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attack was started.  Our job was to find out, if possile, just where the front line of attackers actually was.  That information was needed especially by the supporting artillery, so that its barrage could be placed effectively.  The French infantry had been informed in advance of markings that would be carried by Douglas's plane and Mine  The men were expected to respond to our signals.

I don't remember how well I slept that night.  I remember climbing into Heilbrunn's plane a few minutes early.  We sat there listening to the roar of the heaviest gunfire I had ever heard, looking at our watches more frequently than we needed to, since Powers was there keeping track of the time.  I remember vividly our trip tothe front.  We could not see the Marne ^[[when we]] crossed it.  The night had been cool and the river hidden by fog. All the little tributary streams that ran into it were likewise overlaid with fog, but the high ground was clear. I was startled to see batteries standing out in open fields, firing away.  I had never before seen a battery anywhere near the front that was not elaborately camouflaged.  Those guns that stood in the open had been brought in the previous night.  I suppose that guns were equally crowded over the whole 30-mile front of Magin's army.  I recall feeling the plane jump once or twice when a big gun fired as we were passing over it.

At the front fog hid the jumping-off line of the 167th.  I could not see the stream nor the railroad, but I could see flashes from German shells that were falling thickly there. On the German side shells were falling on Monthiers and on the open ground in front of it.. The space in front of Monthiers, where I expected to fing the French, was also being shelled so heavily that the smaoke made it difficult to see the ground. We flew straight over the route our infantry was expected to take Over Monthiers, about 100 yards from the ground, I fired a signal rocket.  It meant "Where are you?" Infantrymen in the front line of the attack, and only there,  were supposed to respond by spreading on the ground small squares of white cloth.  One man of each squad carried those cloth panels.

I looked over the area in front of the village but I could see no signal panels.  Thinking I might have missed seing them because the smoke made for poor visibility, I asked Heilbrunn to circle lower.  We were not more than fifty yards off the ground I suddenly got a clear view|directly beneath us.  I saw 30 or 40 men in a cluster of shellholes