“And the hook—I mustn’t forget the hook. It’s so typically American—a device born of our national tendency to economise time. To put a hook in at the top of the tank meant at least two hours’ work. In 100 tanks that was 200 hours or 24 working days, slowing up production. The idea of the hook was that it would be so convenient when a crane had to lift the tank. Now the average tank gets lifted by a crane just four or six times; on a car at the factory, off the car, on the ship, off the ship, and maybe on and off a car again. So to save the six or twelve minutes it would take a crew to slip a chain around the tanks, they put a hook at the top, because it was efficient! [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._ Sergeant Ralph M. Atkinson _42nd Division, 167th Infantry, Headquarters Company_ While in command of a Stokes mortar platoon October 16, 1918, near Landres-et-St. Georges, Argonne, Sergeant Atkinson with three soldiers was advancing with the first wave of the assault, when on nearing the objective, he discovered about 250 of the enemy forming for a counter-attack. He advanced with the Stokes mortar under fire, and opened a murderous fire on the approaching enemy, dispersing them.] “Oh, well, I oughtn’t to grouch. We never used the tanks. And no one that I know minds much. Those Renault tanks were little dandies. You have no idea how easily they run. You can crawl over a telegraph pole and hardly feel it, so well worked out has been the spring suspension, the relation of rollers, chariots and treads. And they didn’t go in for any fancy touches, the Renaults. No armor for the guns nor fancy locks on the door to keep some one from crawling up and throwing a grenade inside, nor deflection armor at odd angles which never did anything but stop bullets and make splinters that otherwise would never have endangered any one’s eyes. SNIFFS AT HUN TANKS “German tanks? Punk. Too slow, mechanism too exposed, too many slits. Oh, very well made, but poor design. Nor do I think very much of German tank men. “We had about 44 per cent. casualties, and that covers 22 actions. Ten per cent. of the casualties were deaths. But I don’t recall many men dying without doing something first. “I recall that there was one tank got stuck in a trench and nothing handy to rescue it. Captured, of course. Well, we captured it back two days later. Every round of ammunition was fired. Every pistol cartridge had been fired. And both men had been wounded long before they were killed; there was plain evidence of it in blood where no blood would be if they had just been snuffed out right at first. They must have put up a beautiful scrap. Americans don’t like to surrender, somehow.” THE GARIBALDI CODE “To Be Ready Ever to Fight for the Cause They Think is Right”