HISTORY
OF THE 304th FIELD ARTILLERY
by
James M. Howard
1920
CHAPTER
X1
THE ARGONNE DRIVE
THROUGH THE FOREST
On the evening of September 26th the artillery was
ordered to advance and take up new positions in support
of the infantry. By eleven o'clock the batteries were
packing up and moving out along the dark roads. Forward
they went, through ravines, across brooks, picking their
way in the night among rocks and stumps and trees.
Sometimes the hills were so steep that six horses could
not pull up a gun, and it was necessary to unhitch other
teams and add them to the haul. Then, while the drivers
urged and coaxed and swore, the cannoneers would put
their shoulders to the wheels and heave, and the gun
would lurch its way to the top. After many hours of labor
all the batteries were in position in a ravine near what
had been the front line the night before, at Le Four de
Paris. There they stayed for two days, firing almost
constantly in a pouring rain.
One of the cannoneers, who had been left behind with a
detail to bring up ammunition, gives some interesting
bits in his diary:
"At 7 A. M. when limbers came back, loaded same and
advanced to positions. . . . Was pretty well drenched.
Huns tried to counter attack at 5 P. M. and we sent over
a barrage which foiled them. After mess was put in charge
of two G. S. limbers with Bill and told to go to old
positions and draw rations. Very dark night, raining,
muddy and hard to see. Got in barbed wire entanglements,
ran into trees, and feet in slop over shoe tops. Returned
at 2.30 A. M."
While the batteries were firing on the 27th and 28th, a
few officers and men had gone
Forward to reconnoiter in the direction of Binarville and
Abri du Crochet, and at daybreak the following morning
the guns were ordered to move forward toward the latter
place. This advance took us out across what had been
No-Man's- Land, and our men got their first sight of the
hideous desolation of that awful wilderness.
The roads had long since ceased to be roads, so torn and
mangled were they, so full of treacherous holes and miry
bogs. Save for a few engineers working at a task which
seemed about as hopeless as baling out the ocean, the
only sign-of life was an occasional crow perched on a
skeleton tree, in raucous notes calling attention to the
ruinous domain of which he was left in undisputed
possession.
The Second Battalion went into position on the side of a
deep ravine near a place called Barricade Pavilion, which
had been a point of strong resistance for the Germans in
their line of defense. The First Battalion, temporarily
under command of Captain H. B. Perrin, pushed on farther
and reached Abri du Crochet. (Major Sanders had been
called away to Division Headquarters the previous night,
and had gone, leaving his adjutant in command. He did not
rejoin the regiment until November fourth, so that for a
considerable period the operations of the battalion were
directed by Captain Perrin, with Lieutenant Boyd acting
as adjutant.) For a day or two there was little firing,
because of uncertainty regarding the exact location of
the infantry's front lines. This was also the reason for
the fact that the Second Battalion, in its next advance,
moved so far forward that the guns could not be used at
all, for they were too close to the infantry to be able
to fire over their heads without landing far beyond the
targets they wished to hit. Indeed, enemy machine-gun
bullets, intended for the infantry, spattered right in
among the cannoneers, one of whom, Private Busch, was
wounded.
It was in that position, on October 3rd, that two
privates in the Medical Detachment earned a citation for
bravery. Corporal Mack, of Headquarters Company, who was
with the Second Battalion wireless detail, had been
seriously wounded by a shell which wrecked the wagon in
which the apparatus was packed. He was lying in an
exposed position, and the two medical men, Robinson and
Warns, went to his assistance. Disregarding the shells,
which were bursting all around them, these two men
dressed the corporal's wounds, put him on a litter, and
carried him to shelter. Probably the only reason they
were not killed or wounded was the softness of the
ground, which allowed the shells to sink in before they
burst and prevented to some extent the deadly flying of
broken fragments. Both men were covered with mud thrown
up by the explosions.
The battalion remained in that position only for one day.
The infantry, meeting heavy resistance, did not advance
as rapidly as had been hoped, and Major Devereux decided
to move his guns back to Abri du Crochet where he could
do some effective firing. There, with the two battalions
only a few hundred meters apart, the batteries remained
until October 8th. While frequent reconnaissances were made to prepare
for further advances the guns were busy, firing for the most part on
machine gun nests which, cleverly concealed in the thick underbrush and
skillfully manned by expert gunners, were making the progress of
the infantry extremely difficult.
During this period a battalion of the 308th Infantry, off
to our left, after advancing and capturing a hill, found
their flanks dangerously exposed. On attempting to
withdraw far enough to reestablish a connection with the
troops on either side, their commander, Major Whittlesey,
found that his battalion was surrounded by the enemy. In
spite of all the Germans' attempts to annihilate his men
or compel him to surrender, Major Whittlesey held out
until, on October 7th, the enemy was obliged to withdraw.
Our guns took part in a big attack which was planned to
relieve this battalion on the morning of the 7th. The
attack itself was not successful, "but [to quote
General McCloskey's report] the artillery fire caused
such losses to the enemy in men and material as to compel
his withdrawal" the following night.
While the batteries were firing from these positions,
Colonel McCleave was established close by in a dugout
alongside the one occupied by General Wittenmeyer and his
153rd Infantry Brigade headquarters. The various officers
and men connected with our regimental headquarters were
living in dugouts in a ravine behind the Second
Battalion. Some of these places were very interesting.
They had been built for permanent quarters by the
Germans, and were fitted up with conveniences such as we
had never dreamed of. Five of our officers slept in a
dugout which had belonged to a German battery commander.
It was nothing less than a little house, built of
concrete, in the side of the ravine. The door opened into
a sitting-room about twelve feet square, wainscoted in
dark wood and equipped with comfortable chairs, tables,
closets and built-in bookcases. In the corner was a brick
stove. The ceiling was made of steel I beams, painted
white. The bed room adjoining was finished like the
sitting room, and contained a washstand and a brass
bedstead. Both rooms were equipped with electric light
fixtures, and both had glass windows with heavy steel
shutters which, when closed at night, prevented any light
from escaping. Outside was a little terrace on which
stood a rustic table and chairs and several urns in which
palms were growing. In another dugout near by was a vast
quantity of bottles of excellent mineral water. They had
lived well in the Argonne, these Germans. So had the
French. And why not? For nearly four years these dugout
villages had been their winter and summer homes.
A little farther to the rear, in a ravine occupied by a
battery of the 306th F. A., was a good example of what
our infantry was having to contend with in their advance
through the forest. The side of the ravine, which sloped
at an angle of some forty-five degrees, was covered with
underbrush and trees. At the top of the hill was a mass
of barbed wire, so thick that even now it was difficult
to find an opening through which to pass.
Behind the barbed wire were deep trenches, and scattered
along at intervals of a few meters were machine gun
emplacements. Here the German rear guards had made one of
their stands, and the American infantry had scrambled up
that hill in the face of a wicked fire and driven them
out. Many unburied dead of both armies told how bitter
had been the struggle.
The frequent moves made by our batteries made it
necessary to keep the horses near the guns. Each battery
therefore maintained a forward echelon at some place
where the problem of water would not be impossible. In
spite of the heavy rainfall, which was becoming a matter
of almost daily occurrence, good watering places were
scarce, and the few ravines where springs were found were
cluttered morning and evening with long lines of
impatient horses and exasperated drivers. In the course
of a few days the watering was arranged in some sort of
order by the battalion commanders from the various
regiments, but at first it was a wild push and scramble
to see who could get first to the meager troughs.
The main echelon was still on the south side of the old
No-Man's-Land, for the roads were in such a terrible
state and traffic was so congested that the division
supply trains could not get through. Our own Supply
Company, therefore, had its regimental dump at the
echelon, and the drivers were obliged to take their
escort wagons up daily by roads which were well-nigh
impassable. New divisions were coming in the 82nd was
relieving the 28th on our right, and the 78th was moving
in behind us with the result that trucks and wagons and
guns and men were pushing and crowding along in
unutterable confusion. There was a traffic jam near a
crossroad at Abri du Crochet one evening which blocked
the passage of every vehicle during the entire night. The
accumulating congestion extended back for miles, and it
was not until daylight that the tangle was unraveled.
The unceasing toil was beginning to tell on our men. They
were tired, dirty, ragged, lousy. They had not had a bath
(save, perhaps, with an occasional bucket full of water)
for two months. They had had no change of clothes, not
even underclothes, for more than five weeks. Nearly every
one, both officers and men, had lice, and some had fleas.
And they were worn out. "When are we going to get
relieved?" was the question asked a hundred times a
day.
Then news began to reach us of the great Allied successes
on every front from the English Channel to the Holy Land.
We heard that the Turkish armies in the East had been
shattered, that Bulgaria had caved in, that the British
were driving the Boche hard in Flanders, and the French
were crowding them back toward Laon. Then came the word
that Germany and Austria had asked for an armistice! The
war was not over, but surely the end was in sight, and
that thought wrought a miracle in the morale of the
regiment. The men forgot that they were tired, forgot
that they were dirty, forgot that they needed new
clothes, forgot everything except that the enemy was in
front of us, that our heroic infantry were advancing
through difficult and dangerous terrain and needed our
support, and that the one important thing in the world
now was to fire every shot so that it should count toward
bringing the whole wretched business to a speedy end. In
that spirit the men at the guns went on with their
laborious work. In that spirit the drivers brought up the
ration wagons, the cooks prepared the meals, the linemen
ran their miles of new telephone wires, the messengers
carried their dispatches at night through the inky
blackness of the forest. Every man did his work, whatever
it might be, with an amazing willingness; and when, on
October 8th, the order came to advance again, the whole
attitude was, "Come on: let's go to it and finish
the job!"
The advance which followed was a long one. The German
lines had been driven almost clear of the forest. With
only one or two stops for firing, the First Battalion
went away off to the northwest and took up a position on
a hill just east of Malassise Farm, across the river from
Grand Ham, while the Second Battalion went equally as far
and established itself near La Besogne. Regimental
headquarters was located in the Bois de Taille, and the
main echelon was set up not far from Lanqon. These
positions were taken by October 10th, and on the 11th our
guns began to fire on German troops beyond the Argonne
Forest across the River Aire.
All this time we had been keeping four of our guns
forward with the infantry. They had not been called upon
to do much firing during the progress through the forest.
The infantry commanders, under whose direct orders they
were placed, found it difficult, with observation
rendered impossible by the nature of the ground and the
woods, to use them. But now that the Germans were out of
the woods, direct observation was easy, and the
"pirate pieces" did great execution on the
machine gun nests across the river. Moreover, the
artillery observers could now establish 0. P.'s on the
heights south of the Aire, from where the fire of all the
batteries could be accurately adjusted.
The division had reached the enemy's line of resistance
known as the Kriemhilde Stellung, and for the first time
since the drive started we were confronted with a large
quantity of heavy artillery with which the Germans hoped
to prevent our further advance. This called for a kind of
work we had not done since we left the Aisne, namely the
smashing of Boche batteries in an attempt to put them out
of action. It was a great relief to fire at such definite
targets after the uncertain work in the forest, and the
observers in their 0. P.'s and the battalion and battery
commanders at their guns enjoyed the test of real skill
in directing and adjusting their fire. The rain was still
constant, and the men were soaked a good part of the time
and their blankets at night were laid in mud; but they
worked with a will, knowing that their shots were
telling. The American heavy artillery attached to the
Corps had not yet been able to come up, so that for a
while all this counter-battery work had to be done by the
field artillery, and every gun had its full share of
important work.
On the morning of Sunday, October 13th, we were greeted
with the news, telephoned down from corps and division
headquarters, that Germany and Austria had agreed to
President Wilson's terms for an armistice. That they had
asked for terms we knew, and also that the President had
replied that no armistice could be granted so long as
their troops occupied invaded territory and their
submarines were engaged in unlawful practices at sea, nor
so long as their governments were responsible to any one
except the people themselves. To this the two Central
Powers had now replied that they would withdraw their
forces from France and Belgium and recall their
submarines, and pointed out that such changes had taken
place in the governments that those in control were now
answerable to the people. This looked like the beginning
of capitulation, and hopes ran high that an armistice
might be proclaimed which would, at least, give the army
a chance to rest. Some grew so hopeful as to place bets
that an order to suspend hostilities would be forthcoming
within twenty-four hours.
No such order came however. Rather were we told to
in-crease our efforts to crush and break the German
lines. That very day preparations were begun for an
attack on Grand Pre, and, while most of the preparatory
fire was conducted by the 305th F. A., backed up by the
heavier guns of the 306th, our own batteries took some
part in the destruction of fleeting targets and in
protecting the 302nd Engineers while they were
constructing bridges across the Aire. On the 15th, the
attack was carried out, and the 154th Brigade of Infantry
captured the town.
Another important engagement in which our regiment had a
larger part was the attack on St. Juvin, on October 14th.
This place was at the extreme right of our sector, where
the lines of the 77th Division joined those of the 82nd,
and it was a strategic point in the Kriernhilde Stellung.
A general advance was to be made by the entire First
Corps, but the particular objective assigned to the 153rd
Infantry Brigade, whom we were still supporting, was the
town of St. Juvin. There was to be some preparatory fire
by the artillery, in which all our batteries took part,
and at 8:30 A. M. the infantry was to attack from the
east of Marcq, which was really out of our sector.
The most exciting part of the battle for our regiment was that played by
a pirate piece under command of Lieutenant Richard, of Battery D, who
had been, since October 9th, on duty With the infantry. About midnight
on the 13th he received orders to take his gun out beyond where the
infantry's front lines were located and go into position where he might
be able to do whatever firing should be required by the infantry battalion commander. It was
necessary for him to start at dawn, move out along the La
Besogne-Marcq road, which was in full view of the enemy,
pass through the town of Marcq, which was daily being
subjected to heavy shell fire, and reach the front lines
by 7:30.
What this experience meant to the men is vividly
described by the section chief in charge of the gun,
Sergeant Grandin, in a letter written shortly after the
battle. "The Lieutenant called me into his
dugout," he writes, "and showed me where we
were to go. (Imagine! For a full kilometer in plain view
of the Boche and headed straight for the enemy lines.) It
looked like certain death for some of us, but in the army
orders are orders, and it was up to us to carry them out.
. . .
"Away we went about 5 A. M., none too confident, but
willing. It was raining like the dickens and the mud was
ankle deep. Nature was with us, for as we came to the
open part of the road there was a dense fog, and we got
along finely until we reached the town."
Upon arriving in Marcq, Lieutenant Richard left Sergeant
Grandin in charge of the gun while he went forward to reconnoiter. The Sergeant started his gun up the hill,
but found the six horses unable to make the haul, so that
he was obliged to wait f or one of the wagons, which for
the sake of precaution was keeping a respectful distance
behind, and take an extra team to put on the gun. He then
went ahead to make sure of the position selected by the
Lieutenant, and, after being nearly picked off by
snipers, found him in the only available place-behind a
clump of bushes, in front of which the ground sloped away
unbroken by woods or cover of any kind toward the German
lines. There were a few trees near by, and in one of
these Lieutenant Richard established his 0. P., while the
telephone men set about establishing connections with the
infantry P. C.
The Boche had started to fire, and was dropping shells on
the road and near the gun position, but time was
pressing. The Sergeant went back to the road and signaled
to the drivers to bring up their gun. "With the men
riding like jockeys, they fairly flew up the hill,
dropped the gun, and got away again without a scratch.
The Boche shells seemed to just miss them each time.
"We had about twenty minutes to get set before the
infantry was to go over. The latter and the machine
gunners were all dug in, some in front, and some just
behind us. There were an awful lot of machine guns there,
each of which, we were told, was to fire at the rate of a
hundred rounds a minute for a while before the advance
was to start. One of their officers advised us to lie
flat on our bellies, as their bullets would pass about
two feet above the ground. We got things ready and lay
flat on the ground or in shell holes and waited.
Lieutenant Richard was up in his tree.
"About quarter past eight the machine guns let
loose, and what a racket! It would have been impossible
for us to fire even if we bad been able to stand up, for
no one could have heard the commands. Some of the bullets
clipped leaves from the tree where the Lieutenant was
sitting.
"The machine guns had just finished their barrage
when I heard a voice cry out, 'On your feet; load rifles;
fix bayonets; gas masks; keep cool and give 'em hell!'
Where they all came from I don't know, but here were the
infantry, going over the top. Such a sight! The
expression on their faces I can never forget it! The big
and small guns were all ablaze by this time and the
shells were flying over our heads. The attack was on.
"As soon as the doughboys had passed, we jumped to
our feet and got into the party ourselves. Telephone
communication had become impossible, owing to the fact
that the wires were being continually cut by shells.
Every time the linemen went out they found three or four
breaks. Our orders were therefore brought by a runner:
'Open up on any suitable target. Lieutenant Richard
picked out a party of Boche near St. Juvin, and we blazed
at them. We had fired just four shots when the Hun
spotted us the flash of our guns had given us away. We
managed to get off three more under terrific shell fire,
but then it became too hot."
Lieutenant Richard was about to move his piece to a
healthier position when the enemy guns shifted their fire
to another target, and he decided to try again. After a
half a dozen shots had been fired, however, there poured
in a rain of high explosive and gas, and the men were
ordered to take shelter.
A change of position was imperative if the piece was to
do any effective work. Accordingly, during the next lull,
the drivers and cannoneers, led with great coolness and
skill by Corporal McDonough, dashed up to the gun with
the horses in record breaking time, and limbered the gun.
Then, while the cannoneers scooted on foot, the drivers
lashed their horses into a gallop, and away they went,
bumping and lurching over rocks and holes, across a
railroad track, and into a sheltered place behind the
crest of the hill. The Boche saw them going and opened
fire. Gas shells which necessitated the putting on of
masks complicated the move, and two men, Privates Tansey
and Johnson, were wounded; but the crew got the gun
safely to its new position, and during the rest of the
attack they fired without further accident. They had the
satisfaction of knowing that they were repaying the Boche
for all the trouble he had given them, for the observers,
watching the bursts of their shells, saw them working
havoc in the German lines.
The whole attack, in which this forward piece had a small
but interesting part, was a splendid success. St. Juvin
was captured, and with it a considerable number of
prisoners, and the entire front of the First Corps was
advanced as the Germans were compelled to fall back to
new positions in the rear.
Meantime Colonel McCleave, taking with him a minimum number of officers
and men on account of the danger, had advanced his P. C. to La Besogne. There both the
regimental headquarters and the batteries were subjected
to considerable heavy shelling, in which several men were
wounded and a number of horses killed. Some of the
infantry of the 78th Division, who were moving in to
relieve the 77th, were in the same ravine with our
battery kitchens and horse lines, and they suffered heavy
casualties. The First Battalion, in their positions at La
Malassise Farm, did a great deal of firing, but came out
practically unscathed. Our main echelon, near Lanqon, was
subjected to some annoying enfilade fire oil several
occasions, but no real damage was done. All things
considered, the 304th was remarkably fortunate throughout
this whole Argonne drive.
The news that our division was to be relieved was
received with enthusiasm by a weary lot of soldiers.
Tired as they were, our men knew that the infantry had
suffered far more heavily in their steady advance through
what General Pershing in his official report has called
"the almost impenetrable and strongly held Argonne
Forest," and they were as glad for the doughboys'
sakes as for their own that relief was in sight. The
Division Commander had not asked for it: be preferred to
leave that decision to the higher command, who knew the
circumstances and should be able to judge when our
services could be spared. Nevertheless, both officers and
men were glad when, on the nights of the 14th and 15th,
the infantry of the 78th Division took over the lines
held by our 153rd and 154th Brigades respectively. Our
own guns remained in position until the change was
effected, and then, one by one as their places were taken
by fresh troops, our batteries moved out. By the
afternoon of the 16th the last organization to leave the
front lines was on its way to the rear for a rest, a
bath, a change of clothes and a new lease on life.