OUR SONS
AT WAR
by,
Lee McCollum
1940
ACROSS THE RED HORIZON
SLOWLY the damp, grey fog drifted down the valleys in the
war-desolated forest of the Argonne, hanging like a misty
bridal veil, on the face of the barren hillside. The
shell-blasted trees, stripped of branches and leaves,
stood there in their shattered majesty as spectral guards
at the portals of the Immortals.
For months the dull red ball of fire now sinking beyond
the hazy horizon had run red with blood of humanity's
youth. It had once been the sun, had shown in all its
glory and splendor on men whose lives had been unspotted
with the grim business of killing. Men who had laughed,
had been gay. Men who had once dared to plan this thing
we know as life. Steadily they had grown into relentless,
murderous, moving robots of destruction, whose daily task
was to lay at the feet of the God of Mars their
contribution of the lifeless spoils of war.
Here the stark drama of life and death was as inevitable
as the beginning and ending of day. Kingdoms had fallen.
Democracies had turned from peaceful pursuits to
war-maddened autocracies, feeding their men into the maw
of death with the callousness of the butchering room in a
packing house.
Under the guise of patriotism, playing bands, blaring
press, spouting orators and the beat of the drums,
half-grown boys had been hysterically urged to "Join
the colors," "Do their bit," to
"Fight the war to end wars," and "Make the
world safe for democracy."
They followed the ballyhoo of war as readily as though
they were led by the legendary Pied Piper of Hamlin. By
early October 1918, an endless stream of American
doughboys had moved into the forest of the Argonne, deep
in the heart of war-stricken France.
The dapper city-bred clerk, the crook, the hard-boiled
soldier of the regular army, together with the bland,
half-sophisticated college graduate lieutenants,
adventure seeking high school boys, and National
Guardsmen, all looked as one as they met in that forest
of the Argonne for the last big push before the armistice
took place. They were a composite picture of the soldier
at work, dull-faced, with set jaws and grim lips; eyes
staring like half-burned coals from their emaciated,
beard-matted, war-weary faces. Only the eyes spoke. What
volumes a glance exchanged between them could tell.
Sights indelibly stamped in their minds that would live
with them throughout the balance of their lives.
Slowly and tensely these men pushed into the heart of the
forest; khaki clad bodies became a part of the earth as
the last wreaths of the grey mist settled over the
Argonne and night fell.
In this group were two men who had been inseparable from
their first days together in the training camps back
home. They had ridden the crest of many battles together,
and there was a love between them as that of blood
brothers. Chosen for outpost duty that night, they had
made- a small foxhole deep in the side of the steeply
wooded ravine, which was the objective gained by their
company on that day of fighting. Huddled there together
for the warmth their bodies would give to one another,
they alternated their watch while one dozed fitfully
through a few of the night's rain-filled hours.
An enemy star-shell flamed in the sky with a glow of
pale, sickly yellow. This was followed by another that
hung as though festooned to the end of an invisible pole.
The flares faded and died, but not before one of the
doughboys on guard had caught the movement of figures
creeping stealthily down the hillside toward them.
Arousing his companion, he said "Harris . . . Harris
. . . wake up, here they come!" Then he let loose
with a volley of shots into the darkness where he had
last seen the blurred figures moving toward him.
Harris came to with a start; reaching for his gun he
started as though to leave the foxhole, when his
companion pulled him sharply down. Harris slouched down
beside him; he was white as a ghost, and trembling as
though with the ague. "Shell-shock," thought
Bill Hanlon, his comrade. Shaking him slowly but roughly,
he started talking to him:
"Harris . . . what in God's name is the matter,
man?"
Harris mumbled something unintelligible. Hanlon knew he
would have to talk, and talk fast.
"Here, Harris, take a sip of this water."
Then he handed Harris his canteen. Harris pushed it back
with unseeing eyes, rising again as though to leave the
fox-hole, and Hanlon heard the sharp "Zing" of
a sniper's bullet. It was too close for comfort, so
grabbing Harris by the shoulder, he again pulled him back
to safety.
"Here, Harris, buck up, buck up, man . . . you're
too long in the outfit to let down like this."
Harris again started mumbling.
"Here, drink this water . . . Hell, man, you'll be
breaking the moral of the new recruits if this gets
out."
Hanlon continued to shake him, and forced some water
between his half-opened lips.
Harris shook his head from side to side, and for a moment
his eyes again took on a light of understanding. Then the
look of sanity left and he started shouting.
"Stop . . . for God's sake stop! Bill . . . Bill
I can't stand it any longer . . . I'm afraid, I tell you
... Jerry's got my number ... I feel it."
His voice rose and cracked in a high-pitched scream:
"Don't leave me, Bill ... for God's sake don't leave
me .
Once again Hanlon quieted him, but Harris hung steadily
onto him until Hanlon could feel his nails cutting deep
into his arms. The wild look returned to Harris's eyes as
he started bawling again.
"Yes ... I'm afraid . afraid do you hear me,
Bill?"
"I've been afraid ever since the day I first joined
this damn army ... now it's driving me nuts ... driving
me nuts ... do you hear, Bill?"
Hanlon clung tightly to Harris, trying to calm him, but
Harris continued shouting.
"I'm losing my mind . . . Bill . . . all I can hear
is the voices of the wounded and dead . . . and they keep
saying to me . 'You're next, Harris ... You're next.'
"
Then he fell on Hanlon's shoulders and his racking sobs
told too well the story of broken nerves.
"Come, Harris . . . buck up, man . . . here, take
some water."
Again Hanlon tried to force water to his lips, but Harris
pushed him back. He dropped the canteen, and Hanlon
clutched for it to save its precious contents. As he did
so Harris drew back as though to strike him; then Hanlon
lashed out with his open hand, slapping Harris full in
the face. With the blow reason returned to Harris, his
eyes cleared, and he looked at Hanlon again in his old
familiar bantering way. "Thank God," thought
Hanlon. "He's all right again."
Harris reached over and half threw his arm around
Hanlon's shoulders and said, "I'm sorry as hell . .
. Bill ... what kind of a louse do you think I am to
drink up all your water on you."
"I am glad you're okay again, Harris . . . that was
a close one."
"Why Bill . . . you damn grinning Irishman, you ...
if you were working with a full stomach I'd punch hell
out of you here and now for talking about close
ones."
Bill breathed a sigh of relief; he was sure now that
Harris would be all right. Silently he gripped Harris's
hand, for it is hell to see an old campaigner whom you
love as a brother crack up.
Harris returned the handgrip, telling his gratefulness by
the pressure of his hand. At Hanlon's orders he shoveled
out a larger space in the foxhole so he could extend his
body in it to obtain the rest he so badly needed.
It was quiet again, but the sound of Harris's shouting
was bound to bring the enemy in again. Bill lay in the
upper half of the foxhole with eyes straining through the
wet darkness of the forest, as though by his eyes alone
he would pull the enemy within range of his high powered
rifle. It started a steady downpour of rain. Bill
breathed a prayer of thanks, as it meant less chance, of
enemy night raiding.
He crouched there soaked to the skin, the long minutes
clicked off tediously. He would not call Harris for fear
that he might crack up again. He felt that if they could
live the night through, Harris would either be all right
in the morning, or he could get him started to a field
hospital.
The night was endless, and despite
his dozing Hanlon thought he heard the low, guttural
talking of his enemy coming from above where he lay. Just
then a small Very flare-light ascended, and as he raised
his head above the edge of the foxhole he was greeted
with a burst of sniper gun-fire. Quickly he jerked his
bead down, then all things quieted down again. Feeling
that it would be but a matter of minutes until his
position was attacked, he tried to arouse Harris.
He slouched down in the shell hole, and began whispering
in a low tone to Harris. But receiving no answer he
started to shake him slowly. When he did not respond he
reached over to Harris's head, putting his hand over his
mouth to make sure of his silence. It came away warm and
sticky . . . the face was cold.
"Harris . . . Harris . . . My God, Harris you, too .
. ."
Harris's body turned as though to answer Bill's call ...
then it slumped further in the foxhole.
By the dim light of the flare Hanlon could see the stark,
staring eyes of his comrade looking heavenward through
the beating rain.
Harris was dead. A shot through the head in that last
burst of firing had come out through his mouth.
Hanlon felt his hand ... then started slowly rubbing it
in the mud ... as though to erase forever the stain of
the life blood of his best buddy.
His own nerves cracked under the strain. He started
mumbling and sobbing . . . "Harris gone . . . Harris
gone ... only Jack and Chet and me left of our gang ...
My God! ... when will it end?"
GLORY OF WAR
You can see men die on the battlefields,
go through hell time again and still grin,
But there's something that gets you beneath the belt
when you see green troops "come in."
Laughing and gay they march into the lines,
thinking that war is a lark,
Then after the fight they're grim-lipped and white,
as if they were stricken stark.
The sparkle of youth has gone from their eyes,
and the smile is gone from their face,
They are marked with that hardness on lip and brow,
that only a war can trace.
If they laugh again, as perhaps they will,
it is only a hollow mask,
Hiding the truth of the "glory of war,"
and their part in its murderous task.
Hardened and calloused-the creatures of war,
their minds with a single thought,
To cling to their preciously short span of life,
in each murderous battle that's fought.
They blast everything that lies in their path,
by means of a bomb or a gun,
Their passports to heaven or maybe to hell,
as they battle a race called "Hun."
Stand for a spell in this man-made hell,
that is known as no-man's-land,
Watch comrade and enemy fall one by one,
and then try to understand,
Why fools like us who have lives to live,
could so like puppets be,
That down through the ages we bleed out our lives,
on the altars of jealousy.
AN OBJECT LESSON
THE SETTING
IT was the last year of the war, on the Argonne Front.
Little more than a month of fighting remained, but none
of the men of the 77th Division knew that, or would have
believed you had you told them. Of late there had been
more and more victories, but each had been won by
stubborn fighting and at a terrible cost of lives.
Back of the lines, in headquarters, where officers traced
the ebb and flow of battle with pins on a huge map, a
different story was being unfolded. There it had become
evident, in the past few months, that the slow inevitable
weakening of the entire German front had been taking
place. Daily the line of pins that represented the Allied
line had crept a little farther to the eastward. The
movement was not steady, the line did not advance with
each segment abreast of the others, but the general trend
was unmistakable. One row of pins - an inch or two -
would creep forward, waver momentarily, and then entrench
itself in a new and unfamiliar section of the map.
Farther down the map, another row of pins would hitch
forward to come abreast with the first set.
On the map it was simple and fascinating. The pins moved
forward, wavered, sometimes fell back, but always rallied
and recovered their gains. But at the front, miles ahead
over war-torn ground, it was no game at all. Here the
pins became men, muddy, weary, war-worn men who died that
pins might move. For hours guns roared, the barrage would
creep forward, and beneath it men would run stumblingly
across shell-pocked ground, raked by machine-gun fire,
then dig themselves in. Night would come and with it
Death's weird fireworks of shrapnel shells and flares;
again the stumbling advance, past recently emptied
trenches, through entanglements of barbed wire. Days of
this living hell and the pins would move an inch -a
quarter of an inch, on the map miles behind the lines.
There was one set of pins that did not move forward. Only
at one point on the map had the pins remained stationary
month after month, year after year, even through the
recent drive, when elsewhere along the line, the pins had
all crept to the East and to the North, toward the German
border. This point was the Argonne Forest, known as the
Champaign Front. The forest had been seized by the German
forces in the opening months of the war. Later on the
French had made a brief, desperate attempt to dislodge
them, and had failed, losing many thousand men. No other
attempt had been made during four years.
The German forces had been able by use of prisoners to
convert the Argonne into a veritable wooded fortress,
vast and impregnable natural stronghold. Their system of
defense honeycombed the woods in all directions. Secret
roads had been built so that German troops could move
swiftly and unseen to any part of the forest that was
threatened with attack. A clever and intricate system of
barbed wire entanglements ran like a maze, a cruel
labyrinth, through the entire extent of the forest.
Hidden nests of machine guns and light artillery
commanded all roads and paths, while a series of secret
observation posts kept the German command informed of any
movement of the Allied forces, should they attempt to
enter this wooded for-tress.
It had been learned that the German troops occupying this
section were the Landwehr Reserves - the "Old
Fellows," as they were called -and it was thought
they had been softened by a long period of easy life.
Unaccustomed to the rigors of battle, they were expected
to put up only a half-hearted resistance before a
determined attack. Unknown to the allied command, the
Landwehr Reserves had been reinforced by seasoned troops
of the 76th German Division. The combination of
battlewise veterans and fresh rested troops garrisoned in
the Forest formed a formidable fighting unit that awaited
the invasion of their enemies.
THE PROBLEM
THIS was the problem, to move those stubborn pins, that
the entire Allied lines might advance to the German
borders. The American 77th Division and portions of the
Fourth French Army Corps were picked to accomplish this
difficult task.
The 77th Division, originally composed of men from New
York's East Side, had been reinforced with fresh troops
from the 40th Division, made up of Westerners from the
mountain and Pacific Coast States. This was a
cross-section of America, from the raw-boned cowhand,
sunburned farmers, uprooted clerks and bank--tellers, to
garment workers of the Bronx and skilled factory
mechanics, who could handle a lathe as well as they could
a rifle. These were the men who were to try and solve
that problem, that pins might again move. There remained
only the plan of attack.
THE PLAN OF ATTACK
IT was decided to assault the rectangular Ravine d'
Argonne, which was the heart of the Argonne Forest, from
the south. The French were to close in from the west and
the Americans from the east. The forces were to sweep
together, like the closing blades of a huge pair of
shears, and to squeeze the enemy out before them as they
closed. It was assumed by the Allied high command that
the Germans would retreat to the north to avoid capture,
when they learned of this attack with its encircling
action on both their flanks. If all went well, the blades
of those human shears would come together at the
northeastern edge of the forest and the Argonne would be
cleared.
Between the two forces, and serving as a connecting link,
a liaison group, composed of American colored troops, was
to keep open the lines of communication in order that
each blade of the giant shears could be informed of the
other's movements. This was a highly important function,
but a task made doubly difficult because of the tangled
underbrush and the density of the forest.
THE ATTACK IS LAUNCHED
AT daybreak, September 26th, 1918, simultaneously from
the east and west, troops poured into the forest. Behind
them, heavy artillery belched and thundered, its
continuous roars echoing over the wooded hills and the
ravines of the Argonne. Far ahead, the shells were
dropping unseen, and with unknown effect, as the rough
terrain made it impossible to establish observation
stations. Beneath this blind barrage the troops advanced.
For six days the battle raged. From the start it became
apparent that superhuman effort would be required to
carry out the attack as originally planned. The Allied
troops had no more than entered the shadows of the forest
when the full fury of the German defense was turned loose
on them. From unseen nests machine guns poured torrents
of their lead into the oncoming Allied ranks. Every foot
of every twisting, turning path that German prisoners had
long before cut through the dense forest, became a
certain death trap. At times one would see the grey-clad
Huns, or stumble over their dead bodies. For the most
part it was like fighting an enemy cloaked in the
terrifying armor of invisibility.
At the end of two days' fighting, the Americans on the
west had fared much better than the French on the east.
Purchasing their gains by great losses of men, they had
hacked their way deep into the forest, while the French
bad encountered terrific resistance and had fallen back.
Despite their valiant, persistent efforts, they had made
but little headway. Meantime the 92nd Division of colored
American troops, which were to have kept open the line of
communication between the French and the American
Division, had been entirely routed from their position by
strong German counterattacks. This left the two invading
forces operating as separate units, without knowledge of
each others' position. In the dense Argonne forest the
military designations of battalion, company, platoon and
squad had become meaningless. Men pushed on blindly,
knowing only that the enemy was ahead of them, that their
job was to advance and drive them from the woods.
On October 2, the seventh day of the advance, there came
a breathing spell. Communication was reestablished
between the two forces, and a survey made of the results
of the drive. The partial collapse of the plan of attack
immediately became evident. Only one blade of the shears
had moved. While the Americans had moved steadily
forward, the French blade of the shears had remained
stationary, and the squeezing action had not been
affected, with the result that failure of the whole drive
was threatened.
Prompt and drastic action was imperative. An immediate
renewal of the attack was ordered. A common objective for
the French and American forces was chosen. They were
again to advance, making no attempt to maintain lines of
communication with each other. It was hoped that as the
two forces advanced at an angle, the disjointed blade of
the shear would join with the other, and thus the exposed
flank of the American forces would be protected. Shortly
before noon, on October 2, the second attack was under
way.
At this point the attention was then focused for the
first time on the so-called Lost Battalion.
A TRAGEDY IN THE MAKING
THE exposed left flank, the point where the blades of the
shears would normally come together, was under command of
Major Charles W. Whittlesey with Captain George G.
McMurtry as second in command. Both were competent,
level-headed officers, thoroughly experienced and
seasoned and commanding the respect and confidence of
their men.
The force consisted of six companies of the 308th
Infantry, one company of the 307th Infantry, and two
platoons of the 306th Machine Gun Battalion with nine
machine guns - a total of approximately seven hundred
men.