In the Flash Ranging Service Observations of an American Soldier During His Service With the A.E.F. in France — Context and Discussion

The Vocabulary of Artillery

Trueblood’s description of the St. Mihiel barrage reveals a careful observer who translates military spectacle into precise language. He compares the long flash from heavy artillery to “a serpent’s tongue,” a simile that recurs as he notes how these flashes were “dashed from the gun muzzle” with sudden disappearance. The distinction between demoralizing and protecting barrages is explained with clarity: the former is a “rain of shells” to break morale, the latter a curtain that rises slowly to shield advancing infantry. He also catalogues the different artillery roles—heavy guns targeting headquarters and railroads, medium guns disrupting counterattacks, light guns firing rapidly to support the charge. These distinctions are not technical jargon but the working knowledge of a soldier who has learned to read the battlefield by its sounds and lights.

Star Shells and No Man’s Land

When the German star shells rose, Trueblood notes their purpose: to light No Man’s Land so the enemy could “repel our attack.” He describes them rising “to a height of several hundred feet” and burning a “brilliant white light” as they descended. The detail is functional—he understands the tactical reason—but he also calls the display “fireworks,” a word that acknowledges the strange beauty of the scene. His account of the infantry advance corrects a common misconception: men do not rush in a mass but climb out in thin lines, six to ten feet apart, to reduce casualties from shellfire. He has seen a shell fall among such a line without hitting anyone, a fact he offers without drama, letting the observation speak for itself.

Silence and Method in Transit

The opening chapter establishes a pattern of quiet efficiency that Trueblood admires. The transports slipped away “without a word of warning and not a fond good-bye,” and the weighing of anchor was done “simultaneously but without communicating with each other.” He calls it “the way Uncle Sam does things during war times.” This emphasis on silence and precision recurs throughout the excerpts: the click of machinery, the absence of whistles, the automatic turning of prows. Trueblood’s prose mirrors this methodical quality—he reports what happened without embellishment, letting the details accumulate. His voice is that of a participant who values order and competence, and who records the process as much as the event.

A Soldier’s Taxonomy of Battle

Trueblood organizes his observations into categories that reflect his role in the Flash Ranging Service. He distinguishes between types of artillery by range and effect, explains the timing of barrages, and notes that the information for targeting came from “Flash and Sound Ranging sections.” His description of the German star shells is paired with an explanation of their tactical purpose, showing how he reads enemy actions as signals. The passage on the infantry advance is similarly analytical: he corrects the popular image of a mass charge with a precise description of spaced lines. This taxonomic approach—breaking down complex events into their components—is the habit of a man trained to observe flashes and sounds and translate them into coordinates. It gives the memoir a distinctive, practical texture.

Trueblood’s narrative is valuable not for its literary polish but for its unadorned specificity. He records what he saw—the serpent-tongue flashes, the silent departure, the thin lines of infantry—without imposing a larger meaning. Readers interested in the mechanics of WWI artillery, the daily experience of a support service, or the voice of an enlisted man who wrote for himself will find this account direct and informative. The memoir is best read as a primary document, one that preserves the observations of a soldier who paid close attention.

The rain drummed on the roof while I read about the silent flash-cutters on the French front, their lonely math against the dark. It left a curious hollowness, a quiet need for something closer to home. That brought me to Their Crimes — Reading Companion, almost without thinking. Different war, same stillness after the report.