_1st Division, 18th Infantry, Headquarters Company_
He was cited July 18-23, 1918, as a non-commissioned officer
of splendid courage, energy and ability. When in command of
reinforcements for the first line, he carried out his mission with
complete success. Upon being relieved he returned to bring to safety
on his back one of the seriously wounded of his detachment.]
“We moved up to the woods gradually. We met Algerian troops belonging
to the French Army. These Algerians claimed that they had been kept
at the front too long. They were never taken to rest-camps or had any
relief. Many of them committed suicide. They said they were tired
of fighting. We met some that were running wild, shooting in all
directions, and had to take shelter to keep from being hit by stray
shots.
“We met many French moving back, too. They said that the Germans were
very numerous in the woods.
“That little fellow, Roach, crawled out in a field, dug into a haystack
and climbed to the top. From there he could see that Germans were
hiding behind bushes farther on.
“He came back and said he was going to raid ’em. The officers said he
didn’t have any right to do this without orders. ‘Well,’ said Roach,
‘this ain’t a regular battle, you know. This is just a little private
party of my own.’ He said he wanted a dozen men to volunteer to go
with him, and the dozen volunteered at once. I never saw a time when
volunteers were called for among the marines that any one wanted to
stay back. Everybody wanted to go.
“Well, Roach got his men as quick as he could count ’em. ‘Come on,
fellows,’ he said: ‘I’m going to have them Germans for supper.’
“We cleaned up fifty of ’em.
“‘Did Roach or any of his dozen men get the _Croix de Guerre_ for
that?’ we asked.
“‘Oh, no,’ answered ‘Jimmie,’ ‘as I said, that wasn’t a regular affair.
It was only Roach’s own party and there wasn’t nothing official about
it.’ It was funny to see our bunch. Roach was a little fellow about
five feet seven, and he chose as the second in command of his party a
lanky artilleryman who was six feet eleven. The rest of us were just
ordinary size, like me.’ (‘Jimmie’ Gardener is six feet three in his
stocking feet and weighs 195 pounds!)
“That artilleryman had just drifted into our bunch somehow. They had
put him out of the artillery because he had flat feet, and told him to
go home. He said he didn’t want to go home. He wanted to fight, and he
was going to stay with us whether he belonged with us or not, and he
did.
“In a day or two we were put in trucks and hurried forward. We knew now
that the Germans were pressing hard in their attempt to reach Paris.
The French were falling back. We were run in those trucks directly
between the retreating Frenchmen and the advancing Germans, and we got
mixed up with the enemy so quickly that we simply tumbled out of the
trucks oftentimes to engage in hand-to-hand fighting with the Huns.
“We went right at ’em, and this thing kept up for four days. We had
nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to smoke—and everybody longed
for a smoke, even fellows who never smoked before they entered the
service—and we had no sleep in all those four days and nights.
“A great deal of the time we were in close fighting. There was where
the Germans failed. They were all right when they were twenty-five or
thirty yards away and could use their rifles, but when it came to the
bayonet they turned and fled.
“Sometimes we fought so close that it was impossible to use the
bayonet. We had to knock ’em down with our fists first.
“Everybody said the odds were against us in this fighting. While we had
some reserves there were only two regiments of us fighting and we were
against three German divisions, including the Prussian Guards. But in
four days we advanced one and a half miles.
“We suffered terrible losses. When we reached the town of Lucy, where
we halted to be reorganized, there were only 150 men left in my company
of 335 men.”