Page
[ Group Photo of Battery D.] 3
[ William Elmer Bachman.] 5
[ Albert L. Smith.] 18
[ David A. Reed.] 22
[ Perry E. Hall.] 39
[ Sidney F. Bennett.] 39
[ C. D. Bailey.] 39
[ Frank J. Hamilton.] 39
[ Third Class French Coach.] 57
[ Side-Door Pullman Special.] 57
[ Interior of French Box Car.] 57
[ A Real American Special.] 57
[ Montmorillon Station.] 67
[ Montmorillon Street Scene.] 67
[ Entrance to Camp La Courtine.] 81
[ American Y. M. C. A. at Camp La Courtine.] 81
[ A Battery D Kitchen Crew.] 88
[ Group of Battery D Sergeants.] 88
[ Battery D on the Road.] 99
[ Aboard The Edward Luckenbach.] 99
[ At Bush Terminal.] 99
[ Serving Battery Mess Along the Road.] 110
[ Battery D on the Road. ] 110
[ Lorraine Cross. ] 117
[ Joseph A. Loughran.] 124
[ Cemetery at La Courtine.] 124
[ Horace J. Fardon. ] 129
[ Grave of William Reynolds.] 129
[ Barrack at Camp La Courtine.] 129
CHAPTER I.
SOURCES OF THE DELTA.
Official records in the archives of the War Department at Washington will preserve for future posterity the record of Battery D, of the 311th United States Field Artillery.
In those records there is written deep and indelibly the date of May 30th, 1919, as the date of Battery D's official demobilization. The history of Battery D, therefore, can be definitely terminated, but a more difficult task is presented in establishing a point of inception.
The development of Battery D was gradual--like a tiny stream, flowing on in its course, converging with the 311th Regimental, 154th Brigade, and 79th Division tides until it reached the sea of war-tossed Europe; there to flow and ebb; finally to lose its identity in the ocean of official discharge.
The Egyptians of old traversed the course of their river Nile, from its indefinite sources along the water-sheds of its plateaux and mountains, and, upon arriving at its mouth they found a tract of land enclosed by the diverging branches of the river's mouth and the Mediterranean seacoast, and traversed by other branches of the river. This triangular tract represented the Greek letter Δ "Delta," a word which civilization later adopted as a coinage of adequate description.
Fine silt, brought down in suspension by a muddy river and deposited to form the Delta when the river reaches the sea, accumulates from many sources.
In similar light the silt of circumstances that resulted in the formation of the Delta of the Triple Elevens, accumulated from many sources, the very nucleus transpiring on June 28, 1914, when the heir to the Austrian throne, the archduke of Austria, and his wife, were assassinated at Sarajevo, in the Austrian province of Bosnia, by a Serbian student.