HISTORY
OF THE 304th FIELD ARTILLERY
by
James M. Howard
1920
CHAPTER
V
ON THE LORRAINE FRONT
While we were wondering where the brigade was to be sent,
and whether, like the regiments which had preceded us in
Camp de Souge, we should be kept around the base section
for an extra month or two, the news somehow filtered in
that we were to proceed direct to the front. It was with
no little excitement, therefore, that we began to entrain
at Bonneau on Tuesday, July 9th.
Now that we had our full equipment of guns, wagons,
horses, mules, rolling kitchens and carts of all
descriptions, it was necessary to split the regiment tip
and give each battery a train to itself. On the first
load went the regimental headquarters and the
Headquarters and Supply Companies, while the batteries,
beginning with D, followed on behind. When it came to
getting the horses and mules into the box cars there was
a circus. Some of the mules had to be blindfolded and led
in circles, and then suddenly backed into the train. One
group of stallions had kicked a hole through the side of
their car before the train left the station. Captain
Kempner worked for half an hour with a mare who had
simply made up her mind that she was not going. Finally
she landed in a heap on the floor of the car, on top of
Sergeant Cote, who had her halter. At length, however,
the first train was loaded and on its way, and the others
followed in order during the next two days.
This journey was very different from the last.
"We're traveling in comfort," says a letter
written on the train. "There is no comparison
between this and the trip from [Brest] to Bordeaux. For
one thing they have the field kitchens mounted on flat
cars' so that the cooks can prepare real meals and serve
them hot. For another thing, having all the wagons and
vehicles along makes more space -things and people aren't
crowded together so. And then the men are more used to
roughing it anyhow." The flat cars made splendid
observation platforms, on which the troops rode for hours
at a time, looking at the beautiful French landscapes and
breathing deep the fresh summer air. "We have been
climbing through hills, passing quaint villages, old
mills with their wheels turning by beautiful ponds, one
superb chateau with Maxfield Parish towers rising out of
a wood, field after field of golden wheat, ready for
harvest, often with scarlet poppies glowing in the midst
of the grain. Flowers everywhere-golden-rod in full
bloom!
And thistles and purple asters! Butter-cups and pink
clovers and daisies! No -it's not New England. There's a
farm house and a barn built wholly of gray stone with a
mellow, red-tiled roof, and funny two-wheeled carts in
the barnyard. It's Europe, after all! . . . It all seems
so far removed from war., Here we are, rolling toward the
front (trundling would be a better word f or the gait of
these trains), and yet my imagination cannot see beyond
this perfect peace of God's beautiful world. Yet, at the
last station we passed a carload of German prisoners
going the other way.
After two days' travel we found ourselves coming into French Lorraine.
We had known vaguely that we were booked for that part of the front, and
although we knew that it was not a very active sector there was a
certain thrill in feeling that we were at last getting into a region
where actual war conditions prevailed. As one of the men writes: "A
spirit of eagerness and curiosity took possession of us all. It was so
strange, so quiet. The very air seemed to be filled with impending excitement,
but, as may have been expected, nothing extraordinary
happened. About 8:30 P.M. we reached Luneville. The town
was completely in darkness, and we were told that an air-
raid occurred the previous evening. This all added to the
suppressed excitement and every one was on his toes as we
rumbled into the station."
There was but a short stop in Luneville, for the end of
our journey was not there but in Baccarat, a town lying a
few miles to the south, famous in times of peace for its
glass industry.
The first train reached Baccarat on the morning of the
12th. Colonel Briggs and Lieutenant Martin, who had
become acting Adjutant when Captain Sullivan was sent
away to the Staff College, at once went out to look over
the situation. The infantry of the 77th Division, whom we
had not seen since they left us at Camp Upton, were
already in the lines, and we heard that they had even
then suffered some unpleasant casualties from gas and
liquid fire. There had been very little active warfare in
the sector since the early fall of 1914. At that time the
Germans had found that their easiest access into French
territory was through Belgium, and the French, giving up
their long-cherished hope of reconquering German Lorraine
by the sword, had been obliged to put their whole effort
into stemming the tide of invasion in the north. Ever
since then this particular part of the front had been
used by both forces to train new troops for battle, and
to give those who had been worn out by more strenuous
work in other sectors a chance to rest without being
actually out of the lines. Never-the-less the Germans had
a way of keeping track of what troops were opposing them,
and when they found a new American division on the ground,
they tried all their tricks to harass and discomfit them.
Our infantry held a line which, roughly speaking, passed
through St. Martin, Domevre and Ancerviller. The I53rd
and I 54th Brigades had each one regiment in the front
line and one in reserve. Our regiment was assigned to
support the 153rd Brigade, whose commander,
Brigadier-General Wittenmeyer, had his headquarters in
the little village of Mierviller.
Thither Colonel Briggs went and, establishing himself in
the town with Captain Kempner, who was to be the
operations officer, Lieutenant Martin and Chaplain
Howard, he conferred with the brigade commander and
looked up the positions the batteries were to occupy.
The usual arrangement of an artillery regiment in the
field is as follows: There is, first of all, an echelon
(a French term meaning literally "step"),
situated far enough in the rear to be near the source of
supplies and as free as possible from the danger of
shelling. There the horses and wagons are kept, and the
various organizations maintain their offices and their
principal base. There the Supply Company is located, and
the food is brought each day and put in a large dump,
whence it is distributed among the batteries. The post
office and personnel office are there and any other part
of the regiment which functions for the whole body but is
not immediately necessary to the fighting units.
In advance of the echelon, at some central place where
easy communication can be established with all parts of
the regiment, are the regimental headquarters. Here the
colonel and his adjutant have their office; here the
operations officer receives the orders for battle and
apportions to each unit the part it is to play; here the
central telephone exchange is set up, and the
sergeant-major, with his force of clerks and messengers,
handles the general work of receiving, transmitting,
sending and filing all orders which go in or out a task
which later was performed by a "message center"
detail.
The Headquarters Company is usually located somewhere
near the regimental headquarters. They furnish the
orderlies and runners, telephone operators, draftsmen,
radio experts, and whatever special details may be called
for. Each department of the work is under the supervision
of a lieutenant.
Farther out toward the front, as near as possible to the
gun positions, are the battalion P. C.'s, or posts of
command. There the majors and their adjutants live and
work. They have with them specially trained officers and
men from the Headquarters Company who handle the
telephones, wireless outfits, map drawings and the
all-important messenger service. There is also a
sergeant-major with each battalion who is, like the
regimental sergeant-major, a sort of office executive. A
first aid station under the charge of a surgeon is
maintained in connection with each battalion
headquarters, so that these organizations are quite
independent and self-sufficient.
The battery positions are located in places, which afford
good opportunities for firing both into the enemy's lines
and also immediately in front of our own infantry lines.
The latter fire is to protect the front trenches in case
of an attack by the enemy.
But in addition to a good field of fire, the gun
positions must have what is called defilade, that is,
they must be so located that the enemy cannot see the
flash or the smoke of the guns when they fire, The.
moment a battery's location is definitely known to the
enemy its usefulness is minimized, for both men and guns
are liable to be wiped out by counter-battery fire.
Positions are usually chosen, therefore, on the rear
slope of a hill or in a gully, screened if possible by
trees, and affording an easy place for the construction
of trenches and dugouts. The latter are important to
shelter the men: they are absolutely essential to furnish
a comparatively safe place for the battery commander to
work at his maps and firing data, and for the telephone
operator to keep at his switchboard and maintain
communications with the executive officer at the guns as
well as with the battalion and regimental P. C.'s.
Out beyond the battery positions are the forward
observation posts. These may be in a screened position on
the forward slope of a hill, or up among the branches of
a tree. Sometimes they may be in rear of the guns, but
always they must be where the observation officer can see
and report the effects of his battery's fire, or discover
new targets f or the artillery to work upon.
All these various places are connected by telephone
lines, which must be laid as soon as the regiment goes
into position, and must be kept in working order every
minute of the day and night at whatever cost.
The Medical Detachment maintains, as has been stated, a
first aid station with each battalion, and in addition
furnishes a first-aid enlisted man to each battery. Its
headquarters are Wherever the regimental surgeon happens
to live-sometimes at the echelon sometimes at regimental
headquarters, often with the Headquarters Company.
This brief description of the usual layout of a regiment
in the field will make clear a good many allusions as the
story proceeds, for, save in the last great drive, where
the rapidity of movement did not permit such elaborate
preparations at each new position, the same general
scheme was followed through-out all the fighting in which
the 304th took part.
In placing his regiment in the Baccarat sector, Colonel
Briggs put the echelon in a wood some distance back of
Merviller. The regimental headquarters and the
Headquarters Company were in the village itself, where
the Colonel was in constant touch with the infantry
brigade commander. Major Sanders with his First Battalion
detail was established in Reherey, a little to the north,
with Batteries A, B and C on the hill in front, some
distance apart. Major Devereux took his battalion still
farther north, and, placing his batteries near a road
which ran parallel to the front lines, took up his
headquarters in the village of Hablainville.
The first battery to move into position was D. Before the
last of the regiment was detrained in Baccarat, Captain
Mahon had received his orders, and on Saturday night,
July 13th, his train of guns and caissons left the
echelon and proceeded through Merviller and off to the
left until they came to the position which had been
selected. It was a splendid position, right in the very
middle of a field of wheat. The guns were sunk in pits so
that their muzzles barely protruded above the ground.
There were communicating trenches and dugouts al-ready
well started by the battery which had just been relieved,
and the whole emplacement was covered with a single wire
net into which had been entwined enough bits of green
burlap to make it blend in with the wheat. From the road,
only fort; meters away, no one would have guessed, unless
well versed in detecting camouflage, that there was a
battery anywhere near.
That first move out to the front, for each battery in turn, was a
thrilling experience. From beyond the hills, whose outlines could barely
be distinguished against the dark sky, there arose, in constant slow
progression, a series of signal lights. Now and then a rocket would rush
up into the sky and bursting would mingle its shining fragments with the
stars. Occasionally a brilliant red or white flare would blaze out,
illuminating the landscape,
as the infantry, suspecting the presence of an enemy
patrol in No- Man's-Land, sought to prevent a surprise.
Here and there a chain of blue stars would rise
majestically above the hills and then vanish into the
darkness overhead. Rarely one could hear the boom of a
gun or the distant popping of rifles. Just as one battery
was coming into position there burst directly overhead a
white flare, which lit up the scene as if a searchlight
were being played upon it. The startled cannoneers and
drivers thought that their end had come, and expected any
minute to have a rain of shells descend upon them; but
the flare died out and all was quiet as before, and the
guns were placed without accident of any kind.
There was considerable excitement to know who was to fire
the first shot. According to the agreement at Camp de
Souge, that honor should have fallen to Battery C. But
Colonel Briggs found that the 305th, who had arrived
ahead of us, had already begun to register their guns,
and so he decided that D Battery, which was the first to
be ready, might just as well go ahead. Accordingly, on
Sunday afternoon, July 14th, Captain Mahon went to his
observation post, and, selecting a prominent landmark
within the enemy's lines, calculated his firing data and
telephoned his orders for laying the guns to Lieutenant
Eberstadt, his battery executive. The first piece only
was to fire, and the gun crew, under Sergeant Ruggiero,
in a matter-of-fact way, but nevertheless with a little
inward flurry, followed the directions given them and
slammed the shell into the breech.
"Ready to fire," announced the section chief.
Lieutenant Eberstadt repeated it to the telephone
operator, and they waited. Presently from the dugout came
the operator's voice: "Fire."
"Fire!" commanded the Lieutenant.
With a quick pull of the lanyard there was a loud report;
the gun leaped- on its carriage as the
"whee-you-whee-you-whee-you" of the departing
shell sped over the hill. The 304th had fired its first
shot of the war!
"What do you 'think you hit?" asked the
Chaplain, who happened to be standing by.
"Don't know, sir," replied one of the men,
"but I hope we hit the kaiser!"
If Battery D had the best position, -Battery E probably
had the worst. They were right out in an open field with
practically no screen of any kind except the brow of the
hill .in front. Whoever had dug the emplacements had
piled all the ,dirt in plain sight, and it was evident to
any one passing along -let alone to the aerial observers
who flew about each day, that there was a gun position
there. Captain Perin said that his one hope was that the
enemy, seeing so palpable an emplacement, would conclude
that no one would be fool enough to put ,a battery in
there! He at once had his men begin work on a new
emplacement farther back on the edge of a wood, but it
was not finished until just as the regiment was about to
leave the sector.
However, the old one did very well, for there was little
or no shelling. Two or three times some shots came over
and struck fairly close to both E and F, but the only
actual casualty we heard of was a cow, killed on the
street in Hablainville that first Sunday morning. The
infantry, who were constantly doing patrol duty, and who
were called on to carry out and repel not a few raids,
sustained some losses, but from their whole stay on the
Baccarat front the artillery came out scathless.
Nevertheless the work was exceedingly profitable as a training for the
regiment under real war conditions. The greatest precautions were
observed, just as if we were on the most active front. No names of
places or organizations were ever given over the telephone, nor any
official titles used. Everyone had to learn to guard his language, and
to express his meaning in such a way that
an enemy, listening in, would be unable to understand the
drift of the conversation.
Sometimes the camouflaged language was very amusing.
Major Sanders one day was in Colonel Vidmer's
headquarters, and was there told that a certain raid,
which he was to have supported by fire from one of his
batteries, bad been called off.
"I'll have to telephone Captain Bacon," he
said. Then, as soon as he had got the connection, he
proceeded, "Bacon? This is Sanders. You remember
those securities you were to deliver this morning to
underwrite that little deal we were going to put through?
Well, the deal is called off. . . . How about what? The
regular bond issue? Oh, yes, that holds good. And Bacon,
I believe you still have a sum tied up in a safe deposit
vault. Better get it out-that bank's not safe-invest it
in that lumber company we were talking about this
morning."
"What in the world are you talking about., asked the
Colonel, as Major Sanders hung up the receiver.
"Why," replied the major, "I just told
Captain Bacon that the raid for tonight was called off.
He asked me if the normal barrage remained unchanged, and
I told him it still held good. Then I told him to get an
isolated gun out of an unsafe emplacement where he had it
and put it in the woods!"
Camouflage discipline was very strictly enforced. Colonel
Briggs was so pleased with D's position, on account of
its good camouflage, that he had an aerial photograph
taken to demonstrate how well a gun emplacement could be
hidden from observation. To his astonishment, the
photograph showed plainly, in front of what was known to
be the position of each piece, a little fine line
extending forward for a few meters. On examination, it
was found that the men had once or twice gone out to the
aiming-stakes to find out what was the trouble with the
little electric bulbs, which are used in night firing. In
those few trips, the men's feet had worn tiny paths in
the wheat which would never be noticed by a passerby, but
which were plainly revealed in the airplane's photograph.
It was a good lesson, and the men were taught that they
simply must not walk anywhere around the guns except in
well-defined paths, which had been known, to
exist-before. If ever a new path had to be made, it was
continued on past the position, so as not to show, by
suddenly coming to an end, that it led to a battery.
While we were not often fired upon, our batteries did a
good deal of firing on the enemy. It was much like the
work they had had at Camp de Souge, but there was the
additional interesting feature that it was intended to
inflict damage on some unseen foe. In one man's diary we
find the following entry: "Last night we were roused
out of bed for some harassing fire. We fired four rounds
at 12:10 and again at 12:20, and finally at 12:55 Battery
F cooperated. It was all very dramatic waiting in the
stilly darkness for the word over the phone which would
let loose the fire of death against some unknown enemy
that we can't even see."
One night, when no one was expecting it, a terrific
barrage burst loose from Battery B. Colonel Briggs could
not find any one who had authorized the firing, and he
made an investigation. Captain Doyle summoned a man who
had been on guard, and who was reported to have seen a
red rocket, which at that time was the prearranged signal
for a barrage.
"Did you see a rocket last night about eight
o'clock?" asked' the captain.
"I did, sor," replied the guard with a fine
brogue.
"What color was it?"
"Well, sor, 'twere not white; an' 'twere not
red-that is, not so red as the rear light av a train.
'Twere more rose!"
Further investigation proved that the guard was quite
correct: a rose rocket had been sent off at that time-but
it was a German rocket!
As far as real war went, our stay near Baccarat was not
very exciting. The farms and villages were all inhabited,
and while we tip-toed about and kept out of sight, the
French peasants, both men and women, went placidly about
their work in the fields, and hoed their potatoes or
reaped their wheat right alongside our guns. But they
were earning their livelihood: we were learning the game
of war, and what we learned in those three weeks was to
be of infinite use to us later on when we got to where
the fighting was heavy and the danger great.
The most spectacular thing we saw was the airplane fights
in the sky above us. Hun planes came over every day, and
as soon as one appeared we would hear the booming of the
French anti-aircraft guns trying to drive it away. Indeed
that sound was usually the first warning we had that
planes were overhead. Bloom-bloom-bloom-bloom! When it
burst high in the air shrapnel had a peculiar sound which
was unmistakable. Every one would run out to look-very
foolishly and strictly against orders -and there in the
sky could be seen a plane surrounded by an ever
increasing number of little white clouds where the
shrapnel had burst. Sometimes an Al-lied plane would give
chase, and then it would be like watching some
fascinating game. The two planes would swoop and dive,
and there would be the rattle of machine guns as they
pumped away at each other, and then one would suddenly
dart off and disappear from sight.
In the middle of July the Germans began their last
desperate drive toward Paris, and as the news reached us
those first two or three days of their steady gains, we
wondered whether, af-ter all, the Hun would not succeed
in breaking through. We knew that he could not win the
war even if he did break through, for American troops
were pouring into the country and taking their places in
the lines with constantly increasing force; and yet we
feared for the Allied morale if Hindenburg should ever
reach Paris.
Then came the news of the French and American
counter-attack of the 18th. At Chateau-Thierry they had
smashed the apex of the German salient, and on the sides
toward Soissons and Rheims they were driving in like an
immense pair of pincers threatening to cut off the Boche
if he did not withdraw. Then came that tremendous thrust
which hurled the Germans back, back, away from the Marne,
away from Paris, and our men were wild with desire to get
into the real game.