friendly terms with goniometers, alidades, plane tables, firing tables, ballistics, probable errors, Phi, Omega and DVO. We picked beaucoup gun positions, solved many field problems and worked with full regimental liaison equipment and aeroplane co-operation. In brief, we had a liberal education in three months and they didn’t need to make us like it---even when the bottom dropped out of things on the 11th. The S.A.S. was a regular Alma Mater.

        Following is a list of the 329th men who graduated from the Saumur Artillery School: Sgt.-Majors B.A. Balkwell and E. L. Convery, of Reg. Headquarters (Convery, by the way, took the "Flu" at school and was unable to complete his course); R.S.S. T.G. King and Sgt. Wm. R. Melton, of Battery B; Sgts. E.J. Schneller, Chas. C. Lockwood, and J.F. Schumaker, of Battery C; Sgts. F.G.Miles, Colin MacLachlan, L.M. Kells, and 1st Sgt. Atkinson, of Battery D; Sgt. Carl L.Hesse and Cpl. G.C. Channing of Battery E; and Sgt. F.G. Ruhl, of Battery F. Sgt. C.M. Eddy, of Battery B was transferred to this regiment from the Ammunition Train after he completed his course.