CHAPTER XNORTH OF VERDUN
Stopping for a day in Ancemont west of the Meuse River for improvised baths and haircuts by the Company barbers refreshed the men, although clean clothes were not to be had. The night of October 9 the Battalion took up quarters in the Caserne de Bevaux, a large cavalry barracks just a kilometer east of the famous fortress of Verdun. Paris had its charms for the American soldier, but he looked with more favor upon the arts of war, worshipped more at that time before the shrines of military greatness than the creations of great architects and sculptors, so the world-famed ruins of Verdun were attacked with a full-hearted avidity which carried the men to its most remote passages. From the parapets of its outer defenses to the recesses of its great tunnels they walked and marvelled that a city could withstand artillery bombardment of such intensity for so long without being crumbled to a heap of dust. Verdun was the point of a terrific attack which lasted for months, in the defense of which tens of thousands of French soldiers had made their last stand and before which Huns in far greater numbers had given their lives blindly for a hopeless cause.
For six days the Company stayed in the barracks, repairing equipment and getting into shape for the coming period of activity, the severity of which was foretold by units which had been relieved. Austrian prisoners sent back from the line spoke only of peace, giving as their belief that the war was fast coming to a close, but the many varieties of rumors were put aside on the night of the 15th, when the Company moved north through the outer defenses of Verdun, through Belleville and Bras to the Ravin d'Andremont, not far from Samogneaux, a little village about twelve kilometers north of Verdun east of the Meuse River.
All signs of shelter had been demolished here and the men slept in the open while the inevitable rain of a hiking day soaked their clothes and blankets. The following morning broughtvisions of what shell fire had done to much of the artillery and wagon trains which had started for the line. Although the latest advances had made it practically safe for troops and it was now used for a camping place for all branches of line troops, at one time not far passed Hun artillery had accounted for large numbers of American horses and mules, whose dead bodies were lying all around the area.
Ordered to relieve machine gunners of the 29th American Division and certain French troops, the Company began its march to the new positions that night, only locating the sector assigned to it after a six hour hike during which colorful compliments were paid the guides who had been assigned from the relieved units to lead the way. Loaded with packs, guns and ammunition and further handicapped by the hilly character of the country, the men struggled through shell holes, occasional bits of barbed wire, underbrush and fallen trees and mud, always mud, to the positions in the Bois d'Ormont which they reached just before dawn.
The Bois d'Ormont is a small elliptical-shaped woodland on the crest of one of the many hills in that region and the American and German lines were within a few yards of each other, near the center of the woods. Members of the Company with ability to converse with the Huns, made several trips to the German lines and tried to induce them to return as prisoners, but the minions of Prussianism were strong in their belief that the war was shortly coming to an early end and decided they could better afford to take the chance for the rest of the time than enter a prison camp for an indefinite period. They told of changes in the government of the Fatherland, the abdication of the Kaiser and other rumors afterward fulfilled.
October 20 a short American barrage brought an immediate response from the nervous Teutons and they laid a box barrage around the sector occupied by the Division, evidently believing an attack was coming. Until the 23d the lines were at a standstill. On several occasions it was rumored that an attack was to be made by the enemy or Allied troops, but all that broke the monotony of the days was the Hun practice of shelling ration parties.
With the infantry battalions, especially those of the 102d Regiment, depleted by the enormous losses they had incurred inprevious action, the Division was holding a rather narrow sector. Officers were lacking in most of the companies and the men were holding on through sheer nerve, short of rations, clothing, blankets and all the creature comforts obtainable in parts of the line they had formerly occupied. It was in this condition they were ordered to take the aggressive October 23. On the left of the Company's positions parts of the 102d and 101st Infantry regiments succeeded in straightening out a section of the line which threatened to prove a favorable position for a flanking attack by the enemy. This manœuver was completed with the aid of the artillery and machine guns.
The following day after preparation to resist an attack in the morning, orders were issued in the afternoon to clear the woods of Germans, and this task was attempted by L and M Companies of the 102d Infantry with D Company furnishing the machine guns. Without artillery preparation the men went forward, fighting through the tangled woods against an enemy entrenched, armed with innumerable machine guns and numerically superior, but lack of leaders and proper liaison with the units on their flanks forced them to return after they had almost gained their objective. Again on the morning of October 25 orders were issued to attempt the advance, but it again proved too much for the men.
With entire battalions formed into units, but slightly greater in size than a full infantry company and the men suffering from the exertion of the past few days and lack of sleep, a final attempt was made Sunday, October 27, to force the enemy from his positions in the woods which had a certain strategical importance in the military situation. As the barrage was scheduled to start at 10 o'clock that morning, all men were withdrawn from the front lines and held in readiness to attack when the curtain of fire thrown over by the artillery should lift enough at 11 o'clock to allow them to go forward.
Summoned to Battalion Headquarters, Lieutenant Paton left his post of command after the barrage was well under way and started down a communicating trench accompanied by Nutting. German artillery had started its reply and was doing all it could to prevent the attack which the Huns knew to be in preparation, and a life which had seemed charmed was taken as toll whenLieutenant Paton was killed by a fragment from a bursting shell. Wilfore and Lieutenant Pickett of the Infantry were mortal victims of the same messenger of death and Nutting suffered dozens of wounds from the small bits of steel which fill the air close to an exploding projectile.
Time after time under the leadership of non-commissioned officers from their own companies and several of the D Company sergeants the infantry went out onto that short stretch of ground separating them from the coveted German trenches, but each time they fell back, hundreds of casualties resulting from the perfect hail of machine gun bullets which the Germans sprayed across that section of "No Man's Land." In the command of a second lieutenant the third battalion of the 102d Infantry mustered one hundred and eighty men that night, practically one fifth of its authorized strength, while D Company had lost seventeen during the day from its already depleted personnel. A reorganization of the defenses of the sector was effected the next day, and three surplus guns were sent to the rear, the strength of the Company being too low to provide crews for them.
A little to the rear of the lines the bodies of Lieutenant Paton, Wilfore and Rosenkind were buried by the men and services at the graves were conducted at three o'clock on the afternoon of October 29 by Chaplain Creighton of the 101st Field Signal Battalion. Disheartened, as the men were, by the loss of their comrades and officer, this sorrow came at a time when their spirits were at a very low ebb. All about them in the line were the bodies of French, American and German dead, rude cemeteries were filled on every side and the fever of battle against overwhelming odds had begun to dull their senses to the finer emotions they would have experienced under different conditions.
Where such a large proportion of the men have the qualities of heroes a life is risked or given as a matter of completing the task in hand, so it is not strange that in spite of all the Company went through during this unequalled campaign but two were especially rewarded. George Eddy received the Croix de Guerre for work in destroying a machine gun crew which threatened the flank of the advancing infantry, and Mike Yuczszik was awarded both the Belgian and French war crosses for presence of mind in dropping the tripod he carried onto a Hun "potato-masher"grenade thrown into a shell hole occupied by his squad during an attack.
While carrying messages from Battalion Headquarters Bill Meickle was reported missing during the action of October 25. His name was added to the list of honored dead when it was found later that he had died in the hospital from wounds received in the performance of his duty.
Cited for gallantry during the Chateau Thierry drive, Sergeant C. Lyon Rogers had been recommended for a commission as second lieutenant and he was sworn in as an officer on October 28 after performing the duties of one for more than a month.
Relief by D Company, 103d Machine Gun Battalion was completed early on the morning of October 30, and the Company withdrew to a hillside south of Ormont Farm where it spent the day, and the following night moved to the place at the crossroads it had occupied before entering the line. Long range shelling of this position made rest impossible. Twelve mules were killed and seven wounded when a Hun projectile landed in the picket line, but Geer was the only man to suffer injury from the succeeding shells as the Company sought places nearer the top of the hill for safety.
Under way again, the Company relieved a group of French machine gunners on November 1 in the Bois des Caures, a kilometer northwest of Beaumont and slightly to the right of the positions occupied by it in the Ormont Woods. This was reputed to be a quiet sector and so it proved with the exception of occasional shelling when ration parties were due. One of these salvoes delivered against Lieutenant Nelson's post of command resulted in the wounding of Oscar Johnson and Bill Kennedy, the latter mortally. Kennedy had volunteered to aid in the distribution of rations and was struck at a time when his ordinary duties would have kept him out of danger.
Armistice rumors were numerous and convincing, but the invitation sent over by the Huns to become prisoners and end the fighting found no sympathy in the American lines. Many of the men were being sent to the hospital, suffering from gas, shell-shock and illness, but the largest percentage of these came from the replacements, who, although they had come to the Company fresh from training, failed to stand the rigors of the campaignas well as the men who had fought through nine months without rest.
Infantry raiding parties sent out to identify the German units in the line met with small success, but three prisoners they brought back were confident that the war would end within a few days as were all the French with whom the men came in contact. More reliance was placed in the reports from the latter, for the French soldier was always well informed as to probable events.
Meeting but weak resistance the infantry cleared the woods of Germans November 8, and it was during this operation that Lieutenant Rogers was killed by a machine gun bullet. He was in charge of two machine guns in the advance but had been asked to lead a party of infantry over the top and while organizing the men he met his death. His fearlessness had placed him as high in the esteem of neighboring units as it had in that of his own men. It was one of the doughboys who remarked that "he shouldn't have been a second lieutenant, but an infantry captain."
Advancing down the road in the direction of Ville devant Chaumont with the third battalion of the 102d Infantry, it was found that units on the right and left flanks had failed to keep up with the movement, so after consolidating the position, the men remained there during the night of the 8th and were withdrawn a half kilometer in the morning. The advance was taken up later in the day and continued through to the eastern edge of Champneuville woods, in the conquest of which Corporal Arthur Parmalee was wounded so severely he died that day.
The entire Battalion took up the march eastward on the 10th in support of the infantry. That night the doughboys were sent into Wavrille Woods to protect the flank of the advance. They were shelled heavily, but German dugouts and shell-proofs were as effective against Hun shell-fire as they had been against American bombardments, so the men rested comfortably until the next morning, when they were marched back to Beaumont, from which place, with the remnants of the third battalion of the 102d Infantry, they were ordered into the line to relieve the 101st Infantry. Reports had gained circulation that hostilities were to cease at 11 o'clock, but little credence was given them.
Orders were given out to begin the attack at 10:39 ceasing theadvance at 11:00, but it was 11:03 before the formations were perfected and the men ready to start after the enemy. Three minutes before this the artillery fire which had been practically continuous for days and had reached its greatest intensity in this region not long before the final hour suddenly ceased and an almost uncanny silence prevailed. Far from being hailed by the men as the hour for which they had struggled through seemingly endless days, it was greeted silently. Neither American nor enemy soldiers exhibited joy when they knew hostilities were at an end, but, under the spell of a war, which had been the most exciting, most terrible thing within the span of their lives, they awaited the realization of peace.
Keeping well out of sight during the daylight hours the Huns gave an indication of their feelings at night by providing a pyrotechnical display which vied with a July 4 celebration in brilliance. Rockets, verrey lights and flares were used in profusion, but there was no intercourse between D Company and its enemies, for early that night heavy, unbroken sleep was the portion of all except a few infantrymen who were used in establishing an outpost as a guard against possibilities and the last night on the line was spent in that prosaic but profitable manner.