HISTORY
of
THE 308th INFANTRY
By
L. Wardlaw Miles
Chapter 6
The Argonne
CHAPTER V1
The Argonne
I
REFERENCE has been made to the individual soldier's
ignorance of the War beyond his immediate observation.
Nevertheless the army was an enormous and elaborate piece
of machinery in which even the humblest private was a
cog-wheel fitted to some larger unit than himself, in
turn fitted to a still larger unit, and so on, with the
result that each part of the vast machine was related to
all the rest. Therefore it is possible to look at any
military operation, such as that of the Argonne-Meuse
Offensive, from a number of points of view. This action,
lasting from September 26th to November 11th, might thus
be regarded as a part of the vast operations along the
whole Western Front. Then proceeding downward in order of
importance of the component parts, one great individual
wheel would be the American Forces as a whole. Then in
turn, one could proceed to the 1st American Army which
constituted the attacking force on the Argonne-Meuse
Front, then in turn to the 1st Corps, and to the 77th
Division, which made a part of this Corps, and so on down
through brigade, regiment, battalion, company, platoon,
and squad to the individual private.
First then, what was the situation of the Western Front
as a whole at the time that the 308th Infantry marched
back from the sector described in the last chapter? By
the beginning of September, General Foch had decided that
the great-unified attack by the forces of the Allies and
the United States should begin. In the north, this was to
be made by the British; in the center, by the French; and
to the south an American army was for the first time to
attack as an independent unit on a large sector. In this
great attack upon the Hindenburg Line, which was to end
the War, it was the part of General Pershing, after the
reduction of the St. Mihiel salient on September 12th, to
push north towards Sedan and to cut the German
communications, the railroad line running southeast from
Maubeuge to Metz. At the time of the attack, the American
army consisted of three army corps, each containing three
divisions. The 1st Army Corps, on the left of the
American Forces, contained in order from left to right
the 77th, 28th, and 35th Divisions. To the left of the
77th were the French under General Gouraud. Finally the
position of the 308th, at the beginning of the attack on
September 26th, was next to the French, that is to say,
on the extreme left of all the American forces.
An historian of the War has thus pictured the situation
on the Western Front: "Actually Foch will use
Pershing for his right hand and Haig for his left, while
Petain's force will furnish the kick, the savate
permissible in French boxing." Since the 77th was
given the honor of holding the left flank of the American
Forces, and the 308th held the left flank of the 77th, we
might consider the Regiment as the thumb of Foch's right
hand-under-standing of course the hand held back up and
clenched into a fighting fist.
The same authority
speaks of the Argonne-Meuse advance as follows:
No battle area on the Western Front is more difficult to
describe than the Argonne-Meuse sector. The Argonne
itself, with its densely wooded regions, recalls vividly
the circumstances of the Wilderness campaign in the Civil
War, and the country over which the New York division
advanced would have awakened many memories in the minds
of the veterans of Grant and Lee. The area between the
Aire and the Meuse, with its high and wooded hills and
its deep and marshy valleys, bounded on the east by the
Meuse, strikingly recalls that country where Gates's army
first halted, then broke and captured Burgoyne's army in
the campaign which led to the surrender at Saratoga. And
in this region between the Aire and the Meuse there is
much which recalls the woods and hills of eastern
Massachusetts and the points of cover from which the
"Minute Men" assailed the British Redcoats on
their retreat from Concord and Lexington on April 19,
1775.
In advancing from south to north, Pershing's army moved
through a corridor rather more than twenty miles wide at
the start and narrowing as the Meuse inclined westward to
a point which was exactly at Donchery, where, in the
Chateau de Bellevue, Napoleon III capitulated in 1870
after the disaster at Sedan. In this corridor the
American difficulties were these: from the west they were
assailed by a flank fire delivered by the Germans from
the heights and forests of the Argonne which were
impregnable to direct attack; a similar fire was
delivered from the east, from the heights of the Meuse on
the right bank of that stream; in front they were faced
by an enemy posted in an indescribable tangle of wooded
hills, marshy bottoms, and deep ravines.
The last words quoted will probably strike some of those
who fought in the forest as scarcely doing sufficient
justice to the difficulty of the terrain. It was rather a
jungle than a forest, with heavy undergrowth, high coarse
snake grass, deep ravines, and old trenches and wire
everywhere. Rainsford's picture is admirable:
A bleak, cruel
country of white clay and rock and blasted skeletons of
trees, gashed into innumerable trenches, and seared with
rusted acres of wire, rising steeply into claw-like
ridges and descending into haunted ravines, white as
leprosy in the midst of that green forest, a country that
had died long ago, and in pain.
So much for the general situation when the time
approached for our Regiment to play its part in the
greatest battle in which Americans have ever
participated.
After the relief in the Vesle Sector in the middle of
September, there was, of course, much talk of possible
orders to a rest area. This time the rumor certainly
seemed justified. With the exception of ten days required
for the journey by train and camion from Lorraine to the
Vesle, the 308th had been continually in the front line
from June 20th until September 15th. Casualties and
illness had played havoc with the daily strength reports.
Now the Personnel Adjutant had an opportunity to check up
numbers without the interruption of shellfire. He found
that the Regiment needed twelve hundred and fifty
enlisted replacements, and that many of the companies
were reduced to one commissioned officer. The men who
remained were considerably tired out, and more than ready
to believe the rest area rumors. These, however, were to
be rudely dashed, when the Regiment was ordered to the
woody slopes between St. Menehould and the southern edge
of the Argonne Forest.
2
Since the present writer was to take no part in the
events which follow, and is obliged to rest entirely upon
the testimony of others, he has decided to employ in this
part of the history considerable quotation from some
informal notes later furnished him by Lieutenant Colonel
Whittlesey. No apology seems needed for the personal tone
used, though it must of course be understood that the
notes were written with no thought that they would be
published as they stand.
When you were wounded [his notes begin] I was in charge
of the Brigade Reserve about three kilos south of you. We
were on the reverse slope of a hill south of Blanzy. The
Reserve was the 1st Battalion and a detachment of machine
guns, (305th, I think) plus our own machine gun company.
First, we were ordered to relieve the 3rd Battalion, but
after making the reconnaissance for the relief with the
Captains- Whiting, Lewis, Schenck, Knight,-we were held
for an attack, which it was expected we would take part
in along the plateau east of Revillon, commanding the
Aisne. We moved our position northeast on the high land
along the road leading to Merval. There we were grouped with the 307th-a
battalion under Blagden-but we only
stayed there a day or two, and before the attack came off
our Division was ordered out for the concentration of the
Argonne.
The 308th was ordered to march out and camp at a spot 15
kilos or so south of Fismes-named Vezilly, I think. We
were supposed to start about midnight when the relief was
complete. But during the afternoon, two Italian
battalions sent up officers and they squabbled with each
other as to which was going to make the relief. I hurried
off to Regimental Headquarters of the 307th, (our own
Headquarters had gone south) to get the news straightened
out; but to my horror, when it came night up pops both of
the Wop battalions, -and such a milling around in the
dark! So finally I sent off my battalion and kept a dozen
men (runners, etc.,) with me-stuck one Italian battalion
in place, and spent the rest of the night trying to lodge
the other. It was a pretty discouraged Wop commander,
when we finally had to go away.'
So along about 5 A.M., these dozen runners and I started
off on our hike south of twenty kilos or so. The Germans
were shelling Fismes in a desultory way as we passed
through. All I remember of it is the flimsy plank
bridge-two planks wide-across the Vesle in the center of
the town, and an estaminet with the roof knocked off, but
a good sign saying "Open for Business." My
brother who drove a camion for the French, the summer
before, used to drive through Fismes -which was well in
the rear then-and says he remembers this good inn and its
wine. Their trucks used to go across Villers le-Prayeres
(the Aisne) where you were, and up to the Chemin des
Dames.
South of Fismes we came to a balloon station, then cool
woods, and we slept for a couple of hours. Then up-and it
was hot as hell on the road-and we kept on hiking over
those endless hills through that hot day till about
mid-afternoon, when we found the 308th.
It was in a fine rolling meadow country near a tiny town
and we had the bliss of getting up pup tents and really
sleeping like Christians, and getting clean. . . .
Dear old Lieutenant Colonel Smith had bought a lot of
grape marmalade at his own risk, which he was selling to
the men at cost. So there were some bright spots.
We were there maybe a day-perhaps two-then at night they
stuck us in busses-aimed God knows where. Kept on going
all night-lovely moonlight. I remember passing through
Epernay at three or four A.M. and how beautiful the city
looked with its high walls and gardens behind. Also there
was a Frenchman that could get hot coffee off the
radiator of his camion-which helped. It was fixed so you
drew it off through a rubber tube-pretty fine.
The trip was mostly along those gorgeous Roman
roads-planes and poplars. It was day when we debussed.
Each Battalion was in a separate village, about 15 kilos
south of St. Menehould (just south of where we were to
start in the Argonne). My recollection-which is bad-is
that our towns were Epense, Dampierre, and Dommartin.,
Anyhow it was one day of fair peace. Bob Hass got rabbits
for dinner in one house,-and duck in another. The woman
of the, house who gave us the good duck dinner said the
Germans had been through the village in the first year of
the war, and had been very quiet and decent.
Ken Budd joined us that day' back from the hospital. It
was a jolt to him to see what - had been doing to every
one's spirits. But good old Lieutenant Colonel Smith was
easing off things as usual. . . .
Then just as every one got to bed-having been in busses
all the night before-there came the usual order to get
them all up again and hike to a place on the edge of the
forest four or five kilos south of St. Menehould. It was
drizzling rain with the roads up to your ankles in
mud-for we weren't permitted the highway. So we hiked all
night, very tired, and got into the edge of the wood a
little after day. They were nasty wet woods, but we could
get up the pup tents, and it wasn't so bad. . . . It must
have been Sunday, for I remember the Padre and our
Episcopal chaplain had services in a pleasant hollow.
Maybe we were a day or two days there. Then we had a
night hike north to Florent, and believe me it was a
hike. Tremendous number of stragglers from some of the
other regiments. All night we were passing the French
coming out, lazying along in groups of three or four in
their sensible way, while we had to keep the column
closed up in our prison formality.
You know all about Florent-it was later Division
Headquarters-how the presence of the Americans in the
area was supposed to be unknown to the Boche-so that
neither officer nor man could set foot in the streets by
day-and this a good 10 kilos behind the line! So the men
were packed in barns like sardines, and had to pay
Frenchmen to bring them water and soup and cigarettes.
Every one pretty ugly. . . . We battalion commanders had
to go to the jug at night and account for each of our
victims.
They made me do a reconnaissance of our jumping off place
in the line. They gave us French helmets and
overcoats-Whiting, Schenck, Lewis and me-and we hiked the
ten kilos north to the trenches. You should have seen the
Frenchmen laugh when we passed-for, all the overcoats
were the same size-and on Ed Lewis and me they did not
look just alike-that was fun anyhow. And you should have
seen the place the French were holding! At Harazee: it
was on the north slope up from a little river. We went
down the long decline to the bottom of the valley, and
across the river through just the tiniest remains of a
town that looked as though it had been destroyed in the
middle ages. The trench system seemed as though it was a
relic from some earlier war. One French company was
holding what a regiment had held three years before.
Stabilized warfare they called it. And there were whole
systems of mossy caved-in trenches, with wonderful plank
construction dugouts that made my mouth water. But we
never got a chance at them in the end. Every man could
have had an apartment to himself.
After the
reconnaissance we hiked at night to a camp2 in the woods
about half way up to the trenches. Here there were
barracks and it wasn't so bad [Whittlesey's notes
conclude on this phase], except that to keep us busy-now
the men had their first chance to stretch-they made us
dig at some silly trenches, that never would or could see
war.
3
On the afternoon of September 25th, Field Officers and
Company Commanders of the 77th Division learned what was
about to happen. Assembled at the Division Headquarters
dugout in the Bois des Petits Batis, north of Croix
Gentin, they heard General Alexander outline the plan for
the advance which was to be I shared with all the allied
troops "from Switzerland to the North Sea." It
was explained that the success depended upon the
leadership of the officers-that the valor of the men was
unquestioned. Yet on the last two days before the attack,
the 308th Infantry received about twelve hundred and
fifty replacements. Their lack of training was as
unquestioned as their valor. They were fine material
-largely Westerners of the 40th or 41st Divisions from
Iowa, Idaho, Arizona, and California-but entirely
un-broke to the matter of war. Some had been less than a
month in France; some had been in the service about forty
days, most of which they had spent in travel. Company I,
which may be regarded as typical, had only about seventy
men left after the Vesle, and it received one hundred and
ten of these replacements.
Many of the new men
had no reserve rations and there was no way to get them.
Men took the jump-off into the Argonne battle who did not
know how to use a hand grenade or to work the magazines
of their rifles.
And they issued us bombs [says Whittlesey], and at the
last second, after dark of the night when we were to pull
out-with no candles available and every one set to go-
they tried to issue some new-fangled rifle grenade affair
-very complicated with a tail.
And there was also issued Training Memorandum No. 1,
dated September 21st; "Questions For A Battalion
Commander To Ask Himself Prior To Taking Over And While
Occupying A Portion Of The Front Line." There were
only thirty-three of these questions-but one of them had
six subdivisions. They were of a soul-searching nature,
suggestive of an almost morbidly meticulous
introspection. Somehow they sounded a little like Thomas
A Kempis-though perhaps without all of the common sense
which is the mark of the genuine mystic. Perhaps some of
these questions may have been rather grimly recalled a
week later,-such for example as No. 23: "What is the
condition of the enemy wire and of our own wire? In
connection with our own wire are the routes of egress
known to all for use in patrolling, etc.?" There was
a similar devotional manual for the lower in rank:
"Questions A Platoon Leader Should Ask Himself On
Taking Over A Trench And At Frequent Intervals
Thereafter." It was apparently supposed that the
troops would be in action for only a: day or two, and in
accordance with the Divisional Orders, all shelter halfs,
blankets, overcoats, and rain coats were bundled up and
left behind.
As the twilight of the 25th deepened, orders reached the
1st and 2nd Battalions to move from their rest positions
in the woods which they had been holding for the last two
days, to the caves along the road at La Harazee, and
thence to the take-off in the trenches to the north. The
woods were horribly muddy. Three machine gun men are said
to have broken their legs slipping off the duck board in
the darkness. Finally the troops hiked by road to the
front line trenches and got placed there by 3 or 4 A.M.
In the bitter cold of the morning of the 26th, they
waited for the barrage which was to precede their
advance. At 2.30 A.M. it began, participated in by more
than 2,400 pieces of artillery along the whole American
front. It is said that the actual weight of ammunition
fired to clear the Argonne was greater than that used by
the Union forces during the entire Civil War.
The barrage lasted for three hours, then increased to an intense
preparatory bombardment for twenty-five minutes. At 5.30 the jump-off
was made. All four Regiments of the Division were in the front line. As
already mentioned, the 308th was at the extreme left. Company E of the
307th was on our right and the 38th French Corps on our left. A combat
liaison group, composed of members of the 38th French Corps and of
members of the 368th (Negro) Infantry, 92nd Division, should have been
in operation here, but failed to keep up. This unit did not start until
3 P.m. and did not advance after the first day. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
Battalions of the 308th advanced in the first, second, and third lines
respectively, the Battalion Commanders being Majors Whittlesey, Budd,
and McNeill. Companies A and D of the 1st Battalion were in advance on
the right and left respectively with their 1st and 3rd Platoons ahead.
Companies B and C followed in support. The 2nd Battalion was ordered to follow the 1st
at a distance of from 300 to 500 yards, "being
careful not to mingle with the first line." Captain
Breckinridge commanded the 3rd Battalion, which was
Brigade Reserve. Two platoons of Company I were assigned
for liaison with the 307th on the right and two with the
368th and French on the left.
4
One participant has described the start:
At 5.45 the Major said, "Let's go!" He boosted the lieutenant to the
parapet and was in turn pulled up by hand to take his perch on the edge
of the weirdest panorama of mist and mystery that mortal imagination
could conjure up. No Man's Land, which should have beckoned straight
into the heart of the Argonne, was shrouded in a thick, white fog. It
seemed to close in from all sides on that little infantry company,
isolating it entirely from the colossal Allied advance,
and nullifying, in one chilly breath, all the carefully
planned instructions in regard to liaison, the vital
necessity of keeping in touch.
Beyond and through the fog the flashes of bursting shells
flickered. The ear was confused by the muffled echoes of
friendly artillery. The eye was confused by the haze,
which kept from vision all objects more than 100 feet
away and curiously distorted the few stumps and posts
that clung to the side of the slope at their feet. It was
almost as though the infantry was asked to go over the
top blindfolded. Even more depressing than the lack of
vision, however, was that dank breath of the Argonne,
saturated, until by dawn the atmosphere had passed
mellowness, with the odor of stagnant, muddy pools,
hiding beneath treacherous carpets of tangled wire grass
and bringing to the nostrils of the new crusaders a
reminder of the awful slaughter which had left another
carpet on this mutilated soil in those historic days when
a barrier of horizon-blue poilus had hurled back the
Crown Prince's army.
A dark blotch down
below the steep slope on which the major and the
lieutenant stood proved to be an abandoned French trench
thirty feet deep, filled with coils of rusty wire and
spanned by a single log, all that remained of a
foot-bridge. Reconnoitering to the right and left failed
to reveal any other means of advance.
Thus this particular battalion headquarters went into
action, the major, his adjutant and some fifty runners
and signalmen swaying uncertainly, like tight-rope
walkers, as they cautiously crept across this one log, to
disappear in the mists of the unknown beyond out there.
Company B followed even more slowly, platoon by platoon
and squad by squad. The log began to shrink, chipped by
the gougings of many hob-nails. It became an increasingly
difficult feat to hold a chauchat rifle in one hand, a
can of "monkey meat" reserve rations in the
other, and to feel one's perilous way across this only
visible connection between the jumping-off place and the
battle itself.
According to the
artillery plan, the rolling barrage of 75's, beginning at
5:55, was to advance every five minutes in 100 meter
bounds. Hence, during the forty-five minutes that one
infantry company was making the first fifty meters in the
Argonne Drive, the protection of supporting artillery
jumped ahead nearly 1000 meters.
This phase of the attack did not worry the lieutenant, however. He had
seen neither the barrage schedule nor the field order and he had other
things to think about. Once across that initial obstacle, he had
assembled his company and assisted the platoon leaders in taking up the
designated formation, two platoons in front and two in support, each in
platoon column so the men might keep in touch. After starting them off by compass bearing, he
had sent runners out to find the major. These runners
disappeared in the mist, which had swallowed battalion
headquarters.
First one platoon and then another lost contact with the
company, although the advance was made at snail's pace
with frequent verification of direction by the compass. A
few trench mortar shells from the enemy fell in the
ravine on the shoulder of which Company B was crawling.
There were no other evidences of opposition. But
everywhere were signs of disintegration.
The fog persisted
even when attacked by the first rays of the sun. Shouts
arose through the mist.
"Hello-who axe
you?" some sergeant hailed from the bottom of the
ravine.
"Company
B," answered one platoon working about in circles on
the slope.
"Where in hell
is C Company?" inquired another detachment,
floundering through the scrub brush to the left. No one
answered-no one knew where he himself was, to say nothing
of volunteering information to others.
Three hours after the major had boosted him over the top,
the lieutenant in command of B Company had advanced a
kilometer with two platoons intact. The other two were
lost and the major was lost. Runners sent out to locate
them had not returned.
Two shapes loomed
up ahead through the mist.
"Halt! Who's
there?" the lieutenant shouted.
"Colonel
Smith," came the reply. "Where's the
major?"
The lieutenant
colonel and the regimental intelligence officer had been
sent forward by the regimental commander to find out
whether the battalion had jumped off on the zero hour. No
messages from the major had reached regimental
headquarters, although it later developed he had started
several of them down the runner lane, hastily organized
during the night.
" I found one
of your platoons crawling around up ahead there and I
told the sergeant to put them in a trench and try to find
you," the lieutenant colonel said. His wrapped
puttees were in shreds and miniature red rivulets on his
shins showed he had traveled rough-shod over wire
entanglements and brambles to catch up with the first
line of the attack. He and the captain and their bulging
map cases disappeared as they retraced their steps toward
the north.
Regaining contact
with his third platoon, the lieutenant consulted his
compass and started off again. In another hour he bumped
into C Company, also lost in a trench, which seemed to be
the German first line on the extreme left of the
regimental sector. B Company did a left, face and went
due west for half an hour, and then turned north again.
From the faltering procession of stretcher bearers,
evacuating wounded slowly down a long communication
trench, the lieutenant learned that the major and two
companies had halted two kilometers ahead. He soon joined
them. Battalion headquarters had been established in a
concrete dug-out in a German third line trench, within
400 yards of the corps objective indicated for the first
day. This blue-penciled objective line, incidentally,
drawn several days before at Corps Headquarters without
accurate knowledge of the terrain, ran right through a
plot of swampy marshland, incapable of organization for
defense against a counter-attack. The major had pulled
his two advance companies back a short distance,
therefore, and ordered them to dig in while he endeavored
to get in touch with the regimental P. C.
5
During the advance
of the first day, the conditions of which have just been
described, the 1st and 2nd Battalions crossed a number of
trench systems, running east and west, and indicat3d on
the maps furnished by the names Ludwig, Magdebourg,
Suede, Kronprinz, and Cimeti6re. On the right, Companies
A and D finally reached the so-called Karl or Karlplatz
trench, a splendid system of defense. There had been
little resistance, but the wire clippers were in constant
use on account of the tangled barbed wire spread
everywhere through the thick underbrush, and causing very
slow going.
After taking the Karlplatz trench and reorganizing, the
forward companies mentioned advanced for about three
hundred yards. Now in the afternoon the enemy for the
first time gave determined resistance south of Moulin de
Momme Mort, about a mile southeast of Binarville. In
Company A, Lieutenant Patterson, Sergeants Walsh and
Foote, with five others, were killed, and twenty-three
were wounded. D also suffered casualties. However, these
losses were small compared with later ones, and the
successfully made objective and the quiet of most of the
afternoon, broken only by fifteen minutes of fire at
sundown, were to contrast very favorably with the days to
follow. The 1st Battalion Headquarters was located in the
elaborate German concrete pavilion and dugout on the
Karlplatz trench that was later to become Regimental
Headquarters.
Efforts to re-establish liaison between the 1st and 2nd
Battalion during this evening and night were unavailing.
The 2nd Battalion at 5.30 P.M. with Companies E, F, and
G, as well as D Company, established itself in the
Courlande trench to the west of the 1st Battalion. This old German
trench was some ten feet in depth with occasional large and deep
dugouts. At 4 P.M. word was received that the 368th Infantry, on our
left, had been withdrawn, and that therefore the left flank was to be
guarded. As a matter of fact, the flank had really been exposed since
8.30 A.M., the time that the 2nd Battalion was last in liaison with the
patrol of the 368th. Meanwhile patrols from F Company, sent forward to
reconnoiter in the heavy undergrowth before dark,
suffered casualties from enemy machine guns within 45
yards of our position. During the night the German 77's
endeavored to shell the position heavily, but the shells
landed fairly well over the mark.
The first day's attack covered about one and a quarter
kilometers, reaching the Corps objective, the marshland
north of the German third line trenches. Although the
order for advance had directed the 2nd Battalion to
follow the first, it had been found impossible to keep
them from intermingling. After this they co-operated in
leading the advance. This was made necessary by the width
of the Regimental Sector. The plan of a single battalion
attacking with a two company front and maintaining
liaison with units far to the right and left had already
appeared as obviously unworkable to the Battalion
Commanders before they started the advance of the 26th.
Some companies passed the night in the trenches; others
dug in. For all it was rainy, cold, and uncomfortable,
with little food and no overcoats or blankets. "But
we found mineral water in bottles in the German
dugouts,"
comments the
philosophical Whittlesey, "so it might have been
worse." Anyway the objective had been made, and a
few prisoners had been taken.
At 1 P.m., next day, the 27th, advance was renewed. The
terrain now proved more woody, and the enemy was soon
encountered. Stokes Mortars, chauchats, bombs, and rifles
were all employed to dislodge the enemy machine gun
nests. That the Stokes Mortars proved useful this day was
evidenced on the next when "several Stokes shell
craters were found, and near them several German helmets
covered with blood, and the ground nearby spattered with
blood." Moreover, the Stokes fire materially
reduced and silenced that of the enemy. About a hundred
and fifty yards north of the Karlplatz trench the 1st
Battalion met with sharp resistance, and it was then that
it proved necessary for the 2nd Battalion to go into the
front line. Losses on both sides were considerable. The
action in the afternoon was a severe test on some of the
four hundred new men attached to each battalion two days
earlier. This action proved the splendid fighting
qualities of the Regiment. "When darkness fell the
enemy had been pushed back three hundred yards or more.
Companies A, C, F, and H, with the Headquarters of both
Battalions, had pushed forward to a position in the dense
woods south of Moulin de l'Homme Mort. D and G, with a
part of E, advanced to a position on the extreme right.
B, attempting to follow A, went forward with H. It sounds
confused, and it was. Direction and liaison were becoming
increasingly difficult, and losses increased
proportionately. In A Company, for example, there were on
this second day of the advance twelve killed, eighteen
wounded, and four missing, so that this company which had
made the jump-off with two hundred and five, was now
reduced to one officer and one hundred and forty-four
men.
Meanwhile, Colonel Prescott had been
relieved. At 4 o'clock in the hottest part of the
afternoon's action, Major Budd had received word from him
to come and take command of the Regiment, but before he
could reach the Regimental P. C. in the Karlplatz trench,
Lieutenant Colonel Smith had arrived and took command.
Advance on the second day was for about
eight hundred meters. At 4.30 P.M., orders were issued to
dig in. The two Battalion Headquarters were established
close together, the companies digging in in such a way as
to refuse possible attacks from the northeast and
northwest as well as the north. Memoranda of one Company
Commander describe the night passed in an old trench with
part of Company A, a wounded man who could not be
evacuated until dawn, and a "tall Boche
prisoner." " M- and I sat on muddy stairs of an
old German dugout, trying to keep warm by smoking
cigarettes. A weird night."
According to an order from General
Johnson, renewed attack was called for at 5:30 A.M. on
the 28th, the third day of advance. In one company at
least this order was not received until 7 o'clock. In
others, perhaps later. And while some units were
advancing and others preparing to do so, the first ration
detail since the jump-off, two days earlier, caught up.
"Cold cabbage, beef, and
bread," report the chronicles of Company E.
"Bacon, butter, bread, and a one pound cannon
barrage from the Germans, which wounds Corporal
Spahr," records the commanding officer of B. The
movement involved in feeding the men had been observed by
the enemy, and brought down what those concerned will
always remember as the famous "Cruller
Barrage." To be shelled on your first opportunity at
a square meal after two days of semi-starvation was
apparently supposed to have its humorous aspects.
At first, the day's advance brought
little resistance, the Germans having largely withdrawn
in the night. By 1 p.m. both Battalion Headquarters were
established on the narrow gauge railway, at a point where
the latter after running north turns to the northeast,
about two kilometers north of the Karlplatz trench. In
the afternoon, the 1st Battalion again met stiff
opposition, this time not only from machine guns and
rifle fire, but also from the very -unpopular trench
mortars, which hurled the very troublesome Minnenwerfers.
Here the advancing Battalions were held up until nearly 2
o'clock. The woods of the previous day had been so thick
as to prevent the use of the One-Pounders. The yet denser
woods of the 28th likewise prevented the use of our
Stokes Mortars and even our hand grenades.
Among many casualties, including some of
our best N. C. O.'s, were Lieutenant Thaanum, acting
Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, who had joined the
Regiment a few days before, and Lieutenant Whiting, the
only officer left in Company A, who was severely wounded
and died later. "Clint " Whiting was the sort
who can never be forgotten by his associates. I Company A
this day lost two killed, eleven wounded, and one
missing.
The Battalion Commanders with Lieutenant
McKeogh, Whittlesey's Adjutant, were the only battalion
officers now left, and there were not sufficient company
officers to lead the eight companies. The help of some of
the officer material lost in the earlier sectors would
have been now of enormous advantage. No praise, however,
can be too high for the splendid work of our
non-commissioned officers in the Argonne. Their qualities
of leadership and personal bravery were outstanding.
Because it was typical of what was happening to many
other units at this time and later in the Argonne Forest, may be briefly
noted some of the experiences of B Company on this date. The previous
day's details of runners and Stokes ammunition carriers
have left only two fighting platoons to start with. When
the advance begins, the Company receives orders to follow
D on the right with E and G behind.
Just at that moment D is out of touch,
and so B is ordered to take the lead on the right. While
the men are being lined up in-groups with the Corporals
in front to steady them, a great sound of machine gun
fire starts ahead. Then the advance begins at the time
ordered. Within five minutes Sergeant Monohan, acting
officer, has been fatally wounded to die a few weeks
later in the hospital. Lockwood, of a chauchat team, and
Monsees, in charge of a group, are killed; Sergeant
Quay and three Corporals wounded. Major
Budd stops the advance to support it with a platoon of
fifty men from E Company. Sergeant Bickard, sent out with
a gang to get a particularly venomous machine gun on the
left, returns with the report that it has disappeared.
Again advance begins slowly. Men cross the road where
several had been wounded, proceed down a hollow, and then
start up the side of a ravine. Machine gun opens on the
right. Chauchat team and squad from E start out to
silence it. Runner Halligan, taking message back to
Major, sees four Germans, is sniped at and slightly
wounded. More squads sent out to reconnoiter right flank.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Stevens, with
another platoon of E, gets jammed into B-and just then
enemy machine gun fire opens from the rear. A cry is
heard in this direction: "We're flanked!"
Sergeant Bickard is hit. Kinkle drops mortally wounded.
Stevens swings his chauchat around and opens fire on
right flank and rear.
Gradual withdrawal is made from exposed position on side
of ravine to the one of shelter along the railroad track,
left a little earlier, the Commanding Officer doing what
he can to cover the movement with his pistol. After order
is restored and men are back in funk holes, the Captain
reports to Lieutenant Colonel Smith, and learns that
communication is cut off with the companies at the front.
A rainy night sets in, in which he shares an overcoat
borrowed from a Red Cross man with three other
individuals, in relays of half an hour each.
At 5:15 P.M. of the day just described, Major Whittlesey
had advanced with Companies A, C, F, and H to a position
just north of a little German cemetery and about a
kilometer southeast of Binarville. The combined Battalion
Headquarters was established on the slope of L'Homme Mort
about a hundred yards to the south, and a halt made for
the night on account of darkness and rain. Funk holes
were dug and the troops placed in the form of a hollow
square, Companies C, F, H, and A to the north, cast,
south, and west respectively. Runner posts had been left
behind and a messenger was sent back giving position.
This message, which asks for rations and additional
chauchat ammunition, states, "We have suffered
considerably from lack of drinking water; the men are
very tired but in good spirits." The History of E
Company tells in this connection how welcome was the
downpour: the men "had been without drinking water
for four days, and holding their cups under the dripping
leaves or steel helmet, they quenched their awful
thirst."
The Whittlesey notes say: "All night
rain, and pretty cold in the morning, and the next day,
the 29th, our runner posts were broken up in the rear so
Ken, and I sent back pigeon messages giving the
slope."
Major Budd.
Four of these messages were sent back on the 29th. One of
them reads in part:
Our line of communication with the rear still cut at
12:30 P.m. by machine guns. We are going to clean out one
of these guns now. From a wounded German officer
prisoner, we learned that there is a German Company of 70
men operating in our rear, to close the gap we made
yesterday. We can of course clean up this country to the
rear, by working our companies over the ground we
charged. But we understand our mission is to advance, and
to maintain our strength here. It is very slow trying to
clean up this rear area from here by small details when
this trickling back of machine guns can be used by the
enemy. Can line of communication not be kept open from
the rear? We have been unable to send back detail for
rations and ammunition, both of which we need very badly.
The last message-the bird of which was liberated at 4
P.m. and arrived at the loft at 4:26-tells the same story
and mentions how a patrol had seen many Germans, and how
valuable maps had been obtained from a German officer
killed in scouting.
Again to resume the story as told in the
notes:
We reconnoitered east, west, and north, and found Boches
each way, and also in the rear. Sergeant Anderson of A
Company did an especially fine piece of scouting-went two
miles to the southwest and still found Germans."
Nothing much happened. We were there two days-the 28th
and 29th-ate up what food there was. One of the outposts
killed a German Lieutenant and his Sergeant who blundered
in on our position, and he had a map that showed an
important German trench system about two kilos north that
did not appear on our maps. Before he died, the German
Lieutenant told us that we would meet real opposition
there, which later proved to be true.
The rain, fallen in torrents during the previous night,
had half filled the funk holes with mud and water by the
morning of the 29th. During this day and the following,
desperate efforts were made to re-establish communication
by both front and rear troops. The "nothing much
happened " of the paragraph just quoted must
therefore be taken in a comparative rather than a literal
sense. Among those who gave their lives in the attempt to
carry messages was Private Quinn of D Company. He was one
of a combat patrol under Lieutenant McKeogh sent back a
few hundred yards to disperse machine gunners that had
cut communications. Arrived at the little cemetery
already mentioned, and finding the enemy in unexpected
strength, McKeogh sent Quinn north again with a message
to Whittlesey that was never delivered. Almost four
months later Quinn's body was found in the strange manner
described below.
"They didn't give Quinn the D. S. C.," but like
many another who fell unnoted in the forest, he well
deserved it. Lieutenant McKeogh himself did receive that
decoration after making the perilous trip successfully
through the German lines to Regimental Headquarters. And
so did Private Monson of Company A, and Private
Herschkowitz of C. The adventures of these three briefly
and inadequately told in their citations make one realize
the confused condition of affairs, where units and
individuals of the two armies, scattered through the
woods, were playing a sort of deadly Prisoners' Base.
Another who gave his life at this time furnishes
testimony with Quinn that the heroism displayed was
confined to neither high nor low rank exclusively.
Lieutenant Colonel Smith was killed on
the 29th. It was early in the dreary morning of that day
when he appeared, hurrying forward from Regimental
Headquarters, to investigate the cut off. He gave the
command that all stragglers and detachments lost in the
woods should be collected and reorganized, waiting
further orders. Colonel Smith was accompanied by
Lieutenant Wilhelm and a small detachment, including
several runners and men carrying ammunition for the cut
off troops. He was proceeding cautiously along a path,
which he had been told led straight to Whittlesey's
position, and had advanced about fifty yards when he
suddenly called out to his men to seek cover. He was
immediately wounded in the leg by a machine gun. It
became apparent that machine guns placed in the woods
some distance from the road, commanded it in both
directions. Ordering his men back, this dauntless soldier
faced the machine gun alone and returned its fire with
his automatic until he fell. He refused first aid
treatment, and was again attempting to ascertain the
exact location of the nearest nest, when he fell for the
last time mortally wounded -a fitting death for one who
had so often risked his life for others. A Congressional
Medal was posthumously awarded this much loved officer
who signally combined high rank with perfect simplicity,
and daring courage with kindly consideration for others.
Father Halligan has written of the
recovery of Colonel Smith's body:
The enemy knew that they had killed an
officer of high rank and as soon as convenient hurried to
the body to search it. For better security they carried
the body about a hun-dred yards away, across a corduroy
road, but they found nothing. The place was the
intersecting point of several roads through the forest.
With a dozen or more men we scoured this patch of woods,
a triangular strip of small dimensions, during two days
without success. In the evening of the second day a
sergeant, who was with him when he was killed, scouted
the woods in the vicinity and discovered the body less
than seven-fifty-five yards away from the spot on which
he was shot to death. This incident, better than anything
else I know, will give some indication of the difficulty
of combat in the thick undergrowth of the forest. The
spot in which he was found finally was rendezvous for
several machine guns, and probably would have remained
undiscovered by us but for the painstaking search for the
body of a beloved officer.
To return now to the forward units which had been cut off
since the night of the 28th, when the Germans taking
advantage of the exposed left flank had filtered in with
machine guns and small detachments of infantry. After two
days dug in in hollow squares, with almost constant rain,
and without food, the men were doubtless able to
appreciate Captain McMurtry's suggestion, "How would
you like to have a good thick rare steak smothered in
onions and some French fried potatoes?" It was not
until late on the afternoon of the 3oth that Lieutenant
Taylor and K Company, guided through the narrow path by
Captain Delehanty and Lieutenant Conn, at last got
through to the cut off troops. The Germans had,
meanwhile, moved out on the morning of the same day.
"Starved and no water for three days," Taylor's
diary describes the companies, but Whittlesey's notes
continue cheerfully:
Lt. Taylor came up with a lot of rations and a big
carrying detail. Looked "practically O. K.," as
George McMurtry put it. And everybody ate! That night I
went back to Rgtl. Advance Hdqrs.-which had been moved
forward in the woods. It was the blackest night I've ever
seen and I had to be passed on from reserve post to post
holding the hand of each successive guide. And I'll never
forget going into the Hqrs. dugout and getting warm for
the first time, and seeing Frank Weld's genial face.
Cocoa, cigars. Then back to the Bn. again, which I found
with great difficulty in the darkness. Orders were to
advance at daybreak.
So ended the episode of the earlier cut-off of advance
troops from September 28th to 30th, which was at first
sometimes confused in the public mind with the later
cut-off of the so-called Lost Battalion from October 2nd
to 7th. Both were due primarily to the same exposed left
flank which had resulted from the retirement of the
combat liaison unit of the 368th Infantry. Secondarily
both cut-offs were the results of the same impossibility
of attaining objectives and of simultaneously keeping
constant communication with the rear and the right flank
on so wide a regimental sector. In the last analysis it
was simply a case of " Damn the torpedoes and go
ahead! " By this, it is not meant to imply that
everything possible was not done to keep touch with the
rear and flanks by runner posts and patrols; but if no
advance had been made except when such liaison was
absolutely assured, then there would have been little or
no advance. x The best military interests were served by
the action adopted.
Although the torpedoes did later explode in the rear, it
was best to have damned them and passed over them.
On September 3oth, Major'Budd left for the General Staff
College at Langres where he had been ordered to report on
September 24th, and Captain McMurtry I now took command
of the 2nd Battalion. Major McNeill, also ordered to the
General Staff College, turned over the command of the 3rd
Battalion on the 28th to Captain L. M. Scott.
About the 1st of October, French units
had taken the place of the 368th Infantry as combat
liaison on our left, but they were not up even with our
front line. It is said that in order to get ammunition up
to the front east of Binarville Captain Roosevelt
actually made use of the roads outside the forest in
front of the French position.
At 6 A.M. sharp on October 1st, the two forward battalions left their positions at L'Homme
Mort to resume their advance through the Argonne Forest. The 1st
Battalion, commanded by then Major Charles W. Whittlesey, led with Companies A and C in advance,
supported by D and E; the 2nd Battalion, commanded by
Captain
George G. McMurtry, followed in support three hundred
yards behind.
A reference to the map will show how the
broader valley east of L'Homme Mort becomes a
comparatively narrow ravine about a kilometer to the
north. The troops marched along the heights to the west.
About noon they encountered serious opposition from
trenches running east and west on the hill, to the west
of the ravine. The 2nd Battalion, which had been
following in support, immediately closed up and joined
with the 1st Battalion. (It was in this ravine that the
3rd Battalion was to encounter such difficulty when it
attempted to reach the troops cut off in the Pocket.)
Attempt was now made by the Stokes Mortars to dislodge
the Germans. But Lieutenant Dobson, who commanded them;
was wounded, and the enemy kept their position. Then an
attack was made by A Company. Lieutenant Scott, who had
taken command that morning, was wounded as well as First
Sergeant Bergasse. Later Sergeant Finnegan was killed and
Sergeant Anderson took command. At the end of the day
this company showed nine killed, twelve wounded and two
missing. No officers were left, and only 106 men remained
of the 205 with which it had started on September 26th.
In consequence of these losses Company A was used as a
detachment for the care of the wounded for the next few
days, waiting such time as it could be reorg4nized. All
advances attempted in the ravine itself were also checked
by the heaviest kind of machine gun fire. As its final
result this day showed considerable losses and very
little progress.
It was the next day, October 2nd, that Major
Whittle-seyls troops, the combined 1st and 2nd
Battalions, reached the Pocket, situated on the slope,
running east and west, just north of the ravine and south
of the Binarville-Apre-mont road. The events of October
2nd are fully covered in the chapter on the Lost
Battalion which is to follow.
8
The interest which naturally centers about the cut-off
troops during the next five days, should not draw
attention from the gallant and costly attempts made both
by the rear companies of the 308th and by the 307th
Infantry to reach their beleaguered comrades. As is
constantly the case, the historian must ignore many
examples of individual courage. Two, however, may be
named, those of Sergeants Norwat and Kaufman.
Now as always the difficulty of maintaining liaison made
it very hard for the two regiments and the French on the
left all to strike at the same time. On one occasion the
troops were led in person by Colonel Cromwell Stacey, and
on another by General Evan Johnson, the Brigade
Commander. Successive attacks were launched every morning
and night of the 5th, 6th, and 7th. That of the last date
alone cost the 154th Brigade 78 killed, and 237 wounded.
I Some of the attacks lost as much as fifty per cent of
those engaged.
A field message from Captain James F.
Wagner, Regimental Surgeon, dated October 8th, gives the
following figures, which may be regarded as at least
approximately correct for the casualties from October 1st
to October 6th inclusive: sent to hospital, 682; killed
in action, approximately 175; sick in hospital, October
1st to 7th inclusive, 146.
Such field messages as are obtainable from those days
suggest the bitter struggle going on, but it is too
confused an account to furnish an accurate and detailed
picture.
"Strong opposition in front and on flanks, we are up
to wire . . . advance seems impossible . . . heavy trench
mortars in ravine ahead and machine gun firing from slope
on right." . . . "Can advance no further
without sacrificing company. My right is held up by wire,
two M. G.'s on flank and M. G. in front." . . .
"Need ammunition, American and chauchat. Casualties
heavy and need stretcher bearers." (The last two
quotations are from messages of companies of the 307th.)
"Would suggest that more rations be brought up
tonight if possible. Also some trombones and V. B.'s.
Send some coffee, sugar, and jam or syrup, if you have
any. " . . . "We will give them hell from here
on the left flank . . . one or two machine guns placed up
here could give a
great deal of help."
It is significant of the conditions that three or more
second lieutenants were killed before actually reaching
the commands to which they had been assigned.
Also significant of the conditions of
these confused and troublous days is the number of
officers who in turn commanded the 308th Infantry between
the last days of September and October 10th. Colonel
Prescott was fol-lowed by Lieutenant Colonel Smith on
September 27th. After the latter's death, Colonel Stacey
took command, and was in turn succeeded for brief periods
by Brigadier General Evan Johnson, Captain Breckinridge
from October 5th to 8th, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon
Johnston, then Chief of the 7th Corps, October 8th, and
finally Colonel R. R. Hannay, who took command on October
10th.
It must be understood, of course, that
the, Regiment while under the command of several of these
officers, consisted of only those companies which were
not cut off, that is to say of the 3rd Battalion and of
Company D and a part of E. Captain Breckinridge took the
3rd Battalion on October 4th, relieving Captain Scott.
The next day when Captain Breckinridge took the Regiment,
the battalion command passed to Lieutenant Burns who was
immediately wounded.