The English of military communicationsGanoe, William Addleman
History
The English of military communications
Ganoe, William Addleman
English language -- Rhetoric; Military orders; United States. Army -- Records and correspondence
5. You are Major Mark Montclair in command of the battalion which
constituted the reserves in the preceding problem. When you arrive
in your designated position at a quarter to five you are immediately
charged by two troops of cavalry which you drive off to the south by
superior fire. You send in pursuit one company and a machine gun.
By the number of loose horses you see galloping about and by the
haste with which the troopers took to their heels, you infer that
the casualties must have been large. Your adjutant arrives at this
time reporting that sixteen prisoners in sound condition have been
taken, that twelve dead and twenty-two wounded of the enemy have
been counted, and that your own losses are 3 missing, 4 dead, and 8
wounded. Just before you start to write your message at a quarter
to six, word reaches you from A Company which is still pursuing the
enemy, that they have captured 18 prisoners and have killed and
wounded twelve. You finish your message at five minutes to six, and
then go over your lines in order to make them stronger for defense.
6. On June 12, 1925, you are Captain James A. Marion in command of
Company I, 203d Infantry. Your company, which constitutes a detached
post from your regiment acting as outpost at Granite Hill, is at 601,
five hundred yards west of Hunterstown Cross-roads. At twenty-five
minutes to five in the morning you are charged by a squadron of
cavalry from the J. Bell farm. They strike you from the front, and
you are holding them by your fire when a troop hits your right flank
riding at a full gallop out of the woods from the direction of the
Henderson Meeting House. You are in a very awkward position and are
prepared to do or die, when, without warning of any kind, a squadron
of your own 29th Cavalry which has been on a raiding expedition in
the direction of New Oxford, deploys at a gallop from Hunterstown.
The enemy, who is now in turn struck in flank, is in serious straits.
He breaks and runs in the direction of Table Rock, the friendly
squadron pursuing. You count 45 dead and 62 wounded of the enemy.
Of your own troops 12 infantrymen are missing, 3 cavalrymen and
9 infantrymen dead, and 5 cavalrymen and 18 infantrymen wounded.
You start to write your message at twenty minutes to six. You
straighten out your former position and send strong connecting and
reconnoitering patrols to north and west.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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