HISTORY
OF THE 305th Infantry
by
Frank Tiebout
Chapter 5
THE VESLE
DEFENSIVE
THE Americans had
been tearing up the Chateau Thierry salient like a bunch
of wildcats. Quoting from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
"they had broken down the morale of the Germans,
squeezed them out and were driving the Huns before them
with a dash that would not be denied. Jerry was moving
back so fast that the divisions trailing him were
exhausted, having given of their best until it was only
the spirit which held them together. The 4th Division had
relieved the 42d and taken up the advance through the
Foret de Nesle. It had pressed madly on against stubborn,
deadly, machine gun resistance, and had forced the
fighting to the banks of the Vesle."
Through St.
Thibaut, across the river and into the city of Bazoches
they had advanced, there to be overwhelmed by everything
the Germans could pour down upon their heads from the
precipitous hill rising out of the disputed city.
Companies of the 4th which had ventured over the river
never returned, and their dead still lay in the burning
sun of No Man's Land, unburied. On the southern bank of
the river, the American line had stabilized, leaving the
"Hell hole of the Vesle " strewn with the
bodies of friend and foe alike. To reach them was out of
the question.
Quoting again,
" the hold of the 4th Division, its ranks so sadly
and terribly depleted, was getting very tenuous. Relief
must come at once, for there was danger that at any
moment the enemy might learn of the thin American ranks;
he had complete domination of the air," their planes
not only observing uninterruptedly all movement, but
cooperating with the artillery by spotting targets and
dropping air bombs at will. That Division was practically
shot to pieces when the Three Hundred and Fifth Infantry,
vanguard of the 77th Division, swept into Fere en
Tardenois.
The 77th was
through with its training; it was to be thrown into the
breach with a suddenness that left no time for
deliberation or conjecture or for screwing the courage to
the sticking point. It was to essay the task of veteran
fighting troops at a most important point though untried
and untested to oppose the most efficient fighting force
the German war machine could present.
On Saturday, August
10th, captains were moved to ask their companies to
forgive them for anything unpleasant that might have
happened in the past. Rush orders had come in, to supply
the men with all the ammunition they could crowd upon
their person and to be ready to move at any minute.
Marching, this time, was too slow. Into motor trucks we
crushed, thinking of all the stories read in the past, of
soldiers being rushed into the thick of it by motor.
These were painted the horizon blue of France, but
recognized as an American product, driven by little brown
devils called Annamites. Backward along the dusty route,
there stretched out in the distance, as far as the eye
could reach, the seemingly endless motor train as it
twisted in and out, up hill and down dale, over
shell-torn, traffic -laden roads. Grim jest and a
pathetic effort at skylarking which characterized, the
morning hours gave way to solemn looks after the passage
through battered Chateau Thierry. There were the trampled
wheat fields through which mad American soldiers had
forced the advance, making veterans of four years
fighting gasp over their seeming disregard of an enemy's
murderous machine guns. There was the historic Marne,
deep and swift and blue, and the bridges, which had cost
American engineers so dearly to build. The route lay
through Fere en Tardenois, where another frightful
struggle had taken place, and beyond it as night came on,
to the Foret de Nesle, where we debussed and made tracks
for the concealing forest.
To the north could
be heard the muffled roar of heavy artillery, and we
realized that things were about to happen. Some there
were who had lost blood brothers in that fighting and who
were anxious to be avenged; all knew that the gentle days
of the Lorraine Sector were past and gone; but they
glowed as how "fight" was painted all over 'em.
The woods that
night, so dense and black that a hand could not be seen
before the face, reeked of horrid, ghastly smells. The
men had all been warned that there was likelihood of a
gas attack, and in consequence precipitated a series of
nervous alarms, ere the morning light revealed disgusting
evidences of the Germans' hurried evacuation. An M
Company officer awoke to find close beside him the
half-buried body of a dead Boche whose hand stuck
straight up out of the soil like a signpost. There were
uncounted thousands of shell, mutely testifying to the
enemy's utter lack of intention to have quit the area
without a grim struggle. Illimitable quantities of
discarded equipment, rifles and helmets lay all about;
letters, postcards, belts of machine gun bullets, gas
shells, Very lights and bags of " kriegs tabac,
" which con-sisted of chopped oak and beech leaves.
While the chaplains
next day, Sunday, heard confession, comforted,
encouraged, counseled, received trinkets, keepsakes and
other prized personal possessions, and pocketed the
numerous in-case-I-never-can-write-again letters, and
while the lieutenants made sure that the helmets,
gas-masks, rifles, bayonets, ammunition, bombs and
stretchers were all present or accounted for, company and
battalion commanders went forward to have a peep,
bringing back depressing and sobering tales. There were
no trenches. The positions we would move into, under
shell fire, were nothing more than fox-holes dug here and
there along a roadside, in the lee of any slight rise of
ground, or in a railroad bank. A certain message sent
back to one of the companies did not especially improve
the morale of the men who heard it; it ran something like
this: "The dugouts are mere holes in the ground. You
will be shelled morning, noon and night with shrapnel and
high explosive, and during the intervals between
shelling, they will throw gas at you."
Directly following
this announcement, one battalion started filing past
another which was still lined up along the roadside. The
air was tense. "My God!" a doughboy was heard
to exclaim. "Look at that major's face."
Before starting off
for the relief at eight o'clock that night, every man
five paces from the one in front and single file, every
rifleman carrying in addition to his full pack two extra
bandoliers of calibre .30 ammunition, the autoriflemen
dragging an extra musette of Chauchat ammunition, all
were cheerfully and generally warned that they would
doubtless be shelled on the way to their positions and
that any casualties were to be left for the Sanitary
Detachment to discover and pick up. Great for morale!
It was a tumultuous
taking over of the lines. By devious shell-torn roads and
lanes, through woods and muddy fields, the way led north
toward the river, past a battery of naval guns whose
sudden belching almost blew the wits out of us. Behind
Les Pres Farm, where Regimental Headquarters was to make
its stormy rendezvous, on the steep and slippery road,
units of the 306th were encountered marching in double
file. Back and forth in the inky ravine the hopeless
jumble of troops buckled and filled, while all around us
landed high explosive. Soon the pungent odors of mustard
gas-to some it smelled like crushed onions-smote the
nostrils for the first time. It was a wild night. The
Third Battalion finally got into wretched Ville Savoye,
on a forward slope running down toward the river and
facing the Boches; but the greater part of the Second lay
for hours on a hillside under the belching guns of the
Corps Artillery, lost, without maps, without guides,
without instructions. In the darkness and confusion the
column had broken-a thing to be feared during any relief.
Major Dall, his guides, his Headquarters Detach-ment and
a half platoon of -G ' Company had hurried serenely on,
blissfully ignorant of the circumstance in rear, while
the offending parties who had lost contact were severely
reviled by their leaders, and scouts sent out into the
night. At four o'clock, just as dawn was silhouetting the
gaunt ruins of St. Thibaut, CY Company hove into position
on the right of the town, and the platoons of H Company
struggled down the sunken road leading into the village,
hurrying into position before the movement should be
clearly visible to the observant Boches. Past the little
brick house on Dead Man's Corner, around which the
bullets whistled night and day, and into their several
positions they crept.
The Regiment took
over a sector extending from well to the left of St.
Thibaut to the Chateau Diable, the left of the line
confronting Bazoches, one of the most sadly wrecked towns
imaginable. The Third Battalion was on the right, the
Second on the left, F Company crossing the river and
finding meagre shelter under the railroad track west of
Bazoches. Because four regiments had not been able to
make parallel advances by motor, and because there was
not time for an instant's delay in strengthening the
front, the Three Hundred and Fifth alone took over the
entire sector of the exhausted 4th Division. After
twenty-four hours in close support, the First Battalion
went in on the extreme right, taking over a piece from
the 28th Division.
Jerry had opened up
with his usual nightly entertainment. All the boys of A
Company but one seemed to need no further encouragement
to dive into their funk holes, The little fellow
"got his wind up" a bit and ran to his Corporal
exclaiming, "What shall I do? What shall I do?"
The squad leader poked his head out above the rim of the
hole just long enough to say, "Do the same as I'm
doing, you damn fool. Say your prayers!"
How those Regulars
scrambled out of their holes, the relief complete, minus
equipment, caring only that their task for the moment was
through! H Company took over a position theoretically
held by two of their companies which together could then
only muster fifty-seven effective men. Right then and
there, our boys exchanged their service rifles for the
lighter Springfields, with which the Regulars had been
equipped. Materiel of all sorts which had been stripped
from the dead and wounded lay about in quantity.
This position
outdid even our worst dreams. On that forward slope,
there was no protection whatsoever from shell and machine
gun fire in moving from one platoon to another. All day
long, the " ash cans ... .. iron cigars" and
"Minnies" came tumbling into Ville Savoye and
St. Thibaut, while the famous sniping piece of the
Austrians, the 88, played incessantly. Ordinarily, there
is time to flop on the ground or otherwise dodge the
oncoming shell, the screaming whine of which is heard
overhead for a considerable interval ere the explosion.
Some of them even seem to float aloft and to hang there,
as if contemplating where to make a big killing. It is
said that one doesn't hear the shell that kills him. But
the 88 or "whizz-bang" is different, and by far
the most terrifying of all. Its flat trajectory and high
velocity make it a large calibre rifle, with which moving
trucks or even individuals are often sniped. So fast does
the shell travel that the explosion is practically
coincident with the whine. There is no time to dodge. The
boys were later much amused at a definition of
"whizz-bang" which appeared in the Bulletin
published by the Regimental Auxiliary. "The
whizz-bang, it said nonchalantly, "is a small shell,
making a peculiar sound!"
By some lucky
mischance, shells seemed to avoid the portals of house
No. 13 in St. Thibaut, in the shallow cellar of which H
Company made its P. C. Into the small, littered courtyard
vagrant ammunition and ration- carrying details would
scurry for shelter, though of actual protection there was
none. Thither the rattling hand-drawn limber would
clatter at twilight down the sunken road and draw up with
a flourish, much to the consternation of the company
commander, who didn't want all the Boches in the world to
think it the hub of the universe.
Although it was
almost believed that the Germans were sparing, as an
artillery aiming point, the few remains of the church
tower which stood between that building and the front,
and that in consequence it escaped destruction, a more
solid though more damp old wine cellar was found in the
lee of the crumbling church in which to establish the
telephones, and to measure out the orders as they came
through. This was taken over and later used by the
several companies which in turn occupied that position,
There had been
accidents and minor casualties within our ranks before
this time. But here we really began to see our brothers
in arms falling beside us. The first sight of a bleeding
arm or a wounded shoulder was startling enough. But when,
for instance, one first saw a Minnenwerfer drop its
tremendous charge in the sand bank just above the point
where several comrades had dug for protection, burying
all, mangling two of them beyond recognition, a shiver
ran through the heart. One knew then what war could be.
It had been a
popular superstition that soldiers new to the dirtier
side of the game would somehow be initiated into it
gradually, perhaps by brigading small units with
experienced troops for a while. Yet, here were men who
had never experienced a barrage, or a gas attack, or seen
a man shot down or blown to atoms-men who had no means of
knowing, aside from their own spirit of determination,
whether or not as a body they could play to a finish a
game at which veterans have been known to lose. Given the
most important task of their lives, these boys simply had
to do without question of failure or doubt of success the
difficult job assigned to them. Yet everything was so
new, and they so untried! They had much to learn, and had
to learn it all at once.
"Dutch"
Richerts, early in the game, found out what a "
dud" was; one passed so close to his ear that it
knocked him flat, scaring him so that he talked Bohemian
for fifteen minutes without realizing it. Folks had
talked about shell splinters. The platoon sergeants of I
Company stood near the funk hole of the company commander
to receive instructions. A high explosive shell burst
about five hundred yards away. Thirty seconds later,
something was heard to fall near the funk hole. They dug
a ragged ten-pound chunk of red hot iron out of the
earth. Splinters!
"Iron
maidens," huge trench mortar shells with steel fins
to maintain correct position during flight, had been
lobbing over into the portion of the river bank held by
the First Battalion. Soon the air was streaked with an
unholy flickering of streaming lights, like an army of
racing fireflies gone mad. Few had even heard of
phosphorized cartridges, or tracer bullets. One swarthy
little Italian, horrified and indignant, crept over to
his corporal to say, "Gee, Corp, dey shoota da redda
hot bullets! "
We had heard before
about shelling; but here we made its acquaintance. The
German knew every foot of the ground like a book, and he
read every topographical line of it again and again, his
artillery observers wearing their keenest spectacles. He
threw at us everything but his own trenches, and yet the
men found courage to joke and jest about their horrible
experiences.
Corporal Kelly of K
Company was hit, but he still wore his Irish smile.
"Jim," he called. "Come over here a
minute. Take this message and send it for me." And
then like the tired businessman he dictated to his
stenographer while Jim wrote: "Somewhere in France.
To Mr. Kelly of Buffalo. Died happy. Dennis." Jim
and Denny both laughed heartily -, and a few days later,
back in the hospital, Dennis died.
Dead bodies lay in some instances just beyond our
parapets; an effort to reach them would have been
madness. Dead horses lay in the streets insufficiently
covered by fallen masonry. The burying details were
terrible, the men wearing gas masks. Some bright youth
discovered that the work on dead horses could be speeded
up, a smaller hole being necessary if the legs of the
beasts were sawed off. Flies, naturally, were hideously
thick, penetrating even to the blackest depths of a damp
cellar. They swarmed into the " chow," on
account of which, the men at first might have left it
untouched. But hunger is no chum of fastidiousness.
Presently, it was considered no hardship at all patiently
to pick the frolicsome fly out of the mess kit. The
atmosphere reeked in the sultry sun of terrible carrion
odors, burnt powder, mustard gas, sneezing gas and dust.
Little wonder that
on a diet of "goldfish," flies and water the
men really suffered from dysentery. It is reported that
an officer hoped to get a wound stripe for cutting his
finger opening a can of salmon. Well, he deserves a wound
stripe for eating salmon. A quantity of the salmon and
gas-soaked bread had been left by the units relieved, and
for a time the Quartermaster Department seemed unable to
offer anything but fish as the meat component. Water was
difficult to get. The water points of St. Thibaut were
very soon shelled out, which necessitated fetching from a
stream that ran through the bloody fields. Fish and
sunshine made it almost impossible to exist on one
canteenful a day. Into Ville Savoye the Germans poured a
constant stream of machine gun fire, sneezing gas and
high explosive, and rained shrapnel into the water points
at intervals of about every two minutes. A man would rush
to the fountain immediately after a shell-burst, hang a
pail on the spout and retire, then run out again to
retrieve the pail after the next burst. Safe in the back
areas, a Corps inspector sought to raise Hob with
someone, when it was admitted that Lyster bags of cool
chlorinated water were not hanging out under the trees
where the men might conveniently use them!
In the Mairie of
Ville Savoye still hung a list of the five remaining
civilians whose actions had been closely observed by the
Boches. Much of the wheat had been harvested by the
enemy; gardens were in full bloom. Immense piles of
firewood were stacked high against the coming of winter.
The houses, terribly shattered, had been hastily
ransacked, the furniture ruthlessly smashed; on the
floors were litters of family records and correspondence,
tintypes, and photographs of self-conscious brides and
bridegrooms. Out of a great hall clock the brass works
had been taken and done up into a neat bundle-but
forgotten in the hasty retirement. German signposts were
at every crossroad, the fountains marked
"Trinkwasser." The Third Battalion, occupying
this village and the terrain in front, had decided in,
the worst position, being subject to constant observation
and machine gun fire. Battalion Headquarters functioned
with difficulty in the cellar of an old house forward of
the village church in which were found bodies of an
American lieutenant and several men, dead for some time,
and impossible to bury on account of the shelling. The
entrance to the First Aid station in an abandoned wine
cellar at the edge of the town was exposed to rifle fire.
Dr. Luther J. Calahan was in this meagre retreat
administering to a number of wounded when shells struck
the building, setting fire to the roof, imprisoning him
for a time under the burning rafters. But though under
constant fire, he and his assistants barricaded the
entrance with stretchers, quelled the flames and saved
his men.
A letter written by
the adjutant of the First Battalion gives a vivid picture
of the situation in this town:
" The Boches
kept shelling it continually; they had perfect
observation of our movements from their positions. Every
fifteen minutes during the day they would throw over
three shells, taking the town bit by bit. When any one
appeared on the street they gave us a little extra,
although I must say they left our ambulances alone except
when they thought we were using them for covering some
tactical move. Our headquarters was in the cellar of a
former French residence. I was no sooner inside than they
shot away the wall in front and a couple of hours later
they took off the corner of the building. They were
giving us a liberal dose of gas all the while-it was very
uncomfortable sitting packed tight in this cellar with
our gas masks on, studying maps, writing messages and
trying to get an answer over the phone. The gas seemed to
linger more than we had expected. We discovered soon that
part of what we thought was gas was the fragrance of six
dead Americans in the yard next door. Poor devils. The
shelling had been so hot that nobody had had a chance to
bury them. Toward noon we had our first casualty. Lieut.
Clokey with two runners came from his company
headquarters to report their position to the major. The
Boches dropped a shell beside him, which tore off part of
his face and killed one of his runners. Clokey came
staggering into our little cellar and we patched him up
crudely with our first-aid packets. Then I ventured out
with him to the First Aid station and he was evacuated
that afternoon. (He came back to the regiment later with
a brand new piece of face and looking not very much the
worse for his misfortune.)
"The next day
we moved our headquarters to a ravine about 300 yards
outside the town. Although it was wide open to the sky,
this was a more comfortable spot. Each of us dug a hole
in the side of the ravine, and for an office we had a
piece of corrugated iron for a roof and camouflaged it
with bushes. As we had to be constantly going and coming,
it didn't take the Boche long to discover our new
location. From that moment he included us in his strafing
of the town, but our ravine was so small and the sides so
steep that he couldn't quite get us. His shells would
drop on each lip of the ravine, but he never got more
than a fragment of shell into the ravine itself, although
he gave us plenty of gas. His airplanes were what we
feared most. "
Gradually the rations were amplified by the arrival of
hardtack, corn syrup, a little jam, a few canned beans,
raw coffee and sugar. Still the salmon. To cook anything,
to raise a smoke, or make a light was out of the
question.
-Except once: Early
in the morning, after Dr. Calaban and his wounded had
been nearly burned out of the First Aid Post, McDonald
and Eidlen, cooks of First Battalion Headquarters,
ventured down to the burning building and made a dozen
canteens full of steaming coffee over the glowing
rafters. They outwitted the Boches and gave Battalion
Headquarters their first hot food in five days.
A grimy private
made his way to a lieutenant with the complaint:
"They've got some raw bacon down there, but won't
issue it."
"Would you care to eat raw bacon?
"Yes, Sir. "
"Raw? You know, it can't be cooked here."
" Yes, Sir. "
"Well-if you
can eat raw bacon, I guess there's no reason why you
shouldn't." And he did-they all did, and smacked
their lips over it.
If the doughboy
stopped to think at all about the quantity of stuff
needed to keep him going, and of the amount his company
needed, he realized what the Supply Company, making a
constant effort to serve the Regiment in this regard, had
to accomplish. He appreciated more than ever the old
canned beef. This touching eulogy, which appeared in the
Stars and Stripes we read a few days later, back at
Mareuil en Dole:
0 remnant of
wrecked flesh, rent and torn asunder!
Howe'er do we digest thy potency-I wonder?
Greedily we eat thee hot or cold or clammish;
How welcomely thou thuddest on the mess-tins of the
famished!
0 leavings of the jackals' feast! 0 carrion sublime!
However much we scoff at thee we eat thee every
time-Corned Willie!
There were no serious kicks about the meagreness or the
strangeness of the rations - that was all in the game,
and relief would come soon. A good batch of cigarettes
would have been a happy thought; but the famous front
echelon of the Y. M. C. A. was not personally
represented. Wait, though! Some battered cookies and a
few cigarettes were sent up on a ration carrying party,
to be sold!
The only real
complaint was the result of the Germans' uninterrupted,
undisputed supremacy of the air. The men had to grit
their teeth while planes darted overhead, raked the
positions with machine gun fire, threw hand grenades
even, spotted batteries and unloaded their bombs. Some of
the bomb holes on the riverbank were large enough to bury
a whole platoon. This, despite the reassuring utterances
from the rear to the effect that American and French
airmen dominated the situation. It was some department
far in rear, too, which discovered at a time when the
bullets whistled merrily through our positions that the
enemy had withdrawn, and ordered out daylight patrols on
the afternoon of the 13th. Lieutenant Peter Wallis and
eight men swam the Vesle to see. Only one of the party
was ever heard from again, a sergeant wounded and taken
prisoner.
Private McGee, of F
Company, writes of several patrols:
" From somewhere on the right, a bunch of machine
guns used to enfilade us every night. We figured that the
Germans couldn't stay there all day long, and so Captain
Eaton picked a desperate bunch of Indians, ten of the
wildest men he could find in the company, to go out and
locate the gun positions and the places where the Germans
hung out during the day. There were twelve in the party,
all armed to the teeth. We started out before dark for
the purpose of getting there ahead of the enemy and, if
possible, to see what holes he crawled out of, and to
watch them take up their positions. It's hard to let a
Boche crawl by without taking a pot shot at him but you
know that if you let him go, he's sure to give away a gun
position.
"In order to
get there without being seen, we had to travel several
hundred yards through a big swamp that was all chewed up
by shells and the mud up to your neck in places. At the
end of this swamp we struck a suspicious-looking place
where there were several dugouts from which telephone
wires ran up into a tree that might have been used for an
observation post. We figured that our German friends
might live in there, so we took an unhealthy position on
the edge of the swamp and watched.
"In this way
we gradually located six gun positions, but the Boche
suddenly located us and acted as if he thought a general
attack was coming over, because he opened up a young hell
in the filthy swamp with all the machineguns and some of
his artillery with gas, high explosive and shrapnel. We
couldn't go through it, so Bob Farmer placed his men and
said, "You hang on here no matter what
happens." That was nine P. M. and we had no
overcoats and the night was cold; and sitting in the mud
and cold did not feel like the first row in the Winter
Garden. Here we lay under almost continuous artillery
fire, with plenty of gas that don't smell very sweet,
until about 4.30 A. M.,, and that was the time that old
Jerry sure opened every gun he had on the swamp. We just
laid there and gasped for breath, and our dream of
Hoboken was starting to evaporate, and we were wishing we
were back with the company once more, praying our 304th,
305th and 306th Artillery would open all together and
blow the Boches to Hell.
" At 5.15 he
swung his barrage over to our company position, but he
kept looking at us out of the comer of his eye all the
time. We figured this would be as good a time as any to
work our way back to the company and wondered if there
would be anything left of it when we got there. We got
near the old trenches and sent out a scout, who said the
company was 0. K. We were happy but so exhausted we had
to lay there half an hour before starting to crawl in one
by one. The captain was amazed to see us back alive and
thanked us for finding six enemy gun positions for the
artillery to blast out. For our reward we received a full
cup of coffee per man, thus beating Osfeld's patrol by
half a cup."
An interesting
account of a reconnaissance patrol characteristic of many
sent out to gain information of the enemy's positions and
suspected movements follows:
"We were under almost constant machine gun fire,
without knowing absolutely where it came from. 'Mac,'
said the Top, about four o'clock, 'how do you feel?
Bloodthirsty?'
"'Anything you
say.'
"'Then you're going out tonight with Osfeld,
Soufflas and Corporal Schwartz to find where those guns
are.'
"At eleven o'clock we gulped a bit, saying 'So
long!' to our pals ', and crawled over the top toward the
German lines about two hundred yards away. The shells
fell pretty thick while we were crawling over badly
chewed-up ground that smelt gas soaked; and the German
flares made us duck and lie quiet every few feet.
"About a
hundred and fifty yards out, I should say, we heard what
sounded like a bird whistle close by; we decided that no
birds would be out at midnight and besides, they don't
like high explosive. So we lay quiet like cats watching a
mouse. Presently we heard the steel click of a cartridge
belt being fitted into a 'typewriter.' They must have
seen us, sure. But just then two Boches darted from
behind an old tree stump, running up to the position with
ammunition boxes. From there they ran back to a corner of
the chateau where another 'typewriter' started
chattering. We could hear the Huns in front of us
whispering and tinkering with their gun, so we decided to
make a getaway, having spotted three guns.
" Our knees
were very sore from the rough ground and Osfeld said,
'What do you say we hike a bit?' I said, 'Anything you
say, Phil,' and the quartet decided to run about twenty
feet, then flop, listen and run again. At last we tumbled
over the parapet, and reported the two guns, which our
75's blew out in the morning."
Four days and
nights the Regiment stood up under its first severe
punishment, the only reinforcements a live mule salvaged
by E Company. The Germans seemed to know that the relief
was due, and early in the evening of the 15th commenced
pouring a steady stream of gas and metal into the
American lines. It was a peculiarity of Ville Savoye,
which they knew full well, that gas would linger in and
about the village as in a pocket. They filled it full,
particularly the sunken road leading therefrom and the
areas behind the town. There was no wind to disperse the
fumes. In the early hours of the morning men were feeling
the effects despite the use of masks, all but ten of M
Company's entire personnel being evacuated for mustard
burns about the body and the eyes. Then and there, they
adopted as their company song, Too Much Mustard. By
daylight, the relieving company of the 308th Infantry
found their way into the town, practically all of them
being evacuated later that day as a result of coming in
contact with the mustard gas.
The relief of the
battalion was not completed until the following night. As
Companies I, K and L left their positions, they came into
the gas-infected areas and many of them were also burned.
All in all, the battalion sustained about four hundred
casualties.
.Again, quoting
from the letters of Captain Kenderdine, then Adjutant of
the First Battalion:
"According to
schedule, we were to be relieved at the end of the fifth
day-, but the relieving battalion failed to get us on two
successive nights and we were kept there seven days. Our
supply of rations ran out at the end of the fifth day,
and for two days we had virtually nothing to eat except a
little that I managed to bring in on my way back on the
last day. On the night before the seventh day the
relieving battalion managed to get to our positions, but
not until dawn. We tried to risk getting out even then,
but to get out in daylight one was under constant
observation, as the hillsides were almost bare. We sent
out one company over the hill at about seven A. M., but
they got pretty badly shot at, so the major wisely
ordered the rest of the battalion to stand pat. By that
time they had started to go out and had pulled out of
their positions in the valley. The only thing to do was
for them to come into the ravine (which was at the base
of the hill) until dark. This they did, and
three-quarters of a battalion sat huddled in the ravine
all day, praying that our luck would hold good and that
the Boches would fail to register on the ravine itself.
"The major was naturally worried by the battalion
not having got out. So I took a staunch little Irish boy
as orderly and we made a dash for it over the hill and
back to Regimental Headquarters with a report of our
situation. Instead of being angry at our failure to get
out during the night the Colonel was all sympathy. He
took me in to report to the General. He pressed me to
stay for luncheon, but I had only time for a cup of
coffee and a sandwich (and Lord, how good it tasted!).
Then I went to the Y. M. C. A. hut and bought all the
cigarettes, chocolates and crackers they would sell me.
The Colonel loaded me up with canned food and hardtack,
and I made my way back to Battalion Headquarters, where I
was welcomed with open arms and immediately relieved of
my bag of food.
We all came out that night at dusk. Not a shot was fired.
The men took off their packs on the main road beyond the
crest of the hill. On that first trip to the lines they
had carried everything they owned. I bad been fortunate
enough to arrange for four big trucks to come up that
night and transport these packs to the rear. It was lucky
I did, for the men were almost utterly exhausted. I
stayed behind to supervise the loading of the packs and
then rode out on one of the trucks. I was almost all in
when I sat down on the soft leather seat by the driver. I
immediately fell asleep, and one of my happiest moments
in life was when some good soul of a Red Cross man
stopped the truck in a village we passed through and
poured a large cup of rich chocolate down my throat. The
Battalion had arrived at their rest bivouac before I did.
My striker had found my bedding roll there and spread it
out under a tree. Never was any bed so comfortable. The
Major, bless his heart!-gave orders that I shouldn't be
awakened, and I slept for twenty hours straight."
There were no
irregularities in that first relief of the Second
Battalion- nothing but the ordinary casualties and plenty
of excitement. Shells fell thick and fast, while machine
gun bullets rattled through the streets of St. Thibaut
spattering savagely on stone walls. "Just take a
look at this," said Captain Dodge, from the entrance
to the old wine cellar. Over to the eastward billowing
smoke and a flame-hued sky silhouetted the spectral walls
of the ruined town. Spiteful bursts of rifle and machine
gun fire and a thundering barrage could heard both right
and left, earth rocking explosions and, comforting
through it all, the scream of our own shells, five for
one, winging northward. One recalled Alan Seeger's lines:
I have a rendezvous with death At midnight,. in some
flaming town."
Somehow in the darkness groping figures found their new
places, while shadowy forms in single file hastened into
the gas-filled, shell-torn road, hug-ging the comforting
embankments, walls and ridges, ready to flop whenever a
screaming whine came too close. No fear of the men losing
contact! Jerry dropped a few 77's on the tail of the
disappearing column and although the pace was increased
to about four miles an hour, they miraculously closed up.
Out of the darkness came a clattering team of runaway
mules hitched to a limber, headed straight for the front
lines, crashing into the column of struggling men,
bruising and breaking bones. Anon, the cry of "
Gas" as the head of the column would strike a pocket
of it. Here and there an overturned wagon, supplies
scattered bewilderingly over the road, the slain animals
cast into the ditch. The hills above Chery-Chartreuve
belched forth their constant fireworks, deafening those
plodding past who felt sure that by the fitful glare they
stood revealed to German gunners. It was Hell let loose.
Toward Mareuil, the roads seemed hopelessly jammed with
artillery trains, camions, field pieces, grunting and
clanking tractors prying the " heavies " into
positions where whole companies of artillerymen were
sweating with pick and shovel against the oncoming dawn.
Here and there a ruined truck blown across the road
blocked the path temporarily, adding to the general
confusion.
On this terrible
night, the men of the Sanitary Detachments proved their
mettle. Seemingly always forgotten when general orders
were issued, " boarding " at whoever's kitchen
happened to be nearest to their station, never receiving
very much publicity, they were always there with the big,
fat pack and quick to respond to pathetic cries of
"First Aid!" During the relief, Privates
Coorman, Giordano and Liebman were the last to leave St.
Thibaut in the heavy concentration of gas and high
explosive. Proceeding slowly along the road, they
searched all the dugouts and funk holes, picking up
wounded and gassed men. It was impossible to see with
masks on, due to the heavy smoke. With just the
mouthpiece and nose-slip adjusted, they continued their
work, gathering together twelve wounded and gassed men
who otherwise would have in all probability remained
there until the next day. As only one ambulance was
available, it was necessary for them to remain on the
road for three hours until all the wounded could be
evacuated. It took four stormy trips to and from
Chery-Chartreuve to accomplish this. And then, although
exhausted from the work and lack of sleep and sick from
the effects of gas, they reported at noon of the next
day, to assist in treating the casualties from Ville
Savoye, persisting in refusing hospital treatment
inasmuch as they were temporarily the only Sanitary Corps
men available. Their work in this instance is typical of
the devoted, self-sacrificing service rendered to their
brothers in the Regiment all through our battle
experiences.
Here you are, all of a sudden, in your allotted portion
of the Bois de Mareuil, loafing, eating to make up for
last week, shaving, taking your shoes off for the first
time in eight days, and daring again to think of home.
Where are those "in case" letters? Tear them
up! Here is the long-delayed incoming mail! Old copies of
the Saturday Evening Post! Pay-to gamble with. A little
water to bathe in. Plenty of warm sunlight by which to
"read your shirts." The woods are all cluttered
up with the gas-burned, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and
you are prompted to recount your own terrible
expe-riences: how, for instance, to rest your weary legs
by the roadside you sat down-in a little pocket of
mustard; how, when you turned to the man sitting beside
you to say, "Buddy, give me a drink," he didn't
reply. He sat there dead.
Next morning you
discover that the rest isn't to be all idleness; you dig
a system of support trenches and reserve trenches, while
others at the front are taking up their share of the
dirty work. After a brief period of days you move up into
the woods behind St. Thibaut perhaps, in support, there
to grub in the sand all day and dodge shells all night.
From there you move on up, for your second tour of duty
at the front, this time less awed by what the Boche
flings over, and hearing a fervently expressed desire
"to take that hill! "
During this time,
when companies skipped from " red " line to
" green line to " blue " line and back to
" red " again, feeling like a bunch of darned
chameleons, first in brigade reserve, then regimental
support, then division reserve, regimental reserve and so
on, M Company comprised a body of forty stalwart
vacationists, thoroughly familiar with the care and
handling of horses. They had just returned from the
horse-buying detail, to find practically the entire
company, in the hospitals.
During the month of
August the French under General Mangin began to exert a
flanking pressure up in the northwest and the 77th
Division, more used to the bitter fighting, increased its
frontal pressure. In the words of the Brooklyn Daily
Eagle, "it could be seen that they were growing
uneasy and it was important to establish the extent of
the uneasiness-to learn if they were preparing to
evacuate.
"One of the great feats of the war resulted. Major
William Mack, who was at that time a 1st Lieutenant in
command of G Company, Three Hundred and Fifth, and 1st
Lieutenant Leonard Cox, then 2d Lieutenant of B Company,
Three Hundred and Fifth, volunteered to lead a patrol
over the river in broad daylight to establish just what
the situation was. They took ten other volunteers of
Companies B and C of the Three Hundred and Fifth
Infantry, Sergeant John Blohm, Corporal Peter J. Kiernan,
Corporal Solomon Catalano, and Privates Frederick Barth,
Clarence H. Koehler, Raphael Cohan, Vincent Bisignano,
Frederick M. Meury and Joseph Bridgeman. The party left
the village of St. Thibaut in broad daylight.
"At the Vesle,
Mack left the others and swam across. Cox followed,
carrying a heavy coil of rope. He crawled out into the
river on sunken logs and other debris until he was up to
his armpits in the swift flowing stream. Then, after
repeated attempts, he managed to throw an end of the rope
across to Mack, who fastened it on the other side. All of
the patrol got across the river by means of the rope. On
the other side, the patrol was divided into two parties
of five men each, Mack taking one and Cox the other.
"Mack and his
men went into the village of Bazoches, making their way
past the enemy outposts and getting along finely until
they surprised four Germans in an old house. Mack and his
patrol got the jump on the Germans, killed several of
them and withdrew, fighting desperately all the while,
although under heavy machine gun fire. All of the party
except Sergeant Blohm were wounded, Koehler and Cohan
mortally. All of them made good their with-drawal, Mack
having secured much valuable information.
"On the way
out, Sergeant Blohm took shelter in a shell hole and saw
Corporal Catalano, bleeding profusely from a wound in the
neck, just barely able to drag himself along through the
grass. Blohm promptly left his shelter, carried Catalano
behind a tree near the river, there dressed his wound,
and then broke boughs from a fallen tree so as to make a
raft. On this improvised raft he placed Catalano and
pulled him across the river. Arriving on the other side,
he carried Catalano over an open field fully 200 vards to
the outpost line, all of the time being under continuous
rifle and machine gun fire. And Sergeant Blohm had two
brothers who were fighting in the German Army!
"Lieutenant
Cox, meanwhile, had led his part of the patrol into the
chateau where he shot down two men as they were about to
open fire on his men. He wounded another, and the party
decided it was time to move. Although German machine gun
and rifle fire fairly blasted the air, the entire patrol
got out without a man being injured and got back to their
own lines.
"The commander
of the Third Army Corps, to which the 77th was attached,
recommended all of the men in the patrol for a citation,
and Mack. Cox and Blolun were awarded the Distinguished
Service Cross."
But on the next
morning, September 4th, Lieutenant De Rharn and a patrol
of thirty men from C Company swam the river and with
slight opposition gained & heights beyond, from which
point their rocket signal "Objective reached"
precipitated a general advance.
The Division was on
its way to the Aisne.