HISTORY
OF THE 305th Infantry
by
Frank Tiebout
Chapter 1 - At Camp Upton
CHAPTER 1
AT CAMP UPTON
FORTY years hence, when little John clambers upon your
knee with a "Grandpa, tell me a soldier story,"
you will not have to disappoint the child. If your memory
has not survived the strain, if you still suffer from
shell shock, you can at least look in the book for
inspiration. The Regimental Story will remind you of all
the stories it fails to record. On the other hand, if
your imagination is too fruitful, it will serve as a
check upon the irresistible tendency to tell a whopper.
By all means, keep the child quiet; his mother will thank
you; but at the same time fill him with a wholesome
respect for the glory of American Arms, and of the Three
Hundred and Fifth. Yet be careful! Get these few
essential facts straight, or the boy will come back at
you with embarrassing questions as soon as he is old
enough to read the book for himself.
However, the main
purpose of this story is to record the fun and the facts
as we found them. To be sure, we often had to manufacture
the fun, though really, a laugh could be found in almost
any situation, however tense, however hopeless and
disagreeable. You laughed your way through stump pulling,
kitchen police, through the endless drilling-, through
the submarine zone, through marmalade and tea; through
shell fire on the Vesle, through machine-gun fire in the
Argonne; through the five months following the
armistice-the hardest battle of the war. Your persistent
good humor went a long way toward beating the Hun.
Come back to Upton
with us then; come over to France. Get into the old
ramshackle billets again where you argued for standing
room with the cows and chickens. Step down into the
trenches once more; roll around in the muddy old funk
holes. Get real muddy! Sleep on the floor of a cold
hommes et chevaux parlor car. Sample the cold corned
willie. See if the canned goldfish is any less delicious
than it used to be. Growl and grumble as you used to and
then-laugh, as you used to.
Begin your story by
telling how you and a host of other civilians, in the
summer of 1917, knowing nothing of military life and
caring less, were called upon by the United States to
show the world, Germany in particular, that there are
certain outrages we cannot stand for; how your local
board instructed you to report on such-and-such a day,
how the bands and the banners and the tears convinced you
that the trenches were only a week or two away at most;
how you landed at Camp Upton near Yaphank, Long Island,
and felt your heart sink. On that memorable day, you
probably experienced no patriotic thrill. You and your
trainload of comrades, mostly in old clothes, with little
handbags or bundles containing the things your mother
thought necessary to military life, a mob of boys of all
the nationalities and creeds that go to make up the
cosmopolitan city of New York; who couldn't keep step, of
course; who could scarcely align themselves in a "
column of two's "-you couldn't have licked Germany
on that afternoon! Officers and men who that day saw you
struggle toward the barracks often recalled the picture,
ten months later, when they saw you filing silently
through the communicating trenches in the pitchy
darkness, single file, five paces apart, every man
keeping contact, tried, reliable, dependable. What a
change- eh?
"It was a
Wednesday afternoon, at three P. M.," writes a
scribe from F Company, "and raining like mad when
our train pulled into a place called Camp Upton. They had
a band of music at the station playing the Star Spangled
Banner, to get us to feel like fighting. It did-the way
they played it. A few roughnecks from the regulars
received us. The Sergeant gave a command: 'Column of
two's. Forward, MARCH!' But we bums stood like a bunch of
dopes, for we didn't know what 'a column of two's meant.
All the way to the barracks, the one-month veterans were
saying: 'Wait till you get the needle."'
Irvin Cobb, in the
Saturday Evening Post, said: "I saw them when they
first landed at Camp Upton, furtive, frightened,
slow-footed, slack-shouldered, underfed, apprehensive-a
huddle of unhappy aliens, speaking in alien tongues, and
knowing little of the cause for which they must fight,
and possibly caring less. I saw them again three months
later, when the snow of the dreadful winter of 1917-1918
was piling high about their wooden barracks down there on
wind-swept Long Island. The stoop was beginning to come
out of their spines, the shamble out of their gait. They
had learned to hold their heads up; had learned to look
every man in the eye and tell him to go elsewhere, with a
capital H. They knew now that discipline was not
punishment, and that the salute was not a mark of
servility, but an evidence of mutual self-respect between
officer and man. They wore their uniforms with pride. The
flag meant something to them and the war meant something
to them. Three short, hard months of training had
transformed them from a rabble into soldier stuff; from a
street mob into the makings of an army; from strangers
into Americans. After nine months I have seen them once
more in France. For swagger, for snap, for smartness in
the drill, for cockiness in the billet, for good-humor on
the march, and for dash and spunk and deviltry in the
fighting into which just lately they have been sent, our
Army can show no better and no more gallant warriors than
the lads who mainly make up the rank and file of this
particular division."
The Three Hundred
and Fifth Infantry was a part of that 77th Division. Just
when was the Three Hundred and Fifth Infantry born? Some
will say that the regiment began when the 77th Division
was drawn up on paper and the words "Three Hundred
and Fifth Infantry" written down for the first time.
Others will maintain that it began with a handful of
reserve officers, fresh from the First Plattsburg
Training Camp, who boarded the train for Yaphank on
August 29, 1917, who groped their way among a myriad of
sweating workmen, teams, wagons, motor trucks, jitneys,
lumber piles, stables, shanties; over fresh broken roads,
felled trees, stumps, brush and sticky mud; who somehow
found a hill upon which sat an unpainted shack and some
vague personage who directed them to Barrack J, No. 21;
who bought iron cots from colored workmen not unwilling
to pick up an illegitimate penny on the side; who
shivered for want of blankets and baggage, washed at the
community spigot, got a dose of lead poisoning and swore
off on water for many weeks; who presently found their
names dangling from a sort of family tree with Colonel
William R. Smedberg's name away up at the top, followed
by Lieut.-Colonel James C. (Jim Crow) Rhea's; a little
further down, the majors of the First, Second and Third
Battalions, respectively-Walter W. Metcalf, Charles W.
Dall, Harold C. Woodward; and spreading below them on the
lower branches, each little cluster of company officers.
While much of the success of the Three Hundred and Fifth
Infantry can be attributed to the Regular Army
"idea," and to the high-minded principles and
ability of Colonel Smedberg (a situation which found a
parallel in many another regiment of the National Army),
a good deal of credit can be given, with all fairness, to
the Reserve Officers, business men, college men,
volunteers-all interested, all enthusiastic. " When
I gave an order," said Colonel Smedberg, "I
knew that it would be well carried out."
One morning they were roused as usual by the distant
barrage of count-less hammers pounding away across the
horizon, to find that the Rookies were due. Seemingly out
of nothing, a city of barracks like a boomtown in the
mining regions had arisen down in the "R "
section to receive them, and thither journeyed each
little family of company officers. What a scramble ensued
for cots and bed-sacks and straw, for mess kits and
blankets and civilian cooks, for stoves, fuel, ice-boxes
and rations!
And this is where
most of you will doubtless say the Three Hundred and
Fifth Infantry had its beginning.
"To
half-finished barracks in a half-cleared forest, by the
chances of the draft and the accidents of the Adjutant
General's Department, there had come a handful of
soldiers by profession, some scores of men who for a few
weeks bad studied the military, art, and nearly four
thousand young citizens, ignorant of war, some eager,
some reluctant, all unready for what they then considered
hardship and restraint. Drill was to deal with their
muscles; discipline, to bring incessant reminders of
duty. They little knew how soon this great body would
begin to have a military semblance, aware of its ordered
strength and conscious of a collec-tive purpose. Soon
would both officers and men grow proud of themselves and
of each other; the great traditions of soldiership would
have laid hold of them."
What really laid hold of them without a moment's delay,
was a Regular Army Sergeant who ordered them into the
bath-house, QUICK.
" Oh, but I've had a bath."
"I don't care what you did last year; you're in the
Army now."
"But I took one this afternoon."
"Hard luck; you've got to take another and be
checked."
Perhaps the water
wasn't hot enough for those addicted to bathing-, more
than likely it was ice-cold. The artful dodgers were
hauled out of bed by the strong-arm squad for their first
encounter with disciplinary action -whisk brooms and
floor brushes vigorously applied by the First Sergeant's
earlier and bitter victims.
"When do we eat?"
Almost the first
words uttered by the new recruit. Expressive of the
soldier's chief concern-his stomach. Heard later on the
march, in battle, in billet; later still the doughboy's
victorious greeting to the armistice. Certainly, the
first words spoken at Camp Upton. He ate, and ate well,
astonished to find so few beans, popularly rumored as the
basis of army fare. To be sure, he was served " a
thousand on a plate" very early in the game. However
much he despised them then, he would later have given his
overcoat for a single plate of those he earlier spurned.
And having eaten,
he stood around that first evening, by the large bonfire
kindled just outside the kitchen door, speculating as to
his luck, his fate, telling his new-found comrades just
what he thought of everything, particularly of his new
officers. He had them sized up. He sang a bit. Heads bent
close together as nasal agonies rent the night air. The
bank clerk was suddenly surprised to find his arm wrapped
affectionately around the motor-man's shoulders. The
street cleaner hooked up with the little pants-presser.
Months later, they dug a funk hole together on the
Aisne-, and the street cleaner felt mighty sad when his
buddy, the little pants-presser, "went west."
"Lights out! Get to bed!"
But not to sleep. Those wild Irishmen of F Company did
not seem to care a bit if the occupant were still on the
bed as it flew downstairs. Poor old Simon, already in a
fair way to establish himself as the A Company barber,
knew nothing of camouflage, failed utterly to detect in
time the tricky genius of his new comrades, fell to the
floor with a crash, all doubled up like a jack-knife in
his folding cot, and reported to the orderly room that
McGowan and his bunkies were a "geng uff
loifers." Thus ended, as in a score of barracks, a
perfect day.
The same tough army
sergeant, who greeted you at the train, threw you into
the bath and ordered you to bed, ordered you out. This
was a bit too soon to curse the buglers. There weren't
any. It was after hearing Reveille blown a countless
number of times that you dreamed of the happy days to
come, back in civil life, when, disgustingly wealthy, you
could hire a bugler of your own, throw a brick at him,
roll over and sleep as long as you darn pleased. You rose
and made your own bed; a new experience, waving three
blankets and a bed-sack into place. Thank Heaven, there
were no sheets and pillows to battle with!
Sour faces at
breakfast. Then for a roll call, and off to the Infirmary
for an examination. Here's where one might have seen at
first, some great stalling. "I can't hear."
"I can't see out of this left eye." "I've
got flat feet." All the excuses in the world; but
always the same answer, " You'll do." Then for
the needle. You have seen them keel over before it ever
touched their arms. And some of them played faint. But
the supposed terrible after-effects of the Typhoid
Prophylaxis always got you twenty-four hours off; so,
'twas almost worth it. And five needles worth made you a
veteran.
The qualification
cards which showed a man's entire pedigree and which took
so many hours to make out also revealed a surprising
assortment of nationalities, whose names ran the gamut of
the alphabet, backward and forward. It is said that a
lieutenant, calling the roll of his company, happened to
sneeze. Four men answered: "Here!" Side by
side, on the H Company roster, perched a Parrot and a
Peacock. Nearby, towering well above their fellows, stood
"Great" Scott and "So" Long. There
was a Mason, a Brewer and a Singer; a Jewel and a Penny.
One of the first corporals to be turned out was called
Trainer. Bosch proved himself a good patriot despite his
name. Fries made an excellent cook. But how appro-priate,
that Piper should have become a bugler!
Is there any
company commander who didn't complain that all the
qualification cards ever did for him was to betray the
presence within his flock of a prize mechanic, chauffeur,
plumber or typist? And wasn't it a fact that every man
thought himself either skilled in the care and handling
of horses, or a motor cyclist-having, no doubt, the
vision of riding through the war as a messenger or a
general's chauffeur? Only by the basest sort of deception
could the captains, wild-eyed from an excess of paper
work, retain any sort of clerical assistance. No one but
an officer can appreciate the trials and tribulations of
those early days: the first morning reports, with
Recruits entered in red, Assignments in black, the ration
figures, plus and minus, always wrong, the ever-changing
rosters, the receipts demanded and given for all the men
and equipment passing back and forth from one unit to
another.
Well, the cards
were a lovely color, and beautifully theoretical; and
they did provide some amusement. Questioned as to his
age, a man answered, "Twenty-seven." When asked
when he would be twenty-eight, be scratched his head,
utterly baffled, and ventured: "Either May or
December." A private was asked if, within his
military experience, he had attended any schools.
"Yes," he replied, "the School of the
Squad and the School of the Soldier. "
It was true that
even before any of these pertinent facts concerning your
history were known, you were told to spit out that gum,
stood up in line, heels together, stomachs in, heads
back-well, see paragraph 51 of the I. D. R. That's the
way you couldn't stand, then. Thus began the elaborate
and painful process of teacbing the difference between
the right foot and the left foot; between the muzzle and
the butt of the rifle; between a general and a private.
Now and then, the Two Silver Bars would crawl out from
beneath a stack of papers, forms and records and emerge
from the sanctity of the Orderly Room to see how the work
was progressing. All this preliminary work was of course
up to the lieutenants, many of whom without doubt
wondered, when they first called their little bunch of
beginners to attention, whether or not the order would be
promptly obeyed. Thank Heaven, it was. One must not
forget ., while trying to analyze the success of the
National Army, that the men were ready, willing and
ambitious to become good soldiers. General Alexander,
after assuming command of the 77th Division, learned to
feel that his men would and could do anything expected of
them. It was the willing spirit, which carried them
through.
The riot, which
greeted the first weekend passes proved that a system was
necessary-discipline all the way into New York;
discipline all the way back. Passes kept the men alive
and brought a rich harvest to the " news butchers
" of the Long Island Railroad, though the labor of
issuing them and issuing them fairly almost killed off
the lieuten-ants. At first, only those with army uniforms
could go-oh yes, white collars and all. Finally, the
uniforms did come. Hats would insist upon covering only
the back of the head, or else flopping down around the
ears; despite the careful measuring, sleeves were too
long, necks too big, leggings, size five, wrapped loosely
about a number three leg, shoes a full inch too long, as
the lieutenant had insisted upon giving them to you, the
overcoat often looking like a bath robe. But with the
uniform came a bit of swagger, a little thrill of pride,
plenty of work for the new company tailor and passes.
Mindful of the
first week's experience, most any captain might have been
heard addressing his tribe on Monday morning: "I
want no pathetic telegrams to come pouring in on me this
Friday. I don't care to hear that Solomon Levinsky has to
be present Saturday morning, at the winding up of his
pants business. Warn your grandmothers, aged aunts,
sisters, brothers and cousins not to celebrate their
marriages or burials on Saturday. Instruct all relatives
knocking at death's door to wait in the vestibule until
your turn for pass comes round."
It was soon noised about that all Jews would be permitted
to go to the city for the celebration of Yom Kippur. A
knock was heard at a certain orderly room door. In the
gloomy hallway stood a big, strapping fellow who made
known his desire for a pass. "You want to go in for
Yom Kippur?"
"Yiss, sorr."
" What's your name?"
"Patrick Shea."
Good old Pat - one
of the best fighting Irishmen that ever struggled through
the Argonne with his back-breaking burden, a Hotchkiss
machine gun. Nearly everybody in the Regiment knew Pat
Shea, of the Machine Gun Company, and felt mighty bitter
when be lost his life at the Meuse, in the last few
minutes of the war
It was after
explaining different things to a bunch of recruits that
an officer gave the sudden command, "Right
Face!" The execution was far from perfect.
"What's the
matter with that man? I said, "Right Face!" not
Left Face."'
"Me no spigk English."
About an hour later, it being Friday, the officer could
have sworn that in response to his announcement
concerning passes the same man answered: Sure, I want a
pass tomorrow."
But there were
compensations for your being denied a pass. "You new
that if you didn't get one, you would at least get a day
off, and one of 'Dutch' Richert's juicy steaks," to
quote from the reminiscences of F Company. "After
inspection, there was plenty of fun in the old mess hall,
'Ed' Hoffman beating the box, the pool sharks playing
'Drop Dead' and old 'Dutch' behind his counter, all
dressed in white like an Astorbilt chef, waving succulent
beef-steak under the noses of the guys who had to go out
on the morning train and who wouldn't get any. We lived
high, there in camp, over the weekends. So many of the
boys going into the city made a big ration saving, and
the money went into the company fund for chicken and ice
cream and such things. And then, on Sunday, you'd meet
your father, or your mother, or your sweetie at the
eleven-thirty train. Not so bad, any way you look at
it."
After parading
around town of a Saturday with a new uniform on, it was
pretty tough going back to camp on Sunday night, or on
the Three A. M. "Owl," landing just in time for
Reveille. No one was in any condition to drill on Monday,
and the boys would stall around the Top Kicker for a
while, looking for a detail that would keep them from
drill. In those days, it was stump pulling which served
as the hardening details; sometimes the whole battalion
would turn out in a body.
In fact, our first
offensive was under the command of Major Metcalf over a
No-Man's-Land of Long Island brush and trees. One B
Company veteran writes: "Armed with pick-mattocks,
axes and brush cutters, the company marched daily to the
task and all day long fought the foe with might and main.
Captain Purcell would go among his men, keeping up their
morale, showing them personally how to use the axe. Some
of his exhibitions were very-er, very. 'The will to use
the bush-hook,' we'd cry, and go to it. After two months
of such work, thin men increased unbelievably and stout
men lost their excess weight; best of all, the jungle
became a fine parade ground. Then came the work of
clearing for the rifle range; but that was easier, for
every organization in the Division took over a
sector."
By the middle of
November, things had settled down and were running
smoothly, everyone feeling fairly well experienced, and
believing that the trenches were not very far off. Still,
the manual of arms, executed at first with the ancient
and honorable Krag-Jorgensens, later with the new
Winchesters, was rather rough in spots. In the Second
Battalion, it even hap-pened that the officers were stood
up publicly by Major Dall for drill in the art of
criticism - but the appreciative mob which collected
failed to appreciate that qualifying fact, and could not
disguise its enjoyment of something which appeared to be
the disciplining of their officers. The first schools for
the training of non-commissioned officers had turned out
some excellent men, with a budding taste for authority.
Yet the officers have never ceased to regret the theory
of the Division Commander who forbade the placing of any
real responsibilities upon the shoulders of our non-coms.
Far better it would have been at camp and throughout all
our subsequent experience, if it had not always been
required that an officer be present, whether at the
fairly simple task of filling a bedsack, or at an
inconsequential gathering of any sort.
It was all very
much like going to school again. For some-for many,
rather, there was the English school; much of our soldier
material couldn't even speak the language. Imagine the
difficulties of teaching the rudiments of military art to
men, however willing, who couldn't understand; officers
have had some times to get right down on their hands and
knees to show by actual physical persuasion how to
"advance and plant the left foot."
Imagine, too, the
difficulties of teaching the open order as prescribed in
the I. D. R., and as advocated by the foreign instructors
in all its diverse ramifications. Imagine trying to teach
the methods of patrolling, or posting an outguard. After
discoursing for three long hours, a lieutenant was
finally satisfied that every man in his platoon had a
passable idea of an outpost, outguard, picket, etc.
Looking over his men, he asked the company barber:
"What is a picket?" The young man spoke right
up, thoroughly sure of his ground, "Oh, yess, vat
iss a picket? A picket iss a board mit sticks tacked on
it."
A period of
intensive training brought instructors from overseas,
shortly after Christmas. Having read endlessly of the
Western Front and filled with the glamour of the
trenches, we were thrilled to see and hear the men who
had been there. Captain Nicot, charming personally,
interesting in his lectures on bombs, but far more
interesting when recounting far into the night his vivid,
intimate tales of life in the trenches; the diminutive
Lieutenant Geismar holding forth in broken English upon
the intricacies of the F rench Chauchat
auto-rifle-the
"Ford Rifle" or "jitney Gun" as the
men called it-pointing out ze movabble an ze fixed parts:
"An' now, ze barrell catch, she get coughed.
Coughed! Do you not know what I say? C-a-u-g-h-t!
Coughed!
And Lieutenant
Poire too-Henri Poire, who went every step of the way
with the Three Hundred and Fifth. At first, we thought of
him as the champion blackboard artist of the world. He
could erect and erase more and dustier battlefields than
perhaps any other man living. Many an afternoon the great
Y. M. C. A. hall on Eighth Street was jammed to
overflowing with snoring, appreciative officers. They
appreciated the rest. "I love these lectures by dear
old Poir6, " one of them was heard to remark at the
hour of dismissal. " If I weren't required to be
here, I'd be ordered out on something tremendously
arduous, and then I'd never get any sleep at all."
"Very
interesting and helpful talk we've had tonight from
Lieutenant Poir6 of the French Army," General
Wittenmyer would say. "But you'll find it all set
down very clearly in your little blue book, the Platoon
Commander's Manual."
For the officers,
the first blood-curdling thrills of the bayonet schools
had been almost exhausted at Plattsburg. Their
imaginations were stirred anew, however, by the vigor and
originality of the burly British Sergeant-Major
Covington, fresh from the training grounds of France.
"In, out, on guard!" became the popular
catch-phrase, though scarcely more often heard than
"Around me MOVE!" and "Carry On." It
was here that Lieutenant "Jim" Loughborough
experienced a revelation, in which be saw himself as a
future Master of the Bayonet, spearing eight Germans
single-handed, in mortal combat, on the banks of the
Vesle.
The authorities
apparently thought we might have to do a little wrestling
with the Boche, so they opened up a course in jiu-jitsu.
Peculiar methods of choking and resuscitation seemed to
be the Jap's chief stock in trade. It was Lieutenant
" Phil " Gray who first submitted to the
experience of being " put out cold," just to
know how it seemed; whereupon many others bad the courage
to follow suit.

A class of Jiu Jitsu.
"Terrible
Tony" Loughborough, as the lieutenant was called by
the Signal Platoon, dropped in one afternoon to watch
Colonel Smedberg and Lieut.-Colonel Rhea pairing off. Mr.
Allen Smith, the instructor, inquired if the lieutenant
would like to join in. Assenting, he was matched against
"Moocher" Rosenquest, private, who, for once in
his life, displayed ambition -a strong desire to strangle
the "loot." To quote the Headquarters Company
Historian, "he pressed and squeezed in forty
different ways, not knowing that he had the lieutenant
nearly dead of suffocation. How was he to know? There was
no clapping of the victim's hands-token of surrender.
Sergeant "Dan"Bunny, of "Bunny's Trained
Fleas," one of Loughborough's Intelligence squad,
maliciously gave his buddy,- Rosenquest, the high sign to
press still harder, thoroughly enjoying the massacre of
his chief. 'My God, man!' exclaimed Smith, happening
along, 'do you wish to kill the lieutenant? Let him go!'
And then, after vigorous denunciation, 'Quite correct,
Lieutenant, you failed to clap your hands.'
Unfortunately, no one had ever informed him of the
distress signal."
Nor to be forgotten
are the old Sniping, Observation and Scouting courses in
the "German" trenches out beyond the Depot
Brigade; nor the three weeks' engineering course during
the most brutal weather of Long Island's most brutal
winter-when digging a practice trench with anything less
sharp than an axe was impossible, when the boring of
holes in the frozen ground for the construction of
gabions, fascines and hurdles took hours to accomplish,
particularly when someone of the class had the foresight
to construct a huge bonfire.
Many a day was spent indoors on account of the cold, the
thermometer at times venturing to twenty below zero. The
wind whistled through the chinks of the draughty
barracks; the cannon stoves waxed red hot; the thud of
rifle butts on the mess hall floor resounded early and
late. There was little
else to do-until evening. New York never knew what really
good times we had then; thought us abused and
discontented, perhaps. When winter had put an end to
baseball and football, the Y. M. C. A. huts, the K. C.
club rooms and halls were crowded, always populous with
the eternal letter writers, the book worms or the
roistering mob eagerly supporting their company show, a
boxing contest, or a basketball game. Movies, too, and
later a Liberty Theatre with genuine New York
attractions. Or wafted over the " campus " on
the dusty, gusty, night breeze might be heard the nasal
whine of a straining quartette:
I took out ten thousand, Insurance;
For bonds I gave fifteen bucks more;
To wifey and mother
I 'lotted another
Ten dollars, and then furthermore
I ran up big bills at the Laundry,
And finally pay day was there.
I went up for my dough, But the answer was "NO!
You've already drawn more than your share."
-or perhaps the roar of a hundred voices rending
"Robbie's" war song limb from limb:
At our hike and drill,
To work with all our will,
And find it fun to take a gun
And "One, Two, Three, Four."
Put in every step,
All our punch and pep,
So we'll be one to hit the Hun
An awful wallop! With English and with French,
We'll leap from out our trench,
'Twill be to see Democracy survive;
And we'll open up a gap -Push the Kaiser off the map,
When the Three-0-Five begins its drive.
Another favorite:
There's only one side that can win-
That's the Allies' side,
of course, And 'tis because our Uncle Sam
Has made himself the boss. His nephews, who will do the
job
Are the boys of the Infantry.
So, let's all strive
To make Three-O-Five
Bring home the Victory.
The idea, of course, was that we'd go over the top
a'singing. "A singing army is a winning army,"
roared the long-haired leader from the War Camp Community
to the entire Division which was subjected in groups to
his tutelage, the only recollection of which is
"Keep your head down, Allemand, and its numerous
parodies.
But anon, the
lights in a fleet of brilliant barracks would wink out,
dimmed by the unpopular bugler, and calm would reign,
punctuated only by the steady tread of a nearby sentry
walking post. How he delighted to halt the belated
pedestrian, particularly the officers returning late to
quarters after their midnight inspection of barracks to
see that all bunks were thoroughly partitioned off, as
prescribed, by the hanging shelter-halves, and that the
rows and rows of snoring men were following instructions,
really sleeping " head to foot.
An officer was thus one night halted by an inexperienced
sentry.
"Halt! Who is there?"
"Officer of the Camp."
"Halt! Who is there?"
"Officer of the Camp."
"H-halt. Who the Devil are you, anyhow?"
"OFFICER OF THE CAMP."
"Then get the hell out o' here, quick; my orders is
to challenge three times and then shoot!"
February brought no
let-up in the disagreeable weather, which greeted still
another quota of recruits, entirely new to the game,
lorded over by the remaining old-timers, stuck with the
needle, outfitted and launched upon the now familiar
course of rudimentary training. In November, December,
February, and again in March, each company had been
sifted down to a mere hundred or so - all over again, the
company commander would have to organize his unit,
re-size and redistribute his men in order to balance the
platoons' start in once more upon the rudiments of drill,
spend long days at the rifle range teaching -the infant
mind to shoot. For it seemed that we might become a depot
division; time after time, our ranks were depleted in
order to bring another unit up to combat strength. In
those days, the mere receipt of a few blue barrack bags,
not then an article of general equipment, would be the
signal for deep agitation within the Regiment, it being
popularly supposed that the men who had fallen into
disfavor would be sent to Atlanta., Georgia, or, as it
seemed in our eyes, to some other undesirable camp. That
was not always the reason for their going; it was a
matter of necessity. Popularly sung to the tune of
"Marching through Georgia" was the parody,
"Look out, look out! You'll get the bag of
blue."
But along with
February's blustering weather came the rumor that the
Division would really not become a depot; that it would
really go, soon. More than rumor, it proved to be.
General Johnson, who took command while General Bell was
abroad, gathered the officers together and announced that
he had reported the Division ready!
Ready! It was time
that New York should see what a fine body of troops she
bad sent down to the Long Island camp. On December ninth,
eight thousand people had witnessed two performances at
the Hippodrome of "A Day at Camp Upton,"
prepared by Lieutenant James E. Schuyler and enacted by
two hundred and eighty selected doughboys. New York was
en-thusiastic enough, and yielded up $18,000 profit,
which was once intended to be used for the erection of a
winter drill hall. Luckily, a compromise was effected
whereby only the greater portion of it was wasted upon a
huge tent, in which all of two shows were given prior to
our departure, the balance being distributed among the
regimental and company funds. Many a good dinner came out
of those funds during the tedious, sodden months which
followed the armistice.
Again, Canada had
been shown what New York was accomplishing in the way of
an army, when a select little coterie of the Hippodrome
veterans journeyed to Montreal to participate in the
Canadian Victory Loan Parade -royally dined and
entertained in leading hotels and Pullman cars, so
different -oh, so different from our subsequent means of
transportation.
New York was to be
shown. Not sufficient were the reviews held at Camp
Upton; a parade was necessary. In preparation thereof the
Regiment would march to the aggravating thumpings of the
bass drum, up and down, up and down, in platoon front.
And about that time, too-whether by way of preparation
for the parade or for our future hikings in France no one
can say-there was instituted a system of battalion night
marches, which displeased everyone immensely. There would
usually be a thaw, the night of the party. The Third
Battalion delights in telling how Adjutant Grafmuller,
who spent most of his time rushing up and down the length
of the column, as a test of liaison perhaps, was not very
sure-footed and, as a result, was usually either picking
himself out of a puddle, or falling into another one.
Occasionally, the guide would become lost, putting
everyone into a sweet humor.
While passing the
Negro Barracks one night, there was a rush of dark
figures to the curbing.
Wha's de matter, Boss?"
velled a Darky.
"Why, ain't you heard? The war's over!"
Whoopee! " the delighted rejoinder.
Encouraged by the apparent credulity of repeated
questioners the same doughboy attempted the same
extravagant replies again and again.
Say, wha's all de rumpus ovah?
Why, ain't you heard?
The war's over!"
"Yeah," came the scornful reply the last time.
I'll bet yo' wish t it was!"
Washington's
Birthday was selected for the parade, the movement
beginning with the entraining of the Three Hundred and
Fifth on the morning of the twenty-first. All along the
route, eager crowds cheered the future Argonne fighters
on their long journey up First Avenue to Fifty-ninth
Street, thence down Fifth Avenue to Madison Square. The
parade was a great triumph, despite the snow and the
slippery pavements-ruinous to the dignity of many a
blushing doughboy or proud officer. Impartial critics
expressed sincere admiration for the appearance, carriage
and evident discipline of the troops, who erect, proud
and purposeful, marched with a swing and a snap and a
precision truly remarkable. Half of the men, and most of
the city felt that we might move directly to the port.
And, however much the prospect of leaving home may have
saddened the stoutest hearts, there were few men who
looked forward with any degree of pleasure to another
period of drillful waiting.
But there was much
to be done, before the Division could leave. We had to
return to Camp. The- tables of infantry equipment, very
uninteresting but highly imaginative, demanded that each
man carry on his person, in his pack or in the barrack
bag, nearly everything but the kitchen stove-a hideous
amount of equipment, all very pretty and possible for
garrison but a terrible handicap in the field, or even in
training. All of it had to be issued, reissued and
marked. Early and late, the mechanics tapped and hammered
the numbers, names and unit designations on leather and
metal; the painters lost sleep over the job of marking
the web equipment, blankets, bedsacks and bags.
Inspections which proved that a man couldn't keep his two
" laces, shoe, rawhide, extra" more than two
minutes were held morning, noon and midnight; awful tales
were told of company commanders being turned back in
disgrace from the gang plank because one man of the unit
lacked a single sock of the required five pairs. Five
pairs! These were parlous times-worse even than the old
regular Saturday morning inspections with their
frost-bitten ears and subsequent mad dashes toward the
New York trains.
"Have you a
tooth-brush?
" Yes, sir. "
"Let me see it." Whereupon the soldier would
pull from a grimy pocket a still grimier tooth-brush with
which he had been cleaning his rifle.
An ominous
twenty-four-hour leave in which to attend to final
business affairs was granted early in April. The advance
party of the Division had sailed. On Palm Sunday, it
seemed that every woman within a radius of a hundred
miles came to see Johnny off; the camp never looked so
decorative; tearful wives, mothers and sweethearts were
there by the thousands to say " Good-by. " Yet
the agony had all to be gone through with again, another
weekend. At last, on Sunday morning, the fourteenth, we
were told to line up and empty our bedsacks of straw and
to pack the barrack bags-more fuss than a bride might
have packing her trousseau. Repeated formations; repeated
inspections, eliminating this and that. Yet some of the
boys carried away enough to stock a country store. Then,
in the night, barracks were policed for the last time ere
the troops marched silently to the waiting trains -a
secret troop movement which all the world could have
known about. Not a man was absent from his place, a fact
which speaks wonderfully for the spirit and discipline of
these New York boys, about to leave home, the most
wonderful city and the most wonderful people in the
world-about to undertake
the most difficult
and heart- breaking job of their lives. At the very first
stage of the journey, a most lamentable accident
occurred, the derail-ment of a train bearing a greater
part of the Second Battalion. "just as everybody was
falling asleep over his equipment, it seemed as though
everything began falling allover everything else. There
was a terrible rumble and a crash and a grinding-and
darkness; terrible moaning as someone crawled out from
under the pile of seats, packs, rifles, glass and dirt,
to strike a match. We were lying on the ceiling of the
cars, gazing through the debris up toward the floor.
Somebody chopped a hole through the floor, through which
we clambered only to find the whole train in the same
topsy-turvy condition. By the light of huge bonfires
hastily kindled, the rescue work went on. Three of our
good pals were killed; Murphy, Mohan and Hudson, and
sixty others were so badly injured that they didn't come
across with us. Back to camp went the trainload for
replacements. And that same afternoon, we staggered up
the gang plank, looking as if just returning from France,
instead of going."
THE SONG OF THE SOLDIER
Take the very blood within me,
Pour it in the carnaged gore,
It can be no more the noble
Than the gifts of those before.
Oh! the pain that waits beyond me
May be more than I can bear,
But the heart that throbs within me
Knows me eager for my share.
There was laughter where my pathway led in days of long
ago,
And the coming generation,-they must find it even so;
There were schools that I attended, shaded groves in
which to stroll,
And a just God dealt the measure by an old and ancient
scroll; There were garlands by the wayside with their
fragrance all for me; There were tender thoughts to woo
me when my dreams were young and free; There were tender
loves to cheer me, wondrous hopes in hours of ease,- To
the coming generation,-we must leave a share of these!
Bring the shriek of battle round me,
Throw me headlong in the flame,
I may tremble, weaken, cower,
But I'll soldier just the same.
Spare me! God, I could not ask it,
When the Cause is wholly Thine;
All I ask of Thee is courage
And a goal beyond the line.
There were cities builded for me; there were comforts
never few, And no threatening foreign tyrant shall make
them less for you-, There was all a dreamer envied, all a
dreamer craved, And now a Freedom's Conquest calls that
it be saved. We shall go with Glory silent, not one voice
to cheer, Not one friendly bandclasp, not one falling
tear;- We can lay on Freedom's altar only that which
Freedom gave, Nor applause, nor tender partings will we
need to keep us brave.
This is the song of the soldier,
Finding a voice in a pen,
Lost, perhaps, in the millions
Who champion the cause of Men;
This is the heart of the soldier,
Wistful and longing and young,
There at the stern of the transport
Wishing the song were sung-,
Watching his Liberty Goddess
Grow dim in the land behind,-
Knowing the tug at his heartstrings
Is meant for men of his kind;
These are the dreams of the soldier
Who prays he'll never forsake,
And such are the dreams of the millions
Who yet follow in his wake.
From " Up With the Rations, and Other Poems,"
By John Palmer Cumming, Sgt., Supply Company.