CLEARING THE CHATEAU THIERRY SALIENT
At our encampment near Montreuil-aux-Bois, whither we hiked from La
Ferte-sous-Jouarre on the morning of July 23, we found traces of the
horse-lines of the artillery of the 26th Division, in the shape of
trampled picket lines, bunks of woven branches, and abandoned equipment
of all kinds. Stories of heavy losses, of nights and days without sleep
or rest, as the New England batteries tried to catch up with their
infantry in the wake of the rapidly retreating Germans, of extraordinary
advances by the American forces, of hardships and lack of supplies due
to the inability of supply trains to catch up with the rapid progress of
the forward troops, met us on every hand. They might have been, as we
recall them now, prophecies of what we, too, were to undergo in this
sector.
We had only a day's respite. On the 24th, a large number of the battery
were allowed leave to visit La Ferte. The civilians had not long
returned to the city, from which they had fled when the enemy had
advanced beyond Chateau Thierry, and shops were only beginning to be
restocked. Fruits and vegetables were plentiful but at high prices. Meat
was altogether lacking, and eggs were few. No restaurants were open at
all, and few cafes. To secure a meal, one had to first buy the food, and
then seek a housewife who would cook and serve it.
Next morning came a sudden order to move, and, three-quarters of an hour
after its receipt, the battery was on the road at 9:30 a. m. The way led
through places whose names were already known to our ears for the
splendid fighting American troops had done there--Coulombes, Bouresches
and Belleau woods. In the golden fields of wheat were big splotches
where shells had torn up the black earth; trampled spaces often held a
mound marked by a rifle stuck bayonet first into the ground--time was
only enough to bury the dead, not yet sufficient to put wooden crosses
over them. Along the roads was equipment and material of all kinds,
abandoned by the Germans in their hurried retreat, or cast aside by the
Americans pushing on in pursuit.
At night the battalion camped in the woods above Epieds. Early next
morning the carriages were pushed under the shelter of the trees to hide
the signs of troops from enemy aeroplanes scouting overhead. So close to
the lines were we now that no movement could be made in the open by day.
At 9 p. m., the guns moved out to go forward into position, leaving the
wagon train here. The battery had not gone far when a heavy rain began
to fall. The road, through the dense woods of the Foret de Fere, was
narrow, muddy, and full of ruts. "Cannoneers to the wheels," was the
constant cry. Splashing through water and mud to their knees, the
dismounted men tugged at wheels sunk far down in the deep ruts and
holes. "Horse down!" came the cry from a Fifth Section caisson. The
animal was on its back over the edge of the road, so that it could not
regain a footing on the road, and if it rolled the other way the horse
would be lost in the ravine below. With prolongs around its body, the
men pulled the horse almost back on the road where it could get a
footing, after three-quarters of an hour of hard effort directed by
Captain Robbins. Then a caisson, catching up to the column, went over
the horse's hoof, and the animal had to be shot.
By this time the rain had ceased. In the silence that succeeded the
sound of the falling drops, could be heard the venomous pop and spit of
gas shells bursting in the woods. Rifle shots rang out occasionally.
Uneasy in the midst of unknown danger, the men greeted the sudden order
to turn back with surprise. But they made haste to execute it. Most of
the battery had debouched from the narrow road into an open grassy
space. The last three caissons, however, were unlimbered and turned
around. Tveter gave an exhibition of skillful driving that brought
cheers from the men, turning the big chariot du parc with its
three-horse hitch without assistance or accident. The other carriages
returned through this stretch of woods by another road, little, if any,
better than the one by which they came. The drivers lashed their horses
to a gallop and took the guns and caissons through with scarcely a stop,
giving them no time to sink in ruts or holes. The wooden boxes roped on
top the caissons swayed and tossed, spilling gas equipment and liaison
instruments, to be picked up by the dismounted men following, who
cheered on the drivers to greater speed.
Not until long after was the explanation of the sudden countermarch
revealed. When the orders were given to move up our artillery, it was
with the belief that the infantry would make a certain objective that
day. The stiff resistance in these woods delayed the infantry advance,
however, and the doughboys were still occupied in clearing these of the
enemy when our battalion pulled through them. The courier sent to
apprise Major Redden of the circumstances and consequent change of
orders caught up with us when we were, therefore, beyond our own lines
and up with our advance infantry. This was the first time the battalion
was in so unusual a place for artillery. Just a week later, we occupied
a position ahead of the infantry over night. But so fast was the enemy
retreating that any thrills over our exposed condition lay in
imagination rather than actual circumstances.
By the next night the woods had been cleared, and we went forward again.
The long steady climb up hill through the Bois de la Tournelle made hard
pulling. The halts to rest the horses were frequent, and, near the top,
teams from one carriage had to be added to another hitch and then the
assistance returned in order to get up the steep grade. Our division was
on the extreme left of the American forces, and we were constantly
alongside the French troops who adjoined us on our left. How strenuous
had been the fighting was evidenced by the bodies of dead still lying
where they had fallen the afternoon before. Haggard Frenchmen were just
then beginning to seek their missing comrades.
The battalion took position in an open field in front of the woods, at
the top of the hill, under flat-tops. The horse-lines were at the edge
of the woods behind. On our left was a small woods, at the edge of which
were several French batteries of 75's. They pitched no flat-tops, but
camouflaged their guns with green boughs, staying in the woods, where
were their shelters and kitchen, except when actual work on the guns
required their presence. Our telephone men, mechanics and Captain
Robbins also had their quarters in these woods. Elaborate abris,
benches and tables woven of boughs about a cleared "Appelplatz," and
rifles, overcoats and other equipment spoke of the occupation of the
same woods by the Germans not long before. Every section of the battery
had one or two German rifles and a stock of "boche" ammunition beneath
its flat-top, with which ambitious marksmen sought to emulate the
example of the automatic riflemen of the Alabama and New York regiments,
who had each brought down an aeroplane at Champagne.
This position is called by the men the "tower position," from the high
observation platform built of wooden scaffolding by the Germans half-way
between the position and the edge of the woods. Being in the open field
our batteries escaped the fire of the enemy, which was directed several
times on the French batteries at the edge of the woods and in the depths
of the woods also. Sometimes the bursts and fragments came dangerously
close to the gun-pits, but they were not many enough to seem directed at
our position.
Berney came close to providing the battery with fresh beef while it was
here. But "close" was all! A lone cow was seen wandering in a field near
by. A volunteer raiding party composed of Corporal Pond, of the
engineers, and Acting-Corporal Berney of the machine-gunners, set out in
pursuit. They had no difficulty in surrounding and capturing the cow,
which continued to graze placidly when they forcibly seized the rope
that hung from its neck. Then the members of the foraging party
remembered they had no authority from their officer in command to
conduct such operations. So half the detail, namely Corporal Pond,
returned to outline the situation and report the success of their
movement to Lieutenant Waters. Not averse to acquiring fresh beef free
himself, he granted the necessary authority. But in the meantime, a new
force had appeared on the scene demanding possession of the cow, to
judge from his gesticulations, for his torrent of words were meaningless
to the two foragers. This was a young French soldier, breathless from a
run across the fields, cap askew and hair disheveled. So Pond went back
to the position again, this time for some one to act as interpreter.
Through this medium the volunteer raiding party learned that the cow was
the property of the major commanding the neighboring French batteries,
that the cow's guardian had fallen asleep and the cow had wandered off,
and that the major would do dire things to the poilu if he did not
recover the cow before the major learned of his loss. So the battery got
no fresh beef, but ate "goldfish" instead.
Two days later the machine gunners achieved real distinction, when
Donahue and Bowly brought a German aeroplane to earth a few hundred feet
from the position. The plane was riddled with bullets and both pilot and
observer were badly wounded. In descending the plane crashed into a tree
at the edge of the woods, wrecking the machine. This first actual
contact with the enemy and visual token of damage done him was not
without its thrills. Needless to say, "beaucoup souvenirs" were secured.
During the day of July 29, the battery fired on machine gun nests that
obstructed the infantry's advance. Next afternoon it gave heavy response
to a German barrage, and continued with a concentration fire all
evening. Both nights the battery was called on to fire at one o'clock
for an hour or two. On the night of the 31st the men were at the guns
almost till morning, firing intermittently all the while.
This constant firing was accompanying our infantry in their advance. The
names of Sergy, Seringes, Hill 212, Meurcy Farm and the River Ourcq
represent terrible hours to the infantry of the Rainbow division--hours
whose awfulness we realized when the battery moved forward at noon
August 2. Skirting the town of Fere-en-Tardenois, which still drew
occasional shots from the enemy's long-range guns, we crossed the small
stream whose line had been so strongly defended by the Germans until our
doughboys had forced them from it. The Ourcq was not more than fifteen
or twenty feet wide at the place where our guns and caissons forded it.
But there was a steep incline on the far-side leading up to a high road.
Taking this road into Fere-en-Tardenois, we turned at a sharp angle at
the outskirts and took the road to Seringes. In the shelled fields along
which we passed, litter-carriers were still at work bringing back
wounded. Some boys came limping back alone, or supported by others with
an arm in a sling or bandaged about the head. Conversation with one of
these turned always to the question of relief: When will relief be up?
Have you heard of troops coming up to relieve us? Some battalions of
infantry were pushing on after having lost fifty per cent of their men.
About 4 p. m. the batteries of the second battalion gained a crest to
the right of the Foret de Nesles.
"How far are our lines from here?" asked an officer in the lead, of a
signal corps man on the road.
"There's only a company and a half of infantry beyond here. I don't know
how far ahead they are," was the reply.
So the battalion turned back and took cover in woods behind the crest.
Here supper--canned corn and stewed dried apricots--was served, and here
were established the horse-lines, which only stayed a day. German
equipment and dead lay strewn through the woods.
After mess came the order to harness and hitch. The Second Battalion
trotted into position for the first and only time in the regiment's
history. The sight of the guns and caissons dashing into action was
stirring, and it sent up the spirits of the fatigued infantrymen to a
pitch that enabled them to carry on when already exhausted. In the
morning we learned that during the darkness the company and a half of
infantrymen, who had been scouting to gain contact with the enemy, had
withdrawn, leaving us the nearest unit to the enemy. But the enemy were
retreating so rapidly that they were beyond our range again by
afternoon. The road forward was swarming with supply trains, artillery,
machine gun carts, and infantry that passed, company after company,
their packs on their backs, pushing ahead to keep the enemy on the move,
giving him no rest in which to organize and entrench himself.
On the evening of August 3 came the order to move forward again,
compelling us to abandon our mess to pack up. Our route, through
Chery-Chartreuse, was so congested that progress was slow. Supply trains
were doing their utmost to execute their mission, difficult because the
line was pushing forward so rapidly, and leaving railroad heads so far
behind. At one point it was necessary to halt for several hours because
the road ahead was being constantly shelled, making passage impossible.
It was daybreak when we pulled up a long steep hill, passing through
muddy fields to avoid danger on the shelled roads. The horses, already
worn out by continued labor, little food and scarcity of water, could
hardly make the ascent even with cannoneers pushing, shouting and urging
them on by every means possible.
Our position here was on the forward slope of a bowl-shaped valley. At
the bottom, in the shelter of a line of bushes, were the guns of the
First Battalion. To our left were woods, in which the horses and limbers
took cover. At the right was a large farm house that housed the B. C.
detail and some other men. Far down, in the depths of the basin were two
roads that drew much fire. In front along the crest ran another, also a
frequent target. Artillery, infantry and supplies were coming up all the
time in preparation for an attack to push across the Vesle river.
The men had traveled all night in the rain and cold. But before there
could be any rest, trail pits must be dug, in order that we might be
able to fire if called upon at any time to do so. With increasing
experience of hunger and consequently keener eye to the emergencies
ahead, the men had levied upon a pile of rations lying where they had
been abandoned by some cart whose load was too great to make progress
along the miry road. They had, therefore, for breakfast--ere the battery
kitchen had time to get its fire going--some of that canned commodity
labelled by the packers "canned roast beef" but more generally termed,
by the consumers, "monkey meat." Canned sweet potatoes heated in a
mess-kit over a can of solidified alcohol was an excellent dish, the
more appreciated because they had never been issued to the battery. The
infantry were favored in this regard, it seems. The discovery that
elderberries grew in the woods near by furnished dessert, for sugar was
supplied from some one's store, acquired, no doubt, from some other
abandoned rations. But the dessert was, for most, a mistake, as they
realized when they began to feel sensations like those of years before
resulting from an overdose of green apples.
When the digging was done, the cannoneers passed the afternoon in sleep.
In the evening the battery fired. Heavy shelling on the road behind,
after midnight, was accompanied by another call to the guns to fire
again. The caissons, which had gone back after more ammunition after
they had come up with the pieces, came up with their second load in the
midst of darkness. The first two reached the position without delay,
but the others, halted by the constant shelling on the road, had to wait
till nearly daybreak before it was safe to venture up.
Rain fell next day. But the big tarpaulins belonging with the guns were
stretched as a tent under the camouflage, and gave comfort to the men so
long as they were not called upon to fire. The bread that came with
meals--carried in cans from the kitchen in the woods--was green with
mould, from the long journey in inclement weather from the bakeries. The
coffee tasted like quinine, since the water to be found was so bad that
it had to be strongly chlorinated. But a big sack of mail came to the
battery that day, and all troubles were forgotten in the joy of hearing
from home.
That day, August 5, Sergeant McElhone left the battery to go back to the
United States as an instructor, an opportunity that made him the envy of
everyone while they congratulated him on his good luck. Corporal Monroe
succeeded to the charge of the Second Section, Herrod taking his place
as gunner.
All that night and the next day, the battery maintained a steady fire on
the enemy, destroying machine gun nests, entrenchments and available
shelter in preparations for an advance across the Vesle. From 4:30 till
after 8 p. m. August 6, we dropped a slow barrage on the town of
Bazouches, to the left of Fismes.
At noon next day the Second Battalion went forward to a position almost
overlooking the river. The movement was not without danger. For the
bright day, with enemy aeroplanes overhead constantly, exposed the
batteries to discovery, particularly when they galloped up an open
hillside into position. A blanket covering two still figures just beside
our path, several others farther away without such cover, and white
bandages gleaming on the bodies of some of the battalion of engineers
who, with pontoon bridges, were waiting in readiness in the woods below,
were evidence that the shells which whirred over and burst a ways beyond
us were not always so far from their mark. The battery went up the hill
one carriage at a time. Flat-tops were stretched at once, and in
addition to the trail pit, each section dug a trench for shelter as
well. Shells bursting on the crest ahead lent speed to the shovels and
picks.
Captain Robbins, using a tree-top as an O. P., directed the adjustment
of the pieces, firing only two rounds per gun in doing so.
But that was all the battery fired from this position, although we
stayed there the following two days. The division which had relieved our
infantry could not keep up the pace the latter had set, which formed the
basis of the plans by which we had moved up, ready to support the
crossing of the Vesle.
The roads behind us received constant fire from the enemy. Shrapnel
bursts came near the position occasionally, and gas alarms were
frequent. In the horse-lines just behind lit a shell on the afternoon of
August 8 that caused the battery's first serious casualties. Parkhurst
was instantly killed. Foster was struck in the breast by a large
fragment, and died two days later. Lawrence Gibbs was wounded in the
hand. He refused to go to the hospital at the time, and kept at his
duties as clerk of the firing battery, though later the wound, becoming
worse, compelled him to go. For his bravery in going after medical aid
and under heavy shell fire, refusing treatment himself until the others
had been attended to, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service
Cross by the regimental commander.
This news of death in our own battery--the first enlisted men lost in
action--caused a heavy sorrow and grief that could not be shaken off,
among the men of the battery, whose friendship by this time had become
very close.
On the night of August 10, the battery moved back to a spot within a few
hundred feet of that it had occupied before making the last advance. The
caissons drivers made trip after trip to bring back all the ammunition,
under frequent shell fire on the road. Horse after horse, weakened to
exhaustion, dropped in harness, and had to be taken out of the hitch.
Artillery of the Fourth Division were in position all about us, in the
valley. In the woods were their horse-lines, too, from which they so
openly brought their horses to water that they received ironic inquiries
concerning their "horse fair."
Shelling was frequent, and gas was always noticeable at night. Itching
throats and watering eyes were too common for comfort. When the battery
was in readiness to move out, the caissons having gone and the guns
waiting for sundown to follow, the enemy gave a parting salute, a
little fuller of thrills than any before. In the trail pit was the only
protection. The buzz of jagged fragments through the air, the loud whang
and eruption of sod and soil from a burst not far from Captain Robbins'
tent, sent everyone to this slight shelter. Fortunately the farewell
ended with no one injured.
Next day, August 12, found the regiment in the Bois de Chatelet, where
they examined the site of the "Big Bertha" which had been there. Only a
huge turntable ten yards in diameter, with a concrete base at least
eight feet deep--one saw that far down a circular trench around it--was
left, with the railway tracks along which the carriage ran. The
ball-bearings of the turntable were the size of a man's head.
That day Corporal Holton was appointed first sergeant. Corporal Collier
succeeding him as gas N. C. O. Sergeant Landrus, who had been appointed
"top-cutter" in O'Meara's place July 24, had gone to Saumur to officers'
school.
Two days later the regiment marched through Chateau Thierry, to which
its citizens were just returning. French soldiers guarded German
prisoners at work clearing out houses and cleaning the street. Before
some doors stood wagons loaded with furniture. Other doors bearing the
sign, "Habitee," indicated those houses' occupants were settled. The
church's walls, torn by shell holes, bore witness to the severe shelling
the town had received. On the hillside beyond, lay the village of Vaux,
now a heap of white bricks, where the Germans had advanced. Hiking both
morning and afternoon, the battery reached a woods on the bank of the
Marne, near the hamlet of Mery-sur-Marne, where we encamped.
For three days the battery lay here, twenty men going to Paris on a
48-hour pass, the others visiting La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, more thriving
now than when we had detrained there three weeks before. But prices were
very high: peaches and plums, 3 francs a pound; melons, 4 and 5 francs
each; tomatoes, 15 sous a pound; potatoes 10 sous a pound; sugar, 20
sous a pound. Swimming in the Marne was a favorite pastime until the
drowning of a member of Battery F clouded our enjoyment of it.
On August 18 the regiment hiked along the Paris highway, alongside the
Marne, to Trilport, where it entrained that evening.
A box-car was a welcome haven of rest then. The weeks in this sector had
passed like months. The constant moving up, the difficulty of getting
adequate rations, the lack of good water, the shortage of sleep, and the
continual and strenuous activity through it all, had worn out the men
and killed many of our horses. But the division had done much in the
time during which it had been in the line, and our fatigue seemed
lightened by such statements as that of the divisional commander: "In
eight days the 42d Division has forced the passage of the Ourcq, made an
advance of 16 kilometres, and met, routed and decimated a Prussian Guard
division, a Bavarian Reserve division and one other division."