A STORY
of
THE 305th MACHINE GUN BATTALION
77th DIVISION
A.E.F.
By
HENRY W. SMITH
Chapter 6
Lorraine
CHAPTER VI
LORRAINE
SLEEPING in cramped positions due to the limited space in
the cars was very uncomfortable but the journey was
otherwise enjoyable, interesting and educational. At
times the train made a good rate of speed while at other
times it moved along at the usual troop train pace and we
had plenty of opportunity to view the ever-changing
scenery of the French countryside. It will be recalled
that the German Army had advanced uncomfortably close to
Paris and for that reason the train swung off in a wide
are from that city. It was not the good fortune of most
of us to visit Paris but we at least had the satisfaction
of seeing the Eiffel Tower faintly outlined in the
distance. There was much to hold our interest, the
country was indeed picturesque and with the good nature
and fun in the cars, the time did not drag. The train
stopped frequently and French boys came up to the tracks
offering for sale vin blanc in nicely sealed bottles. A
number of sales were quickly consummated but when the
train had moved on and the bottles were opened, much to
the dismay of the purchasers they contained only water.
This spoiled the business thereafter for any French boys
offering the genuine article, for "You cannot fool
all the people all of the time".
We saw several days
fade into night and we continued to roll on toward our
unknown destination, Most of us would say, off -hand,
that the trip consumed three or four days but one of our
boys with a flare for accuracy places the time at sixty
hours. We had watched the direction in which we were
going and a few sectional maps had been purchased. We
guided ourselves by the names of the villages we passed
through but soon we ran off the maps and as the tracks
swung north, then south and again north, we soon gave up
the task of trying to determine just where we were going
and settled back to await eventualities. At last our old
forty and eight came to a jolting stop and we were
ordered to detrain. According to the sign on the station
the name of the town was Charmes but so far as we could
see there were no charms about the place. We were not
there long enough to make a thorough investigation which
was our usual practice upon arriving at a new town. I
might add at this time that it never did take the 305th
Machine Gun Battalion very long to get a place all lined
up. It was often a race with the officers and usually the
men won out. Perhaps it was because there were more
enlisted men than officers or maybe it was due to the
fact that officers had a certain dignity to maintain. I
do not know.
It was an intensely
hot day in June when we arrived at Charmes and our hike
from the station, which consumed most of the afternoon,
in the broiling sun with full regulation pack and cooties
boring in, was anything but pleasant. We arrived at the
village of St. Maurice where we found fairly clean,
comfortable billets. A thing that stands out in the
memory of one of the boys is that upon arriving in St.
Maurice we found good beer, real home brew. He tells us
that this was on the thirteenth of June. He goes on to
say that on the fourteenth we rested but we have not been
able to find out whether he means we rested from the
rigors of the hike or set down the beer glasses for a
rest.
The village of St.
Maurice is in Lorraine, in the foothills of the Vosges
Mountains and off in the purple haze we could see the
mountains themselves. Lorraine was the scene of terrific
fighting in the early years of the war but the sector had
long since become quiet with no advance being attempted
here by either the German or French armies. It was known
as a rest sector and divisions of both armies, French and
German, were brought here for a rest and reorganization.
There was an exchange of shell fire daily, the
projectiles exploding harmlessly in open fields with
apparently no desire on the part of the opposing forces
to do any real harm. The idea seemed to be, principally,
that of keeping each other reminded that there was a war
going on. A number of American divisions, however,
received their first real taste of war in Lorraine. The
American soldier could not long be satisfied with such
inactivity and on several occasions started things going,
much to the horror of the French. The Germans seemed to
be willing to oblige our division with an idea of what a
real active front was like and some of the men in our
infantry regiments recall being caught in a box barrage,
subjected to liquid fire and intensely bombarded with
gas. It was real warfare to those boys on this supposedly
quiet front. The boys in the artillery got a line on a
church that the Germans were using for an ammunition
dump. They brought up one of their six-inch howitzers at
night, mounted it in no man's land, made short work of
the ammunition dump and withdrew. An artillery gun so
used is known as a pirate-piece. As for ourselves we had
our own part to play and we will come to that shortly.
There is nothing
like a good beef stew or perhaps a mess-kit full of beans
to put a soldier on edge. The old mess cup filled with
coffee instead of tea always reached the spot and we were
now getting these things regularly as we were on American
rations. We cannot complain about the food with which
Uncle Sam supplied us. There were times when we went
hungry but that was when we were in the lines and we
could not be reached for certain very good reasons. It
was in St. Maurice that we had issued to us American
cigarettes of vari-ous brands along with tobacco
furnished by the Washington, D. C., National Tribune
Tobacco Fund. It was a treat to see the American
tailor-mades as we called them. Who will ever forget the
English brands that we have smoked; Gold Flakes -
Woodbines - Red Hussars -Wild Rose and others. We also
recall the boxes from the Red Cross Christmas Fund which
we received in June. They were no doubt sent over for the
previous Christmas and we fell heir to them.
The Battalion
commenced to take on a war-like appearance as Colt .45
calibre automatic pistols and revolvers were issued and
there was a nice feeling of security when the old
"gats", as we called them, nestled against us
hanging from our belts. There were not enough guns to
enable the supply sergeants to issue one to every man so
they compromised by giving guns to half of each company
and ammunition to the remainder. We tried to decide who
got the best of the bargain, those with the guns or those
with the ammunition. We did not have immediate use for
either so that by the time we did get into the lines the
entire Battalion was pretty well equipped with guns and
ammunition. It was something else to worry about as the
pistols added a little more to the list of things to be
cleaned. Incidentally our friends the Tommies abbreviated
"small arms ammunition" to "S.I.I."
How they got the sound of "I" from
"A" is beyond us, but they speak the King's
English and if it is all right with the King we suppose
that is all there is to it.
Our introduction to
the- Hotchkiss Machine Gun, the type used by the French
Army, was very informal. One of the guns, mounted on its
tripod, stood at one side of the wide entrance to the
billet and eventually one of the men summoned up enough
courage to ask what it was. The officer in charge
explained that it was the new type gun we were going to
use. Well, our first impressions were not particularly
favorable and it was not a case of love at first sight.
We thought we had a pretty good idea by this time as to
what a machine gun should be and the idea of an
air-cooled gun did not seem to fit into the picture.
However, we closed in on the gun to tear it apart to find
out what made the wheels go round and what made it tick.
After some experimenting it was discovered how the guns
were taken apart and the officers were plied with
questions and pressed for the names of the various parts.
They were as much at a loss for names as the men and as
any books on the subject were in French, they were of no
help. It was decided to give the parts names of our own
choosing so long as it was clear just what we were
talking about.
We do not know
whether or not the French soldiers ever heard or were
annoyed by the names selected but we guarantee that the
Frenchmen would be very much upset if they beard the
names we called the guns when anything went wrong. Slowly
we warmed up to the old Hotchkiss guns and we came to
have a real affection for them as there were very few
stoppages, the bane of a machine gunner's existence.
We were not
quartered in St. Maurice very long. Part of the Battalion
moved out to the town of Moyen, some distance away, where
they attended a school of instruction conducted by the
French. The remainder of the Battalion proceeded to the
town of Fontenoy, nearer the lines, where we received
instructions and the benefit of the experience of gunners
from the 42nd Division, men of our own army who were able
to talk to us in a real American way. As we came to know
more about the Hotchkiss gun and had fired it on the
ranges, most of the men liked it better than the Colt or
the Vickers. The gun would run hot but we overcame that
to some extent by applying wet burlap.
Fontenoy was an
agreeable little village as French villages go. It was
occupied by civilians as were most of the villages in
Lorraine which were not actually right in the front
lines. The buildings showed the effects of the fighting
in the early stages of the war. Many houses bad been
wrecked by shelling and the pock-marked exteriors of many
others gave mute evidence of intense machine gun and
rifle fire. The 305th Infantry Regiment was quartered in
Fontenoy and this afforded an opportunity to renew old
friendships with the doughboys. Their part to play was
most difficult. The men of the 305th Machine Gun
Battalion appreciate, full well, how they played that
part and they have our sincere and profound admiration.
We had our share of
poor weather here in Lorraine and we often thought it
would have been a good idea if we had been equipped with
sabots (wooden shoes) as were the French people. It was
like walking around in boats and there were times when a
boat and a pair of oars would have been a good idea. Like
all villages in France, Fontenoy had its manure piles and
it was a standing joke that wealth in those villages was
measured by the size of the manure pile under the front
window. The Government had made extensive drafts on the
farms for horses and it was a common sight to see a horse
and a cow teamed together in harness. It seemed to be the
custom throughout the country to hitch horses in tandem
and it was also the practice in taking horses from place
to place to have them follow in line by tying the halter
of one to the tail of the one ahead. Yes, we saw lots of
unusual things in France and we can still hear the
"Gee! Haw!" of the peasants as they drove their
horses along the road without the aid of reins.
Wash day in France
was always amusing. The people did not have their own
tubs at home. Therefore, every village was equipped with
a huge basin around which a wide curb sloped to the
water. As a rule the pools or basins had roofs over them
and were usually situated at the side of a brook, the
water being piped in at one end and flowing out at the
other. Every French woman had a kneeling pad; usually a
box with one side knocked out and the box filled with
straw. The most important utensil however, was a paddle
and how they wailed hell out of the clothes when they
were soaped up. Wash boards, apparently, were unknown.
These public
washing places were not always in the form of one large,
circular basin, as we can remember one wash shed, at
least, where there were about a dozen individual cement
tubs probably twelve to fifteen feet long, by three feet
wide and two feet deep. We halted for a time near this
wash house and, as it was the first of its kind we had
seen, it was thought to be a bathing place rather than a
place to wash clothes. We all, no doubt, remember little
Harry O'Beirn, that ray of sunshine in C Company. There
being no civilians around, Harry stripped off his clothes
and hopped into one of the tubs. He stood there soaping
himself when a French woman put in an appearance with a
basket of clothes on her hip. The gang yelled to Harry
but being all soaped up and no place to go he had to
stand where he was in the tub. Harry blushed a deep pink
all over and we waited to see what would happen. The
French woman advanced, smiled at the situation and,
kneeling at one of the tubs, calmly proceeded with the
washing, apparently forgetting that Harry existed. Seeing
that she was not bothered, he finished his bath and had
the laugh on the rest of the Company.
It is often strange
how a thing of comparatively small moment will impress
itself on one's memory. It may have been a certain
individual, a billet or perhaps one of those long,
straight stretches of road bordered with tall poplar
trees that we remember but to me it was the church bells
in Fontenoy. They seemed to have a certain peal that I
have always remembered and with all of our experiences
and hardships still vivid in my memory, I can still hear
in my mind the Bells of Fontenoy.
Enemy airplanes
soared high overhead almost daily and in order to warn us
of their approach, buglers were stationed at certain
vantage points. At the first sight of a plane the buglers
sounded "Attention" which was the signal to
seek cover and the roads became deserted. In this way
there was no chance for photographs which would disclose
the size of the force in an area. We were not permitted
to look up as faces would show in a photograph. When the
skies had cleared, "Recall" was sounded and
activities were resumed. After a short stay in Fontenoy
we moved on to the village of Glonville. A battalion of
the 305th Infantry was also billeted in Glonville and we
stood Retreat with them at which time the National
Anthems of England, France and the United States were
played. It was a picture to see the infantry battalion
run through the manual of arms and to hear those rifle
slings "sing". We were listening to a band
concert one evening after Retreat when a bugle sounded
"Attention". No concert ever ended more
abruptly or a road cleared more quickly. Not long after,
"Recall" sounded and the concert was resumed
almost as quickly as it had ended. The German airplanes
had us busy running in and out those days. The village of
Azerailles was not far distant and a bomb, dropped on a
kitchen at that place, took its usual toll in killed and
wounded.
Our training went steadily forward and muscles became
harder as we handled the Hotchkiss guns. Tripod and gun
weighed approximately fifty pounds apiece and as the
breech block of the gun was made of case-hardened steel,
shoulders had to toughen up to with-stand the sharp
square corners. Then, too, there were the boxes of
ammunition with two hundred and eighty-eight rounds in a
box. They were carried by leather handles which cut into
the palms of the hands and the weight would seem to be
pulling the very arms from their sockets when the boxes
had to be carried a long distance. It was, indeed, a
lovely war. We also received training in throwing hand
grenades and we did not envy the doughboys as we watched
them insert the detonators into the high explosive with
which the grenades were filled, it being a very ticklish
job. During our stay at Glonville we had a visit from two
American girl entertainers who sang exceptionally well
and it was a treat to see these young ladies from our own
United States. We did envy the job of the sergeant whose
duty it was to drive the car for them.
It seemed that, in
spite of every effort to keep the enemy in ignorance of
troop movements, they obtained such information some-how
and we were very much surprised, one day, to see small
balloons float over from the German lines. Attached to
the balloons were small slips of paper bearing the
message "Good Bye 42nd - Welcome 77th". The
time was not far distant, however, when our Division was
not quite so welcome and "Jerry" was glad to
see the last of us. Their message of greeting seemed to
make every man of the Division grasp his rifle a little
tighter and, with grim determination, say to himself,
"Old boy, you're going to be sorry you ever heard of
us."
During all this
time the lines were held by the 42nd or Rainbow Division
and as we slowly moved forward, elements of that Division
started withdrawing. Throughout the night their artillery
regiments rumbled through and one could not help being
impressed by the hardened, war-like appearance of the men
as they rode silently by in the blackness of the night
with the horses' hoofs clumping steadily on the hard
roads, chains rattling and the heavy field pieces
rumbling and jolting along. At other times motor lorries
filled with troops would pass through but the occupants
were not always silent and, as they caught sight of the
guards on the roads there were many wise cracks hurled at
the 77th men. The 42nd boys seemed to forget that most of
the 77th was from the sidewalks of New York and there was
a snappy retort for every sally from the lorries as they
lumbered along. We had acquired the spirit of being
second to none, as good, if not better than the best, and
we took nobody's dust.
Moving day came
'round again for us and we moved further forward,
establishing ourselves in the village of Vaxainville,
slowly but surely edging our way nearer and nearer to the
front lines. This was around the early part of July. As
usual we made the hike at night and the orders were to
wear overcoats, even though the weather was very warm.
While they were uncomfortable at the outset, never the
less, we were very glad to have them when we stopped for
the regular ten-minute rest period for the air became
chilly as the night wore on. Gas alarms became frequent
in Vaxainville and we were often required to put on our
masks in the billets. A lot of it was, no doubt, caused
by jumpiness but we played it safe just the same. It was
after one of these alarms or, shall we say, false alarms
that we had a good laugh at the expense of one of the
men. Things had quieted down and most of us had gone back
to sleep. Along toward midnight we were awakened by
shouts that seemed to be coming from the cellar but there
was no cellar. It was found that the voice was coming
from the interior of the mask of one of the boys who had
evidently fallen asleep with it on.
A little distance
from the village a brook threaded its way through the
fields and at one place it reached a depth of three or
four feet. A screen of brush had been erected around the
spot and it afforded a fine place to take a swim which
was very much appreciated and enjoyed, not to mention
needed. On the Fourth of July a ball-game was arranged.
It was quite a game and it is doubted if there ever was a
game more full of action, not only on the part of the
players but the spectators as well. Shells broke not more
than a quarter of a mile away and they kept everybody
alert, with one eye on the game, the other on the
exploding shells and all hands ready to make a dive for
shelter if they came any closer. There is no need to ask
who won the game as it was just one of those things.