The 1st marking time--A fumble gives one height--Relying on the
engineers--The triangle of hills--A tribute from the enemy--The Arrow
Division also pointed at the whale-back--Which resists intact--Still
the 1st goes on--"As good as the 1st."
As soon as the 82nd's attacks on the river bottoms were well under
way, the 1st was to make another rush, driving its wedge ahead of the
82nd's front over the hills of the eastern wall. On the 6th, the day
before the All-Americas took Hills 180 and 223, and the day before the
Pennsylvanians of the 28th took Châtel-Chéhéry, the 1st was due to mark
time; and so also was the 32nd--still holding the block of the Morine
and Chêne Sec woods and withdrawn from Gesnes,--which was in turn
dependent for further advance upon the movement in the Aire trough. The
flanks of the two divisions, left out of _liaison_ as a result of the
viciously confused fighting of the 5th, must join up.
In the neighborhood of their junction, northwest of the Morine and
Chêne Sec woods, the highest point was Hill 269, in the Moncy Wood. To
the west 269 looked across all the hilltops to the Argonne Forest,
and to the east almost to the Meuse. This distance of vision, it
should be explained, did not mean observation of the slopes of the
other hills or the low ground at their bases. Each hill which we had
conquered or had yet to conquer on the way to the whale-back was only
one of an interlocking series. Though none approached the spectacular
formidability of an isolated height towering over a surrounding plain,
Hill 269 was relatively very important because of its situation and
altitude.
The statement that the 1st was marking time on the 6th must be
qualified by the activity of its patrols; for it was not in the
nature or traditions of the pioneer division ever to dig a hole and
sit in it all day, leaving the initiative to the enemy. It was always
hugging him close, ready to jump for any opening that offered. A
patrol kept on going until it developed enough resistance to warrant
its withdrawal with the information it had gained. Also it took
responsibility, and did not wait on orders if it found an opportunity
of turning a trick. This seems an obvious system; but its application
may vary in efficiency from experience to inexperience, from clumsiness
to shrewdness, from foolish bravado to courageous and resourceful
discretion. One of the 1st's patrols, in the course of linking up with
the 32nd on the 6th, kept feeling its way through the Moncy Wood
without any opposition until it came to the top of Hill 269. This was
in the 32nd Division's sector; but veteran divisions do not stand on
etiquette on such occasions. They know that in the gamble of battle the
division which lends a helping hand one day may need a helping hand
the next. In sending out the patrol, the brigade commander had made
it small, as he did not want many men killed; for he appreciated what
hidden machine-guns could do to the most agile group of scouts when the
gunners held their fire for a propitious moment.
We had caught the Germans napping on 269. The advantage we had gained
resembled that taken of a fumble at football. Any "kid" lieutenant
or any one of his men could see as well as General Pershing himself
that this crest was worth holding; and that daring little group held
it until relieved by two companies of the 32nd. Meanwhile the fumble
had enabled the 1st to take the Ariétal farm, which formed a natural
rallying point for enemy machine-gunners in the ravine between the
Moncy and the Little woods (le Petit Bois). This was an advantage for
the next attack second only to the occupation of 269, with which it had
a close tactical relation.
On the 7th the 1st, which had been under the First Corps, was
transferred to the Fifth, and its front extended to include Hill 269.
It was now time for the division engineers, who had been working night
and day on the roads, to cease their idling and begin fighting. The
battalion which was sent to take over 269 from the 32nd was soon to
find what store the Germans set by it, once they realized the blunder
that had allowed it to slip out of their hands. The enemy's artillery
proceeded to make this sharply defined cone a pillar of hell; but the
engineers were used to digging, and they dug with a vengeance. They
were also used to sticking on the job. In the face of counter-attacks,
supported by a rain of shells and bullets of artillery and machine-gun
barrages, they held their ground in the midst of fountains of earth and
flying débris and frightful casualties, with that resolution in which
every man, no matter how many of his comrades are killed, determines
that he will not yield alive.
After the driving of the wedge to Fléville and the taking of
Montrefagne, the 1st had been badly shattered. The heavy rains had
made the holding of the eastern wall of the Aire under the murderously
accurate flanking fire from the western wall all the more horrible.
Transport was being regularly shelled; woods, where reserves might take
cover, were being gassed. Not only was the doctrine of the 1st never
to yield ground taken upheld at every point, but it was continuing
to improve its position on the 7th and 8th while it reorganized its
available forces, steadily reduced by casualties, in an undaunted
offensive spirit.
The 28th having taken the Châtel-Chéhéry heights of the opposite valley
wall, and the 82nd attacking the Cornay heights, the 9th was chosen as
the day when the hammer should again begin pounding the wedge into the
ramparts ahead. By this time the 1st had had over 5,000 casualties,
representing more than one-third of its infantry. There was an old
rule that when a third of your men were out of action it was time for
retreat. This had ceased to apply in the Great War; it was hardly a
view that Summerall would hold. The 1st had not yet finished its task,
and he meant that it should be finished. There could be no question of
fatigue, or excuses. More engineers were summoned into line; everything
that veteran experience could arrange was ready. The ammunition supply
and the transport were up; the hospital service was prepared for heavy
casualties. Every man's jaw was set for a final triumphant drive which
should finally clear the wall of the Aire.
The enemy's jaw was set too. He knew that our next rush would be a
desperate effort to reach the main-line defenses of the whale-back.
Indeed, this was our plan, which required that the 1st go about a mile
and a half over even more formidable ground than in the drive of the
4th and 5th. On the 1st's right, Hill 269 in the Moncy Wood was safely
held, if at a bloody cost. On the center and right the Montrefagne
Wood ran northeast in the narrow tongue of the Little Wood. In this
wood, about on a line with 269, was Hill 272, the highest of all the
hills on the 1st's front, which we knew was strongly held and strongly
fortified. The Little Wood, broadening beyond it, extended westward,
while the ravine between it and the Moncy Wood (Hill 269) wound in the
same direction. Well back in this portion of the Little Wood was Hill
263, which was at the apex of a triangle with 269 and 272 as the base.
Our seizure of Ariétal farm in the ravine before it could be fortified
enabled our men, thanks to the protection from our seizure of Hill
269, to establish themselves on the 7th and 8th on the slopes of the
two other hills. Thus we were saved from a cross-fire in having to
pass between the two base angles of the triangle toward the apex. We
could take Hill 272, the remaining hill at the base, in flank. It was
certainly good generalship which won this advantage for us, and poor
generalship which lost it for the enemy. Once we had Hill 263 at the
apex, it was downhill through the Romagne woods until we were before
the Kriemhilde Stellung, which bent southward on the 1st's right in
front of the 32nd's sector. To the west of Little and Romagne woods
many patches of woods gave cover for machine-guns on the ascents of
the Maldah ridge, which ran to the end of the Aire wall where the Aire
bent sharply westward to the gap of Grandpré. However, the crux of the
problem of the 1st on the 9th was the taking of Hill 272 at the western
point of the triangle and 263 at the apex.
Being a gunner, Summerall believed in making the most of gun power.
He had trained the artillery of the 1st, and knew its capabilities.
This implied anything but penuriousness in the expenditure of
ammunition. Throughout the 7th and 8th, day and night, the 1st's
artillery had been "softening" the defenses of these two hills and of
all the other positions with a concentrated bombardment, and placing
ceaseless interdictory fire in their rear to keep them isolated from
communication.
If ever infantry needed powerful barrages to protect its swift charges,
it was on the morning of the 9th. Any failure to go home at any point
might be fatal to the whole movement. As supple as the enemy, the
1st was using roving, or tramp, guns to counter his roving guns. The
remainder of the divisional artillery was entirely concentrated in
making shields in turn for the right, left, and center, which advanced
successively instead of at the same time. The weather as well as the
barrages was in our favor. A dense fog hid our waves from the enemy's
observation. His machine-gunners in some instances could not see to
fire until our men were upon them; in others, as the fog lifted on the
exposed targets, our losses were ghastly without staying our progress.
Apart from the engineers, the division had only one battalion of fresh
infantry in reserve. This battalion was sent against the highest of
the hills, 272. Breaking through the fog, in bolt surprise, it took
prisoner every man of the garrison of 272 who was not killed. As the
curtain of bursting shells of the shield which our men were hugging
lifted, the German lieutenant-colonel in command of the hill started
out of his dugout, only to see the charge sweeping past its mouth, and,
in turn, past all the dugouts where his troops had taken cover from
the approaching tornado. He knew that all was lost; and he wept in his
humiliation at being captured. It was the first time that the shock
division to which he belonged had ever been on the defensive. He paid
a soldier's tribute to the power and accuracy of the artillery fire of
the 1st, which for two days had marooned him, without food for his men
and unable to send them orders or to receive orders from his superior.
He had not believed that in five years the Americans would have been
able to develop such a division as the 1st; and one's only comment on
this is that the men of the 1st were the same kind of men as in the
other divisions. He had happened to meet the 1st, as any other division
will tell you. German officers who met other divisions in the Argonne
held the same view about them. Professional opinions from such experts
were worth while.
Our attack on Hill 272 on the left and our possession of 269 on the
right protecting their flanks, the troops which were making a head-on
drive for 263 had an equally brilliant success, thanks to the same
thoroughgoing, enterprising, and courageous tactics. Those on the left,
with the enemy's plans upset by the loss of 272 and 263, wove their way
through the patches of woods, conquering successive machine-gun nests
until the Côte de Maldah was theirs in a sweep no less important as a
part of the well-arranged whole, though perhaps less sensational. So
much for the day's work of the 1st in the high tide of its career on
October 9th.
We shall now take up that of the Arrows of the 32nd. On the 7th and 8th
the 32nd had been busy sending out patrols and seeking to gain certain
vantage points which would be useful in the next day's attack. It had
established itself in Gesnes. Its own artillery was now back with the
division, taking the place of that of the 30th Division, which, after
its exhausting work in forcing its guns through the Montfaucon woods
in support of the 37th, had still remained in line in support of the
32nd. In addition the artillery of the 42nd, or Rainbow, Division,
which was now coming up in reserve, was placed at the disposal of the
32nd; for it could not have too much gun power if it were to make any
headway on the 9th. Nor could it have too much infantry. The 181st
Brigade of the 91st, Pacific Coast, Division had not gone into rest
when the 91st had been "expended" in the early period of the battle. It
was now placed in line between the 1st and the 32nd, and despite their
fatigue the Pacific Coast men were relied upon for nothing less than
the assault of that Hill 255 whose galling fire had checked the 32nd's
advance on the 5th.
The "side-slipping" of the division sector when the 1st relinquished
the bank of the Aire and came under the administration of the Fifth
Corps had not given the 32nd any easier task. Wasn't it a veteran
division? Wasn't it used to being expended? The ambition of the Army
command was in the saddle again, expecting the Arrows, with the
artillery of two divisions in support, to penetrate immediately the
Kriemhilde Stellung, or main defenses of the whale-back.
As the Kriemhilde bent south past the 1st's flank, it was within a
mile of the 32nd's front. On the 32nd's left it was established in the
Valoup Wood on the ridge of the Côte Dame Marie, a name of infernal
associations in the history of two veteran divisions. In the center
it passed in front of the town of Romagne. To the right or east it
continued on another ridge in the strong Mamelle trench. The plan was a
swing to the left through Valoup Wood to take the Côte Dame Marie, and
a swing to the right to take the Mamelle trench, encircling the village
of Romagne, while the center on the Gesnes-Romagne road regulated its
advance with that of the flanks.
It might have been carried out in one day, as an officer said, if
the 32nd had had the artillery of five or six divisions and a score
of heavy batteries from the French, while the men had been provided
with shell- and bullet-proof armor. This heroic dream is mentioned in
passing. More to the point is what the men of the 32nd accomplished;
for they almost made the dream come true before darkness fell on the
night of October 9th. They were the Arrows indeed--an arrow on the
right and on the left--with the bow of determination drawn taut before
the attacks were released. That on the left penetrated the Dame Marie,
while the right penetrated the Mamelle trench where the meager numbers
which formed the very tip of the arrow-head were stopped in a bout of
hand-to-hand fighting, while their comrades on the right and left were
held up by the wire and the relentlessly increasing machine-gun fire.
The center could not advance. Romagne was not encircled.
The 181st Brigade of the 91st had orders to hold during the attack on
the 9th; then, as standing still appeared to be poor policy, it had
orders to assault Hill 255, whose fire had stayed progress on the 6th.
Later orders came that the support was unnecessary, but not until the
Pacific Coast men were already started forward, only to have to dig in
in face of annihilating fire. The next day, the Germans now evacuating
Hill 255 under the flanking pressure of the 1st and 32nd, the Pacific
Coast men mopped up the hill, captured the concrete blockhouse on the
reverse slope, and then set out to mop up the Tuilerie farm, which was
supposed to be taken. Unfortunately it was not taken. Between them
and the farm was Hill 288, the highest of all, with an outpost of the
Kriemhilde position in the form of a horseshoe organized in a sunken
road with walls twenty or thirty feet high. Tunnels from the road
allowed the machine-gunners to play hide and seek in going and coming
to the slope. Their fire and plentiful gas and high-explosive shells
checked the front line about three hundred yards south of the hill.
The next day the brigade was to attack again in case there were enough
artillery fire forthcoming to "soften" the hill; but there was not.
The Pacific Coast men were now relieved by units of the 32nd. Shivering
for want of woolen underwear, rarely getting hot meals, their long
service in the battle was over. Though many were ill, they refused to
report on the sick list for fear that they would be transferred from
hospital to another division than their own.
It was no less a policy of the Arrows of the 32nd than of the 1st
Division never to yield gains. They were at close quarters with the
Kriemhilde, and they proposed to remain there. The enemy's fully
aroused artillery and machine-gun resistance to protect the points
where the Kriemhilde had been entered prevented any headway on the
10th and 11th, while hand-to-hand fighting continued on the Dame Marie
ridge. Before the 32nd was to conquer the ridge and take Romagne, it
must make preparation equal to the task. This belongs to another stage
of the battle. We are presently concerned with the fact that the Arrows
had done their part in the costly operation that had conquered the
heights into which the 1st had driven its wedge.
The enemy now withdrawing from the front of the 1st across the valley
and low ground to the Kriemhilde, which was here farther north than
in front of the 32nd, the 1st, in a movement of exploitation, with
gratefully few casualties made a mile on the 10th, passing through
the Romagne Wood and beyond the village of Sommerance. On the next
day, feeling out the enemy positions with a knowing hand, the veterans
learned that they could be taken only by fresh troops in a thoroughly
organized attack. The 1st had accomplished its daring mission; it had
won a telling victory. Three-fifths of its infantry was out of action
from death and wounds; the remainder had been fully "expended" in
exhaustion or sickness. Surely no division in all our history had ever
been in finer condition for battle, or fought with more discipline and
skillful valor, or suffered more losses in a single action. "To be as
good" as the pioneer 1st had been the ambition of all the divisions in
the early days of our fighting in France. If some became as good, this
is the more honor to them.
The affection of long association creeps in as I think of the 1st's
first detachments arriving at Saint-Nazaire, or of its pioneer training
on the drill-grounds at Gondrecourt in the days when there was a fear
in our hearts that we might yet lose the war. The 1st had confidence
without boasting, and dignity without punctiliousness; its pride kept
it from dwelling on the excuses of unprotected flanks; it was on good
terms with neighboring divisions and with the French: self-reliant,
systematic, trying to live up to the fortune that had made it the first
to arrive in France and was to make it the last to go home. It had
expected to pay a heavy price for its crowning success; and paid it
with an absence of grumbling which makes the sacrifice of life of a
transcendent nobility, however worn and filthy the khaki it wears.
When relieved by the 42nd the 1st withdrew, after casualties of 8,554,
in faultlessly good order from the line of the gains which it securely
held.