“When we went to war,” said James C. Gardener, “I figured it out this
way: ‘I’m single and healthy and lots of other fellows are going over,
and doggone me if I don’t go along and do my bit.’”
So he went down to the Marines’ recruiting office, in Baltimore, and
enlisted. He was sent to Philadelphia and on June 6, 1917, he was one
of 250 men put aboard the _Hancock_ which went to New York for orders
and on June 13 sailed for France.
Gardener had been a motorman on the Baltimore trolley, and when some
months after he went to France the War Department, which did not then
publish addresses, reported “J. C. Gardener killed in action” the
_Trolley Topics_ wrote an obituary of the motorman esteemed of his
fellows; but as there was some uncertainty whether the J. C. Gardener
killed was really the Baltimore boy, the obituary was withheld for more
definite information. “Jimmie,” however, was mourned by his pals until
there began to trickle through from one source and another rumors and
reports that confirmed the doubt that the J. C. Gardener killed was
really their “Jimmie.”
Then one day, the war over, there walked into a group of trolley-men at
the Baltimore car barns a strapping fellow, six feet three, weighing
195, wearing a khaki uniform with three gold service chevrons and three
gold wound stripes, a division citation cord for bravery on his left
shoulder and the Croix de Guerre with palm on his breast, and the boys
were doggone certain that Jimmie Gardener, motorman, was very much
alive and able to give an account of himself. The _Trolley Topics_ lost
no time in possessing itself of that account, and to that semi-monthly
organ of the United Railways and Electric Company we are indebted for
some of the details of the fighting experience of this trolley hero
whom the great Foch kissed on either cheek.
The _Hancock_, says Gardener was his twice by torpedoes on the way
over, which “messed up both ends without crippling her very much.” He
first saw action in a position “down below” St. Mihiel. He is quoted:
“It was about 4 a.m. of March 31st that they opened up with artillery.
Right ahead of us was a graveyard. The shells first fell on the far
side of the graveyard. Then they fell in the graveyard and tore up
graves and generally ruined it. Then the shells began to crawl closer
to us.
“There were four of us on guard and we reported the coming of the
Germans to the officers, and the men were routed out of the dugouts.
One little fellow named Roach—we called him the boy scout—was so
excited that he put his trousers on backward and got his shoes on the
wrong feet.
“He started with a box of ammunition for a gun and ran into another
fellow with another box. The collision knocked him down and he rolled
clear down a hill to the very place the gun crew was waiting for the
ammunition.
“Some of us had been joking and I remember a fellow named Clark who
said he wondered which of us would live to take the story back home. A
buddy of mine named Hanky said, ‘You fellows write your notes to your
mothers and sweethearts and I’ll take ’em back to them.’ Poor Hanky was
killed in that fight.
“The fight lasted two hours. The point where I was had thirteen men to
defend it. We had two Stokes guns.
“There were five hundred men in the party that attacked this point, or,
to be exact, 498, according to the officers. We cleaned up the whole
business. Seven of our thirteen men were killed.”