In one dugout near the edge of the Forest we found a mysterious-looking box which we let severely alone. I had seen the diagram of a similar box, which had been carefully dissected by a member of the Intelligence Squad. This German trap was a finely polished box about fourteen inches long by six inches at its widest part, and disguised as a music box. It had polished hinges and lock and an alligator handle in the center of the top. It had also a monogram in one corner. Inside the box were two squash-shaped grenades about nine inches long and filling the whole center of the box. In the big end of the box was a compartment filled with chaddite, a yellow powder, eight times as powerful as dynamite. Attached to the grenades were four friction handles so connected with the alligator handle on top as to explode the bombs when the box was lifted. In event of the frictions failing to work, or the intended victim opening the box some other way there was a two-second fuse inserted in the end of each bomb, and extending into the chaddite compartment, to be set off by the removal of the lid.
A hand grenade was used by them which our boys called potato-mashers. The head of the potato-masher was a can made of one-sixteenth-inch brittle steel. The can was about seven inches long by four and one-half inches in diameter. Around the inside of the can was a layer of small steel cogs. Inside these a layer of small steel balls. The next layer was of small ragged-edged scrap steel pieces and the next, poisoned copper diamonds. The center was filled with chaddite. On one end of the can was a hollow steel handle about eight inches long. A string passing through this handle was attached on the inside to a touch fuse imbedded in the chaddite; the other end of the string was tied to a button on the handle. By pulling the button the fuse was set off.
German Weapons[ToList]
Imagine the destruction wrought by one of these exploding in a company of soldiers. I have seen many of them through the Argonne, but we had been warned of their danger and chose other weapons as souvenirs.
A Yank Taken Prisoner
This story was from the lips of a doughboy whose home was in Philadelphia. I had piloted Mr. Cross, of the Providence Journal, through the surgical wards of Base Hospital No. 18. This was the Johns Hopkins Hospital Unit located at Bazoilles (pronounced Baz-wy). One of the nurses said, "Have you seen Tony in Ward N? He has a wonderful story."
So we went to Ward N, and in a private room at the end of the ward found our hero, who was rapidly recovering and anxious to be of further service to the land of his adoption. His right eye was gone. A German bullet was responsible for its loss. Thus wounded and unable to escape he had been surrounded and taken prisoner by the Boche who forced him to walk on ahead of them.
"When I was unable to drag along as fast as they demanded, I was shot at by one of the Huns, the bullet making a flesh wound in my left leg. They then decided to kill me and shot me through the heart, as they supposed. I was left for dead, but the bullet had missed my heart. For six days I lay out in an open field, living but unable to move."