Preface
A book—at least a regular book—is not complete without a preface, so they tell us. So “Prepare for Action!” here and now. For this must be a regular book, US, O D, Regular. We say must, because there is scarcely a man in the entire regiment who did not have a hand in the making of it, one way or another—and anything the 329th gets behind as a unit MUST proceed. (Witness the Boche retreat along about the Toul Sector in the year of Our Lord 1918, from November 1st on to the “finee.”)
After that amazing Melting Pot which was our National Army—and late the U. S. Army, by order of Washington—had made soldiers out of lawyers, tailors, bookkeepers and blacksmiths; painters, writers, mechanics and icemen; loafers, married men, movie actors and millionaires; and had welded us into a unit of growing military strength and usefulness, a sentiment began to grow amongst us, “What an experience if we could only record it!” Numerous frantic (and short-lived) diaries were the result. Books even sprouted. But nothing historical happened in that line (within our knowledge) until Chaplain Sorensen fathered Corporal Hanna’s idea that we work up a definite record of our experiences in the form of a regimental history. History isn’t the word for the book that this finally came to be, or at least that we earnestly strove to make. It contains—as best we could relate under the circumstances—a full record of our associations, travels and achievements together; our joys and troubles (most of which never happened), and our friendships, proved in the hours when men show up as men or not at all.
Thanks to men like our Commanding Officer, Major Lothrop, Captain Wiley, of Headquarters Company, Captain Brady, our Adjutant, and Chaplain Sorensen, the whole proposition got able and official backing from the start and we were able to carry through.
Parts of the volume were written on trains and in transports; in lordly mansions and lowly dugouts. Parts of it were never written at all, but like Topsy “just growed.” We met difficulties, frequent changes in scenery and wild sea weather, but laid down “The Barrage,” as they say in Artillery lingo.
And when you look it over in after years, remember we all did it and might have done better, no doubt, but that we did our darndest under the circumstances.
Also, in behalf of the editorial staff, consider this parting volley—when you find a perfect editor he will have a glass plate over his face and he will not be standing up.
“ON THE WAY—329TH BARRAGE!”
Fred E. Mannerow Lawrence Hopper, Wm. R. Melton,
Art Editor L. J. Menzies, E. L. Inlow,
Business Managers Elmer Hanna,
Editorial Staff
After that amazing Melting Pot which was our National Army—and late the U. S. Army, by order of Washington—had made soldiers out of lawyers, tailors, bookkeepers and blacksmiths; painters, writers, mechanics and icemen; loafers, married men, movie actors and millionaires; and had welded us into a unit of growing military strength and usefulness, a sentiment began to grow amongst us, “What an experience if we could only record it!” Numerous frantic (and short-lived) diaries were the result. Books even sprouted. But nothing historical happened in that line (within our knowledge) until Chaplain Sorensen fathered Corporal Hanna’s idea that we work up a definite record of our experiences in the form of a regimental history. History isn’t the word for the book that this finally came to be, or at least that we earnestly strove to make. It contains—as best we could relate under the circumstances—a full record of our associations, travels and achievements together; our joys and troubles (most of which never happened), and our friendships, proved in the hours when men show up as men or not at all.
Thanks to men like our Commanding Officer, Major Lothrop, Captain Wiley, of Headquarters Company, Captain Brady, our Adjutant, and Chaplain Sorensen, the whole proposition got able and official backing from the start and we were able to carry through.
Parts of the volume were written on trains and in transports; in lordly mansions and lowly dugouts. Parts of it were never written at all, but like Topsy “just growed.” We met difficulties, frequent changes in scenery and wild sea weather, but laid down “The Barrage,” as they say in Artillery lingo.
And when you look it over in after years, remember we all did it and might have done better, no doubt, but that we did our darndest under the circumstances.
Also, in behalf of the editorial staff, consider this parting volley—when you find a perfect editor he will have a glass plate over his face and he will not be standing up.
“ON THE WAY—329TH BARRAGE!”
Fred E. Mannerow Lawrence Hopper, Wm. R. Melton,
Art Editor L. J. Menzies, E. L. Inlow,
Business Managers Elmer Hanna,
Editorial Staff
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