HISTORY
of
THE 306th Field Artillery
Night Marches
REMEMBER how we learned all about war at
Upton? The scout squinted out over the terrain and
picking up a cloud of dust knew the enemy was coming.
Carefully noting whether the cloud hung heavy or low, was
thick or broken, he could tell the arm of the service;
and by the use of the watch and a little mental
arithmetic he was enabled to dash up to the general,
render the proper salute and report: " Sir, two
brigades of infantry, a brigade of artillery, sixteen
mounted scouts and a lame medical sergeant are advancing
along the main Gettysburg highway."
Well, Sergeant Hill talked so much about the science of
intelligence that of course a German spy found out all
about it and consequently, in order to fool them
completely, we always marched at night. In that way the
only possible opportunity they had of learning anything
at all, was when we were coming into camp and pitching
our tents in the morning. But that doesn't count.
So that last form of German frightfulness, the Night
March, is now explained for the first time, and since the
war is over, we may lift the story of our secret rambles
through France out of the midnight mystery which cloaks
it.
Our first experience was the advance from Baccarat. When
night had come the brigade stole up toward the river.
First as always, to pass the bridge were the
"Lights." They should not have been burdened
with equipment but you couldn't see the guns for the
merchandise tied to them. Then came our own outfit. The
G. S. carts in many cases had upper stories built upon
them and overflowing from these were all manner of
implements and supplies-like St. Nicholas's pack in the
Christmas pictures. The fourgons were still more
wonderful. The big bulge in the rear hung precariously
upon the fourgon step, held suspended by ropes, or wire.
Pails swung pendant and clanking between the wheels. At
times a wagon passed with a bunch of lanterns bobbing
from the bamboo radio poles. Pitchforks, rakes, saddles,
tin hats, packs, rifles, jangled and banged from every
available point of attachment. Behind one wagon trailed a
telephone reel-cart to which was strapped a bass drum.
Colonel Smith marveled at the ingenuity of our packing.
In his opinion it would have been splendid for a gypsy
caravan or a convention of peddlers, but he was
commanding a regiment of heavy field artillery. The
" heavy, " he explained, referred to the
calibre of the guns and had nothing to do with the
weight-carrying capacity. So the next morning saw a
revision downward. Men discarded five of the six sweaters
they were carrying-books and miscellaneous keepsakes were
left behind. Even though drilled in the almighty laws of
accountability we began to learn the mighty rule of
"Lost in Action."
We had experienced that first night, the bitter struggle
with broken poles. We had more to learn, for an
inconsiderate order was to make us march two nights in
succession! If we had known then what was in store for us
later! We started out on time, pulled to the first rise,
and waited. This waiting was becoming too frequent to be
pleasant. Why were we always pulled up to watch about
eighty batteries of our brother regiments creak into the
road ahead of us? But as it was only about ten kilometers
to go, we calmed ourselves into better patience. Halts
had been prescribed at given intervals. As a matter of
fact we moved whenever they gave us a chance- a system
that is bad enough in rapid transit, but on a night march
doesn't even offer the satisfaction of getting off the
car to see what is blocking the line. At last we cleared
the column and began to roll merrily and regularly on.
But so did the kilometers. Uphill, down dale, chilled by
the passage through the icy gray mists of valleys, and
sweating in the steam our animals generated in the stiff,
slow struggle upgrade, we continued. Some one had
evidently mixed up the calendar and thrown two nights
into one. We learned how elastic a kilometer is.
Finally the familiar form of Captain Taylor gesticulated
the turn-off into a wet wood road and with final heaving,
carriages were pushed up the incline and each battery
dragged up the particular wooded trail assigned to it.
That is, those did that didn't find some one else already
occupying their section. But it made no difference
then-some men dismounted, the rest fell off, the marchers
dropped. Some superhuman individuals put up a picket line
but no horse needed hitching. Every one slept as he was
and where he was-one man astride the gun, his head
dropped half-way through the opening in the shield. The
first night march taught us what it was to be tired. It
was the first time mess call ever passed unheeded.
The next period of marching had an entirely different
appearance. After Loromontzey, everyone had the firm
conviction that just around the corner lay -war. The
approach to it in the mystery of darkness was an
unforgettable progress; each night advanced the scene one
step. Each night added a new sensation of the varied
sights and smells and sounds of combat.
At first the village heralded its approach with the warm,
strong reek of stables. Occasionally a spear of light
told that there was life within the black shape of the
houses we passed. But the dim and silent hamlets had a
somberness not entirely due to darkness; a grim prophecy
that seemed epitomized in the gaunt, black crucifix with
the shadowy form nailed upon it that occasionally loomed
up above us in the night.
These villages were intact. But each succeeding night
wrought a gradual change. From Chateau- Thierry on, our
passage in the night was through villages deader than the
empty countryside. In the dim light the shattered walls,
the broken, tumbled mass of stones, told that we were in
the wake of war. Each town was wired, turned crazy in its
destruction. The wild twist of shell-struck iron fences,
the ghastly look of the church, the gaping walls of which
revealed the fearful disarray of rubbish and debris
within gave the conviction that the peaceful countryside
had gone mad, daft with the rage of battle. Soon even the
terrible destruction ceased to be impressive. Buildings
were almost beyond recognition as dwelling places. We
began to pass over open areas where troops had fought.
The unmistakable stench of the battlefield at night
raised visions even more awful than the frank
revelations of day. Yes, those first impressions are
unforgettable, and in our later wisdom do not think that
we were not sobered gravely thoughtful in our first grim
passage to the front. The signs of desolation that we saw
were only heightened when we came to where the first gun
flashes lit the sky, and the distant, steady rumble
indicated that the devastation we had witnessed was going
on ahead of us and that soon we would share in it.
Our early road marches had found us cursing at the
interminable delay that was occasioned by the passage of
either of our brother organizations in the brigade. We
would appear at the appointed time and then wait for them
to clear. Later we came upon batteries and detachments
sliding in from other roads. One never felt sure that he
might not find the head of his column vanish and in its
place some fragment of the 305th or 304th. The feeling of
disgust was mutual, I know that our regiment still echoes
to the mighty curses poured upon it by the others, but
our own execrations must still tingle in their ears. For
though roads may be wide apart at starting, their
intersection is bound to cause contact. Then it's the
loudest, most authoritative voice, which wins the right
of way. " What outfit is this? " " What y'
doing here? Wha' d' ya' mean cutting in? " "
Hold up that column! " Usually one would swear that
the whole battery had passed with the exception of a
rolling kitchen and a water cart, and win the road long
enough to hurry ten carriages forward and keep the line
intact.
Perhaps it was the constant fear of pressure from behind
that made every one struggle to keep up the lagging
elements of the command. I recollect a lieutenant's
barking out to an indistinct figure who was str1uggling
to lead two mules and only succeeding in drifting back
through the column:
" Why in blazes don't you lead those mules."
The mild answer from the darkness was:
" Lootenant, you have no idea how obstinate a mule
can be."
At any rate the officer learned, for when he tried to
assist, the current of the advance swept by him and he
soon had drifted through a whole battalion receiving
uncomplimentary remarks all down the line until brought
up by the deep and mighty voice of Major Moon. " Out
of the way-lead those animals out of the way! "
Perhaps the world will never know the silent misery of
those poor individuals who were commanded to lead the
sick and halt animals and given positive instructions to
keep up with the column. Pushed off the road-they dropped
back farther and farther until alone and unassisted they
coaxed and pulled a miserable skate slowly and painfully
through a strange and lonely country. And after a night
of these labors they would bring the animal into camp
late in the afternoon only to have him drop dead at the
picket line!
But it was work-and hard work-for everybody with the
possible exception of the cooks and the blacksmiths, and
they surely had their innings on reaching camp. They
alone could rest undisturbed by the interfering officer
who rode up and down the column. Lieutenant Stokes, when
with Supply Company, was acting in that capacity, at the
hills, bawling out to all the extra men to get off and
walk. One six-mule prairie schooner was in particular
difficulty because of its mammoth load. Finally the
lieutenant himself, wearied at his exertions, turned his
horse over to his orderly and climbed aboard the wagon.
As he describes it: " I made my bed of a bicycle, a
mail sack and a couple of tin hats and went to sleep, one
leg hanging over the edge of the wagon. But my slumbers
were rudely disturbed by someone tugging at my leg and
the stern voice of a determined non-com calling, 'Hey you
damned lazy, long-legged son-of-a-gun, get the hell down
out of there!"'
Probably the most epic night marching was the famous
nine-day hike from the Vesle to the Argonne. We started
burdened by the ammunition that was ordered to be
carried, and were in difficulties from the start. But all
the horrors of a night move were concentrated when the
regiment reached the bridge before Fismes. There were
French and Italians both streaming the other way, an
increasingly thickening gas concentration and above all,
the steady whistle of Jerry's shells searching for the
struggling mass of humanity in the valley. A pair of
mules hitched to a G. S. cart bolted, banged against a
fourgon hub and rebounded into the ditch only to fetch up
in a hopeless tangle on the barbed wire in an orchard.
Our carriages waited interminable hours, it seemed, while
the relieving troops bumped by, blind in their gas masks.
Wheels sank in the mud, hubs locked, drivers swore and
still the M. P.'s held us. And all the while those
searching shells raked the valley but mercifully spared
that hopeless tangle and confusion at the bridge. At last
we cleared and slowly worked through the town. Then came
the long hill. To be stuck there where every little while
a Boche shell burst-that thought seemed to stimulate even
the horses to greater exertion. The cannoneers strained
at the wheels, drivers cut loose wounded animals, men
heaved shells from the stalled and laggard wagons. Every
ounce of energy, every atom of will worked to get by, get
clear, get over that place. And then when the hill was
cleared and we began to breathe normally again, came the
uneven brrr-brrm, brrr-brrm of Boche planes and the whizz
and crashing explosion of the falling" ash
cans." Oh, that was a night march with but a single
pleasant recollection-the hot chocolate that the K. of C.
had to stimulate the weary men to finish out the long
journey to Coulonges Wood!
We struggled over more hills in those nine days than
there are in the Rockies. The whole countryside must have
echoed to the mournful wail-" Cannoneers at the
wheels-Ready-Heave! " At times each wagon had to be
coaxed patiently over the crest. Men struggled in the
continuous downpour of rain, splashed through the mud and
panted pushing on the slippery spokes. All along the
column, officers and non-coms bawled to drivers: "
Gather your horses, now, use your
heels-Ready-Heave!" and nothing happened. Then up
would come the dis-mounted men. (Those rifles were such
useful weapons in our war, particularly when one tugged
at a wheel and his gun barrel banged him in the jaw or
kicked him in the knees when he slipped and fell!) The
horses danced and plunged in place without moving an
inch. At last the carriage moved and it seemed as if one
were pushing animals and all uphill. This was the
continuous performance. Sometimes it didn't rain-the
scenery changed, but for all the rest it was the same
thing over and over with increasing weariness.
For a few days when out of the danger zone, we moved in
the light. This gave rise to extra ordinances for the
care of our beloved animals, damn 'em. An officer had to
be at the head of the column and at the foot, no one
should be on the wagon, but the brake-man. When the long
drawn out "Halt!" sounded down the line
followed by: "Prepare to dismount, -dismount!
"-a driver had to climb down from his stubborn
colossus and feed him handfuls of grass plucked from the
roadside. Might just as well give an elephant a currant
from a bun as those voracious beasts a handful of grass!
Then drivers were to hike for five minutes each hour.
Usually the time selected for this walking was just
before we struck a long hill and they had to run,
breathless, alongside to keep up. One time when this
order had come to dismount, a particularly wearied driver
called out: "All men off wagons, horses aboard,
drivers in the shafts, forward march!" We did do
everything but carry the horses that trip. But whatever
the heart-less, hopeless difficulties, the pelting,
drenching rain, the broken shafts, the stubborn, worn-out
horses, the mud and the hills, we got there, we made the
grade, we won.
Our later period wasn't so difficult. We were veteran
hikers then-and we had salvaged more junk. The troubles
then were some of those impossible things such as when a
horse slipped off the road, and when he was cut loose
from the harness, disappeared from sight only to be
discovered thirty feet below astride the ridge pole of a
German shack. But until the Armistice, the night march
was the nightmare of our service. There was always t e
jam and confusion of the road-the interminable waits, and
the fatigue. And yet, now the war is over, who would wish
to wipe out his vision of those dusky columns on the
march? We shall forget much of hardship and of pain but
will forever remember that moving picture of the road at
night. It's like a parade of ghosts; the hunched-up
figures of the riders swaying to the monotonous
bob-bobbing of the horses' heads, the strange shapes of
wagons passing on in endless sequence, all men anonymous,
one like the rest, except where among the tiny, red glows
of cigarettes that dot the column, an inhaled puff
faintly illumines for an instant a stern and strangely
solemn face. It is a silent picture, for the most part,
moving mechanically to the steady rumble of carts, the
clanking of harness chains and the skludge-skludge of
heavy hoofs. And at the end of each column are the
trudging cannoneers. Silent too, their rifles slung over
shoulder, marching irregularly along. Out of the darkness
a far-away voice calls in a long sing-song "
Ha-a-lt! " It is picked up like a chant and passed
from carriage to carriage. The wagons slowly stop and the
silent figures, with individual movements develop into
men. But the little band on foot tumbles off the road and
flops wearily into the ditch or sprawls alongside in the
field. There is a flurry of conversation when the drivers
have mounted up again, the line swings into motion but it
soon turns into the speechless mechanical plod, plod
onward interminably. That's the night march at its best.
No one will ever be able to describe truth-fully the
heart-breaking efforts to overcome the multitudinous
accidents, struggles of a march. But somewhere in the
legends of the Greeks is the mournful tale of Sisyphus
damned by the gods to push a heavy wheel uphill through
all eternity. Perhaps some 306th men will come across the
sculptured likeness of that everlasting S. 0. L. and if
he does it's two to one he'll say: " Heave, you
son-of-a-gun, heave, you've got nothing on us in the job
we've just left."
WILLIAM A. VOLLMER,
First Lieutenant, 306th F. A.