HISTORY
OF THE 305th Infantry Chapter 7 THE ARGONNE CHAPTER VII That First American Army, of which the 77th Division was now a part, was to strike a blow at the jaw of the great German face. Since July 18th, the French, British, Americans and Belgians, under the general command of Marechal Foch, had been hammering the Boche on his soft spots, using up his reserve patience and strength. The time was ripe for a knockout blow on the jaw, the major objective being the railroads running through Mezieres to Metz and Luxembourg, one of the enemy's great supply routes. The German front at this time has also been likened to a gigantic door, the hinges of it secured at Mezieres, swinging open at Belgium and the northern coast. As long as the hinges held, the great door might be closed in the face of an intruder. It was the task of the First Army to smash the hinges, and break down the door! It did. It was not until the night of September 25th, as the First and Second Battalions were quietly taking their places at the jump-off on the Le Four de Paris-La Fille Morte line that we realized our show was to be only a part of the greatest battle of the war. From Verdun to the Belgian Coast the Allied armies were to attack. Stunned by surprise and the savagery of that initial onslaught in the morning fogs of September 26th the foe recoiled, though fighting tenaciously, bitterly, treacherously, until utterly routed and crying quits in the first week of November. Not only had their life-saving railroads through Mezieres been cut by long range artillery, but were almost within the actual grasp of the Allied armies! No one had any
hallucinations now about visiting "the big
town." Yet, this bad all the earmarks of a quiet
sector. Only a few shells winged their way in now and
then. Nobody would clamor loudly for a rest camp if they
could be allowed to spend Christmas here performing the
ordinary routine duties of a defensive position. After
months of mud and squalor wouldn't you like to step from
a moonlit balcony through a door-a real,
honest-to-goodness door with a knob on it and panes of
glass-into your own private hallway, and after
investigating the back passage which led to a bomb-proof
deep in the bowels of the defending hillside, turn into
your own room, a room with latticed window, stone
fireplace, electric lights, real furniture, the heavy
beams in wall and ceiling painted white, the panels a
cool gray and topped by a frieze of dainty cut-outs from
La Vie Parisienne? Black, gloomy, forbidding, this largest expanse of woodland between the Mediterranean and the Rhine stretches a distance of thirty-nine kilometers from Passevant and Beaulieu in the south, with the big town of St. Menehould in its southern confines, to Grand-Pre and the valley of the River Aire on the north. On the eastern edge of the forest are Varennes, Mont-blainville, Cornay and St. Juvin. On its western boundary are the towns of Binarville, Lancon and Grand Ham. For four years the upper twenty-two kilometers of it, held by the enemy, was a region of dark mystery, its densely wooded hills and ravines, swamps, brooks, marshland, tangled underbrush, trailing vines and briars adapted by them into a vast, impregnable fortress. From time
immemorial, the Argonne had proved a stumbling-block to
military operations. Julius Caesar went around it;
Napoleon avoided it; in this war, neither Germans nor
French could push all the way through it; it remained for
Alexander to conquer. Four years of desultory shelling,
just enough to let the other side know that the fight was
still on, four years of occasional raids and minor
actions had carved out of the forest a long stretch of
bald and barren ridges, splintered trunks, yawning
shell-pits-a scarred and battered wreckage of landscape.
All life at first glance seemed extinct. Peering timorously over a parapet one might see, not more than thirty yards off in places, the German trenches crouching low behind their mountains .of rusted and barbed wire entanglements, cheveaux de frise, refuse, tin cans, broken bits of materiel and equipment, wire and more wire. Lanes would have to be cut through all of that before the attacking troops could hope to pass. Perpendicular to the front, each one carefully mapped and named, the boyaus or connecting trenches clambered abruptly down into the ravines, then labored up over the ridges, many of them carved with steps into the solid rock and camouflaged, leading to the support systems and beyond. Here, daily work by the very few men necessary had by degrees made the trenches almost perfect. Nouveau Cottage, the elaborate concrete residence of the sector commander, was an underground chateau-a palace, it seemed to us then. The greater part of the men were held in readiness further back past a series of wooded and slippery ridges, where the forest had not been blasted out of existence by shell-fire. Some of them found comparative comfort on a forward slope in wide, deep trenches shaded by tall and stately trees. Others were quartered in reserve in a camp on the reverse slopes at La Chalade, where it seemed as though every group which had ever occupied that position had contributed of its ingenuity and resource to make the spot more restful and inviting to the tired troops who might come after. Only by a process of evolution through many seasons could that little city have been built in the wilderness. Beautiful dugouts, walks, stairways, balconies, kitchens, baths -even an open-air theatre; an electric light plant; furniture, hangings, bric-a-brac, and even pianos in some of the huts! It was Heaven, after all the bloodshed, misery and disappointment we had been through. Many a poker game was broken up by stories the sergeants brought back from the front-that a drive was about to start which would mean the end of the war, and that many an extra first-aid man would be on the job. Hurried letters were written to the folks at home. Vigorous preparation for the on-slaught ensued, two extra bandoliers of ammunition, hand grenades, rifle grenades, wire cutters being issued-everything convenient to kill a man with. A copious supply of cigarettes, bounty of the Auxiliary, helped. Everything in the way of equipment, excepting rifle, belt and bayonet, gas mask, slicker and combat pack was turned in. Our ranks had been
depleted by deaths, wounds and illness. While officers
and platoon sergeants were assembled at headquarters for
their thrilling instructions, a welcome issue of
replacements was received from the 40th Division. Most of
these new men had been in civilian clothes on the Pacific
Coast in July. They had had almost no practice with the
gas mask. Very few of them, if any, had ever thrown a
live grenade. Some had fired not more than fifteen rounds
with the service rifle. A Camp Upton veteran actually
collected a five-franc note for teaching one of his new
comrades how to insert a clip, and thought he had pulled
a good one! What he expected to do in the-woods with a
five-franc note, no one knew; yet it was just as safe in
one pocket as another. About fifty, went to each company,
though when M Company hopped the bags, it comprised one
sergeant, one corporal, forty men skilled, in the care
and handling of horses, and a hundred and fifty recruits.
Thank God, most of them were from the woods and could
ordinarily dust the eye of a squirrel at fifty yards.
They were quick to absorb the pointers handed out by the
older men though what we were to buck up against,
Methuselah, for all his years, could not have taught. It
had not been tried before. These inexperienced men were
just as well off as others. They had the proper, spirit,
which was the only real equipment necessary. All night the men clung to that steep hillside, or herded into the dugouts awaiting the "zero" hour, while from their midst heavy mortars in the hands of the French played havoc with the German wire. Back on the roads paralleling the front the artillery was massed hub to hub. Shortly after midnight their pandemonium broke loose; the steady roar of great guns was deafening, terrifying. Jerry must have thought a whole ammunition dump was coming at him. The chill September
air was blue with fog and smoke and powder, the dawn,
Just breaking as the silent columns filed up through the
steep boyaus toward, the jumping-off places, ready to go
over the top with only raincoats and rations for baggage,
armed to the teeth, and more thrilled than ever Guy Empey
thought he was. This was just what we had all read about
long before America got into the war; this was just what
the home folks doubtless imagined us to be doing every
day. Could anyone who was there ever forget the earnest,
picturesque figures with their grim-looking helmets,
rifles and bayonets sharply silhouetted against the
eastern sky; the anxious consultation of watches; the
thrill of the take-off; the labored advance over a No
Man's Land so barren, churned, pitted and snarled as to
defy description; the towering billows of rusty, clinging
wire; the flaming signal rockets that sprayed the heavens
- the choking, blinding smoke and fog and gas that
drenched the valleys, and then-one's utter amazement at
finding himself at last within the German stronghold
which during four years had been thought impregnable!
This was certainly a long way from New York! Despite the intensity of the shelling, the maze of wire revealed no open avenues and there was difficulty in keeping up with our own rolling barrage as it swept over the ground before us at the rate of a hundred meters in five minutes. Pieces of cloth and flesh staved with the rusty, clinging barbs; a number of men were impaled on spikes cleverly set for that very purpose. With difficulty the leading and supporting waves were reformed in line of gangs" or small combat groups before plunging on into the ravines, there to become lost or separated from their fellows until after climbing to some high point above the sea of fog they might determine again the direction of advance by a consultation of map and compass and a consideration of whatever landmarks rose above the clouds. No concerted resistance was met with until about noon, after three kilometers of wooded terrain had been covered. There a stubborn machine gun resistance and a heavy shell fire persuaded the Second Battalion, reinforced by companies of the First, to dig in while they spread their panels on the ground to indicate to the Liberty planes overhead the point of farthest advance. At last we were to get some assistance from the air! Casualties there had been in great numbers from enemy shelling and from lurking snipers; but like North American Indians, we continued to stalk our prey from tree to tree. With difficulty the scattered units were gathered together from all points of the compass. Here and there a little "gang" had had its thrilling experience. The scout, whose trying duty it is to advance far in the lead to observe or-failing in that-to draw fire from the hidden ambush, had detected a skulking sniper or hidden machine gun post. Signalling to his fellows, the rifle grenadiers had perhaps planted their missiles within the enemy nest, the automatic rifle had been noiselessly carried to a point of vantage, the riflemen and bombers had surrounded the group of the enemy and with their fire routed him out. How these men learn to work together in their own little "gangs"-four such units constituting a platoon-and how they sometimes come to love their old weapons is suggested by the homely statement of a private in B Company who says, "I had my most experience on a Shawshaw gun, and number one and two men got wounded. Walter and Jim and I took the gun and held the position and got a helper from the same platoon and he got wounded and I held the position until I was called back by my sergeant and took up another position and held it until we moved out and never got wounded at all and all we had to eat is one can of corn willie and two cans of hard tack for two of us. But we got along with it and while on the front I used two mussets of ammu-nition on the Germans and my gun got hot and my gun got hit in the stalk and split it, but I carried it all along in the Argonne drive where I got gassed and had to lend it to some other boys in the platoon." The American doughboy is a curious bird. He wanders along most casually under shellfire, feeling-if he thinks about anything at all-that he stands as good a chance as anyone of not being hit. In the midst of what one might ordinarily consider fairly important or distracting duties all his thought is for something else. "Oh, Lieutenant, looka here," he says in the midst of an attack, pointing out some unusual bit of concrete trench in the German lines. He is more absorbed with his guess as to the number of nights someone has had to spend there in digging, than the probability of its holding a company of lurking Boches. Presently another one off on the right says, "Oh, Lieutenant, looka here." There are about seventeen fat Germans stand-ing outside a lovely dugout but all eyes are on the dugout instead of on the Germans. "Keep out of that dugout! Search 'em, quick," gasps the Lieutenant, fearing treachery-which they do, mindful only of the envied Luger automatic pistols they are to acquire. The prisoners are lined up, and one slightly wounded American private detailed to take them to the rear. "Come along,
youse, " he says, lighting up a cigarette, and
making as if to start off at the head of the willing
column, with the sling of his rifle over his shoulder and
chest. On the evening of the 27th a determined though unsuccessful attack was launched against the strong positions on the extreme right of our line, at the Carrefour des Meurissons. Into a pocket which the enemy had cleared out of the brush two companies unwarily advanced before meeting up with a barricade of unexpected chicken wire. just at that moment, the machine guns opened up from three sides. Why those companies were not blown to atoms cannot be said. Night put a damper on further attempts, from which we desisted until morning. After our third costly attack on this point the enemy broke and ran. On the left, the Abri St. Louis fell to the Three Hundred and Fifth after four attacks. Through the Abri du Crochet and a bit beyond, the front was extended on the, night of the 28th, the Regiment finding the brush even more thick- almost impenetrable. For units to advance in attack formation and to keep proper contact with each other was well nigh impossible. The kitchens succeeded in moving up by road to the Abri, which was consoling, and carrying parties were furnished by those in support. Where breathes the good soldier who hasn't breathed yet more deeply at the sight of the old chow-engine, or whose magnetic hand has not at times pilfered a can of jam from the larder? Did you ever threaten to raid the kitchen and the defending cooks with hand grenades? You certainly caused enough anxiety with your determination to congregate in their vicinity. Here was an ideal place for Regimental Headquarters to operate. When advance elements first entered these palatial German dugouts, there lay beside the telephone a partially decoded message in German, forwarded of course with all speed to the Divisional Intelligence Department. But the real haul consisted of many bottles of " Selzwasser " and some light wines which Lieutenant Poire, being an expert on such things, decided to sample lest the unwitting Americans stumble into any trick stuff. That was the last seen of the wines. Nothing further was heard of them but the gurgle. But the Colonel's mess that night boasted of freshly cooked rabbit, fresh vegetables and head lettuce, all of which had been in the course of preparation for the absent German dignitary's evening meal. On the 1st our front was extended to the left by companies of the First and Third Battalions, taking over ground previously held by the 306th, which brought them into the high, wooded ground of the Bois de la Naza, and in front of a ravine which extended from the west up toward the center of the line. G, E and F Companies also went into positions on the left, and H was rushed over to the extreme right flank of the Division. Sector, to fill in a gap that was not closed by the 28th Division. The undergrowth in this portion of the forest was so dense that individuals could in some places with difficulty worm their way unobserved to within a few yards of the enemy by making extraordinarily careful use of cover, and by patiently avoiding the small clearings or traps cut in the forest by the Germans, where a false move would be certain to call forth enemy fire, point blank. An examination of these positions after they had been taken showed that the murderous machine gun fire which halted the advance was delivered from a line of gun pits at intervals of not more than twenty feet. During the initial advance, our men proceeded in thin lines and in combat groups to the very tip of these well hidden positions and were there mowed down. That troops could
subsequently push up to within a very few yards of the
German gunners without detection-and likewise without
being able actually to see the enemy-seems remarkable;
and yet, the extreme right company actually dug for
protection while a searching machine gun fire sprayed
through the brush, at a range of only thirty yards. It
was accomplished only by extending into skirmish order
and patiently, inch by inch, one man at a time, crawling
ever closer and closer to the enemy until fired at point
blank by the opposing gunners-then digging for dear life. Naturally, the runners led a precarious existence. The right company had made an effort to swing forward the far extremity of its line, pivoting on the left. The air was blue with bullets. In the midst of all the hullaballoo a runner squirmed forward to the company commander who at that moment lay on his stomach, his gas mask slung over his back instead of his chest, that he might place himself just those three inches nearer the ground. Surely it must be a message of great tactical importance demanding that a soldier jeopardize his life to effect its prompt delivery! Breathless, wounded in the canteen, the brave lad banded over the vital message which ran like this: "You will send at once to Battalion Headquarters a man who will be detailed to attend a School for the Care and Handling of Army Asses." Constant patrolling was necessary in order to maintain the closest sort of contact, to learn at once not only of any offensive operation on the enemys' part, but also of any withdrawal or maneuvering of their troops. Patrols of another nature were necessary, too-searching for those who failed to return. An adventure which was typical of many that happened in the Bois de la Naza was that of Sergeants Tompkins and Collins, Corporal Neitziet and Private Arkman of L Company who crawled forward to within ten yards of the enemy guns, weathered the fire and the "potato-masher" hand grenades thrown in their direction, and carried to safety three wounded comrades who had been ambushed during an attempted advance. They were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. " We took Chaplain Johnson out on patrol," writes the F Company scribe, "looking for snipers. One of the men salvaged a German rifle and while looking it over almost blew off the Chaplain's head. We got no snipers that time, but did get a bunch of blankets, which the boys were glad to have. The Chaplain was game, and was always in the thick of it, comforting the wounded, and seeing to it that the dead got as decent a burial as possible." Both of the chaplains had plenty of work to do and contributed greatly to the maintenance of morale, during those trying days. We have seen funerals on the battlefield; we have seen funerals in French towns, magnificent with trappings, pomp and professional mourners. Yet there was never one more impressive than that of Private Morgan of H Company, killed by the accidental explosion of hand grenades which he carried. In the first light of a chill October morning a group of his comrades gathered 'round as the poor boy's body was interred, while his Corporal extemporaneously uttered a homely, heartfelt prayer. For the better part of four days, we strove against these positions. Artillery could not be used to advantage because of the proximity of our lines to those of the enemy and the likelihood of short bursts in the treetops. "The American Army never retreats," and those higher up would not consider for a moment withdrawing troops while a sudden barrage might be laid down. We prayed for that artillery, but got precious little such assistance. Rifle grenades fouled in the trees. Stokes mortars were brought into play, and captured German "grenatenwerfer" were used by the Mortar Platoon with damaging effect on the enemy. But, in order to register accurately, it was necessary for an observer to be on the spot-not thirty, nor fifty, nor a hundred yards back, but within a very few yards of where the shells were calculated to land. On October 3d, such a barrage of Stokes mortars was attempted. The German fire was heavy and incessant. Sergeant Sustick of L Company volunteered to crawl forward to observe the effects of our fire. He therefore came not only under the fire of the enemy, but was virtually within our own mortar barrage. For that he, too, was decorated. The 2d of October brought forth a succession of bloody attacks on various parts of the line. Those in higher command could not or would not appreciate the unspeakable difficulties of the situation and demanded that the opposition be shattered at once. On the 3d, Captain Eaton with E, F and G Companies had, under orders from authority higher than the Regimental Commander, taken over, man for man, positions from the 306th in the Ravine de la Fontaine aux Charmes, facing the northern slopes which came to be known as Dead Man's Hill or Suicide Hill. At this juncture, before any tactical redisposition of the men could be effected, a Marine Major had come forward in the capacity of Corps Inspector to investigate the delay, had removed Captain Eaton because his men were huddled into a ravine, and reported that the Three Hundred and Fifth were "soldiering"-lying down on the job! This was rank injustice to a very able leader and to the poor devils who had been crawling around on their empty bellies for a week, seeing their comrades dropping like flies. They were incensed. In the afternoon these companies under command of Captain "Bill" Mack stormed the hill. It was the same old story. F Company alone suffered over fifty casualties in that one afternoon. The right of the line under command of Major Harris, who was carrying on despite a broken collarbone, attacked repeatedly an impregnable line of machine guns. There we got artillery support but it fell short and must have knocked out as many of our own men as those of the enemy. Brigadier General Wittenmyer, "Old Witt," as the boys affectionately called him, and who fears nothing under the sun, came forward himself to lead the attack in person. The dead lay thick in the brambles and shrubbery; the wounded came back in droves. All night the ambulances labored to evacuate the casualties of that brief attack as fast as the dressing station could put them through. Over three hundred men had been killed, were missing, or were so badly wounded that they could not eventually rejoin. Here again, the Sanitary Detachment did heroic work under fire. At seven o'clock the next morning the last three men were trundled off in a brave little Ford ambulance, and the General, Old War Horse that he is, sat down in his head-quarters, mopped his brow and is reported to have said, "Well, anyone who, says he likes war is either a damn fool or a damn liar." An account of the
attack by an F Company boy reads: "At 3.30 we lined
up our gangs and started over that most terrible hill. We
were at once under direct machine gun fire, the worst
yet, and it seemed as if the air was so full of bullets
that a man could not move without being bit. A man
standing upright would have been riddled from head to
foot. That's what happened to Lieutenant Gardner, leading
E Company. We were approaching the crest of Suicide Hill,
advancing very slowly on our bellies. The only order that
could be heard was 'Forward,' and Company F was game. It
was awful. The poor boys were getting slaughtered as fast
as sheep could go up a plank. No one could ever describe
the horror of it. The screams of the wounded were
terrible, but we stuck to it. We could not see a Boche;
once in a while one would stick his head out of his
machine gun emplacement only to his sorrow. We were
supposed to go over with a rifle grenade barrage; but we
fired off all we had and the effect was too weak. What we
really wanted was a violent artillery barrage but never
did they throw a shell. Our commander, Lieutenant Hever,
got hit in the lung, and that left us without any
officers; it was every man for himself. The Boches made
our company look like a squad; all that was left was a
handful of men." On the 5th and 6th, these positions were taken over by the 306th. On the 7th, pressure on the flanks succeeded in squeezing out the resistance. Tired units were drawn into the comfortable retreat at Abri du Crochet for a couple of days of bathing and hot food, and for the absorption of a new batch of officers recently commissioned from the Regular Army Divisions, whose only equipment seemed to be comfort kits and Sam Browne belts. the selection of an orderly in some instances being the subject of far more concern than making the acquaintance of a new platoon, or familiarizing themselves with the maps of the region. That sounds a little bit unappreciative - for they were in reality a corking bunch of officers who jumped into their new duties with vigor and vim and quickly endeared themselves to officers and men alike. If the roll were called today, a great number of them would be found to have paid the price. The lines which a
member of the Machine Gun Company wrote of his Platoon
Commander, Lieutenant Frank T. Montgomery, who was killed
in the Bois de la Naza, might also have been said of many
another. Some historian ' with a mania for painful detail, will some day point out with glee that for a few moments that morning the 77th was an attacking Division which had no front; for the French above referred to were joined up on their right with a battalion which had strayed beyond the limits of the 82d Division's sector. We hereby take the wind out of his sails. The three
battalions of the 306th having taken position to the
front and west of Besogne, the First Battalion of the
Three Hundred and Fifth became the attacking unit of the
Brigade. It did a splendid piece of work that afternoon.
The shelling had become very heavy. The attacking
battalion of the 82d Division encountered on our right,
which had become separated from the rest of its outfit,
was literally cut to pieces and digging in. Gathering up
portions of this scattered unit on his way, Major Metcalf
delayed not a moment, but led his command rapidly through
shellfire, through the positions of more or less
demoralized troops to the Marcq-Chevieres line and
succeeded in pushing patrols to the Aire. Lieutenant
Clokey, though no more than partially recovered from a
serious wound sustained on the Vesle, had returned to the
Regiment just in time to be put in command of C Company
and to enter the attack. With remarkable dash and vigor
he led his company across two kilometers of open ground,
under the full observation and heavy shell fire of the
enemy, and extended his front so as to enter and hold the
town of Marcq, going out of the Regimental sector to do
so and then reaching the river. These positions were
taken over by the 154th Brigade on the night of the 13th
at which time the other elements of the Regiment were
drawn back to the Pylon crossroads to the west of Cornay
by a difficult night march. Though ready for a genuine
rest, men had to be satisfied with the following: On that afternoon, the Second Battalion had been on the high ground behind Marcq in support of the 306th, which was to cross the river and take St. Juvin. General Wittenmyer in person had suddenly ordered Captain Dodge to lead his company by trails through the brush down to the River Aire, to advance and enter the town, followed by the rest of the battalion. Major Bennet, the Brigade Adjutant, guided the company north along the railroad to a foot bridge, which they crossed, single file, into the open meadows two kilometers southeast of the town. It was beautiful to see the men turn left, on command, and proceed north in line of gangs under a heavy shell fire, which the Boche with his perfect observation instantly opened up, and despite casualties to maintain their attack formation. Into a sheltering ditch they flopped momentarily for breath. No moving troops had been seen to their front during this part of their advance. All set for a hand-to-hand scrap, they were surprised therefore to encounter at the bridge on the eastern limits of the town, which they entered at five-thirty, a number of German prisoners in the hands of American troops, men of the 306th who had succeeded in accomplishing an enveloping movement to the right, in the sector of the 82d Division. The shelling had ceased; it was evident that the Boches were loath to bombard the great numbers of their own troops who were still there. Troops of the other regiment, it was said, were in the eastern edge of the town. Accordingly, H Company of the Three Hundred and Fifth divided into groups, proceeding through the streets of the center and western half, mopping up the cellars, clear to the northern limits. While engaged in this thrilling work, no other American troops were encountered, unless one excepts the drunken engineer whose helmet and gas mask were gone, whose only equipment was a Colt .45 stuck in the waistband of his breeches, and who wept, while pointing out the choicest wine cellars, because he hadn't taken any prisoners. They had all insisted upon running away from him, he said. It was after the sobering barrage which shortly occurred that he confessed to having found some pretty good stuff back in Marcq, and that after the bridge on which he had been working was completed, he had sauntered forward into a town then completely dominated by the enemy, to see what the wine cellars there had to offer. In the region of the church, and north of it, several groups of unresisting prisoners were taken, including three majors, one captain, one lieutenant, several non-coms, and about eighty men who were grouped with a large number turned over to us at the entrance to the town by the 306th, and sent to the rear in charge of one officer and a squad. There was no hand-to-hand fighting. The German soldiers had been told by their officers that an armis-tice would be in effect the next day, and were only too happy to fall into a column of squads and later, to serve as litter bearers-if someone would put in a good word for them. None of the equipment taken from them could be listed. Prized trophies which the boys would now give a great deal for were hurriedly dumped into a heap, while the platoons sought to assemble and dig in on Hill 182, about seventy-five yards north of the town, just as night fell. The company numbered about sixty effectives, plus two guns of the 306th Machine Gun Company, 82d Division, which came up at nightfall and took position on our left. A patrol to the northwest on the Champigneulle road scared up some Germans who fled. Outpost No. 1 on Hill 182 located by nine-thirty at a considerable distance from its right, and slightly to the front, another small detachment of the 326th Machine Gun Company. The enemy shells commenced to land upon our positions at about nine o'clock and continued to do so practically without cessation all through the night. Digging was difficult because of flying shell splinters; and it seemed as if the noise of pick and shovel brought a desultory rifle fire from the right front, bullets repeatedly grazing the parapets-which seriously disputes the presence of friendly troops on that quarter. In fact, H Company felt utterly alone. Sergeant Leopold, sent to the rear to give information in detail as to the situation and to ask that companies be disposed to defend the right and left, found no one in town, the walls of which by that time were rocking, and was interrupted in the carrying out of his mission by having to gather up single-handed, about forty more prisoners who at that inconvenient moment insisted upon shrieking " Kamarad! At about ten o'clock, an officer of the 306th reached Captain Dodge and his executive lieutenant to ask about our dispositions and what was on the left. It was pointed out to the visitor that his company had not advanced to its objective; that there was nothing on our left. He was asked if possible to move up from the St. Juvin-St. Georges Road in order to help out in case of trouble. At about five o'clock in the morning it appeared that he was taking up position in old German trenches on Hill 182, on our right front, out of which those troops were shelled an hour or so later by the most intense barrage our men had ever experienced. The Germans loosed everything they had, finishing up with a rain of machine gun bullets and a feeble counter attack which was repelled. It cannot be said that there was any desperate fighting in and About St. Juvin although not a man was there who does not earnestly pray that he will never again have to live through such a nerve-wracking experience as that shell fire. This operation elicited the following commendation from General Alexander: HEADQUARTERs 77TH
DIVISION, 1. The Division Commander congratulates most heartily the troops of this division upon the successful result of operations, 14th October. A most difficult night march was necessary to place 153d Brigade in proper position to attack. This was done, the attack launched and the objective gained. In the course of the operations a large number of prisoners, including officers of superior rank, were taken by the 153d Brigade. 2. This success, coming as it does, in the course of a campaign which has already lasted eighteen days, made under circumstances which have tested to the limit the courage and endurance of the officers and men, demonstrates once more the indomitable spirit and courage of the officers and men of this division. 3. The Division
Commander, reiterating the commendation already twice
made of the work of this organization by the Corps
Commander, feels that it is indeed an honor to command
such troops. Yet, this was one of the most happily expectant moments of our lives. The Division was to be relieved by the 78th! What did it matter if the rain came down in torrents? There was a rest a-coming. What did it matter if the-say, was there anyone there so utterly miserable that he didn't feel sorry for the poor old 78th as it crawled into those hopeless, inadequate positions beyond St. Juvin? Didn't you feel like apologizing when you offered that slimy funk hole along the roadside to the clean, well-fed youth who came to take it over! Didn't you beat it, though, back through the town in the early morning light, heedless of the rain, past that shambles at the entrance to St. Juvin, past all the dead men sitting upright in funk holes along the left-hand side of the road, past the wire and the huts and meagre uprootings all along that crest, past the old dressing station and the headquarters at the ditch -where you dropped off a few more men just then wounded during that very relief? It had been worth living through all the false rumors of relief just to realize the joy of that moment. After marching, marching, marching all day through sloppy mud that was ankle-deep, you approached the old German rest camp at Bouzon and Sachsenhain, far in the rear, where you would hear, thank Cod, only the occasional straying shell and pray that the bombing planes wouldn't come over too often. A lieutenant wrote: "I stood at the foot of the trail leading into Camp de Bouzon watching the stream of faces that passed-white, weary faces which told more eloquently than words of the utter fatigue, the nerve-shattering strain, the loss of good comrades, the rains and the cold and the hunger of twenty-one days in the fighting-of twenty-four days in the line-of twenty-two kilos advance. Ragged, mud-caked, unshaven outcasts they seemed, scarcely able to plant one foot in front of the other, stumbling down the trail, eyes staring vacantly-hungry for sleep - bodies as hungry for shelter, warmth, baths and clean clothes as for hot food." They crawled into huts, or under pieces of old corrugated iron, sank at once into a stupor, unable to sleep, -and dreamed, perhaps: Me!-a-leadin' a
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