MORE PROBLEMS ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE FIELD MESSAGE
1. (Three messages.) On July 18, 1930, you are Corporal Flint in
charge of a reconnoitering patrol sent out from the 61st Infantry
which is acting as Rear Guard to the 19th Brigade, and which is
withdrawing from Goldenville through Table Rock. As you proceed south
along the stream which flows past Herman, 500 yds. south of C-7, you
stumble upon one of your own regiment seriously wounded and lying at
the “V” in Varney, in the open field. He tells you that a regiment of
Cavalry of the enemy passed by the nearest farm house going northeast
on the dirt road when the sun was overhead. You ask the people of
the farm house, who are manifestly in sympathy with the enemy, what
they know about the occurrence, but they refuse to answer. On the
road are many fresh hoof-marks. You begin to write your message at
the Varney farm house at half past three in the afternoon. When you
have finished you proceed southwest along the same road and along
the creek bed toward the race-track. At the bottom part of the “S”
in Stock Farm, you leave your men in the field under cover and go
south along the edge of the main road toward Boyd School House. You
see several patrols of the enemy but you press on. You have not gone
far, however, before you spy a low heavy cloud of dust ahead which
seems to be moving toward you. At the Boyd School House Cross Roads
it turns west at twenty-five minutes to six. It takes the column,
which you now make out to be infantry in column of squads, three
minutes and forty seconds to pass the cross-roads (175 Infantry in
column of squads can pass a given point in one minute). Since the
patrols of the enemy are becoming rather thick, you decide to make
your way back to the “K” in Stock Farm. There you finish writing
another message at a quarter after seven. You have scarcely sent it
off when there is a noise among the corn-stalks near you. You lie
low and have your men, whom you have now collected about you, do the
same. A friendly uniform appears through one of the corn-rows; it is
just light enough for you to make it out. You give a low whistle and
signal at which the wearer of the uniform approaches. He turns out to
be Sergeant Black of your regiment who is leading a combat patrol. He
tells you that he counted twenty passenger coaches hitched together
on the railroad to the southwest. The engine was pointed toward the
north and opposite the “r” in C. Topper at four o’clock. The enemy’s
soldiers were crowding around trying to hurry into the coaches.
After the Sergeant leaves you, you try to make your way back to your
company. At a quarter to twelve you have arrived under cover of the
fields and woods near the road-fork 646 just south of Hamilton when
you hear the rumble of wheels close behind you to the south. One of
your men counted twelve pieces of light artillery which turned off
the road and unlimbered just south of 664. You begin to write another
message at the “n” in Hamilton at 5 minutes after twelve.
2. On September 1, 1927, you are a first lieutenant of Infantry in
charge of an expeditionary patrol from the 26th Infantry, which is
acting as outpost to the 18th Division. The outpost is covering the
general sector from Stiner, 1,000 yards north of Texas, to Bender’s
Church, B-7. The Division is encamped between Biglerville and
Guernsey. Your patrol leaves the outermost picket near Table Rock at
three o’clock in the afternoon. Its mission is to capture a strong
officer’s patrol of the enemy which is supposed to be proceeding
north along the railroad from Hamilton. You conceal yourself and your
patrol in the shrubbery near the railroad bridge south of Table Rock
Station. At five minutes after four you hear footsteps and subdued
talking to the south. You allow the first two men to pass you, and
when the main body of the patrol is near the bridge you spring out
upon them with bayonets. The mêlée lasts for about three minutes.
Four men finally survive—the leader of their patrol, two of your men,
and yourself. Because of the wound of the foreign officer, whom you
make out by his insignia to be a staff officer of their 132d Regiment
of Engineers and a Captain, you decide that you will be unable to
risk bringing in your prisoner at once. You question him as to what
he has been doing and he tells you that he has been all day on the
road and that his regiment has marched for three days from the south
without stopping to pitch camp. He will answer no other questions.
You bind and gag him, after you have taken him into the field to the
bottom of the “S” in Table Rock Station. There you start to write
your message twelve minutes after the end of the fight. After you
have sent off the communication you and the one remaining man keep
guard over your prisoner.
3. (Six messages.) On October 29, 1945, you are Sergeant Murray
sent out in charge of a strong reconnoitering patrol from the 82d
Infantry which is acting as Advance Guard to the 34th Brigade. You
send a message from Mt. Olivet School House (7-top) that the country
is clear of the enemy from there back to Center Mills from which you
have come. You finish your message at half past one in the afternoon.
At ten minutes after two, from the main cross-roads of Guernsey,
you start another message in which you let your Commanding Officer
know that you have seen nothing of the enemy, and that the roads
have been patrolled to a distance of eight hundred yards on each
side. You keep on going south along the railroad. As the first two
men of your patrol enter the railroad cut five hundred yards south
of the main cross-roads of Guernsey, they receive a volley from the
top and west side of the embankment. They back out while you with
the remainder of your patrol skirt the top of the cut to the west.
Three men run to the west into the fields and woods. Your fire does
not reach them. You continue to scour the country as far as the
stream. At five minutes to three you begin to write a message from
the farm house near the southern exit of the cut. You then proceed
south along the railroad as before. As you approach Biglerville you
try to see through your field glasses any signs of the enemy’s men
or wagons which might be in the town. Seeing none, you go carefully
and completely around the village back to your starting point.
Two of your men then enter the main street from the east. After
investigating the first eight or ten houses, they signal you to
approach. You then with your patrol go along every street of the
town, go into the main stores and houses, but you can find no trace
of the enemy. At 20 minutes to five you finish your message at the
cross-roads five hundred yards southwest of the “B” in Biglerville.
You then take the main Carlisle road and proceed south on it. As you
go you inspect all bridges, railroad tracks, streams, and ground in
general for eight hundred yards on either side of the road, but find
no enemy. At twenty-five minutes to six you begin your message at
the Stiner House. Before you now go south, you investigate for eight
hundred yards the roads leading to the east and west from the main
cross-roads south of Stiner. After your men return you proceed along
the side of the road south toward the stream. As you come up to the
bridge, although it is getting dusk you see a sentinel on the bridge,
and you collect your men in some bushes near the north abutment. You
tell them that when you give the word they are to charge with you
across the bridge at a run with bayonets fixed. There is no sentry
at the north end of the bridge, and the one at the south end seems
to be lazily looking into the field. You give the signal and your
patrol leaps out, but in the middle of the bridge your whole party is
caught by fire from machine guns located near the wooden fence half
way between the word Texas and the bridge. All but two of your men
fall. You are hit in the leg, but are dragged back off the bridge to
a copse at the edge of the stream. Waiting for further developments,
but hearing nothing more of the enemy except laughter at the other
end of the bridge, you have your men carry you further eastward along
the stream to a place of comparative safety in the woods. You start
writing your message twenty yards south of the railroad crossing
east of Stiner at seven o’clock. You find that you will be unable
to travel for some time. After sending the message, you remain with
one man where you are, both of you concealing yourselves as well as
possible.
MESSAGES FROM COMMANDERS
4. On July 22, 1932, you are Colonel Algernon M. Potts, commanding
the 48th Infantry which is acting as Advance Guard for the 20th
Division. You have at a quarter to one just pushed two battalions
of the enemy’s infantry toward Woodside School House. Your adjutant
counts on the ground over which they have fled forty-eight of their
dead and wounded. When you have taken up and reorganized your line
from Plainview through the cross-roads at 666 to, and including,
the farm house one mile and a quarter directly east of A. Logan,
Lieutenant Shelley, adjutant of the first battalion, reports to you
that Major Jones’ command has captured twenty-two prisoners. While
you are talking, suddenly a heavy fire of artillery comes from
somewhere in the vicinity of 603 west of Hunterstown. At the same
time a message reaches you from Sergeant Stearns, who has been out
with a combat patrol to the south, that a regiment of the enemy’s
cavalry was between Table Rock and Herman at half past two, and that
a civilian had telephoned that an infantry regiment of the enemy was
seen marching west through Hunterstown at twenty minutes to twelve
that morning. You have no reenforcements at hand, but send your
reserve of one battalion to prolong the right of your line to the
bridge at Fidler, B-7. Your artillery seems to be superior to the
enemy’s and is holding down his fire which is growing heavier. The
adjutants of the 2d and 3d battalions report that their commands
have lost 12 dead, 17 wounded, and 24 missing during the previous
engagement. You feel that you will scarcely be able to hold out more
than an hour under the present circumstances, but decide to make
strenuous efforts to do more. You start to write your message to the
Division Commander at four o’clock in the afternoon.
5. You are Major Mark Montclair in command of the battalion which
constituted the reserves in the preceding problem. When you arrive
in your designated position at a quarter to five you are immediately
charged by two troops of cavalry which you drive off to the south by
superior fire. You send in pursuit one company and a machine gun.
By the number of loose horses you see galloping about and by the
haste with which the troopers took to their heels, you infer that
the casualties must have been large. Your adjutant arrives at this
time reporting that sixteen prisoners in sound condition have been
taken, that twelve dead and twenty-two wounded of the enemy have
been counted, and that your own losses are 3 missing, 4 dead, and 8
wounded. Just before you start to write your message at a quarter
to six, word reaches you from A Company which is still pursuing the
enemy, that they have captured 18 prisoners and have killed and
wounded twelve. You finish your message at five minutes to six, and
then go over your lines in order to make them stronger for defense.
6. On June 12, 1925, you are Captain James A. Marion in command of
Company I, 203d Infantry. Your company, which constitutes a detached
post from your regiment acting as outpost at Granite Hill, is at 601,
five hundred yards west of Hunterstown Cross-roads. At twenty-five
minutes to five in the morning you are charged by a squadron of
cavalry from the J. Bell farm. They strike you from the front, and
you are holding them by your fire when a troop hits your right flank
riding at a full gallop out of the woods from the direction of the
Henderson Meeting House. You are in a very awkward position and are
prepared to do or die, when, without warning of any kind, a squadron
of your own 29th Cavalry which has been on a raiding expedition in
the direction of New Oxford, deploys at a gallop from Hunterstown.
The enemy, who is now in turn struck in flank, is in serious straits.
He breaks and runs in the direction of Table Rock, the friendly
squadron pursuing. You count 45 dead and 62 wounded of the enemy.
Of your own troops 12 infantrymen are missing, 3 cavalrymen and
9 infantrymen dead, and 5 cavalrymen and 18 infantrymen wounded.
You start to write your message at twenty minutes to six. You
straighten out your former position and send strong connecting and
reconnoitering patrols to north and west.
7. On May 13, 1922, you are Major Gerald Pendelton of the 1st
Battalion, 43d Infantry. You have been ordered by your regimental
commander to establish by a line of your own troops a defensive
position facing east from the 4 (exclusive) in 664 east of Hamilton,
D-8, to the southeast corner of the orchard (inclusive), five hundred
yards northwest of Stock Farm. At five minutes to ten at night you
have formed your line as ordered and are beginning to entrench. You
are proceeding with your work when a messenger from B Company on the
left flank tells you that G Company of the 2d Battalion has arrived
at the 4 in 664, and that at ten minutes to ten the right flank
of that company was beginning to dig. Seven minutes later another
messenger from A Company arrives with similar information concerning
Company E, 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry; he states that the left flank
of that company at thirteen minutes to ten started to dig twenty
yards south of the corner of the orchard. You go over your lines
correcting positions here and there and start to send a message at
twenty-five minutes to eleven. The order of your interior companies
is, left to right, C, D.