HISTORY
of
THE 308th INFANTRY
By
L. Wardlaw Miles
Chapter 5
The Vesle
CHAPTER V
The Vesle
THE usual soldier in the A. E. F. knew little of the War
beyond his immediate surroundings. Even when not in
danger, his life was a constantly busy and exacting one.
For these reasons it is probable that the dates of June
1st and July 18th, if remembered at all by the individual
member of the 308th Infantry, will be remembered in
connection with some personal experience in Flanders and
Lorraine rather than with the stand of the Americans at
Chateau-Thierry and the subsequent blow delivered by
Americans and French which struck the west side of the
Crown Prince's salient then threatening Paris. Yet some
news of these larger happenings did reach us. In the
little second-story room of Regimental Headquarters
facing the quiet town square of Neuf Maisons, Colonel
Averill assembled such of the officers as could be
reached and announced the good news, adding:
"Gentlemen, this is the beginning of the end. The
Boche is through! " An unsubstantiated but credible
report declares the Colonel to have received the news
with a characteristic introductory expression, adding,
"I knew all along our boys would give them
Hell!"
Such news did
doubtless exercise a certain effect on the Regiment's
morale. As we marched back from the foothills of the
Vosges, through the shattered little Lorraine villages,
we could know if we stopped to think, which usually we
did not have time to do-that our part in the big drama
was advancing rapidly. The prologue had been the training
with the British, the first act, the Lorraine sector. Now
arose the inevitable speculations, accompanying movement
from one area to another, as to the scene on which the
curtain would next rise.
Near Rozelieures,
with its twelfth century church, close beneath which
clustered the usual red roofs, the 3rd Battalion enjoyed
some training in open order formations. Here the men that
understood French heard from the lips of the village
fathers how Napoleon had won a bloody battle in the
streets in defense of the famous Trouee de Charmes. And
here too arrived mail from home.
On this march from
the Vosges each battalion again had its own transport,
and the entraining at Charmes on August 7th was
accomplished in record time. The first sealed orders
given to the regimental or battalion officers in command
of trains showed Hesdin near Montdidier as the detraining
point, but the general skepticism prevailing is well
reflected in Major Chinner's diary of this date:
"Having heard of these camouflaged orders before, we
are not betting any too freely on that being our
destination." As a matter of fact, it was upon
arrival at La Ferte Gaucher, in the Marne country about
forty miles east of Paris and twenty south of
Chateau-Thierry, that train commanders received, on the
afternoon of the 8th, Divisional Orders to detrain and
march their commands to the area near Jouy sur Morin,
where Regimental and Brigade Headquarters had been
already established. At La Ferte Gaucher some of the
Regiment saw for the first time a hospital train loaded
with American wounded. British and French hospital trains
we all had seen before. We did not know that in eight
days many of us would be returning ourselves from the
Vesle to the hospital trains at Chateau-Thierry; nor did
we know that even while we were detraining the English,
Canadians, and Australians were breaking through between
Albert and Nareuil. It was August 8, 1918, which was to
be later described by General Ludendorff as "the
black day of the German army in the history of the
War."
2
Next day equipment was checked up. Officers of the Regimental and
Battalion Staffs and Company Commanders
were ordered to Brigade Headquarters at Jouy where
General Johnson gave instructions on open warfare in
general and the correct methods of suppressing enemy
machine gun nests in particular. The men found the rest
very welcome after more than a week of travel, but as
usual it was soon over. Between 2 and 3 o'clock on the
hot afternoon of the 10th, the whole Regiment took busses
near Jouy to begin a memorable journey toward the front.
Each one of the long column of light blue carnions held
16 men and their packs and was driven by a skillful brown
Annamite driver. The road lay through beautiful and
historic country that had been fought over again and
again in the history of France. Crossing the Petit Morin,
it traversed the area where the British had retreated
during the first battle of the Marne. At this little
river the Highland Light Infantryl with whom our 2nd
Battalion was brigaded in Flanders' had four years
earlier struggled desperately to help check the first
great German drive of 194.
At Chezy the
camions crossed the Marne and followed the right bank of
the river to Chateau-Thierry. Here two months earlier had
fought our own 2nd and 3rd Divisions. On all sides
appeared evidences of the high water mark left by the
recently ebbed tide of the Crown Prince's army; and just
as high water leaves its mark along a wall, so the sides
of the houses showed the line where the machine gun
bullets had played. The town was still full of German
signs of various military character with the names of the
streets in German. From Chateau-Thierry we started north.
In addition to the shattered buildings, the shell holes,
some of huge dimension, were particularly impressive. And
the dust. No one will probably dispute the entry in one
diary: "This ride will be long remembered because of
the great quantities of dust which each member of the
Division consumed."
Early in the
evening the Regiment debussed near the little city of
Fere-en-Tardenois, which like everything seen that day
had been heavily shelled. Then a march to the woods west
of the town where all hands were soon asleep.
According to Major
Chinner's diary: "The woods in which we moved late
at night were found to be full of dead horses and some
Huns. " Proportions differed doubtless in different
parts of the woods. Many other evidences of the recent
German occupation were at hand. In a house in
Fere-en-Tardenois the writer picked up a copy of a recent
issue of "Fliegende Blatter" and, on a field
near our encampment, a spotless sheet of one of
Beethoven's symphonies. A stray newspaper recounted
instances of brutal cruelty shown by American officers.
About the fields unexploded gas shells lay in dangerous
profusion. Elsewhere were quantities of regularly stacked
shells which the enemy had not had time to carry away. On
the fringe of the woods lay skillfully built pits for the
light German machine guns that had cost our troops so
many lives. Large stores of bottled mineral water proved
a welcome find.
On August 11th,
battalion practice in open order formations provided some
admirable training, although this was for some of us
unfortunately the first and only Occasion of the kind. On
the same day a reconnaissance Of the position to be taken
by the Regiment in the Dole Woods, about four kilometers
to the north, was made by General Johnson, Colonel
Averill, Major Budd, and an officer from each company of
the 2nd Battalion. Next morning at dawn 2nd Battalion
Headquarters with E and F Companies marched to this new
position in the Dole woods. G and H following later
arrived at. 5:30 P.m. As the transport was still en route
from Jouy sur .Morin the Battalion had no wagons, but
fortunately through Battalion Adjutant Lieutenant Kidde's
efforts several were borrowed from a detachment of French
troops nearby.
At 6:30 P.m., August 12th, Major Budd received from Major
Richardson, Division Machine Gun Officer, a copy of the
Division Order to the Commanding General, 154th Brigade
(Time 3:30 P.m., Division Headquarters) instructing him
to report to the Commanding General, I53rd Brigade, and
to move his Battalion to Ville Savoye, some seven
kilometers ahead by 10 o'clock that night. The Battalion
had just settled down according to platoon positions,
packs had been unrolled, and suppers started, when the
unexpected order arrived in the Dole woods. Major Budd
and the four Company Commanders, McMurtry, Kiefer, Bush
and Kane, at once started in General Wittemneyer's car to
report to him at Chery Chartreuve. The general designated
Colonel Winnia of the 305th Infantry to guide the
officers on foot over the five kilometers of road, which
led through Mont St. Martin to Ville Savoye. The officers
accordingly preceded the 2nd Battalion which was left in
command of Lieutenant Griffiths. Considerable gas lurked
in and about Mont St. Martin, a timely warning, if the
visitors had known it, of what was to come later.
Lieutenant Bush's bad knee compelled him to stop, but in
the gathering dusk the Battalion Commander and the other
three Company Commanders descended for the first time
that steep and memorable slope which led to the little
town of Ville Savoye, invariably called by the members of
the 308th " Villa-Savoy. "
Now for the first
time they saw from the slope above the town the valley of
the Vesle stretching to east and west, and now they made
observation of the commanding heights to the north held
by the Germans and for some time prepared by them as
their first strong line of resistance in case of a
withdrawal. There still lay unburied dead of the 4th
Division Infantry both in the path above Ville Savoye and
in the town itself-grim witnesses who being dead yet
spoke of the difficulties of the position.
The officers with
some difficulty located the units of the 305th to be
relieved, and then awaited the arrival of their
companies. Meanwhile the shelling with high explosives
and gas of Ville Savoye and of the cross roads at Chery
Chartreuve and Mont St. Martin began about 8:30 P.m. At
10 P.m. appeared the head of the Battalion in single
file, at five paces interval, with Lieutenant Griffiths
and the Battalion scouts in the lead. Shelling continued
until about 11:30 P.m., and it was some time after that
before the 2nd Battalion finally settled for the night in
positions on the support line.
This support
position on the Red Line (later we learned how
appropriate was the color!) was destined to become
distressingly familiar to members of the Regiment during
the next two weeks. Although this line was about two and
a half kilometers from the front positions north of the
Vesle, it was subjected like the town of Ville Savoye
itself to constant and accurate shelling. It is true that
the funk holes once reached afforded a protection from
high explosive shells other than direct hits; but besides
the possibility of a direct hit, there was also the
constant menace of gas. Meanwhile the company kitchens
were brought up and placed in positions which seemed
comparatively safe. The danger from the smoke of the
kitchens was made as small as possible, and the hot meals
proved of great comfort in the introduction to this very
active sector.
The 2nd Battalion suffered a number of casualties in taking up its first
position. Others followed. The American batteries stationed behind the
infantry continued firing day and night. Late on the afternoon of the
13th, the enemy fire became particularly heavy and accurate. A battery
just behind Company H was silenced by a direct hit. On the following day
the reconnaissance, made by the Battalion Commander and other Battalion
Officers, was complimented by receiving the individual attention of
several of the enemy's 77's. On this night came the order for our 2nd
Battalion to relieve the 3rd Battalion of the 305th Infantry at the
front, two companies, E and F, to take the position north of the
Vesle River and two companies, G and H, to be held south
of the river in support. Heavy shelling covered Mont St.
Martin, and as the terrain from this point forward was
without any shelter whatever, the result was very bad.
Those troops which did succeed in reaching the
neighborhood of Ville Savoye found the town and the whole
of the river valley drenched with gas so that it was
necessary for all to put on masks. The fact that some of
the 305th guides had difficulty in finding their way
caused additional trouble.
The Battalion Commanders of the
305th Infantry decided to leave their battalions in position as the
whole of the relief had not been completed. Two companies effected the
relief that night and the other two, together with Company D of the
306th Machine Gun Battalion, on the following night, August 15th. At
this time the enemy subjected the 2nd Battalion to an even more severe
gas bombardment than that of the three previous nights. The gas
casualties proved less severe in companies E and F, on the railroad
and north of the railroad across the river, than in the
support companies, G and H near Ville Savoye. Battalion
Headquarters in the town and H Company just south of it
suffered most severely. It was necessary to move the
Headquarters three times on account of the gas
concentration.
3
The designated position, calling for two companies north
of the Vesle and two companies near Ville Savoye, was
taken over by the 2nd Battalion from two battalions of
the 305th Infantry, and by them in turn from a Regiment
of the 4th Division. From a military standpoint, the
situation was a difficult and unusual one. One platoon of
G Company was on the railroad to the south of Chateau du
Diable and a liaison patrol of F at the Tannery near
Fismes. Captain McMurtry with E Company along the
railroad cut, and Lieutenant Kiefer with F Company at the
ChAteau du Diable and in the woods nearby, had to resist
enemy attacks from the north and east. The Germans held a
strong machine gun position at the crossing of the
railroad and the Soissons-Rheims road. Thus they were
able to enfilade most of the railroad track with machine
gun fire from both the east and the west. Enemy machine
guns in Bazoches, west -of the 308th's sector, also
commanded our positions while his artillery held
excellent positions on the more elevated north side of
the Vesle River. The stream itself was full of barbed
wire and at all points known at the time unfordable. A
heavy log with a hand rail allowing one man to cross at a
time was used.
The orders received
by the 308th on taking the position stated that it was
"to hold the bridge head," but there was no
road leading to a bridge nor any bridge or the remnants
of any. Finding then that but two companies were on the
far side of an unfordable stream; finding no bridge head
to hold as ordered; and believing the losses of the
leading battalion unnecessary, Colonel Averill reported
these facts, requesting a rectification of the line as
the position had at that time become purely a defensive
or holding one.
Colonel Averill.
was now relieved on August 17th from command of the
Regiment and transferred to the 3rd Division, not to
rejoin us till after the Armistice. The justice and
wisdom of this action, which, as in other similar cases
at the time, was taken without allowing the victim the
satisfaction of an investigation, is to be questioned. He
was succeeded by Colonel A. F. Prescott.
An unfortunate and
apparently entirely erroneous impression existed at
Division and Brigade Headquarters, and therefore probably
at Corps and Army Headquarters, that the American line in
question ran from the Chateau du Diable eastward along
the Soissons-Rheims highway to the point where this
highway crossed the railroad. There is no evidence that
this line was ever held for an appreciable time by
American troops. It is a matter of record, however, that
the 305th Infantry took over the exact position held by
the 4th Division Regiment which they relieved, and that
the 2nd Battalion of our Regiment took over the exact
ground held by the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 305th
Infantry.
It should be
recorded here that during the gruelling days just described when the 2nd
Battalion took over and held this first position on the Vesle, Major
Budd and every officer and man in the Battalion received all possible
help and support from Colonel Averill, Captain Lindley, the Regimental
Adjutant, and Captain Whittlesey, the
Operations Officer. The splendid spirit of the Regiment
was further cemented by this strong cooperation.
The company which
had suffered most severely, both advancing to its new
position and subsequently holding it, was H. Of the 196
men estimated in the Company at the beginning of August
there were by the night of the 15th just six left,
including First Sergeant Raffo. All the rest had been
evacuated as gas or wound casualties, or were lying
helpless in the aid station as a result of gas.
Lieutenant Kane's eyes, like those of many others,
gradually closed until in the afternoon he could not see
at all. (Not a necessarily painful symptom, but from the
military point of view, a most inconvenient one.)
On the morning of
August 16th, Major Budd, badly gassed, was sent back
under protestation by order of the Regimental Surgeon,
and Captain McMurtry took command of the 2nd Battalion.
The Battalion Headquarters suffered very severely. The
single street of the ruined village ran down the exposed
slope, a direct target for enemy fire. The men of the
rapidly dwindling handful of runners, scouts, and signal
detachment who remained did gallant service volunteering
to carry canteens to the town pump in the village square
and there fill them and bring them back. Direct fire
covered every inch of that perilous journey. Nor should
the ambulance drivers be forgotten who made the trip down
the slope to the dressing station in the square and back
up again, carrying the gassed and wounded. Lieutenant
Griffiths was badly gassed and almost blind, but
continued to handle the message center at Battalion
Headquarters. The gas concentration became so impossible
that Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, arriving in Ville Savoye
on the afternoon of August 16th, ordered the Battalion
Headquarters moved from the cellar in the village to the
hillside above.
L Company, sent forward on the evening of the 16th to
take the place of G, took up a position on the hillside
near Battalion Headquarters, about 11:00 P.M. At 3: 00
A.M. this position received a severe shelling. A single
explosion killed Lieutenant Gard and mortally wounded
Lieutenant Case, of L Company. The following morning,
August 17th, there was a pause in the shelling of Ville
Savoye and the gas clouds lifted. 2nd Battalion
Headquarters was moved back into the cellar at the edge
of the town. About 2:00 P.M. the town was treated to a
severe shelling, and again the gas clouds covered
everything. One bright spot in the chronicle of those
dark days is the capture of our first German prisoner by
Lieutenant MacDougall, who had succeeded to the command
of Company E, at the railroad cut, and who tells the
story this way:
It was while holding this position (in the railroad cut
across the Vesle River) on August 17th, at 8 P.m. that I,
personally, captured the first prisoner credited to the
Division. (The 307th claim this distinction erroneously.
They claim to have captured the first prisoner of war on
August 18th during their attack on Bazoches.) I recall
this incident very well. I have the blonde German youth's
cigarette case as a souvenir of the occasion. My men,
ninety-six was all I had, were standing to," because
of the fact that they were so few in numbers it was
necessary to place them about twenty feet apart. About 8
o'clock and just at dusk I was attracted to the level of
the railroad cut by a rustling in the bushes out in
front. Catching a glimpse of a crouching form, and with
no time to draw my pistol I grabbed and pulled a very
much-terrorized Boche down the side of the cut to the
railroad tracks below, assisted by Sergeant Powers. The
Division's first prisoner was taken and proved to be the
leader of a combat patrol of eight men, some of the
number carrying tanks of liquid fire. They retreated when
they heard the startling cry of their leader. I recall
his wanting to know when he would be shot. After being
assured he had twenty minutes to live, he attempted to
bribe us by giving valuable information concerning the
enemy positions as far as he knew. After stripping him of
his gun and equipment, including four hand grenades of
the " potato masher " type, one of which he was
in the act of getting ready to throw when caught, he was
sent to the rear in charge of Sergeant Powers who turned
him over to Regimental Headquarters where his story
checked up favorably against the Regimental intelligence
report.
On the night of August 18th, the 2nd Battalion, commanded
by Captain McMurtry, was relieved by the 3rd Battalion,
commanded by Major Chinner, and F and E relinquished
their positions north of the river to I and K
respectively. M was divided with part on the wooded crest
northeast of Villesavoye and part in the Tannery. L
Company, as already stated, had relieved G two days
earlier. It was just before the relief of F Company that
Lieutenant Griffiths with a patrol of six men from L, was
ordered to get information of the unit on our right, with
the parting words of comfort, "Stay until you get
it, even if you never come back. " Griffiths did get
it and did come back. And for getting it, he also got the
D. S. C.
Meanwhile, the 1st
Battalion had been having its own troubles on the Red
Line to which, like the 2nd, it had marched on the 14th
from the woods near Mareuil-en--Dole. Captain
Breckinridge commanded the Battalion, the Company
Commanders being Captain Harvey, Lieutenant Miles,
Captain Fahnestock, and Captain Brooks of A, B, C, and D
respectively. The position was taken under shell fire
with two casualties in Company B, and fairly constant
shelling followed during the next five days. After a
mustard gas attack, Lieutenant Morse and forty-eight men
were evacuated from B. Captain Fahnestock was sent back
with a shrapnel wound in the arm. Direct hits on funk
holes accounted for other casualties. On the evening of
the 21St, the Battalion Commander and Company Commanders
went forward to make reconnaissance, prior to the relief
of the 3rd Battalion by the 1st. A runner guided these
officers to the new location of Battalion Headquarters, a
cave on the road to Ville Savoye. While standing for a
few minutes at the entrance to the cave, at about 10
P.m., the group came under direct shell fire. Captain
Brooks, Lieutenant Lederle, Adjutant of the 3rd
Battalion, Lieutenant Lusk, Gas Officer of the 3rd
Battalion, and Lieutenant Graham, Liaison Officer for the
Artillery, with two enlisted men, names unknown, were all
killed instantly. Lieutenants Adams and Blackwell were
wounded, the former severely, and other officers badly
shaken up. This event interfered with the reconnaissance,
which should have been made to expedite the relief of the
3rd Battalion. It was later in the same evening that the
Tannery was completely taken over without casualties by
Company M's outpost on the extreme right. This occurred
coincidentally with the attack on Bazoches by the 306th
Infantry on our left.
It was on this same day of many
losses that the Battalion Intelligence
Officer at the front tried to get Regimental
Headquarters at Chery Chartreuve in order to ask for
additional runners.
" Just a
minute please," answered Captain Lindley in a low
voice. "Call up again; I can't talk to you now.
"
A direct hit by a combination high explosive and gas
shell had just registered on the Regimental P. C.
Pass-ing through the ceiling, it had burst in the office
rigged up for the Operations and Intelligence Staff.
Corporal Harry A. Goodman, of Brooklyn, a lawyer and
formerly employed in the State Department in Washington,
was seated at the typewriter on which he had worked so
faithfully ever since the days at Upton, and was
finishing a field order which had just been dictated to
him by Captain Whittlesey. A piece of shrapnel struck him
in the groin, almost severing his leg from the trunk. No
one knew he was wounded until he was seen crawling along
on hands and knees to the dugout in which the telephone
switchboard was located; he was rushed to the 307th Field
Hospital at Fere-en-Tardenois, but died there
immediately. Corporal Rose and two runners from the 37th
Division, and Lieutenant Wood, Signal Officer, and
Lieutenant Fisher, Munitions Officer, as well as
Sergeant-Major Murray, all suffered from gas and shock.
Lieutenant Fisher was at the time waiting for the order
from Division Headquarters to send him back to the United
States as an instructor. Fortunately he was out of the
hospital again and in a few days on his way to the port
of debarkation.
On a similar though
less fatal occasion a few days earlier, the shell-torn
house in which the Regimental Band was billeted, also
received a hit, and several of the men were wounded
though none very severely. It was then that a sudden call
on the telephone at Regimental Headquarters announced
that "the whole band was lost."
"What?"
inquired the Adjutant.
"Yes, every
damned instrument has been smashed and Several men
wounded! What shall I do? "
For once the ever
ready Adjutant was unable to find a satisfactory answer.
The idea of replacing a complete set of military band
instruments at that place and time had a humorous
suggestion absent from most of the experiences of the
period.
Severe as were the
losses of the 308th on the 21st of August, those of the
next day were to prove even heavier. After the shelling
in which Captain Brooks and the others were killed, there
was comparative quiet until about 3: 30 A.M. Then about
dawn came a particularly severe barrage of high
explosives without gas, followed in about twenty minutes
by attacks on Companies I and K in their positions north
of the river. Fierce fighting at close quarters followed
immediately for the men in I. The solitary German who got
through K Company's fire of rifles, chauchats, and hand
grenades, was killed by Private Spinella, who, it is
said, first used the butt of his own chauchat and then
finished with the enemy's bayonet. Company I, as was
later learned from prisoners, was attacked by four
companies of Baden troops accompanied by a detachment of
pioneers with flame-throwers. These flamenwerfer did
considerable damage, though it is supposed that all
belonging to this command were killed by the men of I
Company with the exception of those who were burned to
death by their own hands through getting the nozzles of
their machines entangled in the heavy underbrush of the
swamp.
4
The engagement on August 22nd of Company I, under Captain
Harrington, and of Company K, under Captain Frothingham,
in their positions beyond the Vesle was one of the
severest experienced by the 308th Infantry.
The following vivid account of Company I's engagement is
furnished by Lieutenant Langstaff of the 4th platoon:
The fight grew hotter especially in our rear, I called in
Sergeant Riley's post, because it was too far away to
control. I sent runners to Lieutenant Fowler, only one of
whom returned with news that he was safe and putting up a
hard fight on his front. Men straggled in from the 3rd
platoon and reported that it had been split by the enemy
in overwhelming numbers and had fallen back on the 4th
and 2nd platoons. Lieutenant Galligan joined Lieutenant
Fowler.
Many a brave deed
was done that day. Acting Corporal Stein, a New York
ladies' hat manufacturer, saved his platoon at one time
by rushing out alone to an extreme flank with a chauchat
and putting out of commission a Boche machine gun that
was about to enfilade Lieutenant Fowler's line. Private
Bologna, a New York bootblack, covered the retirement of
Sergeant Riley's post, turning and firing his chauchat
from his shoulder, mowing down a file of Germans pursuing
his detail along a narrow pathway. Private Comarelli, a
day laborer, insisted on keeping up fire from the path
over my dugout, although four little red spots on his
buttocks showed that a machine gun bullet had threaded
its way in and out of him four times. Only rough handling
could get him up to have his wounds dressed. My own
striker, Private Arzano, a candy maker at home, was sent
out with Private Ward to find men of the 3rd who were
crying out down in the valley somewhere. An enemy machine
gun did for Danny Ward, splendid fellow that he was, and
caught Arzano three times in the right shoulder. As soon
as he reported back, I ordered his wound dressed for fear
of infection of the joint. He would have none of it till
he had killed a couple of Huns. When it was dressed he
refused to leave me. Sergeants Carter and Riley did
wonderful work tearing about encouraging their men and
engineering a coup whereby we annihilated a platoon of
Boches marching over an open field in platoon front
formation, with rifles slung.
Then word came that
the first platoon with Lieutenant Morey had been
overwhelmed and captured. Smiling little Connell had been
overlooked under the dirt of a caved-in trench and wire,
and scrambled out later, and made a record sprint from
his pursuers to Company Headquarters. So much for our
poor right flank. Word came from Captain Frothingham (of
K) that he was retiring to the Vesle to prevent the
Germans from cutting him off. So much for our left flank.
We could hear firing in our rear, as well as in our
midst. So much for our rear.
Captain Harrington
repeatedly called on Battalion Headquarters, but as I
said before, Battalion Headquarters and Company L were
too far away to be of much service to us in our
predicament. There seemed no help for it but to fight our
way back to the Vesle, and keep our enemies in front of
us only.
In the meantime, Company K was also vigorously engaged.
Although the liquid fire was used less upon it, one jet
penetrated the shelter which housed Company Headquarters.
Private Van Duzer, who was on liaison duty, received
severe burns about the face and body. To quote from an
account by Sergeant Arthur Robb:
Van Duzer's life was saved by Private Rosenthal of I
Company, who threw him into a pool of water, but Van
Duzer's thoughts were not of his own life.
Without helmet or
gas mask, hatless and coatless, his face already
blistering from the flame, he made his way through the
woods to K Company's Headquarters to tell Captain
Frothingham that I Company, though badly cut up, was
still holding the line. He was barely able to deliver the
message and Captain Frothingham. ordered instant first
aid, despite the fact that his own posts had suffered
heavily during the barrage. Wound in endless thicknesses
of gauze, Van Duzer started back through the woods toward
the aid station in Villesavoye, but was gone only a
moment when he came back breathless:
"Captain,"
he gasped, "there's a dozen Dutchmen in the woods
back of you!"
"We'll get
them," was the laconic reply, and the words were
scarcely spoken before Lieutenant Robinson and four men
crossed the tracks and climbed the bank into the woods,
without waiting for orders. Van Duzer ran with them and
indicated where the Germans had been.
Private Henry Lang,
who was one of the party, speaks German and raised his
voice in a call to surrender, which was answered by the
appearance of a young Boche who wanted to know whether he
would be killed. He was assured that Americans don't kill
prisoners, and disclosed the fact that several of his
comrade were in the woods. They were found and marched to
the railroad track in their favorite "Kamerad"
attitude, led by a sergeant-major, who disclosed the fact
that the attack had been made by a battalion, with orders
to drive the American outposts beyond the Vesle River
before 4: 45 A.M. It was a regular raiding party,
equipped with light machine guns, hand grenades and
flame-throwers. All the prisoners had been told that
capture by the Americans meant instant death, and in
their gratitude at being spared, they turned out their
pockets, furnishing an abundance of souvenirs, among
which was a large package of British cigarettes.
Reinforcements
arrived from Company L about this time, after a
nerve-wracking trip through Ville Savoye in which two men
were injured by shell fire, and the prisoners were sent
back to Headquarters and the wounded evacuated.
Sergeant Reusse,
one of the few remaining noncommissioned officers of
Company K, was killed during the barrage. He was the only
man hit in his section of the line, but the platoons on
the right and left, as well as the platoon from Company C
of the 306th Machine Gun Battalion, suffered severe
losses, several men being mortally wounded. About thirty
of the seventy-nine effectives of Company K were
evacuated with more or less serious hurts.
Later in the day both Companies I and K were again
suddenly enfiladed from the flanks. They then fell back
to the river bank some one hundred and fifty yards in the
rear. About eight o'clock Company A under Captain Harvey
took over the sector of both I and K. I and K then
withdrew to the ravine near Ville Savoye and awaited
orders.
5
Meanwhile, back in the support line, came news that the
3rd Battalion companies at the front had been forced back
across the Vesle. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon Captain
Breckinridge reported at Division Headquarters, according
to orders, where General Johnson outlined a plan of
bombing attack along the railroad. Captain Breckinridge
drew attention to the fact that his Battalion had only
about four hundred effectives left, that they had been
under continuous and severe shell fire for a period of
eight days, had suffered heavy casualties from gas and
sickness, were without hand grenades or rifle grenades,
and with no signal apparatus or pyrotechnics; further
that half of the officers had been lost through death,
wounds, transfer or sickness. He suggested that an attack
in the nature described should in his opinion be made by
at least a thousand fresh men. Captain Breckinridge then
went to Brigade Headquarters, where he received a
telephone message saying that the orders had been changed
and that he should wait at Brigade Headquarters until 6
o'clock, when Colonel Houghton, Division Machine Gun
Officer, would meet him to go over the situation as
changed. At that hour Colonel Houghton outlined the new
plan of attack. This was to take place at midnight.
Captain Breckinridge got back
to the support position between 9 and 10 P.m. and called the officers of
the Battalion
together. Their instructions were outlined and they were
directed to mobilize their companies and start for Ville
Savoye, picking up on the way certain guides at the old
German hangars, west of Mont St. Martin. About ii o'clock
a telephone message from Lieutenant-Colonel Smith
countermanded all previous orders and said nothing was to
be done until the receipt of further ones. The companies
then stood fast until I A.M. (of the 23rd) when word was
received that the original orders of the previous
afternoon were reinstated and that the Battalion
Commander would proceed to operate under them. The lack
of hand grenades and other equipment was again pointed
out, and Captain Breckinridge explained that his
Battalion was disposed over two kilometers of front, and
that it would be impossible in his opinion to give the
orders to company officers, mobilize the troops, march
them three or four kilometers, and dispose them again
over so wide a front while making attack over unknown
terrain in less than five hours time. The orders were
however issued, Colonel Prescott agreeing to attempt to
delay the barrage for one hour, that is from 3:17 to 4:17
A.M.
Desperate efforts
were made to keep up with this new schedule. Inevitable
confusion and delay, however, accompanied the moving out.
The scouts had to be returned to their companies because
there was no Scout Officer to look after them. It was
after 3:30 when the advance companies reached the
crossroads in the fields south of the hangars. Lieutenant
Lewis, Adjutant of the 1st Battalion, crawled into a
ditch and wriggling under a foot bridge, used an
opportune telephone station to notify Regimental
Headquarters that it would be absolutely impossible to
make the attack on scheduled time.
"Tell
Breckinridge to do the best he can," telephoned back
Colonel Smith. And that was what theist Battalion did-the
best that any troops could do in the chaotic
circumstances.
The experience of the writer, as Commander of Company B,
may be taken as more or less typical of the general
perplexities and difficulties of the situation-the sort
of thing which taught the innocent novice that war was a
business no less messy than murderous. According to the
orders, one platoon of the company was to attack across
the Vesle at the Tannery as soon as the barrage lifted.
On receipt of the order I sent this platoon off under
Lieutenant Ginter. A little later came another order
delaying the barrage one-hour. Immediately I sent runners
forward to catch Ginter and notify him of the change.
They returned having failed to reach him. I proceeded in
person to the front, leaving the company under command of
Lieutenant Sewall. It was now my fear that Ginter would
make his attack at the earlier hour and therefore without
help from either barrage or other attacking forces. I
finally reached him near the front and found to my great
relief that he had not yet started. He, on his part,
apologized for the fact that he had lost some of his
platoon in the darkness, and thus had not been able to
advance at the scheduled time. I told him of the changed
hour of attack, and then re-turned to the rest of B
Company. As a matter of fact when Ginter did attack at
the postponed hour, he did so with neither barrage
support nor support from the other companies, since these
had not yet arrived at the front.
It was an hour
before the rest of the attack that Ginter carried out his
orders. With the half of the platoon, which remained with
him, he plunged into the Vesle and made his way across.
In the mist on the other bank they saw some figures.
Supposing these to be members of Company C engaged in the
attack, they called out to them. A volley of fire was the
answer. Ginter with a detachment of ten men had run right
into a superior number of the enemy and though they
fought as best they could with rifles and chauchats,
which had suffered in the crossing of the river, they
were soon dispersed, being either captured, wounded or
killed. Sergeant Kimball and several others were lost in
this attack. It was not till three months later that
while lying in the hospital in Paris I chanced to see in
the newspaper that Ginter was still living. He and four of the men had
been captured and taken to a German
prison camp. 11 Some forty-five men in all had made the
attack with Ginter and of these only six apparently
survived. Private Sugarman, after lying wounded between
the lines for five days, finally worked his way back to
the Americans.
To return now to
the other companies. One platoon of C Company, under
Lieutenant Schenck, became confused in the darkness while
making its way through Ville Savoye to attack across the
Vesle and then if possible to extend up the railroad
track to the east, and connect with B Company at the
Tannery. A detachment from this platoon took refuge in
the cellar of the ruined church, while the Sergeant in
command tried vainly to get in touch with some one from
the company. Lieutenant Sheridan, however, took two
platoons from C Company and decided to carry out his
orders regardless of whether the rest of the company was
in position to attack. With the assistance of Captain
Harvey and the A Company men, who had been sent forward
the day before to rein-force the 3rd Battalion, Sheridan
went ahead. He is said to have turned and to have
remarked in characteristic fashion to some one near him,
"Well, I expect this is going to be a real Irish
Wake." He fought his way nearly to the railroad
track and then fell mortally wounded by machine gun
bullets to die a few hours later. The losses of the
attacking party now became so heavy that Captain Harvey
again retired to the south side of the river. D Company
under Lieutenant Knight, although late in arriving at the
scene of the attack, had managed to keep all four
platoons together, and in broad daylight, more than two
hours after the barrage had started across the valley,
began its advance toward the objective on the extreme
left of the attacking line.
Captain
Breckinridge established his Battalion P. C. on the slope
south of Ville Savoye. At 8: 30 A.M., orders came from
Colonel Prescott putting Major Chinner in command of the
operation. Lieutenant-Colonel Smith came up to the P. C.
to take supervision of the entire outpost zone, including
both battalions. Major Chinner and Captain Breckinridge
then went down to the river to direct the attack
personally. There were many casualties from machine gun
fire and whizzbang barrages, which raked the marshes
along the river. Fighting continued all day. By nightfall
practically all of the ground had been regained and our
outpost line was nearly back in its original position.
More than one hundred casualties had been cared for in
the dressing station at the cave. Carrying the wounded to
this point under direct observation from the enemy
provided a difficult task, and it was while acting as
stretcher bearers that several of the finest soldiers in
the Battalion were wounded. Lieutenant Feldman, Medical
Officer in charge at the cave, was much handicapped by
lack of bandages and dressings. After dark, ambulances
ran up from Mont St. Martin to fetch the severely
wounded.
During the night,
the line was pushed still further across the railroad.
Combat troops were stationed in the direction of the
crossroads, and also in the direction of Chateau du
Diable and the northerly and westerly borders of the
woods in which the Chateau was situated. The left flank
was sharply refused and combat groups were established,
commanding the railroad and railroad cut. Through the
next two days, the 24th and 25th, the position was held
while the troops along the river were subjected to
constant surveillance from German aeroplanes and to heavy shell fire.
The Battalion P. C. caught some terrific barrages which brought
casualties among the runners and signal men. Details for ammunition had of course to
cross the open fields to Mont St. Martin. Emergency
rations were brought up on the afternoon of the 24th and
rushed down to the companies at the forward outpost line.
The combination of coffee and canned heat was comforting.
Father Halligan and a detail of three men succeeded after
several attempts in getting the bodies of Captain Brooks
and the others away from the mouth of the cave, and
buried them in the side of the hill.
Officers of the 2nd
Battalion, 307th Infantry, made a reconnaissance on the
25th, and that night this Battalion marched forward from
the Red Line to relieve us. Just as this was being done,
an artillery barrage on the slope where the Battalion P.
C. was situated, caused the death of three officers and
several men of the incoming troops.
At the same time
there occurred a heavy thunder shower, and in certain
cases, men confused by the claps of thunder and flashes
of lightning failed to take cover when shells burst near
them.
The 1st Battalion
now marched back to the Bois de Pissotte. The command was
just beginning to enjoy its first freedom from shell
fire, in two weeks, and had devoted some three or four
hours to washing and sleeping, when by Regimental Order,
it was moved out at an hour's notice to bivouac in the
woods near Sergy.
In the preceding pages of this chapter, the attempt has
been made to give in comparatively bare narrative form
the succession of events, which befell the 308th Infantry
while dug in on the Vesle Sector from the 12th to the
25th of August. I do not think that the facts of the
situation and the moral to be derived from it could be
better stated than in these words of Captain Lewis:
From a tactical point of view, the campaign fought on the
Vesle suffers from comparison with the Chateau-Thierry
advance which began in July, with the subsequent advance
to the Aisne which removed our troops from the valley of
the Vesle on September 4th, and with the gigantic
operation of driving the Germans from the Forest of
Argonne during the four weeks which followed September
26th., Operations along the Vesle from August 4th to
Labor Day were not coordinated in the steady forward
progress of an offensive; neither is it correct to say
that our troops were on the defensive during this period.
. . .
As boxers with
hands tied behind their backs, absorbing punishment from
the fists of their opponents, the battalions on the Vesle
had to take over and hold by mere force of physical
occupancy positions taken from the Germans, when the
Chateau-Thierry drive lost its initial momentum and came
to a standstill in the face of determined opposition.
They could neither advance nor fall back to improve their
positions. The orders were to stick right there. And they
obeyed orders and stuck. To anyone who is at all familiar
with military fundamentals, it is evident that such a
predicament constitutes the most severe and
nerve-wracking test for recruit divi-sions made up of
troops freshly arrived from the so-called quiet sectors.
Herein is the
significance of the Vesle. It brought raw troops up to a
full stop as they cracked their helmets against the real
thing-modem warfare. Its waters figuratively seethed in a
great test tube from which untried troops were cast forth
three weeks later, a bit dazed and exhausted, but with
their mettle tempered and their morale strengthened. The
fibre of the heroic American stuff which stood the final
acid test in the Argonne was toughened by subjection to
terrible stress on the Vesle. For the first time, weary
officers and men realized the relationship between making
good and what the British Sergeant-Major in the bayonet
class had called "guts." For the first time
they were impressed with the violence of artillery
warfare with its high explosive shells and its gas shells
so effective in rendering a command ineffective, For the
first time it was brought home to puzzled minds under
mud-stained helmets that fighting the Huns, instead of
mean-ing what Tommy Atkins always called a " Push,
"-an advance which carried one forward almost
automatically in the splen-did impetus of attack,-might
mean, and in more instances did mean, existing for days
and nights like human prairie dogs; groveling in funk
holes which threatened to cave in from the concussion of
each recurring shell burst; suffering casualties and
being cruelly punished by an unseen enemy five miles
away. . . .
On the map it (the
Vesle River) is a narrow, crinkly double line, less
impressive than the broad black line with red dots to
mark the national highway north of it. On the ground . .
. it is a muddy, snake-like stream- with varying depth .
. . winding slowly a tortuous course through a country
that had been wooded before the combined destruction
poured forth from Allied and Teuton artillery reduced the
trees to sterile gaunt trunks devoid of foliage. In the
memory of the men who lived as rabbits in the huge warren
which the slopes south of its valley concealed, the Vesle
means something more than a river. There they underwent
their baptism of fire.
They approached its banks as recruit divisions. A month
later these same troops were chosen as veteran divisions
to participate in the drive through the Argonne. They had
arrived. At the very time of discouragement when they
feared that they were being shattered as fighting units,
they were, although they did not guess it, finding
themselves.'
For those who were present in the period described the
actual conditions will be supplied by memory; for others
who have not had the experience of similar campaigns, it
would be difficult to reproduce them. If Lorraine was a
sleepy old lion, who only rarely woke to stretch his
claws, the Vesle was some sort of a monster hell-cat
which scarcely for a moment ceased to spit and scratch,
and whose very breath was death. Hidden in its marshy
den, choked with wire and heavy with the stench of the
bodies of its earlier victims, the still unburied horses
and men, this monster lay at bay; and even the
satisfaction of attacking it was denied. It deserved the
name universally and affectionately bestowed by the
members of the 308th: The Hell Hole of the Vesle.
Perhaps the most
significant feature, and certainly one of the most
trying, was the shelling. One never knew when this might
begin. Other things being equal, it was most likely to
occur when the danger from it was greatest, as on the
occasion of making reliefs. Once in a funk hole, all
danger was removed except that of a direct hit, but there
were a number of these, when, of course, the shallow hole
in the ground afforded no protection whatever. Ration
parties like reliefs suffered particularly from the storm
of death which might at any moment burst from a perfectly
quiet sky. On the front line the whizzbangs were much in
evidence with their particularly loud and shattering
detonations. At times troops or individuals became the
target for direct fire from 77's, an experience
calculated to make the victim feel especially helpless.
Incidentally, I imagine that most individuals found
shelling much harder to bear when alone than in company
with others.
In the shelling both high explosives and gas were
employed, but the latter claimed the more victims. Indeed
the ever increasing menace and presence of gas was in a
way more hateful than the high explosive itself. The gas
employed in the barrage of June 22nd, at Badonviller, was
mostly chlorine and phosgene, the latter a vile and
sweetish stench. On the Vesle, we began also to learn the
smell as of rare, ripe onions which distinguished mustard
gas. Characteristic of the latter was its comparatively
slow action. Men who were unaware that they had been
exposed might hours later develop severe burns. Against
mustard gas masks, except for the protection of eyes and
lungs, were of course useless. Walking through the woods,
one might at any moment sniff the presence of this
invisible and sinister thing, since little pools of it
remained for days in cool damp spots. In the actual
valley of the Vesle it lay like an unseen but deadly lake
of death, beneath which the silent dwellings of the
wretched little town of Ville Savoye stood constantly
submerged.
A particularly
depressing feature was the smell of the unburied bodies
of horses and men, the latter for the most part, former
members of the 4th Division. A pleasanter heritage from
the same source came in the large amount of discarded
equipment and supplies at the front. The tins containing
coffee proved particularly welcome. The bodies mentioned
attracted innumerable flies, which would settle on
anything to eat and collect in vast numbers in the larger
funk-holes, cellars, and caves. When disturbed the sound
of their buzzing became remarkable. There was
considerable dysentery, though, so far as I know, not of
a virulent type. The water was doubtless accountable for
this, and the flies helped to spread it. The sense of
weakness and general wretchedness always produced by this
complaint was not accentuated by the constant presence of
danger for one's self and one's fellows. To watch the
daily tragedy purged the beholder with pity and terror as
well as with dysentery. A very real trial for many of the
officers lay in their sense of heavy responsibility. The
lives of men constantly de-pended on their judgment, and
their judgment was necessarily so often faulty. The
disposal of a platoon in one position instead of another
more wisely chosen a few hundred yards away might result
in the loss of numerous lives. And even if you went back
wounded to safer regions, this heavy sense of
responsibility was not left behind; for in your dreams it
was still with you- only more confused, importunate, and
unappeased than when you had felt it in waking hours.
In the conditions
described, men lived on day after day in a life which for
the most part curiously combined exposure to danger with
enforced inactivity, for No Man's Land, the unknown
country beyond the Vesle, could not be patroled as in
Lorraine. Therefore it assumed a still more mysterious
and sinister character. One watched the signals which
constantly went up by night and vaguely wondered what
they meant. Generally the familiar old three green stars
dropped slowly down, but at times all sorts of new ones,
portentous and vari-colored flares and rockets, went
popping along the horizon. At other times, the ominous
glare of great unknown fires7-supposedly enemy ammunition
dumps set on fire by our own artillery or purposely
destroyed before retirement-brightened the whole sky.
The constant
warning at all times was " Don't expose
yourself," and thus long periods were spent doing
nothing at all, lying the while in the funk-holes of
white clay (which got into everything including your
hair) waiting for something to happen. With relief
expected, the time of its arrival became the one
inevitable subject of conversation. Hope deferred made
the heartsick. When men, long exposed to such a period of
strain, fought as did the 3rd Battalion later near the
Aisne, it meant real staying power. Conditions on the
Vesle were bad, but not bad enough to break the spirit of
officers and men of the 308th.
7
The last two sections of this chapter will be devoted to
the time which elapsed before the Division left the Vesle
Sector, and in which the advance was made toward the
Aisne River. A brief respite came to the Regiment ,at the
end of August, when a few days were passed in rest
positions back in the Bois de Pisotte and in the Bois d'
Anicet near Sergy. Yet even this too was a busy time,
filled with much issue of equipment, drill and trench
digging. At this time only eleven line officers were left
for duty. On August 29th, the 2nd Battalion was sent
forward to the support position on the Old Red Line, in
the woods south of Mont St. Martin. Business was as
usual; that conditions continued much the same was
evidenced by the fact that the kitchen of Company B soon
received an almost direct hit, and that during a
particularly severe barrage on the morning of the 2nd,
another direct hit killed three privates of that company,
Asselle, Frost, and Weiner. The three bodies blown out of
the funk-hole were scarcely recognizable.
Nevertheless, there
was something new in the air besides shells and gas, and
that was increasing rumors of the enemy's withdrawal. The
2nd Battalion meanwhile took the front line and the 1st
the support position, and then, after more hard shelling
on September 3rd, the news came at last that the Germans
were actually in retreat! American observation balloons
were out in number to observe the event, and soon Captain
Harrington, now in command of the 3rd Battalion back on
the Blue Line, had received orders to follow in pursuit
at once. Late in the afternoon of the 4th, the troops
halted in the Bois de Faux on the St. Thibaut-Bazoches
road to receive an issue of iron rations and ammunition.
Toward evening, the Battalion passed through Ville Savoye
and thence across the swamps and the Vesle River, and so
through the old position on the railroad track.- All was
silent now. Crossing what had so long been the
mysterious and deadly No Man's Land, the troops saw
ample evidence of the fight of August 22nd. Right up the
hills on the north side of the Vesle from which the
German batteries had so long been firing, they went
without opposition.
Darkness fell and
the companies were ordered to dig in, some of them on the
old battleground itself. These orders had scarcely been
carried out before word came to fall in again on the
Soissons-Rheims road. Here packs were abandoned and the
Battalion set out in skirmish formation in a blinding
thunderstorm. Still without opposition, they marched all
night, resting at dawn for two hours. After a short
distance had been covered, the sound of shelling was
heard toward the right in the direction of
Blanzy-les-Fismes. The barbed wire entanglements of the
old German support lines were now reached, and the troops
continued on the road connecting Blanzy with Fismes.
Leaving this, they crossed the railroad until they
reached the brink of a steep valley. Here the Battalion,
formed in two waves with companies L and M in front,
followed by I and K, and with Battalion Headquarters
between the line, and proceeded down the cliff. The first
wave, slipping and clambering slowly from rock to rock,
had reached the bottom and had begun the upward ascent
when they were met with fire from unseen machine guns. In
the words of one observer present, "the first line
began to fade." Sergeant Rappolt of M Company was
killed, and there were a number of other casualties. It
was a rough and disorganizing experience. Those who were
not hit dropped to the ground, and the second wave which
had not yet finished the descent, was ordered back to the
top of the slope to be joined immediately by the first. A
number of men were lost as prisoners following this
repulse. Soon two German aeroplanes appeared, and their
red flares were promptly acknowledged by the enemy
artillery, which poured an intense fire into the ranks of
the Battalion, now holding a position on the sunken road
and on the railroad which had been crossed a short time
before. For several hours this artillery fire, of all
sizes, as well as the fire from the machine gun nests,
prevented any forward movement. Rations, however, were
brought from Blanzy and Companies L and M, after being
fed and reorganized, were sent forward to attack, leaving
I and K in support positions. Meanwhile a personal
reconnaissance by Major McNeill, now commanding the
Battalion, Lieutenant Robinson, and one of the sergeants
proved that the enemy had withdrawn from Serval. The
enemy artillery had by this time ceased, and the troops
on the left and right of the 3rd Battalion had begun to
advance. The 307th Infantry on the right was engaged with
the enemy south of Merval; the 306th on the left, south
of Barbonval.
The 3rd Battalion now pushed through the gap which had
been located in the enemy's line, and followed the trail
running north from Serval through the wooded draw.
"Lieutenants McDougall and Robinson led the advance
party in the darkness. The men were so tired that when we
had to halt for a few minutes to reconnoiter the road,
more than half would fall asleep and had to be kicked to
awaken them." On reaching the broad road running
into Merval, the enemy's flares and Very lights first
showed his presence, and kept the terrain so well
illuminated that the troops could advance only about five
yards at a time. Despite precaution, the troops were
observed, and a number of casualties resulted from the
shelling which followed. At Serval bombing planes tried
to locate the column, but only succeeded in setting the
village on fire. After a few minutes halt to deceive the
aviators, the advance began again, only to meet machine
gun fire which held it up for an hour or two while the
Germans again withdrew.
Finally the
Battalion, after leaving a pair of relay runners at each
road fork, reached its objective on the Red Line, and
Lieutenant Robinson was sent back with the news to
Regimental Headquarters. The men were moved into the
shelter of the woods, outposts established, and the rest
allowed to go to sleep. At this time the enemy was on all
sides of the Battalion, but unaware of the fact. A
reconnaissance was made of the town of
Villers-en-Prayeres
still in the hands of the Germans.
This was about 2 A.M., at which time "the artillery
fire was so heavy from both sides that the whole sky
seemed filled with screaming projectiles, all passing far
above us." At dawn the Battalion occupied a wooded
hill called la
Butte de Bourmont and prepared for defense; the 308th
Infantry was the only regiment which had then reached
its objective on the Red Line, now about eight kilometers
beyond the Vesle.
8
On the Butte de Bourmont the 3rd Battalion was destined
to remain for ten memorable and trying days. It was under
fire on nearly three sides. For two or three days the
food and water situation was critical, and at first the
men drank from puddles and had practically nothing to
eat. There was considerable diarrhea in more or less
severe form. However things improved greatly under the
energetic handling of Captain James A. Roosevelt,
recently appointed Regimental Supply Officer, who like
Captain Frank Weld, now Regimental Adjutant, was an old
friend of many officers of the Regiment. Captain
Roosevelt came up personally to find out what was needed
and pushed forward supplies and kitchen. Probably
American griddle cakes and German front line trenches
never came closer together than at the Butte. During this
period there was constant sniping from the Germans, and
from this cause alone not less than twenty men were lost.
The I53rd Brigade attacking on our left were the first
troops to come abreast of us. After severe fighting they
gained a footing in the southern edge of
Villers-en-Prayeres. The 307th Infantry, attacking in
conjunction with the French on the right, captured Merval
and advanced to the vicinity of St. Pierre farm about
September 8th.
At dusk of the 8th, the 307th at our right was ordered to
take Revillon, and the 3rd Battalion of the 3o8th to
advance in unison and cover their left flank. At the
appointed hour Company L, under Lieutenant Burns on the
right, and Company I, under Lieutenant Taylor on the
left, advanced. K was in support and M in reserve on the
Butte de Bourmont. Lieutenant McDougall led a combat
patrol covering the left flank. The advance of the
companies drew the concentrated fire of the enemy machine
guns before it had progressed two hundred yards.
The men kept a good line and apparently it was a surprise
to the enemy for not a shot was fired except from one
lone tree, in which a sniper was posted. He is now
resting in peace. It was rapidly getting dark and after
crossing two lines of enemy wire, our first wave suddenly
disappeared in a trench which proved to be the enemy
front line. Flares were coming up in all directions and
machine guns were firing over our heads.
Hearing that a prisoner had been taken, Lieutenant Taylor went to
investigate, taking with him Sergeant Quinn and Private Wolf. "The
trench was about three feet deep and two feet wide. The German was
sitting in the bottom with his captor standing over him with a fixed
bayonet." Through the aid of a man who could speak German, Lieutenant
Taylor inquired how many machine guns were out in front. Just as the
German was about to reply there came a blinding explosion, and then
Taylor saw nothing for a little while. Sergeant Quinn, nearby, observed
everything by the light of an enemy flare. A comrade of the prisoner had
come up a communicating trench, leading back to the support line. When
he heard the prisoner questioned, he placed a hand grenade in the
latter's lap and pulled the string. The prisoner was severely wounded
and the interpreter lost part of his foot. "Lieutenant Taylor who was
leaning over the
prisoner was hit near the temple by a small fragment of
the zinc covering of the bomb, but it was trifling.
" At any rate, the man who ought to have known best
says so. He refused medical attention and kept the field,
supervising the consolidation of the position. Sergeant
Quinn saw the German who had come up the support trench
now attempting to return the same way, and shot him with
his automatic. The prisoner later proved to be a Prussian
Guard machine gunner.
Meanwhile
Lieutenant Burns, with the aid of a wire cutting
detachment of the Pioneer Platoon, advanced to a position
near the St. Pierre farm road. Lieutenant McDougall's
patrol had run into a machine gun nest, which was
enfilading our left. Most of the crew was killed and the
gun silenced. Since, however, the advance of the troops
on the right had not sufficiently warranted the
occupation of the positions taken, the companies were,
after suffering several casualties, withdrawn back to
their position on the Butte de Bourmont by Regimental
Order. Next morning the operations for the attack on
Revillon were to be repeated. The Germans, however, now
showed themselves on the alert and observed the movements
of our men, under cover of the woods on the east side of
the Butte. They put down a heavy artillery fire of one
pounders and Austrian 88's. Among the casualties
resulting was the death of Lieutenant Gallagan, which
left Company H with no officer. No advance was made this
day.
Before Captains Miles and Breckinridge took command of
Companies M and I respectively on the 11th, there was no
captain attached to the Battalion. Companies I, K, L, and
M were respectively commanded.by Lieutenant Taylor,
Sergeant Robb, Lieutenant Burns, and Lieutenant Angier.
Most of the time there was not more than one officer to a
company. Major McNeill writes:
Many thrilling incidents occurred during this period. The
enemy artillery, machine guns, and snipers were active
and our patrols operated constantly in No Man's Land. A
runner whose name I do not recall was sent by me with a
message to the Battalion of the 307th Infantry on our
right. He ran into a German patrol and was surprised and
captured. Remembering instructions received during
training, he swallowed the message. While being taken to
the rear by his captors there came a lucky moment when
only one guard was with him. The American knocked him
down with his fist, finished him with his own rifle, and
made his way back to the Battalion Headquarters.
An event which did much to raise flagging spirits at the
Butte de Bourmont was the capture of two prisoners by a
patrol of Lieutenant Conn. The General had requested that
the Battalion should obtain information in this way. On
the night of the 11th, Major McNeill called for
volunteers to lead patrols. Three of the Company
Commanders volunteered and took out patrols. Lieutenant
Conn's party included Sergeant Quinn, Private Wolf, and
two other privates of Company I whose names are
unfortunately lost.
This is how Conn tells it:
My patrol was sent out on the extreme left flank of our
position, that being the flank with which I was most
familiar. Major McNeill even told us to supply ourselves
with hard tack, in order not to be without food, in case
we were obliged to spend the following day within the
German lines. This detail did not appeal to me very much.
After advancing to a point which we knew to be in front
of our outposts, we all went flat on our stomachs, and
began a long and arduous crawl towards the German lines.
I knew that not very far ahead of us, we would find a
shallow trench, which showed on our maps, and this was my
objective. Needless to say owing to the delay caused by
our manner of travel, we constantly thought that we were
considerably more in advance of our lines than was
actually the case, and to our imagination every blade of
grass and small bush assumed gigantic proportions. We
finally reached the trench, however, which was about knee
deep, and from there on our advance was considerably more
rapid. This trench was laid out in a zig-zag line, and
our method of procedure was to advance cautiously to a
comer, peer carefully around it, and then proceed to the
next corner. Barbed wire entanglements crossed this
trench in two places, but did not descend into it, so
that we were able to crawl under it without much trouble.
After five or six centuries elapsed, we were rewarded
with the sound of voices, and upon reaching the next
corner, I saw two sentries with their hands in their
pockets, talking about home and mother. I motioned to the
men with me to come up, and whispered to them that
Sergeant Quinn, who was immediately behind me, and I
would each grab a man, that the two following men would
follow us and help to hold the prisoners, while the fifth
man was to keep his eye on the German lines to warn us of
any attack from that quarter. The prisoners put up a very
mild resistance, but were inclined to talk, which was not
very helpful; I succeeded in silencing the most talkative
one by putting the muzzle of my automatic in his mouth
and saying "Come on," which he probably thought
was "Kommen." We then jumped out of the trench
and started for Battalion Headquarters, making a bee-line
for Butte de Bourmont, which stood up very prominently on
the horizon.
We. had forgotten all about the two belts of barbed wire
we had been. obliged to crawl under while in the trench.
I remember that I was holding one of the prisoners with
my left hand and my automatic in my right hand. The
prisoner had just been telling me about his wife and
three children in Ger-many, and as I was replying that I
had a wife and six children in America, we bumped into
the first belt of wire, causing my gun to go off
accidentally, which frightened the prisoners very
successfully. Of course things had long since ceased to
be quiet in the German lines, and we received a shower of
rifle grenades, Very lights, and rifle fire. As each
light would go up, the prisoners (being very well
trained) would start to lie down, but as we had no time
to lose, we requested them to keep moving. Some of the
rifle shots were too close for comfort, and we were all
amused afterwards at the Germans calling their own men
pigs for shooting at us. Whereas the trip out had
consumed all of two hours, the return trip was
accomplished in about ten minutes, proving to us that we
had not gone so far after all.
On September 14th, came the final attempt by troops of
the 77th Division to advance the line on the right and to
take Revillon. At dawn our machine gun barrage screamed
overhead with peculiar and prolonged intensity. Then all
day long the Battalion lay in the quarry to the east of
the Butte or in the marshy woods (le Marais Minard) still
further beyond-a day of prolonged waiting marked by enemy
shelling and sniping that brought several casualties. At
last, late in the afternoon, M Company of the 308th and C
of the 30th went forward from the woods into the open,
and since they had nothing with which to cut the wire,
stepped over it. Captain Miles was severely wounded.
Lieutenant Angier was killed, as well as Sergeant Leonard
and among the men Brigge-man , Scott, Gladstone, and
Beligon. There were also a number of wounded. Revillon
remained untaken about a half a kilometer to the north,
but we did take a little eighteen inch deep trench by the
side of the sunken St. Pierre-Revillon road, as well as
three machine guns. To have had the opportunity to lead
men who, after such a long and trying experience at the
front, were ready to advance so gallantly across wire and
under fire into an entirely coverless open, was indeed a
privilege for which any man might be grateful as long as
he lived. Sergeant Norwat (later killed in the Argonne)
particularly distinguished himself in this attack.
Observing a concealed machine gun, which caused heavy
loss to the advancing line, he went ahead of the company
with a chauchat and single-handed silenced the gun, and
captured the gunner. To Norwat now passed the command of
M Company which was left without officers.
Lieutenant
McDougall now came up and took command of the left flank,
which was very much exposed to enfilade fire from enemy
machine guns. Lieutenant Taylor commanded the middle
sector and Lieutenant Miller of the 307th the right
flank. All through the 15th the position was heavily
shelled, "and no man could move from that
straight-jacket trench. We had no shovels so could not
dig deeper." Late in the afternoon an Italian
officer arrived to look over the position preparatory to
bringing relief that night. Lieutenant Taylor was ordered
back to Battalion Headquarters to make the relief. A
little later just after dark the Germans made a carefully
planned counter attack following an artillery barrage.
Although Lieutenant McDougall, armed with a chauchat
rifle, checked the attack for a time on the left and
killed the German Commander, nevertheless the Americans
were forced out of the trenches. Lieutenant Miller of the
307th Infantry was killed in this attack, although his
body was never found. Finally the position was 'again
retaken by the Americans who rallied under Sergeant
Norwat, drove out the Germans for the last time, and took
the machine guns which they left.
At 2 A.M. on the morning of the 16th, troops of the
Italian Infantry of the 8th Division, the Brescia Brigade of Garibaldi's
Division, completed the relief. The Battalion spent the 16th in position on the Butte de
Bourmont under a heavy barrage which had been drawn down
by the appearance of the Italians. At 7:30 P.M. of the
same day the men started back. The Battalion diary
observes: "Marched all night. Lorries, which had
been promised, did not arrive. Men very tired and weak
from lack of food and nervous tension undergone in the
line. Hiked twenty-four kilos to St. Giles where men went
to sleep 4 A.M. of the 17th." Then the march started
again after three hours sleep, and Vezilly was reached at
10 o'clock that morning.
At Vezilly men got
their long delayed opportunity for cleaning up by washing
in the streams. Now, too, there was a chance to eat
without the accompaniment of shell fire, and to draw much
needed equipment. Again at 8 o'clock that evening, the
Battalion started in the rain by motor busses to reach
Noirlieu at 10 on the morning of the 18th. Here the
troops were billeted, and spent the next day cleaning up
and resting. At 2 A.M., on the 20th, began a march of
twenty-two kilos, which ended near Verrieres, where they
bivouacked all day in the Argonne woods. At evening,
another march-but only of three hours this time-brought
them at 10:30 to Florent.
By generally
similar routes of travel-that of the 2nd Battalion
leading through Chalons, Bar-le-Duc, Chemin-Ordinare, and
St. Menehould-the other battalions reached Florent. It
was from this city that after two days, the whole
Regiment went forward to the front line, of the Argonne.