AT GRIPS WITH DEATH
The village of Sergy, just north of Grimpettes Wood, threatened to be a
hard nut to crack. The 109th Infantry was sent away to the west to flank
the town from that direction, and the 110th co-operated with regiments
of other divisions in the direct assault.
The utter razing of Epieds and other towns above the Marne by artillery
fire, in order to blast the Germans out of their strongholds, led to a
decision to avoid such destructive methods wherever possible, and the
taking of Sergy was almost entirely an infantry and machine gun battle.
It was marked, as so many other of the Pennsylvanians' fights were, by
the "never-say-die" spirit that refused to know defeat. There was
something unconquerable about the terrible persistence of the Americans
that seemed to daunt the Germans.
The American forces swept into the town and drove the enemy slowly and
reluctantly out to the north. The usual groups of Huns were still in
hiding in cellars and dugouts and other strong points, where they were
able to keep up a sniping fire on our men.
Before the positions could be mopped up and organized, the Germans were
strengthened by fresh forces, and they reorganized and took the town
again. Four times this contest of attack and counter-attack was carried
out before our men established themselves in sufficient force to hold
the place. Repeatedly the Germans strove to obtain a foothold again, but
their hold on Sergy was gone forever. They realized this at last, and
then turned loose the customary sullen shelling with shrapnel, high
explosives and gas.
While the 110th was engaged in this grim work, the 109th recrossed the
Ourcq, marched away down the south bank to the west of Sergy, and
crossed the river again. Officers, feeling almost at the end of their
physical resources, marvelled at the way in which the regiment--blooded,
steady and dependable--swung along on this march.
Like all the other Pennsylvania regiments, food had been scarce with
them because of the pace at which they had been going and the utter
inability of the commissary to supply them regularly in the
circumstances. When opportunity offered, they got a substantial meal,
but these were few and far between. There were innumerable instances of
men going forty-eight hours without either food or water. The thirst was
worse than the hunger, and the longing for sleep was almost
overpowering.
Despite all this, the two regiments set off for the conquest of Sergy
with undiminished spirit and determination, and the two grades of men,
commissioned and enlisted, neither willing to give up in the face of the
other's dogged pertinacity, spurred each other on to prodigies of
will-power, for by this time it was will-power, more than actual
physical endurance, that carried them on.
The 109th took position in a wood just northwest of Sergy and sent
scouts forward to ascertain the situation of the enemy, only to have
them come back with word that the town already was in the hands of the
110th, after a brilliant action.
The 109th now came to some of the most nerve-trying hours it had yet
experienced, though no fighting was involved. A wood north of Sergy was
selected as an abiding place for the night and, watching for a chance
when Boche flyers were busy elsewhere, the regiment made its way into
the shelter and prepared to get a night's rest.
They had escaped the eyes of the enemy airmen but, unknown to the
officers of the 109th, the wood lay close to an enemy ammunition dump,
which the retiring Huns had not had time to destroy. Naturally, the
German artillery knew perfectly the location of the dump, and sought to
explode it by means of artillery fire.
By the time the 109th, curious as to the marked attention they were
receiving from the Hun guns, discovered the dump, it was too late to
seek other shelter, so all they could do was to contrive such protection
as was possible and hug the ground, expecting each succeeding shell to
land in the midst of the dump and set off an explosion that probably
would leave nothing of the regiment but its traditions.
Probably half the shells intended for the ammunition pile landed in the
woods. Dreadful as such a bombardment always is, the men of the 109th
fairly gasped with relief when each screeching shell ended with a bang
among the trees, for shells that landed there were in no danger of
exploding that heap of ammunition.
The night of strain and tension passed. Strange as it may seem, the
Boche gunners were unable to reach the dump.
In the night a staff officer from brigade headquarters had found Colonel
Brown and informed him that he was to relinquish command of the regiment
to become adjutant to the commandant of a port of debarkation.
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry W. Coulter, of Greensburg, Pa., took command of
the regiment.
Colonel Coulter is a brother of Brigadier-General Richard Coulter, one
time commander of the Tenth Pennsylvania, later commander of an American
port in France. A few days later, Colonel Coulter was wounded in the
foot, and Colonel Samuel V. Ham, a regular army officer, became
commander. As an evidence of the vicissitudes of the Pennsylvania
regiments, the 109th had eight regimental commanders in two months. All
except Colonel Brown and Colonel Coulter were regular army men.
The 110th was relieved, and dropped back for a rest of two days, August
1st and 2d. The men were nervous and "fidgety," to quote one of the
officers, for the first time since their first "bath of steel," south of
the Marne. Both nights they were supposed to be resting they were
shelled and bombed from the air continuously, and both days were put in
at the "camions sanitaire," or "delousing machines," where each man got
a hot bath and had his clothes thoroughly disinfected and cleaned.
Thus, neither night nor day could be called restful by one who was
careful of his English, although the baths probably did more to bolster
up the spirits of the men than anything else that could have happened to
them. Anyway, when the two-day period was ended and the regiment again
set off for the north, headed for the Vesle and worse things than any
that had gone before, it marched away whistling and singing, with
apparently not a care in the world.
It was about this time that the first of the Pennsylvania artillery,
one battalion of the 107th Regiment, came into the zone of operations,
and soon its big guns began to roar back at the Germans in company with
the French and other American artillery.
The guns and their crews had troubles of their own in forging to the
front, although most of it was of a kind they could look back on later
with a laugh, and not the soul-trying, mind-searing experiences of the
infantry.
The roads that had been so hard for the foot soldiers to traverse were
many times worse for the big guns. The 108th, for instance, at one time
was twelve hours in covering eight miles of road.
When it came to crossing the Marne, in order to speed up the crossing,
the regiment was divided, half being sent farther up the river. When
night fell, it was learned that the half that had crossed lower down had
the field kitchen and no rations and the other half had all the rations
and no field kitchen to cook them. Other organizations came to the
rescue in both instances.
At six o'clock one evening, not yet having had evening mess, the
regiment was ordered to move to another town, which it reached at nine
o'clock. Men and horses had been settled down for the night by ten
o'clock and, as all was quiet, the officers went to the village. There
they found an innkeeper bemoaning the fact that, just as he had gotten a
substantial meal ready for the officers of another regiment, they had
been ordered away, and the food was all ready, with nobody to eat it.
The hungry officers looked over the "spread." There was soup, fried
chicken, cold ham, string beans, peas, sweet potatoes, jam, bread and
butter, and wine. They assured the innkeeper he need worry no further
about losing his food, and promptly took their places about the table.
The first spoonfuls of soup just were being lifted when an orderly
entered, bearing orders for the regiment to move on at once. They were
under way again, the officers still hungry, by 11.45 o'clock, and
marched until 6.30 A. M., covering thirty kilometres, or more
than eighteen miles.
The 103d Ammunition Train also had come up now, after experiences that
prepared it somewhat for what was to come later. For instance, when
delivering ammunition to a battery under heavy shellfire, a detachment
of the train had to cross a small stream on a little, flat bridge,
without guard rails. A swing horse of one of the wagons became
frightened when a shell fell close by. The horse shied and plunged over
the edge, wedging itself between the bridge and a small footbridge
alongside.
The stream was in a small valley, quite open to enemy fire, and for the
company to have waited while the horse was gotten out would have been
suicidal. So the main body passed on and the caisson crew and drivers,
twelve men in all, were left to pry the horse out. For three hours they
worked, patiently and persistently, until the frantic animal was freed.
They were under continuous and venomous fire all the while. Shrapnel cut
the tops of trees a bare ten feet away. Most of the time they and the
horses were compelled to wear gas masks, as the Hun tossed over a gas
shell every once in a while for variety--he was "mixing them." The gas
hung long in the valley, for it has "an affinity," as the chemists say,
for water, and will follow the course of a stream.
High explosives "cr-r-r-umped" in places within two hundred feet, but
the ammunition carriers never even glanced up from their work, nor
hesitated a minute. Just before dawn they got the horse free and started
back for their own lines. Fifteen minutes later a high-explosive shell
landed fairly on the little bridge and blew it to atoms.
The 103d Field Signal Battalion, composed of companies chiefly from
Pittsburgh, but with members from many other parts of the state,
performed valiant service in maintaining lines of communication.
Repeatedly, men of the battalion, commanded by Major Fred G. Miller, of
Pittsburgh, exposed themselves daringly in a welter of fire to extend
telephone and telegraph lines, sometimes running them through trees and
bushes, again laying them in hastily scooped out grooves in the earth.
Frequently communication no sooner was established than a chance shell
would sever the line, and the work was to do all over again. With cool
disregard of danger, the signalmen went about their tasks, incurring all
the danger to be found anywhere--but without the privilege and
satisfaction of fighting back.
Under sniping rifle fire, machine gun and big shell bombardment and
frequently drenched with gas, the gallant signalmen carried their work
forward. There was little of the picturesque about it, but nothing in
the service was more essential. Many of the men were wounded and gassed,
a number killed, and several were cited and decorated for bravery.