nnouncement of the United States' diplomatic break with
Germany.

Momentum was gained as reports of disaster and wilful acts followed
with increasing rapidity. The sinking of American vessels disclosed a
ruthlessness of method that was gravely condemned in President
Wilson's message of armed-neutrality, only to be followed by acts of
more wilful import--finally evoking the proclamation, April 6, 1917,
declaring a state of war in existence between the United States and
the Imperial German government.

Clear and loud war's alarm rang throughout the United States. All
activity centered in the selection of a vast army to aid in the great
fight for democracy. Plans were promulgated with decision and
preciseness. On June 5th, 1917, ten millions of Americans between the
ages of 21 and 31 years, among the number being several hundred who
were later to become associated with Battery D, of the 311th F. A.,
registered for military service.

The war department issued an order, July 13, 1917, calling into
military service 678,000 men, to be selected from the number who
registered on June 5th. Days of conjecture followed. Who would be
called first?

July 20th brought forth the greatest lottery of all time. The drawing
of number 258 by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker started the list of
selective drawings to determine the order of eligibility of the young
men in the 4,557 selective districts in the United States.

War's preparations moved rapidly. Selective service boards, with due
deliberation, made ready for the organization of the selective
contingents. While the boards toiled and the eligible young men went
through the process of examination, resulting in acceptance or
rejection, officials of the war department were planning the camps.

Battery D and the 311th Field Artillery were in the stages of
organization but plans of military housing had to mature before the
young men who were to form the organization, could be inducted into
service, thereby bringing to official light The Delta of the Triple
Elevens.

CHAPTER II.

A CAMP BELCHED FORTH.

On that eventful day in 1914, when the war clouds broke over Europe,
the farmers of Anne Arundel county, Maryland, in the then peaceful
land of the United States, toiled with their ploughshares under the
glisten of the bright sun; content with their lot of producing more
than half of the tomato crop of the country; content to harvest their
abundant crops of strawberries