THE ST. MIHIEL OFFENSIVE
The field orders for the attack on the St. Mihiel salient were
received on September 10th, the date not being specified. Our
division was to attack as part of the 4th U. S. Army Corps of the 1st
U. S. Army; and we were given the honor of being made the point of
the arrow which was to pierce through the center of the salient along
the base of the triangle that was to be cut off. The 89th Division
was on our right and the 1st Division on our left, with the 3rd in
Army reserve.
Our Division was to be formed with both brigades abreast, the 83rd
being on the left of the 84th. The relative places of regiments
with regard to each other was to be in the same order in which they
fought at the Ourcq—from left to right: Ohios, New Yorks, Alabamas
and Iowas. Each regiment was to have one battalion in the first line
and one in the second, the remaining battalions acting as brigade or
division reserves. Battery F, 149th F. A. was to follow up with the
infantry of our brigade after their capture of the first position.
The brigade had also the co-operation of a battalion of our Engineers
for road and bridge work, one platoon of the first gas regiment and
two groups of French Schneider Tanks.
On the night of September 10th we moved forward to the vicinity of
Mandres, where we relieved elements of the 89th Division which were
transferred further to the right. Our headquarters on September 11th
were at Hamonville, not far from Seicheprey where the 26th Division
had played a savage game of give and take with the Germans when they
held the trenches last Spring.
Copies were issued of the very elaborate plans which had been
prepared by Army Chiefs of Staff outlining with great definiteness
the part that each element of our Army had to play in the work that
lay ahead of them.
The men were encamped in a forest of low trees, a most miserable
spot. It had been showering and wet all the week and we were living
like paleozoic monsters, in a world of muck and slime. The forest
roads were all plowed by the wagon wheels and when one stepped off
them conditions were no better, for the whole place was really a
swamp. I made my rounds during the afternoon and got the men together
for what I call a silent prayer meeting. I told them how easy it was
to set themselves right with God, suggesting an extra prayer for a
serene mind and a stout heart in time of danger; and then they stood
around me in a rough semi-circle, caps in hand and heads bowed, each
man saying his prayers in his own way. I find this simple ceremony
much more effective than formal preaching.
When I got back to headquarters I found my own staff very
considerably increased. Father Hanley had come back a couple of days
before. The rumors of approaching action were all over France, so,
sniffing the battle from afar, he got the hospital authorities to let
him out and rejoin his regiment for the coming fight. I kept Father
Carpentier attached to the regiment for the time being until I could
get the Protestant chaplain that I had been petitioning for so long.
Father Hanley still had a perceptible limp and was moving around with
the aid of a stick so I told him that he would have to look after
the hospital center (_Triage_) while the fight was on, a commission
that he took with no good grace. To Father Carpentier I gave a roving
commission to look after Catholics in the Ohio and Alabama regiments,
a task for which his zeal and endurance especially qualified him.
Now I found two more Chaplains on my hands—one from the Knights of
Columbus, Father Moran, an Irish Priest, and one assigned to the
regiment, Chaplain Merrill J. Holmes of the M. E. Church. I liked
him on sight and we were not long in getting on a basis of cordiality
which will make our work together very pleasant. It was too late
to send the extra chaplains to other regiments as we were even
then getting ready to move forward into line, so I decided to keep
them all under my wing. I told the lieutenants of the Headquarters
Company that it would not be my fault if they did not all get to
Heaven because we had five chaplains along. “Five Chaplains,” said
Lieutenant Charles Parker. “Great Heavens! there won’t be a thing
left for any of the rest of us to eat.”
The terrain which was to be the object of the attack of our three
divisions was completely dominated on the left by the frowning
heights of Mont Sec; and if they had been held in force by the enemy
artillery it would have exposed our whole army corps to a flanking
fire which would soon make progress impossible. It fell to the 1st
Division to make their advance along the mountain side.
The ground over which we were to pass was for the most part fairly
level up as far as the twin towns of Maizerais and Essey, to the
left of which the Rupt de Mad made its way through swamps at the
base of the hill which was crowned by these two villages. A number
of woods dotted the surface; one of them, the Bois de Remières,
stood directly in front of our advance. No Man’s Land at this point
was seven or eight hundred yards wide; and the German trenches, as
we afterwards found, were not in very good condition, though there
was plenty of wire standing both here and at other points that were
prepared for defence. We were to jump off at the east of Seicheprey,
and regimental headquarters and dressing station were established by
Colonel Mitchell and Major Lawrence in the Bois de Jury, not far to
the rear.
We moved up to our jump-off point on the night of September 11th.
The rain was falling in torrents. The roads were like a swamp and
the night was so dark that a man could not see the one in front of
him. And of course no lights could be lit. The road could not be
left free for the foot soldiers, but was crowded with ammunition
wagons, combat wagons, signal outfits and all the impedimenta of war.
Time and again men had the narrowest escapes from being run down in
the dark, and scarcely anybody escaped the misfortune of tripping
and falling full length in the mud. It is a miracle of fate or of
organization that the units were able to find their positions on such
a night, but they all got where they belonged and found the lines
neatly taped by Colonel Johnson’s excellent body of engineers. The
1st Battalion was in the front line commanded by Lieutenant Colonel
Donovan, who was not willing to let his newly conferred rank deprive
him of the opportunity of leading his battalion in another fight. The
2nd battalion under Major Anderson was in the second line, and picked
men from each of its companies were given the task of following
close behind the 1st, as moppers up, i. e., to overcome points of
resistance which might be passed over, take charge of prisoners, etc.
The men shivered through the night in the muddy trenches waiting
in patient misery for morning and the orders to attack. At 1:00 A.
M. September 12th, our artillery opened fire on the enemy. We had
expected a night of terrific noise like that which preceded the
German offensive on July 15th, but the present one was not nearly so
fierce, though it would have seemed a wonderful show if we had not
heard the other one. In July the guns on both sides were shooting
everything they had without cessation. But, here, there was no enemy
counter preparation fire and our own fire was more deliberate.
Dawn broke on a cold, windy day and a cloud darkened sky. Donovan
had been moving up and down his line with a happy smile on his face
(unless he detected anything out of order) telling the men: “There’s
nothing to it. It will be a regular walkover. It will not be as
bad as some of the cross-country runs I gave you in your training
period.” And when H hour arrived at 5:00 A. M., the feeling of the
men was one of gladness at the prospect of getting into action.
Their way was prepared by a screen of smoke and a rolling barrage
delivered by our artillery. Tanks advanced with our infantry
crawling like iron-clad hippopotomi over the wire in front to
make a passage-way. Some of them came to grief on account of the
rain-softened ground, the edges of a trench giving way under the
weight of a tank and standing it on its nose in the bottom. During
the two days of advance we were well supplied with aeroplane service
and possessed undoubted superiority in the air.
The four-inch Stokes Mortars had been put in position to lay down a
smoke barrage and the barrage began to pound the enemy front line at
the zero hour. The shells whistled overhead much closer than they had
done during the artillery preparation and broke on the enemy trenches
kicking up red fire and black clouds where they hit. It was raining
slightly, there was a mist, and dawn was not yet breaking when the
machine gun barrage which took the men over began to fire. The men
began to whisper among themselves “That’s our stuff; no it’s not, yes
it is.” All the sounds of battle were heard; the artillery, the small
guns, and then, a little too soon, the Stokes Mortars in front of the
Alabamas starting their fire-works which illuminated the entire front
when the thermite shells exploded.
Then everybody jumped and started forward. The Bois de Remières lay
in front of the right flank of our first battalion and as they moved
forward, the flank units gave way to the left to pass around instead
of through the woods. For a moment they lost direction. The support
companies seemed to hesitate at the first belt of wire and began
picking their way rather too fastidiously through it. Lieutenant
Harold L. Allen was with the headquarters group which consisted of
a mélange of runners, pioneers, liaison men, snipers, etc. He tells
about Donovan running back from the front line shouting to the men
“Get forward, there, what the hell do you think this is, a wake?”
These words seemed to inspire Captain Siebert and as the lines moved
forward he shouted loud and profane encouragement to the machine gun
carriers burdened with boxes of ammunition and struggling forward
through the tangle of trenches and broken wire.
Machine gun resistance was met on the enemy’s second line. The
assault waves deployed and began firing. Automatic teams and snipers
crawled forward to advantageous positions. Donovan, with his usual
disregard of danger (never thinking of it in fact, but only occupied
with getting through), moved back and forth along the line giving
directions, and the enemy resistance did not last long, most of their
men surrendering. Donovan led his men at heart-breaking speed over
the hills, smashing all resistance before them and sending in small
groups of prisoners. St. Baussant was taken at the point of the
bayonet and the line swept on. On the hill overlooking Maizerais the
battalion was halted once more by machine gun fire, and a battery
of artillery behind the village less than five hundred yards away.
The Germans had evidently decided to make some sort of a stand,
taking advantage of the hill and the protection of the Rupt de Mad.
But Donovan with about thirty men jumped into the river, made his
way across it under fire, and when the Germans saw this determined
assault from their flank they threw up their hands and cried
“Kamerad.”
They attempted further resistance near Essey where they had machine
gun pits in front of the village, but the resistance was quickly
reduced by the aid of a tank and the village was cleared of the
enemy. Donovan kept the battalion in the stone walled gardens on
the outskirts of the town. Our own barrage was still pounding the
village, for Essey represented the objective of the “First Phase,
First Day,” and some of our men who wandered into town were hit by
flying stone from the walls of houses.
Prisoners began to come in and a prisoner park was established near
a big tree on the road leading into the village. French civilians
were still living in this village, having spent the period of
bombardment in a big dugout—the first civilians that we had the
pleasure of actually liberating. They laughed and wept and kissed
everybody in sight and drew on their slender stock of provisions to
feed the hungry men. The soldiers began wandering everywhere looking
for souvenirs. Corporal Kearin was in charge of the prison park. All
the captives were from the regiments of the 10th Division, except a
few from an attached Minenwerfer company and an artillery regiment.
They were eager for fraternization and chatted and laughed with their
captors. The men of the support battalions and from the units on
our right and left, attracted by the town, began to straggle over.
It resembled a County Fair, the prisoner park being the popular
attraction of the day. Americans literally swarmed around the
prisoners in idle curiosity while others rummaged through the German
billets and headquarters looking for pistols, maps, German post-cards
and letters—anything that would do for a souvenir.
However, this did not last long, Donovan had his battalion out and
going for the objective which was marked as “Second Phase, First
Day,” which lay beyond the next town of Pannes; and Anderson,
coming in with the bulk of the 2nd Battalion, imposed his rigorous
discipline on those whose business it was to be in town. He certainly
was not loved for knocking in the head of a barrel of beer which some
of the fellows had found (and, by the way, there can be no better
proof of the rapidity with which the Germans evacuated the town than
the fact that they had left it behind).
Donovan met with further resistance when he arrived before Pannes
about one o’clock in the afternoon. He called for artillery and
tanks and filtered up his men along the trees on the edge of the
road while the Ohios advanced on the left and the Alabamas make a
flanking movement against the town from its right. They soon had the
opposition broken and by 1:45 P. M. our advanced elements, widely
extended, were proceeding from Pannes towards the Bois de Thiaucourt,
and at 1:55 the objective “Second Phase, First Day” was occupied by
the 165th Infantry.
[Illustration: AT QUENTIN ROOSEVELT’S GRAVE THE CENTRAL FIGURE IS
COLONEL McCOY]
The whole day it had been a wild gallop with occasional breathing
spells when the Germans put up some resistance. From the rising
ground around Essey men looked back, and towards the west and east
where the 1st and the 89th were also moving forward. It was like a
moving picture battle. Tanks were crawling up along the muddy roads
and khaki colored figures could be seen moving about in ones and twos
and fours along the edges of the woods and across the grassy plains.
Toward the rear were passing ever larger groups of prisoners in
their blue gray uniforms, carrying their personal belongings and in
many cases their own wounded as well as ours on improvised litters.
Overhead the shells were still screaming from our heavy artillery
with a good deal of answering fire from the German batteries, which
caused most of our losses.
The prisoners were mainly Austrians and Austrian Slavs. They had not
been very keen about the war at any time and were made less so on
finding that they had been left behind after the bulk of the army
had withdrawn. Many of them had been in the United States, and the
first question that one of them asked was “Can I go back now to
Sharon, Pa?” One of them was found seated in a dugout with a bottle
of Schnapps and a glass. He immediately offered a drink to his captor
saying “I don’t drink it myself, but I thought it would be a good
thing to offer to an American who would find me.”
During the afternoon of the 12th the brigade P. C. was moved to
Essey, regimental P. C. to Pannes. The 1st battalion organized their
position just south of the Bois de Thiaucourt which was held by
patrols who took more prisoners; the 2nd battalion about 1,000 yards
further back on the reverse slope of a hill; and the 3rd battalion
just outside the town.
The next day’s task was still easier. Donovan’s men jumped off
at 6:10 A. M. with Companies B and C in the lead and A and D in
support. Their patrols to the front at the time reported no contact
with the enemy. Major Reilley with the 3rd Battalion was sent as
Division Reserve for the 1st Division but was later ordered back.
The 1st Battalion, followed by the 2nd, pushed through the Bois de
Thiaucourt and the Bois de Beney capturing a couple of prisoners and
meeting with no resistance. At the Sebastopol Farm a woman told them
that the Germans were just ahead and retreating. The advance of our
men was somewhat delayed by a gun in our supporting artillery which
kept firing short and endangering the men, as one of the greatest
difficulties in a rapid advance such as was made at St. Mihiel is
that of maintaining liaison with the rear. By half past nine they had
captured the enemy’s supply depot along the railway track, with the
neighboring village of St. Benoit and the Chateau St. Benoit. It was
a foot race all the way between the four infantry regiments and our
fellows claim they won it by a good half hour, but I haven’t heard
yet what the others have to say. I only know that if I ever have to
follow up our infantry again in such an attack I am going to wait for
an express train.
One thing that stands out most impressively in the memories of the
165th regarding this action is the devotion and courage of one of
our former commanding officers. The dugout where Lieutenant Colonel
Donovan established his temporary headquarters on the night of
September 11-12th, was very small and very crowded. Every officer
commanding a unit of the auxiliary arms crowded into it to avoid the
nasty drizzle and darkness outside. The room was full of smoke, some
of which managed to get outside as officer after officer came in to
report the position of his unit. It was like the headquarters of an
army corps. Parker of the one-pound cannons was perched on the upper
deck of a bunk flanked by Siebert of the machine guns and a French
Lieutenant who had come in to report that the accompanying tanks
were ready. Lieutenants Allen and Betty were trying to carry out
Donovan’s numerous orders. Captain Stone of the 149th Field Artillery
pushed his way into the crowded room and reported to Donovan that
his battery had been detailed to roll forward with the assaulting
infantry. There was some conversation between them as to the
conditions of the roads near Seicheprey and the possibility of having
the battery follow close behind the assault, the number of available
rounds of ammunition with the guns and the chance of delay in getting
them forward over No Man’s Land. The conversation continued for a few
minutes and was ended by Donovan saying, “Well, we have not done it
before but we’ll give it a whirl this time.”
Just then Major Lawrence opened the door and called “Colonel, here’s
an old friend of yours.” It was Colonel Hine. Wet and muddy and tired
but evidently delighted to be back with the old regiment. Donovan
gave him an enthusiastic welcome as did all the rest, although Betty
whispered to Allen in a humorous grouch “I’ll bet Donovan will
want us to get a room and bath for him”—referring to the Colonel’s
practice of inviting everyone in to dinner or to share quarters no
matter where he was or what he might have, and then putting it up to
the staff to provide. Everybody naturally thought that Colonel Hine
had come to view the battle from the regimental observation post
on the hill near the Bois de Jury but later in the night when they
moved down to the parallel of departure Colonel Hine was still along,
sharing the experiences of the rest of them, stumbling into shell
holes and tripping over barbed wire in the darkness. When they went
over in the morning he was still there, and with the first wave; and
all through that day’s fight and the next, he fought along by the
side of his old men, who conceived an admiration for him in their
loyal souls that nothing will ever efface.
Colonel Hine had obtained leave from his duties in order to satisfy
his desire of going through a big battle with his beloved 69th.
It was a unique compliment to the regiment itself. The regiment
appreciates it as such, but it dwells more on the soldierly ardor
and high courage of its first Colonel, who, though he had been
transferred to less dangerous duties, found his way back to us and
fought as a volunteer private in the regiment he had commanded. Such
deeds as this are set forth in the story-books of history as an
inspiration to the youth of the land.
In picking up stories of the fight I got one from Lieutenant Allen
which I have jotted down as he gave it to me. “We came in front of
Essey. Here there was a hill marked on the aeroplane photographs and
maps which were issued before the attack as ‘Dangerous, go to the
right and left.’ As we came over the top of this hill and advanced on
its forward slope the battalion drew machine gun fire from the enemy
guns disposed in pits in front of the village. I was out in front in
a shell-hole with two snipers. One of them I sent back to Donovan
with a message; the other began firing on the enemy who now began
to run back into the village. In an adjoining shell-hole a few feet
away, a soldier from our battalion sold a German Luger Pistol to an
officer from some other regiment who had wandered from his sector,
for thirty-five francs. A French tank caught up to us at this stage
of the fight and moved down the hill until it was in front of the
shell-hole where I was. I rapped on the side of his turret and called
to the pilot, who reversed the turret and while the bullets slapped
the side of his tank, opened the window. He was a dapper little
Frenchman with the ends of his moustache waxed in points, and was
clean and smiling. I gave him a target in front of the town and he
fired several round at a mass of retreating Boches hurrying over the
next hill. Opening the window again, he smiled and said ‘How’s that?’
then he went lumbering on.”
As the first battalion was making its advance during the second day
it was held up in front of Sebastopol Farm by our own barrage which
had not yet lifted. While waiting there they saw a French peasant
woman with a small boy grasping her hand running through the shell
fire from the direction of the farm. When questioned, she was in a
great rage against the Boches and reported that a battalion of their
troops had evacuated St. Benoit during the night. She also gave the
welcome information that there were supplies of food in the farm and
was very grateful to the Americans for releasing her from four years
of captivity. She was the only woman that we saw actually on the
battlefield during the war.
When our fellows reached St. Benoit they found that the Germans had
started a fire in the Chateau, but it was quickly extinguished. The
church too, had been set on fire and was beyond saving. When Jim
Barry of C. Company saw it blazing he shouted “Glory be to God,
those devils have burnt the church. Let’s see what we can save out
of it.” With Tierney and Boyle and others following after he ran
into the burning building and carried out statues and candelabra
which they deposited carefully outside. Having finished their pious
work they began to remember that they were hungry. Barry took from
his musette bag some German potatoes which he had stored there in
place of grenades that had been used up in action, and said, “Well we
have done what we could, and now we’ve got a good fire here, and we
might as well use it.” They stuck the potatoes on the ends of their
bayonets and roasted them in the embers. Just then another party came
along with some bottled beer that they had salvaged from the German
supplies in Pannes, so they picnicked merrily in the square in front
of the blazing temple.
It was well for all of us that the Germans had departed so suddenly
that they left supplies behind, because it was an almost impossible
task to get the kitchens and ration wagons through, on account not
only of the poor condition of the roads but of the congestion of
traffic. We never saw a worse jam in the whole war than on the main
road from Seicheprey to Pannes—tanks, guns and caissons, ammunition
wagons, trucks, infantry trains, all trying to get forward along one
narrow road, and the whole line held up if a single vehicle got
stuck; mounted men and foot soldiers trailed along the edge of this
procession often having to flounder through the swamps of the Rupt de
Mad.
The situation became dangerous towards evening of the second day when
a large squadron of enemy battle planes swooped down on our own, and
after the fiercest contest I have ever seen in the air drove two of
ours to earth and regained the mastery. They did not, however, resort
to bombing, satisfying themselves with reporting conditions to their
own artillery. Our wagon train had a most uncomfortable half hour as
it passed along the road between Beney and St. Benoit. Shell after
shell came hissing towards them, but luckily the German guns were
firing just a trifle short. If the shells had carried another fifty
yards the train would have been wiped out; but the drivers sat steady
on their boxes and kept the mules going at even pace until they
reached their destination.
Pannes had still a number of civilians, about thirty in all, and all
of them very old people or children, the able-bodied ones having
been carried off by the enemy. Those remaining received their
deliverers with open arms, and all the old ladies insisted on kissing
Lieutenant Rerat, very handsome and blushing in his neat uniform of
_horizon-bleu_. They had been rationed by the Germans during the four
years of occupation; none too well, but with enough to keep them
fit to work. They gave us all they had, and we had an opportunity
to get an idea of what German soldiers got to eat. The bread was an
indigestible looking mass on the order of pumpernickel. The coffee
was far from being Mocha, but sugar seemed to be more plentiful than
in France. The Fall vegetables were not yet ripe but the fields had
been sown with potatoes, turnips, kohlrabi, and acres and acres of
cabbage. The French authorities gave orders to have all civilians
evacuated to the rear whether they wanted it or not; and Lieutenant
Rerat and I assembled them with their pitiful little collection of
belongings and sent them back in ambulances.
[Illustration:
Sketch
To Illustrate The Offensive
_of_
The St. Mihiel Salient.
_T. C. Ranscht
Sgt. H.Q. 165 Inf._
]
It was a great place for souvenir hunting—pistols, spurs, German
post-cards, musical instruments—all sorts of loot. I saw Bill Schmidt
with a long steel Uhlan’s lance; while Tom Donohue, true to his
instincts, came by with no less than four violins. Most of the men,
of a more normal type of soldier, passed up the musical instruments
in search for German sausages and beer. There were also vast amounts
of military stores and ammunition, as well as the field pieces and
machine guns which had been captured in the battle.
Major Lawrence thinks that five or six of his men deserve a citation,
for going out voluntarily under the leadership of Sergeant Eichorn
and James Mason to rescue a wounded officer in another regiment. The
Sanitary Detachment is very happy because they not only have the
Major back but also three popular sergeants—Grady, Hayes and Maher
who for a time have been attached to the Ohios.
Lieutenant Clifford is enthusiastic about the courage of Sergeant
Gilgar of Company B who went ahead with five men against an enemy
position, manœuvred his party into a position where he threatened
the German rear, and then, by putting on a bold front as if he had a
whole company behind him, frightened them into surrender and returned
to our line with thirty-two prisoners. Sergeant John Mohr’s life was
saved by the quickness of John Moran who was just in time in killing
a German who was trying to get our veteran Sergeant.
Chaplain Holmes, who had walked into fight his very first day at the
front, was anxious to do his full share, and volunteered while we
were at Pannes to scour the battlefield in order to bury the dead.
Lieutenant Flynn and a detachment from Headquarters Company went
with him and carried out this mournful task. At the time we had no
way of knowing for certain just how many of ours had fallen on the
field. The battlefield was in our hands from the first and anyone who
had a spark of life in him was carried quickly to the rear. Later
estimates placed the number of our dead, up to the present, as about
thirty-five. The highest in rank was Thomas J. Curtin, 1st Sergeant
of Company D, who was hit by a rifle bullet advancing at the head of
a platoon. In Company A we lost another good Sergeant, William Walsh;
and in the same company Corporals Patrick Doolan, Patrick McDermott
and John McDonald with Privates Joseph Biskey and William Williams;
in Company B, Mechanic Henry Schumacher and Private N. W. Blackman,
Douglas Cummings, Humberto Florio, William Poole and Dominic
Zollo; in Company C, Privates John Nanarto, Felix Curtis, Manfred
Emanuelson, Thomas F. Petty and Augustus Altheide; in Company D,
Corporal Philip Greeler, Privates Ferdinand Urban, Ernest E. Martin,
Horace Musumeck, William Mitchell, Walter Long, Clarence Gabbert,
with Corporal James MacDonald and Daniel Harkins (died of wounds);
Company E lost Corporals Michael Rooney and William Bechtold; Company
F, James Wynne, Rex Strait, Eugene Rogers, Angelo Kanevas and Jesse
Scott; Company G, William Perkins; Company H, James Spiker and Joseph
Deese; Company K, Privates Joseph Dearmon, G. C. Kenly and W. H.
Leach, Company M; O. O. Dykes and Edward Kiethley, while the Machine
Gun Company suffered the loss of John F. McMillan, Edward Hantschke
and Charles Brown. Lieutenant Boag was wounded.
The Chateau St. Benoit is a fine roomy building—a perfect palace of
dreams after the outlandish places that had constituted our abodes.
But every body in it has an uneasy feeling that it makes a splendid
target for enemy artillery. Charles Carman said to me: “Any gunner
that couldn’t hit this building at night with his eyes shut ought
to be sent back to whatever the Heinies call their S. O. S.” They
have missed it however, and more than a few times; but perhaps that
is because they have still hopes of occupying it. Three big 150’s
came over last night and just missed knocking off the corner of the
building where General MacArthur was sleeping. They landed in the
stable and killed some of our horses.
We are in for a considerable amount of shelling periodically. A high
trajectory shell, like our American rattlesnake, has at least the
rudimentary instincts of a gentlemen. It gives fair warning before it
strikes, and a man can make an attempt to dodge it; but the Austrian
88’s are mean all the way through. It sounds Irish to say that you
hear it coming after it explodes, but that is literally true if it
falls short of you.
The whole sector has been pinched off by the operation and we are
now in touch with the French on our left, the 1st Division being
crowded out by the operation, and the 89th Division still occupying
the positions to our right. We are faced now in the general direction
of Metz, and the Germans occupy the Hindenburg line as their line of
defense. Our main business has been to organize our newly acquired
positions and to throw out frequent patrols to test out the enemy.
Colonel Donovan established his battalion headquarters in the
Forester’s House on the road to Haumont which was the nearest village
held by the enemy. Here Sergeant Moore of B Company brought him a
German prisoner whom he had just captured. On interrogation he said
that he was a sentinel of a machine gun cossack post and that in the
post there was an officer and eight men including one non-com. All of
these he thought would be willing to surrender except the officer and
perhaps the N. C. O. Colonel Donovan suggested that a rope be tied
to the prisoner and that he be compelled to guide a patrol to the
outpost, but the German protested that it was entirely unnecessary,
as he was willing to betray his comrades. A patrol was sent out which
captured the outpost and killed the officer, who, as predicted, put
up the only resistance encountered. Our patrol was delighted at
making the capture, but if a chance shot had ended the career of the
man who had betrayed his own officer, no one amongst ours would have
shed any tears.
Patrols from the 1st and 2nd battalions were sent out frequently
both by day and by night until September 17th. Some prisoners were
captured, and we had our own losses. In the first battalion a patrol
of Company F came back without Bernard Cafferty and Lawrence Whalen
who put for shelter with the rest, under withering German fire, and
are probably killed.
I have picked up a couple of stories which relieve a little this
sombre side of war. Lieutenant Ogle took out a patrol one dark night
and found in his party one soldier without a rifle, for which he
rebuked him in a savage whisper. Later on he discovered that it was
Father Carpentier who had accompanied the patrol—he says to render
spiritual first aid if anyone was wounded. “Yes,” I said, “that’s
what the priest told the bishop: that he went to the horse races so
as to be handy if one of the jockeys were thrown.”
Allen likes to tell stories on Donovan, for whom he has great
admiration. One afternoon he came in from patrol very hungry after
being away since early morning, and he dropped into Captain Buck’s
shack near Hassavant Farm, which was also occupied by Colonel
Donovan. “Captain Buck’s orderly promised me a roast beef sandwich
and left the room to prepare it. I repeat I was very hungry and was
anticipating with great pleasure the coming roast beef sandwich. In
a few minutes the orderly returned with the food. It was a large
sandwich with a luscious rare slice of roast beef protruding from
the slices of bread, and with it the orderly brought a cup of coffee
which he placed with the sandwich on the table. Precisely at this
moment a soldier entered with two prisoners; one a small Roumanian
about sixteen years of age, and the other a tall, gaunt, dirty
looking soldier, both members of a labor battalion. They had been
lost in the retreat and had wandered several days in the woods, until
encountering one of our patrols they had surrendered. Donovan grabs
the sandwich with one hand and the cup of coffee with the other.
The small boy got the sandwich and the old man the cup of coffee. I
immediately protested ‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘it is against regulations
to feed prisoners before they have been questioned at Division. You
should not feed these men.’ ‘Allen,’ he said, ‘you ought to be
ashamed of yourself. This poor little boy has been, wandering around
in the woods for two days with nothing to eat.’ ‘Besides,’ I said,
‘that was my sandwich.’ ‘And you,’ he continued, ‘a great big healthy
man, would take his meal away from him.’”
LA MARCHE
_September_ 26th
On September 17th our regiment was relieved by the Alabamas and the
men were encamped altogether in the town of La Marche, which consists
of one large _ferme_ with a few extra stone buildings and a number
of wooden shacks which were constructed by the Germans. In the big
farm house we are a happy party. Colonel Mitchell likes to have his
officers around him and they share his feelings to the full. We have
plenty of provisions, a good many of them German, and Staff and
Field Officers are messing together. At table are Colonel Mitchell,
Lieutenant Colonel Donovan, Majors Reilley, Anderson, Kelly and
Lawrence, Captain Meaney, Adjutant, Captain Merle-Smith, Operations
Officer, Lieutenant Rerat, Lieutenant Spencer and myself. If my fancy
leads me to the open air I can walk down the road to Pannes where
Captain Mangan with Kinney and Frank Smith are working away with
their doughty mule-skinners, unless perchance the German shells chase
them underground; or across the open field to the woods where our men
are leading a lazy though muddy existence.
Various incidents, amusing or tragical as is the way of war, broke
the comparative monotony of these ten days. There was a captive
observation balloon just outside the village which evidently must
have had a good view of the enemy because they were most anxious to
get it down. No aeroplane succeeded in setting fire to it, so the
Germans got after it with long range guns. One afternoon the fire
got so hot that the chauffeur of the truck to which it was attached
started down the road to get out of range with the big sausage still
floating in the air at the end of its cable, the Germans increasing
their range as their target moved. Sergeant Daly, the mess sergeant
of the Machine Gun Company, was peacefully crossing the field on
a lazy going mule unaware of what it was all about, when a German
shell aimed at the aeroplane down the road passed with the speed and
noise of a freight train about twenty feet above his head. The mule
gave one leap forward, and Daly was not trying to stop him; and two
thousand soldiers who had been watching the flight of the balloon
burst into a tremendous laugh.
On the night of September 23rd, a large calibre German shell made
a direct hit right into a shelter pit in the woods where five of
the best men in our machine gun company were lying asleep; Sergeant
Frank Gardella, who had won the D. S. C., Sergeant Harry P. Bruhn and
Sergeant J. F. Flint, with Privates H. McCallum and William Drake,
who was one of three brothers in the company. All five were blown out
of the hole by the concussion as high as the lower branches of the
trees. Sergeant Flint landed, bruised and stunned, but untouched by
the fragments. He gathered himself together and found Gardella killed
instantly and the other three terribly wounded. He bound them up,
calling for help, which was brought by Lieutenant De Lacour, and the
three wounded men were gotten back to the hospital by Major Lawrence
and Captain Dudley, but we had little hopes for them, and have since
heard that they died of their wounds.
Jim Cassidy, Frankie Maguire and Jimmy Kelly found some German
flour which they brought into the Headquarters Kitchen. They are a
guileless looking trio and I cannot say to this day how deep a part
they played in this affair. They gave the flour to Joe De Nair. Now
Joseph Patrick De Nair has knocked around this world for more years
than he will acknowledge to anybody—long enough at any rate, to
have learned how to turn his hand to anything; and he announced his
intention of making pancakes for all hands, especially me. Everybody
was set to work under Joe’s direction. Fred Miller and Anderson
salvaged some molasses. Al Ettinger was hustled off on his motorcycle
to Pannes to use my name with Lieutenant Scheffler for some oleo, of
which we were short. Pat Sharkey rustled wood; Frank Clason built
a fire and John Brickley flattened and polished a tin for Joe’s
cooking. Bill Hanley and Humphrey were appointed assistant chefs.
There was a group around me consisting of Proctor, Holt, Katz and
Proudfoot, and Joe came over: “All you ginks have got to work. There
are no guests around here except Father Duffy.” I told him they had
been reading an article in the “Daily Mail” on the Irish question and
were asking me about it. That saved them, for Ireland counted more
with Joe than even the success of his pancakes.
The bustling preliminaries were finally completed and Joe proceeded
to make his batter. He poured it on the tin and waited, turning-spoon
in hand until, like St. Lawrence, it should be done on one side.
Then with the air of an artist, he turned his first pancake with a
flourish. It landed on the pan with a bang like a shell striking
an elephant hut. “What the——,” muttered Joe, as he picked up the
results of his labor. “Well I’ll be——!” “What’s the matter Joe?” I
asked, conscious that something was going wrong and that my presence
deprived him of the normal outlet for his feelings. “What’s the
matter. Where’s those dummed kids?” “Well, what is the matter?”
“What’s the matter. What’s the matter? The stuff they gave me for
flour is plaster of Paris. That’s what’s the matter. Where the—— Oh
for Heaven’s sake, Father, go inside until I can let myself spill.”
BOIS DE MONTFAUCON
_October_ 10th.
On September 27th, we relieved the 84th Brigade in the line, taking
over the positions of the Iowas in subsector Marimbois, Major
Anderson’s battalion being in the forward position. It was the usual
business of patrolling until September 30th, when our Division was
relieved in the Sector by the 89th, and withdrew to the Bois de la
Belle Ozière, a little south of where we were before. Next morning,
October 1st, we marched about 10 kilometers to our embussing point,
where we found a tremendously large fleet of camions driven by the
little Chinks whom our fellows now call the undertakers, because they
associate them with deaths and burials.
Here I met an old friend, George Boothby of the New York _World_,
who had finally succeeded in getting over to the war by entering the
publicity department of the Y. M. C. A. The uniform with the red
triangle somehow caused a smile when seen on George, but he was the
first to grin.
We got started at four o’clock in the afternoon and spent the whole
of a freezing night on the journey, most of it lying along the Voie
Sacrée or Sacred Way, over which the supplies and reinforcements
had been sent which saved Verdun. Our destination was Mondrecourt
where we remained until October 4th, when we marched by daylight
to Jubécourt. On October 5th we moved north again, an interminable
march, with all the infantry in the Division going up on one mean
road, to the woods of Montfaucon.
I had it easy myself because Colonel Mitchell with his usual fine
way of doing a courtesy, asked me as a favor to get the automobile
and some personal baggage through, as he was going mounted. So Brown
and Dayton and myself got there by better roads ahead of the rest
and found ourselves at the headquarters of the 32nd Division, where
Colonel Callan and Father Dunnigan gave me a hospitable welcome.
When I heard “32nd Division,” my first thought was “Now I can see
McCoy again,” as he had been made General of the 63rd Brigade, but it
was two days before I descried his familiar figure crowned with the
French _casque_, a parting gift from the Comte de Chambrun when he
left Chaumont. It was a memorable meeting, but all too short, for he
had his brigade in line to look after.
The woods of Montfaucon, which lie in the area of the great battles
for Verdun, fills exactly a civilian’s idea of what No Man’s Land
should look like. In its day it was a fine forest of thick-girthed
trees, but they had been battered by long cannonading until not
one of them was as nature had fashioned it. Big branches had been
torn off and heavy trees knocked to the ground. The shell holes lay
close together like pock marks on a badly pitted face. It was almost
impossible to find a level spot to pitch a small pup tent. Owing to
recent rains and the long occupation of the woods by troops, both
our own and the enemy’s, the place was in a bad state of sanitation.
The roads, too, were bad and difficult for all kinds of traffic,
particularly motor traffic. There were very few dugouts, all of
them small and most of them dirty and wet. Division headquarters
established itself in trucks as being better than any existing
accommodations. General Lenihan kindly took me in and gave me a share
in the dugout occupied by himself and Lieutenant Grose. Together we
made a happy week of it in spite of bad conditions.
While here we received word that the Germans had asked for an
armistice. The older and wiser heads amongst us felt quite certain
that they would not get what they had asked for until they were
reduced to a more humble spirit; but we were worried about the effect
it might have on the morale of the troops, because it would be
particularly hard for soldiers to face another big battle if they had
made up their minds that the fighting was over. So Colonels Mitchell
and Donovan asked me to go amongst the men, sound them out, and set
them right if necessary. It was an easy commission. One of the first
men I spoke to was Vincent Mulholland, one of my parish recruits and
now 1st Sergeant of Company B. In answer to my first question he
replied “Of course I would like to see the war over, but not while
the old regiment is back here in army corps reserve. I want to
see this war end with the 69th right out in the front line, going
strong.” Not everybody was as emphatic as that, but I was able to
make a very assured report that the old timers at least would go into
a battle with the same spirit they had at Champagne or the Ourcq or
St. Mihiel.
Jack Mangan has left us to take charge of the organization of the
Headquarters Battalion of the new Second Army at Toul. Colonel
Haskell, who is assistant Chief of Staff in the 2nd Army, visited us
during our journey from Baccarat to Chalons and got a great reception
from the old-timers. Even then, he had his eye on Mangan and wanted
him to come with him. There is nothing that so much impresses me
as a proof of the absolute sense of duty and loyalty of our old
officers to this regiment as the attitude which they invariably take
concerning invitations to improve their rank and fortunes by going
elsewhere. The younger officers have no choice in the matter. We have
been sending home as instructors a few of them each month, and have
lost a large number of very efficient lieutenants. But those who
are free to exercise any choice invariably view the opportunity as
a question of conscience and put the matter up to me. Major McKenna
(then Captain) did this in the Lunéville area when he had a chance
for the office of Judge Advocate. In the same spirit Mangan said he
would not quit to join Haskell unless I decided that the Regiment
could spare him. My decision was that he could not go until Kinney
was made a Captain, as I knew that the latter could fill admirably
the extremely important post of R. S. O.
The hardest battle of all has been to keep Donovan with the Regiment,
but he has made that fight himself, as there is no place else in the
world that would tempt him for a minute. He has dodged orders to
send him to Staff College (which would inevitably mean a transfer
after he was finished), orders to go on special duties, invitations
or suggestions to receive promotion by transfer. General Menoher
and Colonel MacArthur have been always alert to take up the battle
to retain him with us. He and I tramped the muddy road tonight while
he disburdened himself of a new worry. The Provost Marshal General
wants an assistant who is at once a good lawyer and a keen soldier,
with a knowledge of French, and he has demanded that Donovan be sent
to him. Colonel Hughes, our new Chief of Staff, has done his best to
block it; but he has been informed by General Headquarters that the
authorities of the 42nd Division have managed to evade the wishes
of military authority in Colonel Donovan’s case six times already
and that this order is peremptory. All that General Menoher has been
able to do is to hold him until the next battle is over. Donovan is
disgusted and sore for the first time in my knowledge of him.
Every now and then there is some desultory shelling in the woods, but
the only sight of warfare that we get is in the sky. Our balloons
must be well placed, because the German flyers have been very
persistent in their attempts to bring them down, and their efforts
are too often successful. Today, we saw a German aviator perform a
feat which was one of the most daring things that any of us has seen
during the war. The rapid and sustained discharge of anti-aircraft
guns (which have their own unmistakable note) brought everybody to
the edge of the woods. Guided by puffs of white or black smoke which
dotted the sky above us, we were able to detect a single German plane
headed unswervingly towards us, and not flying very high either. Our
own planes were swooping towards him, but he came right on, without
any change of altitude or direction. He passed over our line of
balloons, and then turned abruptly and dived towards the one nearest
us, throwing his dart and passing on. The flames did not show at
once, and evidently noticing this, he checked his flight and started
back to finish the job. Just then the flames burst up, and he wheeled
in air to make his escape. Soldiers in combat divisions are the best
sports in the world. There must have been twenty thousand of them
watching this daring exploit of an enemy, and I feel certain there
was not a man amongst them who did not murmur “I hope to God the
beggar gets away.” There were a dozen of our planes after him by this
time and before he reached his own lines they forced him to earth,
landing in safety.
As I make my rounds amongst the men scattered through the woods, I
find many whose names I do not know. In the original regiment I knew
practically everyone by his name; but through a variety of causes
half of those men are no longer with us and their places have been
taken by others, with whom, on account of our constant motion, it has
been impossible to get acquainted.
The wearing down of a regiment, even outside of battle, is constant.
Brigade and Division Headquarters select those that they want for
their own work, bright sergeants are sent off to Army Candidate’s
School to be trained for officers, and are invariably sent to other
divisions. There is a constant trickle of sick men to hospitals,
from which many never return to us; and most of all, there are
the tremendous losses that a regiment, particularly an infantry
regiment, has to pay in battle. Our total losses in action of killed,
wounded and missing up to the present are about 2,600 men. Taking
all causes into consideration nearly 3,000 of our original men have
been dropped, at least temporarily, from our rolls since we came to
France. If none of them had returned there would be now only 600
of them left, but as a matter of fact, nearly all of our wounded
who have graduated into the “Fit for Service” class have insisted
on their right to come back. So about half of our present total of
2,983 men are of the original outfit. It is easy to pick them out
by glancing down a company roster, because our serial numbers are
all under 100,000 while the new men have numbers running into the
millions.
I do not find that the spirit of the regiment as a whole has changed
on account of these fresh accessions. A regiment is largely what
its officers and non-coms make it. Practically all of our present
officers have been through all the fights with us and have gained
their present ranks in battle, and the non-coms are naturally men
of the original regiment who have earned their stripes by good
soldiering in camp and in the field. These men are the custodians
of regimental pride and regimental tradition, and their spirit is
communicated to or imposed upon the newcomers.
Most of these newcomers moreover, have proved themselves excellent
material. The first few that were sent us in Lunéville were poor
foreigners from the coal mining districts who could scarcely speak
English, but in Baccarat we got three hundred men from Camp Devens
who were a fine lot of fellows, and, now that they have gone through
the big fights with us, are not to be distinguished in any way from
the original volunteers. We received a lot of first class men also
from the Kentucky-Tennessee and the Texas-Oklahoma National Guard
organizations, among the latter being a number of Indians. All of
these replacements who have gone through battles with us are now
absolutely part and parcel of the 165th Infantry and have created
bonds of battle friendship with our Irish and New York lads which are
closer than any family tie can be.
In any extended campaign it is a very rare soldier who does not get
the experience of being in a hospital at least once; although we
could not possibly spend as much time in them as rumors that they get
at home make our people think we do. I myself have been killed or
wounded at least a dozen times. The other day Lester Sullivan, who
comes from my parish, looked up from a letter he was reading and said
to me “Father Duffy if you had ten thousand dollars insurance for
every time you were killed you’d never need to work for the rest of
your life.”
After battles of course they are being sent back by hundreds and
thousands. Jim Healey was telling me a yarn which hits off a type of
humor that is characteristic of the American. A hospital train pulled
into a French station with its doors and windows and platforms
crowded with “walking cases” and stopped on a track alongside a
similar train with the same kind of a crowd looking out. “Where
are youse guys from?” shouted one of the soldiers. “Fohty-second
Division. Whey you all from?” “De rest of de Forty-second Division”
came the reply—everybody shouting with laughter at this bit of
delicate and tender humor.
Hospitals thus become, like London coffee houses in the 18th century,
the clearing houses of news and the creators of public opinion. They
are the only place where soldiers meet men who do not belong to their
own Division; in fact, soldiers seldom meet anybody outside their
own regiment and many a man’s friendships do not extend beyond his
company. But in hospitals, and more particularly in convalescent
and casual camps, where they are able to move around, they come
into touch with the whole American Expeditionary Force. Battles are
discussed, organizations criticized, reputations of officers made or
unmade.
It is in these places also that the sentiment for one’s own Division
grows strong. Regiments may fight with each other within the
Division, but as opposed to other Divisions they present a united
front. The regulars and marines in the famous 2nd Division have
their own little differences, but they do not show when they come
up against men from the 1st, 26th, or 42nd. Our own New Yorks and
Alabamas started off with a small family row at Camp Mills which has
been utterly forgotten, partly because they have always been fighting
side by side on every battle front and have grown to admire each
other, but even more, I suspect, because they have formed ties of
blood brotherhood back in convalescent camps by getting together to
wallop the marines.
Every soldier in a combat division thinks that his own division
is doing all the work and getting none of the credit. But then I
never met a soldier yet who does not say “It’s a funny thing that
my platoon always happens to get the dirty details.” This much is
true—that there is a number of divisions which can be counted on the
fingers of one’s two hands that have been kept right up against the
buzz-saw ever since last June. Of course we are not proper judges of
the policies or exigencies of the high command, but everybody who is
in touch with men knows that they would be better fitted for their
work in the line if they could be taken out for a few weeks rest. The
discomforts and anxieties of life at the front are cumulative, and
men gradually get fretful and grouchy as well as run down physically.
It is surprising to see how quickly they recuperate in a rest area.
We ought to be taken out of these woods to some more civilized
place where the men can go on leave or hang around billets, writing
letters, reading, cleaning equipment and forgetting all about battle
and bloodshed, and getting freshened up mentally and physically. As
one fellow said to me “I’d like to get somewhere where I could hear
a hen cackle and see a kid run across the road. I’d like to be where
I could get a change from corn-willie by going off some evening with
a few of the fellows and getting some old French lady to cook us up
some oofs (_oeufs_) and _pommes frites_, with a bottle of red ink to
wash it down.”
We knew that there had been going on for three weeks now a battle for
the possession of all this Argonne District, in which many American
Divisions were taking part, and amongst them our sturdy fellow
citizens from New York, the 77th Division, who had succeeded us at
Baccarat and in the Château Thierry Sector. We expected that we would
be called upon to relieve the 32nd Division which was fighting just
in front of us. But today, October 10th, came orders to proceed to
the west along the river Aire for the relief of the 1st Division.