THE GUARD STANDS FAST
Back in the regimental lines, while the four companies were being mauled
badly by the Germans, anxiety had gone steadily from bad to worse.
Enduring the storm of shells with which the Germans continued to thresh
the back areas for miles, the troops did not have, for some time after
the battle began, the excitement of combat to loosen their tight-strung
nerves.
They saw the French come filtering out of the woods before them, and
watched eagerly for their comrades, but their comrades did not come and,
as time passed, it was realized the detached companies were having a
hard time.
The vanguard of the Prussians reached the edge of the woods shortly
before daybreak. Men on watch in the American trenches saw hulking
gray-clad figures slinking among the trees close to the forest's fringe
and opened fire. As the day grew the firing on both sides waxed hotter,
and soon a long line of the enemy advanced from the shelter of the bois.
They were met by a concentration of rifle, machine gun and cannon fire
such as no force could withstand. The first waves seemed simply to
wither away like chaff before a wind. The following ones slackened their
pace, hesitated a moment or two then turned and ran for the timber.
From that moment, our men were themselves again. They saw the Germans
were not invincible. They themselves had broken up a Prussian Guards'
attack. All their confidence, self-reliance, initiative, elan, came to
the fore. They felt themselves unbeatable.
But one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one repulse of an enemy
make a victory. Time after time the Germans returned to the assault.
Groups of them gained the wheat fields, where they felt protected from
the fire of our men. Obviously, they expected to crawl through the wheat
until they were on the southern edge of the fields, where, lying closely
protected, they could pick the Americans off at leisure.
Whole platoons of our men volunteered to meet this move and were
permitted to crawl forward and enter the wheat. Then ensued a game of
hide and seek, Germans and Americans stalking each other as big game is
stalked, flat on their faces in the growing grain.
But the Germans were no match for Americans at this kind of thing. There
is something--a kind of heritage from our pioneer, Indian-fighting
ancestors, probably--that gives to an American lad a natural advantage
at this sort of fighting, and scores of Germans remained behind in the
shelter of the wheat when the tide of battle had passed far away, with
the spires of grain nodding and whispering a requiem over them.
Before dawn of that fifteenth of July, word was received from Colonel
McAlexander, commanding the 39th Infantry of the old regular army, which
was in front and to the right of the 109th, that the Germans had crossed
the river and penetrated the Allied lines. He added that if they gained
a foothold in the Bois de Conde, or Conde Wood, a high, wooded tract
just north of Monthurel, the position of the 39th would be seriously
menaced.
Captain William C. Williams, commanding Company H, 109th, and Captain
Edward J. Meehan, commanding Company D, of the same regiment, and both
Philadelphians, were ordered into the wood. The companies were led out
and took positions on both sides of a narrow ravine in the wood.
Presently the French began to appear, falling back. First they came one
or two at a time, then in larger groups. As they hurried by they gave
some indication of the heavy fighting they had gone through and which
still was going forward up toward the river.
Captain Williams took a platoon of his company to establish it in a
strong position to protect the flank of the company. While doing so, the
firing, which had been growing closer all the time, broke out right at
hand and Captain Williams discovered he and his men were cut off from
the company. The Captain was shot in the hand at the first fire and
several of his men were wounded, but the Captain rallied his little
party and they fought their way back and rejoined the company. Captain
Williams was wounded twice more, but so serious was the emergency that
he had a first aid dressing applied and continued the fight without
further treatment.
Both Captain Williams and Captain Meehan since have been promoted to the
rank of Major and have been awarded Distinguished Service Crosses. Major
Williams is an old regular army man. With the rank of sergeant, he was
attached to the former First Pennsylvania Infantry as an instructor and
served in this capacity during the Mexican border duty in 1916. Later he
was commissioned Captain and assigned to command Company H.
A party of Huns made their way through the woods to a copse on the flank
of the first battalion of the 109th, where they established a strong
machine gun nest. From that position their fire was especially harassing
to the battalion, and it was found necessary to clean out that nest if
the position was to be maintained.
Accordingly Captain Meehan led Company D out from the shelter of their
trench without the special protection of artillery fire. A piece of
shell caught Captain Meehan in the shoulder and the impact half swung
him around, but he kept on. Captain Felix R. Campuzano, also of
Philadelphia, with B Company, went out in support of Captain Meehan's
men, and Captain Campuzano was struck in the hand.
Company D spread out like a fan and stalked that copse as smoothly and
faultlessly as ever a black buck was stalked in the heart of Africa by
an expert hunter. Occasionally a doughboy would get a glimpse of a Boche
gunner. There would be a crack from the thin American line, always
advancing, and virtually every shot meant one Hun less. There were few
wasted bullets in that fight. The storm of lead from the machine guns
was appreciably less by the time the Americans entered the shelter of
the woods. Once they reached the trees, there was a wild clamor of
shouts, cries, shots, the clatter of steel on steel.
Presently this died down and Americans began to emerge from the woods.
Not so many came back as went out, but of the Huns who had crept forward
to establish the nest, none returned to their own lines. Our men brought
back several enemy machine guns.
Captain Williams, still with H Company in a well-advanced position, was
pressed closely by Huns, but believed his position could be held with
help. He despatched George L. MacElroy, of Philadelphia, a bugler, with
a message to Colonel Brown, asking for assistance.
Nineteen years old, and only recently graduated from his status as one
of the best Boy Scouts in his home city, young MacElroy trudged into the
open space before Colonel Brown's quarters, saluted and stood stiff and
soldierly while he delivered his message. He looked very young and
boyish, though his grimy face was set in stern, wearied lines under his
steel helmet.
Colonel Brown read the message and started to give an order but checked
himself as he noticed the messenger swaying slightly on his feet.
"My boy, how long has it been since you had food?" he asked.
The question, and particularly the kindly tone, were too much for the
overwrought nerves of the lad.
"Forty-eight hours, sir," he responded, and then his stoicism gave way
and he collapsed.
"Get something to eat here and take a sleep," said the Colonel. "You
need not go back."
"No, sir," was the reply. "My company is up there in the woods, fighting
hard, and I am going back to it. Captain Williams depends on me, sir."
And back he went, although he was persuaded to rest a few minutes while
a lunch was prepared. He was asked to describe his experiences on that
journey through the German-infested woods, but the sum of his
description, given in a deprecatory manner, was: "I just crawled along
and got here."
With such spirit as this actuating our men, it is small wonder that the
Germans found themselves battling against a stone wall of defense that
threatened momentarily to topple forward on them and crush them.
MacElroy was wounded slightly and suffered a severe case of shell shock
a few days later. He was in the hospital many weeks and was awarded the
French War Cross for his bravery.
Bugler MacElroy was by no means the only lad who did not eat for
forty-eight hours. Those in the forward lines had entered the fight
with only two days' rations. Many of them threw this away to lighten
themselves for the contest. Subsequently food reached them only
intermittently and in small quantities, for it was almost an impossible
task to carry it up from the rear through that vortex of fighting.
Sleep they needed even more than food. For five days and nights hundreds
of the men slept only for a few moments at a time, not more than three
hours all told. They became as automatons, fighting on though they had
lost much of the sense of feeling. It was asserted by medical men that
this loss of sleep acted almost as an anesthetic on many, so that wounds
that ordinarily would have incapacitated them through sheer pain, were
regarded hardly at all. When opportunity offered, more than one went
sound asleep on his feet, leaning against the wall of a trench.
After that first splendid repulse of the German attack, the Crown
Prince's forces, with typical Teuton stubbornness, launched assault
after assault against our line. Officers could be seen here and there,
mingling with the German soldiers, beating them and kicking them
forward in the face of the murderous American fire.
It was during this almost continuous game of attack and repulse that
there occurred one of the most remarkable and dramatic events of the
whole period. The Boche had been gnawing into the lines of the 110th, in
the center of the Pennsylvania front, until it seemed nothing could stop
them. Probably the most terrific pressure along that sector was exerted
against this point.
For twenty-five hours the 110th had given virtually constant battle, and
officers and men felt they soon must give way and fall back. Y. M. C. A.
men serving with the Americans had established themselves in a dugout in
the face of a low bluff facing away from the enemy, where they and their
supplies were reasonably safe from shell fire, and from these dugouts
they issued forth, with a courage that won the admiration of the
fighting men, to carry chocolate, cigarettes and other bits of comfort
to the hard pressed doughboys and to render whatever aid they could.
Several of them pleaded to be allowed to take rifles and help withstand
the onslaught, but this, of course was forbidden.
The Rev. Francis A. La Violette, of Seattle, Wash., one of the Y. M. C.
A. workers, had lain down in the dugout for a few minutes' rest when he
heard a flutter of wings about the entrance. He found a tired and
frightened pigeon, with a message tube fastened to its leg. Removing the
carrier, he found a message written in German, which he was unable to
read. He knew the moment was a critical one for the whole line. He knew
there were grave fears that the Germans were about to break through and
that if they did there would be little to hold them from a dash on
Paris.
He rushed the message to headquarters, where it was translated. It was a
cry of desperation from the Germans, intended for their reserve forces
in the rear. It said that, unless reinforcements were sent at once, the
German line at that point would be forced to retire. The pigeon had
become lost in the murk of battle and delivered the message to the wrong
side of the fighting front.
In half an hour word had gone down the line, and tanks, artillery and
thousands of French troops were rushing to the threatened point. With
this assistance and the knowledge that the Germans were already
wavering, the Pennsylvanians advanced with determination and hurled the
enemy back. Headquarters was dumbfounded, when prisoners were examined,
to learn that six divisions of Prussians, about 75,000 men, had been
opposing the Allied force and had been compelled to call for help.
On the right of our line the enemy thrust forward strong local attacks,
driving our men from St. Agnan, and La Chapelle-Manthodon. St. Agnan,
three miles south of the nearest spot on the Marne, was the farthest
point of the German advance. Almost immediately the 109th Infantry and
103d Engineers, in conjunction with French Chausseurs Alpin (Blue
Devils), launched a counter attack which drove the Germans pell mell out
of the villages and started them on their long retreat.
Just before this counter attack began the 109th was being harassed again
by a machine gun nest, and this time Company K was sent out to "do the
job." It did, in as workmanlike a manner as D Company had on the other
occasion. Lieutenant Walter Fiechter, of Philadelphia, was wounded, as
were several enlisted men.
When the counter attack finally was launched Captain Walter McC. Gearty,
also a Philadelphian, acting as major of the First Battalion of the
109th, led the advance of that regiment. They ran into a machine gun
nest that was spitting bullets like a summer rain. The stream of lead
caught Captain Gearty full in the front, and he dropped, the first
officer of his rank in the old National Guard of Pennsylvania to meet
death in the war.
His men, frantic at the loss of a beloved officer, plunged forward more
determinedly than ever and wiped out that machine gun nest to a man,
seized the guns and ammunition and turned them on the already fleeing
Boche.
The Americans had discovered by this time the complete truth of what
their British instructors had told them--that the Hun hates and fears
the bayonet more than any other weapon of warfare. So they wasted few
bullets. Rifle fire, they discovered, was a mighty thing in defense,
when a man has a chance to steady himself and aim with precision while
the enemy is doing the advancing. But when conditions are reversed, the
best rifleman has little chance to shine in pressing forward in an
attack, so it was the bayonet that was used this time.
The men had gone "over the top" without a barrage, but they had the best
protection in the world--self-confidence, which the Hun had not. The
Prussians had had a taste of American fighting such as they had thought
never to experience, and for thousands of them the mere sight of that
advancing line of grim, set faces, preceded by bristling bayonet points,
was enough. They did not wait to be "tickled" with the point.
Others, however, stood their ground boldly enough and gave battle. As
had been the case for several months, they depended little on the
individual rifleman, but put virtually their whole trust in machine guns
and artillery. With their ranks shorn of their old-time confidence and
many of their men fleeing in panic rather than come to grips with the
Americans and French, there was little chance to stem that charge,
however, and the enemy fell back steadily, even rapidly, to the Marne.