Where the 7th Machine Gun Battalion of the 3rd Division Checked the
German Drive.]
“I have heard of men getting wounded who said that it felt like a
red-hot iron being jammed through them before the world turned black.
None of these things happened to me. I suffered but little pain and I
never for a moment lost consciousness. Nor did any thought of death
occur to me, though I knew I had been hit in a vital spot. I was merely
annoyed at my inability to move and carry on.
“The bullet went clean through my right lung, in at the front and out
at the back, drilling a hole straight through me.
“No orders as to the adjustment of rifle sights had been given, as
the range was point blank. Watches had been synchronized and no
further orders were given. As the hands touched the zero hour there
was a single shout, and at exactly 5 o’clock the whole line leaped up
simultaneously and started forward, Berry’s 500 and Sibley’s 500, with
the others in support.
“Instantly the beast in the wood bared his claws. The Boches were ready
and let loose a sickening machine gun and rifle fire into the teeth of
which the Marines advanced. The German artillery in the woods increased
the fury of its fire, and the big guns at Belleau and Torcy, a mile and
a half away, pounded our advancing lines.
“On Berry’s front there was the open wheat field, 400 yards or more
wide—winter wheat, still green but tall and headed out. Other cover
there was none. On Sibley’s left there was open grass land perhaps 200
yards wide; his right was close to the woods.
“Owing to the poor communications, the two battalions engaged in what
were virtually independent actions, and, as I had feared, Berry got the
worst end of it. He had to face that wide open space, swept by machine
gun fire, with a flanking fire from the direction of Torcy.