CHAPTER VIII

i_171A TRENCH RAIDDrawn by Captain George Harding, A. E. F., MontfauconThe men returned in high excitement and fine spirits. This was the most successful minor operation we had had so far. I was with the raiding party when it jumped off and then went to the point where they were to check in as they got back. There were four parties in all. As each returned with its collection of prisoners, the first thing that the officer or sergeant in command asked was, "Sir, did any of the rest get any more prisoners than we did?" When I told one of them, Lieutenant Ridgely, that another party had brought in two more prisoners than he had, he wanted to go back at once and get some more himself.A very gallant fellow, Bradley, my liaison sergeant, asked and was granted permission to go on the raid. He turned up at the checking-in point driving three Germans in front of him, his rifle over his shoulder, the bayonet covered with blood and a Germanhelmet hanging from the end. As he passed I said, "Bradley, I see you have a new bonnet." He turned to me with a beaming smile and answered, "Why, Major, I heard that Mrs. Roosevelt wanted a German helmet and this was such a nice one that I stuck the man who had it on." Poor Bradley was, I believe, killed in the battle of Soissons, though I never have been able to get positive information.A curious instance of the way a man will carry one impression from an order in his mind and one only was given by this raid. Before the operation started I had given particular instructions to the effect that I wanted prisoners and papers. This is literally what the party brought back, lots of prisoners and papers of all sorts. They took the crews of two machine guns but did not bring the guns back—that was not included in the instructions. The company which made this raid was composed of raw recruits who had never had even the most rudimentary kind of military training until their arrival in Europe some five months before this date. Theywere of all walks in life and all extractions. Many did not even speak the English tongue with ease.It was in this sector that the First Division staged the first American attack when the town of Cantigny was taken. The attack was made by the Twenty-eighth Infantry. My battalion, although not actually engaged in the assault, was in support and took over the extreme right of the line after the assault. It also helped in repelling counter-attacks delivered by the Germans and in consolidating the position. Just preceding the Cantigny show the Germans strafed and gassed very heavily the positions held by us. I suspect that this was due to a certain amount of additional movement in the sector coincident with moving the troops into position for the attack.After gassing us and strafing us heavily a raid in considerable force was sent over by the Germans. It was repulsed with heavy loss, leaving a number of prisoners in our hands. A Company took the brunt of this, the platoon commanded by Lieutenant Andrewsdoing particularly well. Just after the repulse of the German attack I was up watching the right of the line, which was in trenches out in the open. The German machine guns and sharpshooters were very active. One of our men was lying behind the parapet. He had his helmet hooked on the end of his rifle and kept shoving it over the top. The Germans would fire at it. Then he would flag a miss for them by waving it to and fro in the same way the flag is waved for a miss when practice on the rifle range is going on.Our own losses were due in large part to the German artillery fire. In this operation a number of our most gallant old-timers were killed. Captain Frey, second in command of the battalion, was shot twice through the stomach while leading reënforcements to his front line. When the stretcher bearers carried him by me, he shook my hand, said "good-by," and was carried away to the rear. After they had moved him a short distance he lifted himself up, saluted, said in a loud voice, "Sergeant, dismiss the company," anddied. Sergeant Dennis Sullivan, Sergeant O'Rourke, and Sergeant McCormick, not to mention many, many others, were killed or received mortal wounds at this time.The Cantigny operation was a success. We took and held the town, or rather the spot where the town had been, for it would be an exaggeration to say it was even a ruin. It was literally beaten flat. This piece of land had seen the German invaders for the last time. We learned a valuable lesson also, namely, not to make the disposition of the men too thick. In this operation we did, and this, and the fact that our objective was necessarily limited in depth, caused us casualties, as the enemy artillery was not reached and opened on us before we had time to dig in and consolidate the position we had taken.Not all our operations were necessarily as successful as the ones I have mentioned above. Raids were organized and drew blanks. At times orders would reach us so late that it was exceedingly difficult to attempt their execution with much chance of success. For example,one night a message reached me that a prisoner was wanted for identification purposes by morning.As I recall, it happened as follows: The telephone buzzed; I answered, and the message came over the wire somewhat in this fashion: "Hello, hello, is this Hannibal? Hannibal, there is a friend we have back in the country [the brigadier general] who is very fond of radishes [prisoners]. He wants one for breakfast to-morrow morning without fail." This reached me at about ten or eleven o'clock. The raid had to be executed before daylight. In the meantime the plans had to be made, the company commander notified, the raiding party chosen, and all ranks instructed. Add to this that everything had to be done during the dark and you will see what a difficult proposition it was.I got hold of the company commander, got the men organized, telephoned to the artillery, and asked for five minutes' preparation fire on a certain point, joined the raiding party and went forward with it. Then the first of astring of misfortunes happened. On account of the hurry and the difficulty of transmission, the artillery mistook the coördinate and fired three hundred meters too short, with the result that an effective bit of preparation fire was wasted on my own raiding party. By the time this preparatory firing upon our own raiding party was over, the Germans naturally understood that something was happening, for why would we strafe our own front-line trenches to no purpose? The result was that when the raid went over, every machine gun in the area was watching for them. They got to the opposing wire, ran into cross-fire, and, after various casualties, found it entirely impossible to get by the enemy wire, and worked their way back.As they were working back a senior sergeant, Yarborough by name, was sitting in a shell hole, machine-gun bullets singing by him, checking his party as it came in. Lieutenant Ridgely, who had been with the party, came up to him. As he crawled along, Yarborough said to him: "Lieutenant, this reminds me ofa story. There was once a guy who decided to commit suicide by hanging himself. Just about the time he done a good job of it the rope broke. He was sitting up on the floor afterward when I came in, a-rubbing his neck, and when he saw me, all he said was, 'Gee, but that was dangerous.'"During this period the German Château-Thierry drive was made, again scoring a clean break-through. The Second Division, which was coming up to our rear to relieve us, was switched and thrown in front of the enemy. Shortly after the Huns attacked toward the town of Compiègne, in an endeavor to straighten out the reëntrant in their lines with its apex at Soissons. This latter attack passed by on our right flank.We, of course, got little but rumor. In the trenches you are only vitally concerned with what happens on your immediate right and left. What goes on ten kilometers away you know little about, and generally are so busy that you care less. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is a proverb that holdsgood in the line. In this last instance we were more interested because we believed that as a result of this attack the next point to stand a hammering would be where we were holding. Our policy, which held good through the war, was developed and put into action at this time. The orders were, all troops should resist to the last on the ground on which they stood. All movement should be from the rear forward and not to the rear. Whenever an element in the front line got in trouble, the elements immediately in the rear would counter-attack. This extended in depth back until it reached the division reserve, which, as our general put it, "would move up with him in command, and after that, replacements would be necessary."During the time when the Huns were making their Château-Thierry drive, Blalock, afterward sergeant of D Company, distinguished himself by a rather remarkable piece of marksmanship. Noticing a pigeon fluttering over the trench, he drew his automatic pistol and killed it on the wing. Thebird turned out to be a carrier pigeon loosed by one of the attacking regiments the Germans were using in their drive toward the Marne, and carried a message giving its position as twelve kilometers deeper in France than our higher command realized. At the same time it identified a division that we had not heard of for three months, and indicated by the fact that it was signed by a captain who was commanding the regiment that the Germans were finding it difficult to replace the losses among their officers.Instances occurred constantly which showed the spirit of both officers and men. A recruit, arriving one night as a replacement, got there just in time for a heavy strafing that the Germans were delivering. A dud—that is a shell that does not go off—went through the side of the dugout and took both of his legs off above the knees. These duds are very hot, and this one cauterized the wounds and the man did not bleed to death at once. The platoon leader, seeing that something had gone wrong on the right, went over to look and found the man propped up against the side of the trench.When he arrived, Kraakmo, the private, looked up at him and said, "Lieutenant, you have lost a hell of a good soldier."Another time, when we were moving forward to reënforce a threatened part of the line, a sergeant called O'Rourke was hit and badly wounded. As he fell I turned around and said: "Well, O'Rourke, they've got you." "They have sir," he answered, "but we have had a damned good time."Sergeant Steidel of A Company was a fine up-standing soldier and won the D. S. C. and the Médaille Militaire. He used to stay with me as my own personal bodyguard when I was away for any reason from headquarters. Steidel was afraid of nothing. He was always willing and always clear-headed. When I wanted a report of an exact situation, Steidel was the man whom I could send to get it. We used to have daylight patrols. One day a patrol of green men went out to obtain certain information. They were stampeded by something and came back into the part of the trench where Steidel was.He went out alone as an example to them, and came back with the information.Lieutenant Baxter, whom I have mentioned before, and a private called Upton patrolled across an almost impossible shell-beaten area to establish connection with the battalion on our left. They both went out cheerfully, and both, by some streak of luck, got back unhurt. Baxter, on returning, reported to ask if there was any other duty of a like nature that he could undertake right away.One night, when we were shifting a company from support to a position on our left flank, a heavy bombardment came on. A number of the men were killed and wounded while moving up. One sergeant, by the name of Nestowicz, born in Germany, was badly hit and left for dead. I was standing in the bushes on the side of the valley waiting for reports when I saw this man moving unsteadily toward me. I asked him what the matter was, and he replied that he had been hit, hiscompany had gone on and left him, and he had come up to ask me where he could find them. I said, "Hadn't you better go to the first aid, sergeant?" He said, "No sir, I am not hit that bad and I want to go back to my company. It looks as if they'd need me."Sergeant Dobbs, of B Company, badly wounded by a hand grenade, wrote me a letter, saying that he was well enough to come back, but the doctors would not let him come, and could not I do something about it. I took a chance and wrote, telling the medical authorities I would give him light work if they let him come back to the outfit. Dobbs turned up, was wounded again, and the last I heard of him was a letter written in late October, saying that he had never had the opportunity to thank me for getting him back. Mind you, getting him back merely meant, in his case, giving him the chance to get shot up again before he was thoroughly cured of his first wound. He finished by saying that he was in bad troublenow, as part of his nose had gone the last time he was wounded and they would not even keep him in France, but were sending him back to the United States. His last line was the hope that he would get well soon so he could get back to the outfit.There was a young fellow called Fenessey from Rochester, New York, in B Company. He was being educated for the Catholic priesthood. As soon as war was declared he enlisted and came over with the regiment. He did well and was a good man to have around the command because of his earnestness and humor. He was eventually made corporal of an automatic-rifle squad. His rifle was placed in the tip of a small patch of wood guarding a little valley that ran back toward the center of our position. These valleys were important, as down them the Germans generally delivered thrusts. The Huns, one morning, strafed heavily our position. Fenessey's automatic rifle was destroyed and he was hard hit, his right arm torn off and his right side mangled. Fenessey knewhe was dying. The strafing stopped, the first-aid men worked in, and Fenessey was carried to the rear. They heard him mumble something, listened carefully, and found he wished to be taken to his company commander. They carried him back to Lieutenant Holmes. When he saw Lieutenant Holmes, he said: "Sir, my automatic rifle has been destroyed. I think the company commander should send one up immediately to take its place." Fenessey died ten minutes later.Quick promotion, unfortunately not in rank, simply in responsibility, occurred all the time. Of the four infantry company commanders which had started, only one was surviving when we left this sector. In each case a lieutenant took command of the company and did it in the finest shape possible. Lieutenants Cathers and Jackson were killed here at the head of their platoons, and Lieutenants Smith and Gustafson died from the effect of wounds. Lieutenant Freml, who was killed in a raid, had numerous narrow escapes.I remember one time we were going together over the top on a reconnoitering party preparatory to redisposition of the troops. Freml had as his personal orderly a very bright little Jew from San Francisco—Drabkin by name, who had kept a junk-shop. The little fellow seemed to run true to former training, for he always went around festooned with pistols, "blinkers," notebooks, and everything conceivable. A shell hit beside them, Freml being between this man and the shell. Freml was untouched, but the man was torn to pieces.One young fellow seemed, for a while, to bear a sort of charmed life. Unfortunately this did not last, and he was killed in the battle of Soissons. He was very proud of the things that had happened to him. One night, while I was inspecting the front trenches, he said to me, "Major, I have been buried by shells twice to-day. The last time I only had one arm sticking out so they could find me. All the other men in the dugout have been killed and I ain't even been scratched."It was here that Lieutenant Ridgely earnedfor himself the nickname of the idiot strategist, which he went by for a long while in the battalion. The Huns were putting up a pretty lively demonstration on our left. A message reached me that they were attacking. I made my preparations to counter-attack, if necessary, and sent runners to the various units concerned to advise them of this plan. The runner who was bringing the message to Ridgely's platoon lost it in the shuffle. Runners are made to repeat messages verbally to take care of contingencies just like this. However, this does not always work, and when he got to Ridgely, the only message he could remember was, "The Major orders you to counter-attack, and help the troops on our left."It seemed a pretty forlorn business to counter-attack with one platoon, but neither Ridgely nor the platoon considered this was anything which really concerned them. They hastily formed up and moved to the left. They got over and found that the Germans had been successfully repulsed and that theywere among our own troops. The Captain in charge of the company told Ridgely to go back. Ridgely thought for a moment and said, "No, my Major's orders were to counter-attack to assist the troops on the left," and it was only with difficulty that they persuaded him that he must not stage a little private adventure then and there against the German lines.In this sector we experienced our most severe gas attacks. It is a thoroughly unpleasant thing to hear gas shells coming over in quantity. Often an attack begins much as follows: It draws toward morning; the digging parties file back toward their positions. Suddenly shelling begins to increase in volume. Private Bill Smith notes a sort of a warbling sound overhead and remarks to Private Bill Jones, "Gee, Bill, they're gassing us." Next, reports come in from various sections that they are gassing Fontaine Woods, Cantigny Woods, and the valley between. You stand out on some point of vantage and listen to the shells singing over and bursting.As day dawns you see a thick gray mist spreading itself through the valley. The men have slipped on their gas masks. The question now is, what's up? Just meanness on the part of the Huns, or is it part of some ulterior design to straighten the salient and nip off the two points of woods we are holding? How heavy is the gassing to be? How quickly will the wind carry it away? A thousand and one other questions.You send your gas officer up to test. You go up yourself and generally know as much as the gas officer. Our general experience was that the first gas casualties we had were the gas officers. You decide that, as nothing has developed up to this time, it is probable that if any attack is planned by the Huns it is not intended to take place this morning. You get your men out of the heavily gassed areas and try to determine where is the best place for them to be well protected, to cover practically the same territory, and not to be too much exposed to the gas. By this time they have been sweating in their gas masks forthree hours or more with the usual number of fools and accidents contributing to the casualties. You carefully redispose them while a desultory bombardment by the Germans adds to the general joy of life. You get them redisposed. The wind changes, the gas is carried to the position where they are. You have to change them again. To add to the general complications, the chow which was brought up last night is spoiled. It has been in the gassed area and the men must go hungry until the next evening. You come back to your dugout and find that in some mysterious way the gas has gone down into the dugout, so you prop yourself in the corner of the trench and carry on from there. Altogether it is a happy and joyful occasion. Your one consolation rests in the fact that your artillery is now earnestly engaged in retaliating on their infantry.Speaking of artillery, there is one thing that always used to fill us, the infantry, with woe and grief. A paper would come up, reading, "Nothing to report on the (blank) sectorexcept severe artillery duels." "Severe artillery duels" to the uninitiated means that the opposing artillery fights one with the other. This, however, is not the custom. Your artillery shells their infantry hard and then their artillery shells your infantry hard. This is an artillery duel. The infantry is on the receiving end in both cases.Our artillery was particularly good. General Summerall, who commanded, I have been told, preached to his men that the primary duty of that arm was to help the infantry, and that to do this properly in all war of movement they should follow the advancing troops as closely as possible. Once I saw a battery of the Seventh F. A. wheel up and go into action not more than two hundred yards from the front line. We, on our part, endeavored to call uselessly on the artillery as little as possible.At times our own artillery would drop a few "shorts" into us but this is unavoidable and the infantry felt too strongly what had been done for them to pay much attention.In one of the German dugouts we captured,a lieutenant told me he found a sign reading, "We fear no one but God and our own artillery."Sector matériel is something that always adds interest to the life of the officers in trench warfare. Sector matériel consists of all varieties of articles, from tins of bully beef and rusty grenades to quantities of grubby, illegible orders and lists, and mangled maps. These remain in the sector and are turned over by each unit to the next succeeding. Theoretically a careful inventory is made and each individual article checked each time.Moreover, to keep the higher command satisfied, there must be maps—legions of maps. These maps do not have to be accurate. Indeed, they cannot possibly be accurate, but they must be beautifully marked in red, blue, yellow, and green with a pretty "legend" attached. The higher command never knows if the maps are correct, but they do know if they are not beautifully marked. In each sector there must be, first, a map indicating where all the trenches are.You, as commanding officer, are probably the only person who knows and you are too busy to put them down. Then there must also be maps indicating work in progress. Very generally they like a map to be turned in every day showing what work has been done during the night. How they expect anyone to do this is beyond anyone who has done it. Further, maps must show abandoned trenches; still further, there must be what is known to the high command as maps indicating "alternate gas positions." "Alternate gas positions" are impossible to indicate. Everything depends on which way the wind is blowing and what place is gassed. But the higher command wants these maps and it is simpler to placate them than to fight with them. I had a fine artillery liaison officer, called Chandler. He had had some training in topography and he kindly agreed to take over the map question. When a message came up from the rear demanding a map showing alternate gas position, he would get out his stack of blue pencils and make, withexquisite care, the nicest and most symmetrical blue lines. He would number them in black, arrange a margin between, putting green marks and yellow marks and red marks for other units; fold them up and send them back. It was quite simple for him. He did not have to consult anyone, it wasn't necessary to reconnoiter the ground; the map would go in with the morning report and all would be happy.Another sport indulged in by the higher command was to change the main line of defense and re-allot the defense system of the sector. To be really qualified to do this, you should on no account have any knowledge of the actual terrain. Indeed, I think in all my experience I never received a defense map from the higher command where the individual making the map had been over the ground. All that you do, if you are the higher command, is to get a beautiful large scale map, draw broad lines across it and then dotted lines to indicate boundaries. For nearly a month I defended a sector where the map was entirely wrong. Two patches of woods wererepresented as in a valley, whereas they were on a hill. This worried neither the higher command nor me. The higher command did not know that the map was wrong; they had sent me their beautiful little plans. I sent them equally beautiful ones without debating the matter, and all were satisfied.I remember one general who commanded the brigade of which I was a member. His hobby was switch lines. A switch line is simply a trench running approximately perpendicular to the front, where a defensive position can be taken up in case the enemy breaks through on the right or left and whereby you form a defensive flank. The old boy would come up, solemn as a judge, and ask me where my switch lines were to be put. With equal solemnity I would explain to him. After talking for a half an hour he would ask confidentially, "Major, what is a switch line?" With equal solemnity I would explain to him and conversation would cease. Three days thereafter we would go through the same thing again. The old fellow had heardsomeone talking about a switch line once and somehow felt that it counted a hundred in game to have one.Another indoor sport of the high command was a report for plans of defense. A plan of defense consisted of maps and long screeds indicating just where counter-attacks were to be launched when parts of the front line were taken by the enemy. They were beautiful things, pages and pages long. They were as gay in color as Joseph's proverbial coat, and when things broke, circumstances were always such that you did something entirely different from any of the plans.Still another sport was patrol reports and patrolling. The patrols were, according to instructions, arranged for by the higher command because the higher command knew nothing and could know nothing of the particular details that govern in any individual section of the front. They would send down to the battalion commander and demand statements, for their revision, as to what his patrols were to be for the night, when theywere to go out, what they were to do, etc. The battalion commander would send them his patrol sheet and then by the above-mentioned code they would endeavor to confer with him and debate the advisability of certain of his actions. Again experience taught the way out. You agreed with everything they said, and did what you originally intended. Next day they would want a map indicating exactly the points traversed by the patrol. Knee-deep in water in a filthy dugout, your adjutant or intelligence officer would make them this map. The map, like most maps, was for decorative purposes. No patrol wandering in a pitch-black night in the rain, stumbling on dead men, snarling itself in wire, lying flat on its bellies when the Hun flares shot up, could possibly tell exactly where it had gone. This was, happily, not known to the higher command, so they rested in blissful ignorance.I cannot leave the question of maps without discussing the all-absorbing topic of coördinates. A coördinate is a group of numbers which indicate an exact point on the map.If you have firmly got the system in your head, you can find the point accurately on the map. Any man, however, who thinks he can go and sit on a coördinate on the actual ground is either a lunatic or belongs to the higher command. Incidentally, in demanding reports of patrols, alternate gas positions, etc., the order usually, reads, "Battalion commander will furnish reports with coördinates."When I was recovering from a wound in my leg, I attended for two weeks our staff college. This college was well conceived and did excellent work, but nowhere were more evident the grievous faults of our unpreparedness. A good staff officer should have had practical experience with troops. If he has not had this experience he takes the thumb rules too literally and does not realize that they are simply rules to govern in general. We had practically no officers with this experience. The result was that the students, good fellows, most of them men who had never been in action, attached too much importance to the figures and did not realize it was the theorythat was important. Infantry, according to staff problems, always marches four kilometers an hour. March graphics are drawn with columns which clear points, with three hundred meters to spare between them and the head of the next column after both columns have marched ten kilometers to the point of junction. No account is taken of the fact that rarely, if ever, does infantry exceed in rate of march three and one half kilometers under the ordinary conditions prevailing in France, and that bad weather, bad roads, etc., bring it to three kilometers. What a commanding officer of troops must bear in mind is not simply getting his troops to a given point, but getting them to that given point in such shape that they are able to perform the task set them when they arrive. Furthermore, roads given on the map are accepted with the sublime faith of a child. I remember once having my regiment on the march for twelve hours because the trail on which we had all been ordered to proceed necessitated the men going single file, and the infantryof a division single file stretches out indefinitely.Our troops had now begun to arrive in France in large numbers. It was more than a year after the commencement of the war before this was effected. The inability of our national administration to bring itself to the point where it considered patriotism as above politics was largely responsible for this. Every move forward toward the active pushing of the war was the result of the pressure of the people on Washington. When I say that our troops were coming across in large numbers, let it be borne in mind that, though the men did come, munitions and weapons of war did not. The Browning automatic rifle, for example, to my mind one of the greatest weapons developed by the war, was invented in the United States in the summer of 1917. When the war finished it had just been placed for the first time in the hands of a limited number of our divisions; my division, the First, never had them until a month after the armistice. We used the old French chauchat,a very inferior weapon. None of our airplanes had come, and the death of many of our young men was directly traceable to this, as they, of necessity, used inferior machines. Our cannon was and remained French and its ammunition was French. Our troops were at times issued British uniforms and many of the men objected strenuously to wearing them on account of the buttons with the crown stamped on them. Our supply of boots, up to and including the march into Germany, was composed in part of British boots. These boots had a low instep and caused much foot trouble. These are facts that no amount of words can cover, no speeches explain away.CHAPTER VIIISOISSONS"And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy."Tennyson.EARLYin July rumors reached us that we were going to be relieved. At first we did not attach any importance to this, as we had heard many rumors of a like nature during the months we had been in the sector. At last, however, the French officers came up to reconnoiter, and we knew it was true. We were relieved and marched back to some little village near the old French town of Beauvais. Everyone was as happy as a king. Here we heard that the plan was to form a corps of the Second Division and our division, train and recruit them for a month, and make an offensive with us some time late in August or September. General Bullard, our division commanderwho had been, in turn, colonel of the Twenty-eighth Infantry, brigadier general commanding the Second Brigade, and division commander, was to be corps commander. This pleased us very much, as we had great confidence in him.We had been in these villages only for a few days when orders reached us to entruck and proceed to some towns only a short distance from Paris. This appealed to us all, for if we were going to train and rest for a month, no more delightful place could be chosen for one and all than the vicinity of Paris.The buses arrived and all night we jolted southwest through the forest of Chantilly. By morning we arrived and detrucked and the brown columns wound through the fresh green landscape to the charming little gray stone towns. The town where we were to stay was called Ver. It was built on rolling country and its gray cobble-paved streets twisted and wound up hill and down through a maze of picturesque gray houses in whose doors well-dressed, bright-cheeked women andchildren stood watching us. On the hill were the remains of an old wall and château, and at the foot, through a broad meadow shaded with trees, a fair-sized brook rippled. Jean Jacques Rousseau lived and wrote there. How he could have been such a hypocrite and have lived in such a charming place is more than I can see.The men were delighted. "Say, Buddie, this is some town; look at that stream!"—"Bonne billets."—"Let's fight the rest of the war here"—were some of the remarks I heard as the column swung in.Everything was ideal. The stream above mentioned furnished a bathtub for the command. We had had no opportunity for about two months to thoroughly bathe, as we had been on active work the entire time, and you can imagine in just what condition we were. To put it in the words of one of my company commanders, "The command was as lousy as pet coons." The first day we spent in orienting ourselves, getting the kitchens arranged and the billets comfortable. Meanwhilethe troops were down bathing in the stream, to the admiring interest of the French inhabitants, who lined the bridge. To our staid Americans the unconventional attitude of interest in bathing troops displayed by the French inhabitants of all ages and both sexes was a source of constant embarrassment. I have known a platoon sergeant to guide his men to quite a distant point to take their baths. When I asked him why, he replied, "Sir, it isn't decent with all them frogs looking on."That evening, at officers' meeting, everyone was on the crest of the wave, "sitting on the world," as the doughboy puts it. The officers established their mess in various houses, and I remember to this day Lieutenant Kern, as gallant an officer as ever it was my pleasure to know, who was mortally wounded some three days from this time, telling me that they had the prettiest French girl in all of France as a waitress at his company mess and that they were all going to give her lessons in English. We talked over training and made all arrangements for a long stay. The onlydissenting voice was that of the medical officer, Captain E. D. Morgan. He, Cassandra-like, prophesied that the town was too nice and we would be moved soon.Next morning, while I was out going over the village, selecting drill grounds and planning the schedule, a motorcycle orderly arrived and handed me a message which read, "You will be prepared to entruck your battalion at two this afternoon." This meant no rest for us. We realized that a move on our part now meant one thing and one thing only, that something serious had arisen, and that we were going in again. Rumor had been rife for two or three days past that the big Hun offensive was about to start again. In the army, among the front-line troops, practically all you get is rumor about what is happening daily. Where the rumor starts from it is impossible to say, but it travels like lightning. Officers' call was sounded, and when they had assembled, I read them the order and told them it was my opinion we were going into a big battle right away. The men were immediatelyassembled and told the same thing. We always felt that all information possible should be given to the men. Instead of the command being downcast at the idea of leaving their well-deserved rest, their spirits rose. Immediately bustle and preparation was evident everywhere in the town.By one o'clock the truck train was creaking into place on the road. Oddly enough the truck train was made up of White trucks, made in Cleveland, with Indo-Chinese drivers and was under the command of a French officer. The troops filed by in columns of twos toward the entrucking point. The men were laughing and joking. "They can't do without us now, Bill." "Say, Nick, look over there" (pointing toward a grave yard), "them's the rest billets of this battalion, and that" (indicating a rather imposing tomb) "is the battalion headquarters." Many of them were singing the national anthem of the doughboy,Hail! Hail! the Gang's All Here.I got into the automobile of the French commander of the train, taking with me LieutenantKern, as he was pretty well played out and I wanted to spare him as much as possible. The French train commander had no idea what our ultimate destination was. All he knew was a route for about sixty kilometers, at the end of which he was to report for further orders at a little town. As we ran up and down the column of trucks checking the train to make sure that all units were present and all properly loaded, the men were singing and cheering.As all afternoon we jolted northward through clouds of dust, rumors came in picked up from French officers on the roadside. The Hun had attacked in force east and west of Rheims in a desperate attempt to break the French army in two. East of Rheims they had met with a stone-wall resistance by Gouraud's army and been hurled back with heavy loss. West of Rheims their attack had been more successful, and they were reported to have broken through, crossed the Marne, and to be now moving on Châlons.As night fell the jolting truck train pressedever farther north. At the regulating station, by the shaded flare of an electric torch, we got our orders: we were to proceed to Palesne. We guessed on receiving them what our mission was. We were pushing straight north into the reëntrant into the German lines, at the peak of which was Soissons. Our destination was a large wood. We realized that we were probably to form part of an offensive to be made against the Hun right flank, which should have as its object, first, by pressure at this point, to stop the attack on Châlons; second, if it was possible, to penetrate far enough to force the evacuation of the Château-Thierry salient by threatening their lines of communication. In the early dawn the troops detrucked, sloshed through the mud, and bivouacked in the woods. Every care possible was taken to get the troops under cover of the woods and the trucks away before daylight in order to avoid any possible chance of observation by the Germans.All day we became more certain that our guess as to our probable mission was correct.We heard that the Foreign Legion and the Second American Division had come up on our right. We knew that our division, the Foreign Legion, and the Second Division, would not be concentrated at the same point if it did not mean a real offensive.Soon after the orders for the attack were given us. Apparently the idea was to stake all on one throw. Marshal Foch had decided on a counter-offensive in this part and had delegated to General Mangin, commander of the French army, the task of putting it into execution. Mangin desired to make this offensive, if possible, a complete surprise. All care was used that no unnecessary movement took place among our troops in the back area. We were not to take over the position from the French troops holding the front line, as was generally customary for the attacking troops before an action, but rather to march up on the night of the offensive and attack through them. Fortunately, from the point of view of secrecy, the night before the attack it rained cats and dogs. The infantry sloggedthrough the mud, up roads cut to pieces by trucks and over trails ankle deep in water. The artillery skittered and strained into place. The tanks clanked and rattled up, breaking the columns and tearing up what was left of the road. It was so dark you could hardly see your hand before your face.As a part of the element of surprise there was to be but a short period of preparatory bombardment. The artillery was to fire what the French call "the fire of destruction" for five minutes on the front line, and then to move to the next objective. This bombardment was to commence at 4.30, and at 4.35 the men were to go over the top.The troops all reached the position safely by about 4 o'clock. Our position lay along the edge of a rugged and steep ravine. The rain had stopped and the first faint pink of the early summer morning lighted the sky. Absolute silence hung over everything, broken only by the twittering of birds. Suddenly out of the stillness, without the warning of a preliminary shot, our artillery opened with a crash.All along the horizon, silhouetted against the pale pink of the early dawn, was the tufted smoke of high explosive shells, and the burst of shrapnel showed in flashes like the spitting of a broken electric wire in a hailstorm. After the bombardment had been going on for two or three minutes, D company, on the right, became impatient and wanted to attack, and I heard the men begin to call, "Let's go, let's go!"At 4.35 the infantry went over. The surprise was complete. Germans were killed in their dugouts half dressed. One of the units of the division captured a colonel and his staff still in his dugout. So rapid was the advance on the first day that the German advance batteries were taken. The French cavalry followed up our advance, looking for a break-through. By night all the objectives were taken and the troops bivouacked in the captured position. During the night Hun airplanes flew low over us dropping flares and throwing small bombs. Next morning the attack started again. We ran into much machine-gun fire. "Only those who have danced to its music can know what the mitrailleuse means."i_215AN AIR RAIDDrawn by Captain George Harding, A. E. F., August, 1918The Germans now rushed up all the reserves they could to hold this threatened point. On the second day we took prisoners from four Hun divisions in front of the regiment. One prisoner told us he had marched twenty-four kilometers during the preceding night. For five days the advance continued, until the final objective was taken and we held the Château-Thierry-Soissons railroad and the Germans ordered a general retreat. I was not fortunate enough to see the last half of this battle, as I was wounded. I heard about it, however, from men who had been all through it.Our casualties were very heavy. At the end of the battle, companies in some cases came out commanded by corporals, and battalions by second lieutenants. In the battle the regiment lost most of the men that built it up.Colonel Hamilton A. Smith, as fine an officerand as true a gentleman as I have ever known, was killed by machine-gun fire while he was verifying his outpost line. Major McCloud, a veteran of the Philippines who had served with the British for three years, was killed on the second day. I have somewhere a note written by him to me shortly before his death. He was on the left, where heavy resistance was being encountered. I had just sent him a message advising him that I was attacking in the direction of Ploisy. His answer, which was brought by a wounded runner, read: "My staff are all either killed or wounded. Will attack toward the northeast against machine-gun nests. Good hunting!"Lieutenant Colonel Elliott was killed by shell fire. Captain J. H. Holmes, a gallant young South Carolinian, was killed. He left in the United States, a young wife and a baby he had never seen. Captains Mood, Hamel, and Richards were killed. Lieutenant Kern, of whom I spoke before, was mortally wounded while gallantly leading his company. Lieutenant Clarke died in the hospital from theeffect of his wounds a few days later. Clarke was a big, strapping fellow who feared nothing. Once he remarked to me: "Yes, it is a messy damn war, sir, but it's the only one we've got and I guess we have got to make the best of it." These are only a few of those who fell. Both Major Compton and Major Travis were wounded.The Twenty-sixth Infantry was brought out of the fight, when it was relieved, by Lieutenant Colonel (then Captain) Barnwell Rhett Legge, of South Carolina. Colonel Legge started the war as a second lieutenant. When I first knew him he was adjutant of the Third Battalion. Later he took a company and commanded it during the early fighting. He was then made adjutant of the regiment, and two or three times I recall his asking the Colonel to let him go back with his company. Captain Frey, killed earlier, who was originally my senior company commander, thought very highly of him and used to "josh" him continually. Once Legge took out a raiding party and captured a German prisoner fifty-fouryears old. Frey never let him hear the last of it, asking him if he considered it a sportsmanlike proceeding to take a man of that age, and saying that a man who would do such a thing would shoot quail on the ground and catch a trout with a worm. All during my service in Europe, Legge served with me. During the latter part he was my second in command in the regiment. I have seen him under all circumstances. He was always cool and decided. No mission was too difficult for him to undertake. His ability as a troop leader was of the highest order. In my opinion no man of his age has a better war record.An amusing incident occurred in Lieutenant Baxter's platoon during the battle. The men were advancing to the attack perhaps a couple of hundred yards from the Germans. They were moving forward in squad columns as they were going through a valley where they were defiladed from machine-gun fire, though the enemy was firing on them with its artillery. Suddenly Baxter heard rifle fire behind him. He wheeled around and saw that a rabbit hadjumped up in front of the left of the platoon and the men were firing at it.The worst strain of the battle came during the last two days when casualties had been so heavy as to take off many of the field officers and most of the company commanders, when the remnants of the regiments pressed forward and captured Berzy-le-Sec and the railroad. It is always more difficult for the juniors in a battle like this, for they generally do not know what is at stake. General Frank Parker told me how, during the fourth day, when battalions of eight hundred men had shrunk to a hundred and it looked as if the division would be wiped out, and even he was wondering whether we were not losing the efficiency of the division without getting a compensatory gain, General C. P. Summerall, the division commander, came to his headquarters and said: "General, the German high command has ordered the first general retreat since the first battle of the Marne."General Summerall took command of the division just before Soissons, when GeneralBullard was given the corps. He had previously commanded the artillery of the division. The division always regarded him as their own particular general. He was known by the nickname of "Sitting Bull." He is, in my opinion, one of the few really great troop leaders developed by us during the war. At this battle General Summerall is reported to have made a statement which was often quoted in the division. Some staff officer from the corps had asked him if, after the very heavy casualties we had received, we were capable of making another attack. He replied: "Sir, when the First Division has only two men left they will be echeloned in depth and attacking toward Berlin."Beside the First Division, the Foreign Legion and the Second Division were meeting the same type of work and suffering the same losses. No finer fighting units existed than these two. A very real compliment that was paid the Second Division was the fact that the rank and file of our division was always glad when circumstances ordained that the divisionsshould fight side by side. I have often heard the junior officers discussing it.The division was relieved by the Seaforth and Gordon Highlanders. When I was going to the rear, wounded, I passed their advancing columns. They were a fine set of men—tall, broad-shouldered, and fit looking. They, too, were in high spirits. The morale of the Allies had changed within twenty-four hours. They felt, and rightly, that the Hun had been turned. Never from this moment to the end of the war did it change.This Highland division showed its appreciation of the American division by the following order that was sent to our higher command:Headquarters 1st Division,American Expeditionary Forces,France, August 4th, 1918.General OrderNo. 42.The following is published for the information of all concerned as evidence of the appreciation of the 15th Scottish Division of such assistance as this Division may have rendered them upon their taking over the sector from us in the recent operation south of Soissons:15th Scottish Division No. G-705 24-7-18To General Officers Commanding,First American Division.I would like on behalf of all ranks of the 15th Division to express to you personally, and to your staff, and to all our comrades in your splendid Division, our most sincere thanks for all that has been done to help us in a difficult situation.During many instances of taking over which we have experienced in the war we have never received such assistance, and that rendered on a most generous scale. In spite of its magnificent success in the recent fighting, your Division must have been feeling the strain of operations, accentuated by very heavy casualties, yet we could discern no symptom of fatigue when it came to a question of adding to it by making our task easier.To your artillery commander (Col. Holbrook) and his Staff, and to the units under his command, our special thanks are due. Without hesitation when he saw our awkward predicament as to artillery support the guns of your Division denied themselves relief in order to assist us in an attack. This attack was only partly successful, but the artillery support was entirely so.Without the help of Colonel Mabee and his establishment of ambulance cars, I have no hesitation in saying that at least four hundred of our wounded would still be on our hands in this area.The 15th Scottish Division desires me to say that our hope is that we may have opportunity of rendering some slight return to the First American Division for all the latter has done for us, and further that we may yet find ourselves shoulder to shoulder defeating the enemy in what we hope is the final stage of this war.Signed:H. L. Reed,Major GeneralComdg. 15th Scottish Div.By Command of Major General Summerall:H. K. Loughry,Major, F. A. N. A.,Div. Adjt.The Highlanders cheered as the wounded Americans passed by them. One lieutenant called out to me, "How far have you gone?" I answered, "About six kilometers." "Good," he said. "We'll go another six."After the battle the division was withdrawn to near Paris. Many of the officers came to see me, where I was laid up with a bulletthrough the leg. Major A. W. Kenner, the regimental surgeon, who had again distinguished himself by his gallantry, and Captain Legge were both in, looking little the worse for the wear.CHAPTER IXST. MIHIEL AND THE ARGONNE

i_171

A TRENCH RAIDDrawn by Captain George Harding, A. E. F., Montfaucon

The men returned in high excitement and fine spirits. This was the most successful minor operation we had had so far. I was with the raiding party when it jumped off and then went to the point where they were to check in as they got back. There were four parties in all. As each returned with its collection of prisoners, the first thing that the officer or sergeant in command asked was, "Sir, did any of the rest get any more prisoners than we did?" When I told one of them, Lieutenant Ridgely, that another party had brought in two more prisoners than he had, he wanted to go back at once and get some more himself.

A very gallant fellow, Bradley, my liaison sergeant, asked and was granted permission to go on the raid. He turned up at the checking-in point driving three Germans in front of him, his rifle over his shoulder, the bayonet covered with blood and a Germanhelmet hanging from the end. As he passed I said, "Bradley, I see you have a new bonnet." He turned to me with a beaming smile and answered, "Why, Major, I heard that Mrs. Roosevelt wanted a German helmet and this was such a nice one that I stuck the man who had it on." Poor Bradley was, I believe, killed in the battle of Soissons, though I never have been able to get positive information.

A curious instance of the way a man will carry one impression from an order in his mind and one only was given by this raid. Before the operation started I had given particular instructions to the effect that I wanted prisoners and papers. This is literally what the party brought back, lots of prisoners and papers of all sorts. They took the crews of two machine guns but did not bring the guns back—that was not included in the instructions. The company which made this raid was composed of raw recruits who had never had even the most rudimentary kind of military training until their arrival in Europe some five months before this date. Theywere of all walks in life and all extractions. Many did not even speak the English tongue with ease.

It was in this sector that the First Division staged the first American attack when the town of Cantigny was taken. The attack was made by the Twenty-eighth Infantry. My battalion, although not actually engaged in the assault, was in support and took over the extreme right of the line after the assault. It also helped in repelling counter-attacks delivered by the Germans and in consolidating the position. Just preceding the Cantigny show the Germans strafed and gassed very heavily the positions held by us. I suspect that this was due to a certain amount of additional movement in the sector coincident with moving the troops into position for the attack.

After gassing us and strafing us heavily a raid in considerable force was sent over by the Germans. It was repulsed with heavy loss, leaving a number of prisoners in our hands. A Company took the brunt of this, the platoon commanded by Lieutenant Andrewsdoing particularly well. Just after the repulse of the German attack I was up watching the right of the line, which was in trenches out in the open. The German machine guns and sharpshooters were very active. One of our men was lying behind the parapet. He had his helmet hooked on the end of his rifle and kept shoving it over the top. The Germans would fire at it. Then he would flag a miss for them by waving it to and fro in the same way the flag is waved for a miss when practice on the rifle range is going on.

Our own losses were due in large part to the German artillery fire. In this operation a number of our most gallant old-timers were killed. Captain Frey, second in command of the battalion, was shot twice through the stomach while leading reënforcements to his front line. When the stretcher bearers carried him by me, he shook my hand, said "good-by," and was carried away to the rear. After they had moved him a short distance he lifted himself up, saluted, said in a loud voice, "Sergeant, dismiss the company," anddied. Sergeant Dennis Sullivan, Sergeant O'Rourke, and Sergeant McCormick, not to mention many, many others, were killed or received mortal wounds at this time.

The Cantigny operation was a success. We took and held the town, or rather the spot where the town had been, for it would be an exaggeration to say it was even a ruin. It was literally beaten flat. This piece of land had seen the German invaders for the last time. We learned a valuable lesson also, namely, not to make the disposition of the men too thick. In this operation we did, and this, and the fact that our objective was necessarily limited in depth, caused us casualties, as the enemy artillery was not reached and opened on us before we had time to dig in and consolidate the position we had taken.

Not all our operations were necessarily as successful as the ones I have mentioned above. Raids were organized and drew blanks. At times orders would reach us so late that it was exceedingly difficult to attempt their execution with much chance of success. For example,one night a message reached me that a prisoner was wanted for identification purposes by morning.

As I recall, it happened as follows: The telephone buzzed; I answered, and the message came over the wire somewhat in this fashion: "Hello, hello, is this Hannibal? Hannibal, there is a friend we have back in the country [the brigadier general] who is very fond of radishes [prisoners]. He wants one for breakfast to-morrow morning without fail." This reached me at about ten or eleven o'clock. The raid had to be executed before daylight. In the meantime the plans had to be made, the company commander notified, the raiding party chosen, and all ranks instructed. Add to this that everything had to be done during the dark and you will see what a difficult proposition it was.

I got hold of the company commander, got the men organized, telephoned to the artillery, and asked for five minutes' preparation fire on a certain point, joined the raiding party and went forward with it. Then the first of astring of misfortunes happened. On account of the hurry and the difficulty of transmission, the artillery mistook the coördinate and fired three hundred meters too short, with the result that an effective bit of preparation fire was wasted on my own raiding party. By the time this preparatory firing upon our own raiding party was over, the Germans naturally understood that something was happening, for why would we strafe our own front-line trenches to no purpose? The result was that when the raid went over, every machine gun in the area was watching for them. They got to the opposing wire, ran into cross-fire, and, after various casualties, found it entirely impossible to get by the enemy wire, and worked their way back.

As they were working back a senior sergeant, Yarborough by name, was sitting in a shell hole, machine-gun bullets singing by him, checking his party as it came in. Lieutenant Ridgely, who had been with the party, came up to him. As he crawled along, Yarborough said to him: "Lieutenant, this reminds me ofa story. There was once a guy who decided to commit suicide by hanging himself. Just about the time he done a good job of it the rope broke. He was sitting up on the floor afterward when I came in, a-rubbing his neck, and when he saw me, all he said was, 'Gee, but that was dangerous.'"

During this period the German Château-Thierry drive was made, again scoring a clean break-through. The Second Division, which was coming up to our rear to relieve us, was switched and thrown in front of the enemy. Shortly after the Huns attacked toward the town of Compiègne, in an endeavor to straighten out the reëntrant in their lines with its apex at Soissons. This latter attack passed by on our right flank.

We, of course, got little but rumor. In the trenches you are only vitally concerned with what happens on your immediate right and left. What goes on ten kilometers away you know little about, and generally are so busy that you care less. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is a proverb that holdsgood in the line. In this last instance we were more interested because we believed that as a result of this attack the next point to stand a hammering would be where we were holding. Our policy, which held good through the war, was developed and put into action at this time. The orders were, all troops should resist to the last on the ground on which they stood. All movement should be from the rear forward and not to the rear. Whenever an element in the front line got in trouble, the elements immediately in the rear would counter-attack. This extended in depth back until it reached the division reserve, which, as our general put it, "would move up with him in command, and after that, replacements would be necessary."

During the time when the Huns were making their Château-Thierry drive, Blalock, afterward sergeant of D Company, distinguished himself by a rather remarkable piece of marksmanship. Noticing a pigeon fluttering over the trench, he drew his automatic pistol and killed it on the wing. Thebird turned out to be a carrier pigeon loosed by one of the attacking regiments the Germans were using in their drive toward the Marne, and carried a message giving its position as twelve kilometers deeper in France than our higher command realized. At the same time it identified a division that we had not heard of for three months, and indicated by the fact that it was signed by a captain who was commanding the regiment that the Germans were finding it difficult to replace the losses among their officers.

Instances occurred constantly which showed the spirit of both officers and men. A recruit, arriving one night as a replacement, got there just in time for a heavy strafing that the Germans were delivering. A dud—that is a shell that does not go off—went through the side of the dugout and took both of his legs off above the knees. These duds are very hot, and this one cauterized the wounds and the man did not bleed to death at once. The platoon leader, seeing that something had gone wrong on the right, went over to look and found the man propped up against the side of the trench.When he arrived, Kraakmo, the private, looked up at him and said, "Lieutenant, you have lost a hell of a good soldier."

Another time, when we were moving forward to reënforce a threatened part of the line, a sergeant called O'Rourke was hit and badly wounded. As he fell I turned around and said: "Well, O'Rourke, they've got you." "They have sir," he answered, "but we have had a damned good time."

Sergeant Steidel of A Company was a fine up-standing soldier and won the D. S. C. and the Médaille Militaire. He used to stay with me as my own personal bodyguard when I was away for any reason from headquarters. Steidel was afraid of nothing. He was always willing and always clear-headed. When I wanted a report of an exact situation, Steidel was the man whom I could send to get it. We used to have daylight patrols. One day a patrol of green men went out to obtain certain information. They were stampeded by something and came back into the part of the trench where Steidel was.He went out alone as an example to them, and came back with the information.

Lieutenant Baxter, whom I have mentioned before, and a private called Upton patrolled across an almost impossible shell-beaten area to establish connection with the battalion on our left. They both went out cheerfully, and both, by some streak of luck, got back unhurt. Baxter, on returning, reported to ask if there was any other duty of a like nature that he could undertake right away.

One night, when we were shifting a company from support to a position on our left flank, a heavy bombardment came on. A number of the men were killed and wounded while moving up. One sergeant, by the name of Nestowicz, born in Germany, was badly hit and left for dead. I was standing in the bushes on the side of the valley waiting for reports when I saw this man moving unsteadily toward me. I asked him what the matter was, and he replied that he had been hit, hiscompany had gone on and left him, and he had come up to ask me where he could find them. I said, "Hadn't you better go to the first aid, sergeant?" He said, "No sir, I am not hit that bad and I want to go back to my company. It looks as if they'd need me."

Sergeant Dobbs, of B Company, badly wounded by a hand grenade, wrote me a letter, saying that he was well enough to come back, but the doctors would not let him come, and could not I do something about it. I took a chance and wrote, telling the medical authorities I would give him light work if they let him come back to the outfit. Dobbs turned up, was wounded again, and the last I heard of him was a letter written in late October, saying that he had never had the opportunity to thank me for getting him back. Mind you, getting him back merely meant, in his case, giving him the chance to get shot up again before he was thoroughly cured of his first wound. He finished by saying that he was in bad troublenow, as part of his nose had gone the last time he was wounded and they would not even keep him in France, but were sending him back to the United States. His last line was the hope that he would get well soon so he could get back to the outfit.

There was a young fellow called Fenessey from Rochester, New York, in B Company. He was being educated for the Catholic priesthood. As soon as war was declared he enlisted and came over with the regiment. He did well and was a good man to have around the command because of his earnestness and humor. He was eventually made corporal of an automatic-rifle squad. His rifle was placed in the tip of a small patch of wood guarding a little valley that ran back toward the center of our position. These valleys were important, as down them the Germans generally delivered thrusts. The Huns, one morning, strafed heavily our position. Fenessey's automatic rifle was destroyed and he was hard hit, his right arm torn off and his right side mangled. Fenessey knewhe was dying. The strafing stopped, the first-aid men worked in, and Fenessey was carried to the rear. They heard him mumble something, listened carefully, and found he wished to be taken to his company commander. They carried him back to Lieutenant Holmes. When he saw Lieutenant Holmes, he said: "Sir, my automatic rifle has been destroyed. I think the company commander should send one up immediately to take its place." Fenessey died ten minutes later.

Quick promotion, unfortunately not in rank, simply in responsibility, occurred all the time. Of the four infantry company commanders which had started, only one was surviving when we left this sector. In each case a lieutenant took command of the company and did it in the finest shape possible. Lieutenants Cathers and Jackson were killed here at the head of their platoons, and Lieutenants Smith and Gustafson died from the effect of wounds. Lieutenant Freml, who was killed in a raid, had numerous narrow escapes.

I remember one time we were going together over the top on a reconnoitering party preparatory to redisposition of the troops. Freml had as his personal orderly a very bright little Jew from San Francisco—Drabkin by name, who had kept a junk-shop. The little fellow seemed to run true to former training, for he always went around festooned with pistols, "blinkers," notebooks, and everything conceivable. A shell hit beside them, Freml being between this man and the shell. Freml was untouched, but the man was torn to pieces.

One young fellow seemed, for a while, to bear a sort of charmed life. Unfortunately this did not last, and he was killed in the battle of Soissons. He was very proud of the things that had happened to him. One night, while I was inspecting the front trenches, he said to me, "Major, I have been buried by shells twice to-day. The last time I only had one arm sticking out so they could find me. All the other men in the dugout have been killed and I ain't even been scratched."

It was here that Lieutenant Ridgely earnedfor himself the nickname of the idiot strategist, which he went by for a long while in the battalion. The Huns were putting up a pretty lively demonstration on our left. A message reached me that they were attacking. I made my preparations to counter-attack, if necessary, and sent runners to the various units concerned to advise them of this plan. The runner who was bringing the message to Ridgely's platoon lost it in the shuffle. Runners are made to repeat messages verbally to take care of contingencies just like this. However, this does not always work, and when he got to Ridgely, the only message he could remember was, "The Major orders you to counter-attack, and help the troops on our left."

It seemed a pretty forlorn business to counter-attack with one platoon, but neither Ridgely nor the platoon considered this was anything which really concerned them. They hastily formed up and moved to the left. They got over and found that the Germans had been successfully repulsed and that theywere among our own troops. The Captain in charge of the company told Ridgely to go back. Ridgely thought for a moment and said, "No, my Major's orders were to counter-attack to assist the troops on the left," and it was only with difficulty that they persuaded him that he must not stage a little private adventure then and there against the German lines.

In this sector we experienced our most severe gas attacks. It is a thoroughly unpleasant thing to hear gas shells coming over in quantity. Often an attack begins much as follows: It draws toward morning; the digging parties file back toward their positions. Suddenly shelling begins to increase in volume. Private Bill Smith notes a sort of a warbling sound overhead and remarks to Private Bill Jones, "Gee, Bill, they're gassing us." Next, reports come in from various sections that they are gassing Fontaine Woods, Cantigny Woods, and the valley between. You stand out on some point of vantage and listen to the shells singing over and bursting.As day dawns you see a thick gray mist spreading itself through the valley. The men have slipped on their gas masks. The question now is, what's up? Just meanness on the part of the Huns, or is it part of some ulterior design to straighten the salient and nip off the two points of woods we are holding? How heavy is the gassing to be? How quickly will the wind carry it away? A thousand and one other questions.

You send your gas officer up to test. You go up yourself and generally know as much as the gas officer. Our general experience was that the first gas casualties we had were the gas officers. You decide that, as nothing has developed up to this time, it is probable that if any attack is planned by the Huns it is not intended to take place this morning. You get your men out of the heavily gassed areas and try to determine where is the best place for them to be well protected, to cover practically the same territory, and not to be too much exposed to the gas. By this time they have been sweating in their gas masks forthree hours or more with the usual number of fools and accidents contributing to the casualties. You carefully redispose them while a desultory bombardment by the Germans adds to the general joy of life. You get them redisposed. The wind changes, the gas is carried to the position where they are. You have to change them again. To add to the general complications, the chow which was brought up last night is spoiled. It has been in the gassed area and the men must go hungry until the next evening. You come back to your dugout and find that in some mysterious way the gas has gone down into the dugout, so you prop yourself in the corner of the trench and carry on from there. Altogether it is a happy and joyful occasion. Your one consolation rests in the fact that your artillery is now earnestly engaged in retaliating on their infantry.

Speaking of artillery, there is one thing that always used to fill us, the infantry, with woe and grief. A paper would come up, reading, "Nothing to report on the (blank) sectorexcept severe artillery duels." "Severe artillery duels" to the uninitiated means that the opposing artillery fights one with the other. This, however, is not the custom. Your artillery shells their infantry hard and then their artillery shells your infantry hard. This is an artillery duel. The infantry is on the receiving end in both cases.

Our artillery was particularly good. General Summerall, who commanded, I have been told, preached to his men that the primary duty of that arm was to help the infantry, and that to do this properly in all war of movement they should follow the advancing troops as closely as possible. Once I saw a battery of the Seventh F. A. wheel up and go into action not more than two hundred yards from the front line. We, on our part, endeavored to call uselessly on the artillery as little as possible.

At times our own artillery would drop a few "shorts" into us but this is unavoidable and the infantry felt too strongly what had been done for them to pay much attention.

In one of the German dugouts we captured,a lieutenant told me he found a sign reading, "We fear no one but God and our own artillery."

Sector matériel is something that always adds interest to the life of the officers in trench warfare. Sector matériel consists of all varieties of articles, from tins of bully beef and rusty grenades to quantities of grubby, illegible orders and lists, and mangled maps. These remain in the sector and are turned over by each unit to the next succeeding. Theoretically a careful inventory is made and each individual article checked each time.

Moreover, to keep the higher command satisfied, there must be maps—legions of maps. These maps do not have to be accurate. Indeed, they cannot possibly be accurate, but they must be beautifully marked in red, blue, yellow, and green with a pretty "legend" attached. The higher command never knows if the maps are correct, but they do know if they are not beautifully marked. In each sector there must be, first, a map indicating where all the trenches are.You, as commanding officer, are probably the only person who knows and you are too busy to put them down. Then there must also be maps indicating work in progress. Very generally they like a map to be turned in every day showing what work has been done during the night. How they expect anyone to do this is beyond anyone who has done it. Further, maps must show abandoned trenches; still further, there must be what is known to the high command as maps indicating "alternate gas positions." "Alternate gas positions" are impossible to indicate. Everything depends on which way the wind is blowing and what place is gassed. But the higher command wants these maps and it is simpler to placate them than to fight with them. I had a fine artillery liaison officer, called Chandler. He had had some training in topography and he kindly agreed to take over the map question. When a message came up from the rear demanding a map showing alternate gas position, he would get out his stack of blue pencils and make, withexquisite care, the nicest and most symmetrical blue lines. He would number them in black, arrange a margin between, putting green marks and yellow marks and red marks for other units; fold them up and send them back. It was quite simple for him. He did not have to consult anyone, it wasn't necessary to reconnoiter the ground; the map would go in with the morning report and all would be happy.

Another sport indulged in by the higher command was to change the main line of defense and re-allot the defense system of the sector. To be really qualified to do this, you should on no account have any knowledge of the actual terrain. Indeed, I think in all my experience I never received a defense map from the higher command where the individual making the map had been over the ground. All that you do, if you are the higher command, is to get a beautiful large scale map, draw broad lines across it and then dotted lines to indicate boundaries. For nearly a month I defended a sector where the map was entirely wrong. Two patches of woods wererepresented as in a valley, whereas they were on a hill. This worried neither the higher command nor me. The higher command did not know that the map was wrong; they had sent me their beautiful little plans. I sent them equally beautiful ones without debating the matter, and all were satisfied.

I remember one general who commanded the brigade of which I was a member. His hobby was switch lines. A switch line is simply a trench running approximately perpendicular to the front, where a defensive position can be taken up in case the enemy breaks through on the right or left and whereby you form a defensive flank. The old boy would come up, solemn as a judge, and ask me where my switch lines were to be put. With equal solemnity I would explain to him. After talking for a half an hour he would ask confidentially, "Major, what is a switch line?" With equal solemnity I would explain to him and conversation would cease. Three days thereafter we would go through the same thing again. The old fellow had heardsomeone talking about a switch line once and somehow felt that it counted a hundred in game to have one.

Another indoor sport of the high command was a report for plans of defense. A plan of defense consisted of maps and long screeds indicating just where counter-attacks were to be launched when parts of the front line were taken by the enemy. They were beautiful things, pages and pages long. They were as gay in color as Joseph's proverbial coat, and when things broke, circumstances were always such that you did something entirely different from any of the plans.

Still another sport was patrol reports and patrolling. The patrols were, according to instructions, arranged for by the higher command because the higher command knew nothing and could know nothing of the particular details that govern in any individual section of the front. They would send down to the battalion commander and demand statements, for their revision, as to what his patrols were to be for the night, when theywere to go out, what they were to do, etc. The battalion commander would send them his patrol sheet and then by the above-mentioned code they would endeavor to confer with him and debate the advisability of certain of his actions. Again experience taught the way out. You agreed with everything they said, and did what you originally intended. Next day they would want a map indicating exactly the points traversed by the patrol. Knee-deep in water in a filthy dugout, your adjutant or intelligence officer would make them this map. The map, like most maps, was for decorative purposes. No patrol wandering in a pitch-black night in the rain, stumbling on dead men, snarling itself in wire, lying flat on its bellies when the Hun flares shot up, could possibly tell exactly where it had gone. This was, happily, not known to the higher command, so they rested in blissful ignorance.

I cannot leave the question of maps without discussing the all-absorbing topic of coördinates. A coördinate is a group of numbers which indicate an exact point on the map.If you have firmly got the system in your head, you can find the point accurately on the map. Any man, however, who thinks he can go and sit on a coördinate on the actual ground is either a lunatic or belongs to the higher command. Incidentally, in demanding reports of patrols, alternate gas positions, etc., the order usually, reads, "Battalion commander will furnish reports with coördinates."

When I was recovering from a wound in my leg, I attended for two weeks our staff college. This college was well conceived and did excellent work, but nowhere were more evident the grievous faults of our unpreparedness. A good staff officer should have had practical experience with troops. If he has not had this experience he takes the thumb rules too literally and does not realize that they are simply rules to govern in general. We had practically no officers with this experience. The result was that the students, good fellows, most of them men who had never been in action, attached too much importance to the figures and did not realize it was the theorythat was important. Infantry, according to staff problems, always marches four kilometers an hour. March graphics are drawn with columns which clear points, with three hundred meters to spare between them and the head of the next column after both columns have marched ten kilometers to the point of junction. No account is taken of the fact that rarely, if ever, does infantry exceed in rate of march three and one half kilometers under the ordinary conditions prevailing in France, and that bad weather, bad roads, etc., bring it to three kilometers. What a commanding officer of troops must bear in mind is not simply getting his troops to a given point, but getting them to that given point in such shape that they are able to perform the task set them when they arrive. Furthermore, roads given on the map are accepted with the sublime faith of a child. I remember once having my regiment on the march for twelve hours because the trail on which we had all been ordered to proceed necessitated the men going single file, and the infantryof a division single file stretches out indefinitely.

Our troops had now begun to arrive in France in large numbers. It was more than a year after the commencement of the war before this was effected. The inability of our national administration to bring itself to the point where it considered patriotism as above politics was largely responsible for this. Every move forward toward the active pushing of the war was the result of the pressure of the people on Washington. When I say that our troops were coming across in large numbers, let it be borne in mind that, though the men did come, munitions and weapons of war did not. The Browning automatic rifle, for example, to my mind one of the greatest weapons developed by the war, was invented in the United States in the summer of 1917. When the war finished it had just been placed for the first time in the hands of a limited number of our divisions; my division, the First, never had them until a month after the armistice. We used the old French chauchat,a very inferior weapon. None of our airplanes had come, and the death of many of our young men was directly traceable to this, as they, of necessity, used inferior machines. Our cannon was and remained French and its ammunition was French. Our troops were at times issued British uniforms and many of the men objected strenuously to wearing them on account of the buttons with the crown stamped on them. Our supply of boots, up to and including the march into Germany, was composed in part of British boots. These boots had a low instep and caused much foot trouble. These are facts that no amount of words can cover, no speeches explain away.

SOISSONS

"And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy."Tennyson.

"And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy."

Tennyson.

EARLYin July rumors reached us that we were going to be relieved. At first we did not attach any importance to this, as we had heard many rumors of a like nature during the months we had been in the sector. At last, however, the French officers came up to reconnoiter, and we knew it was true. We were relieved and marched back to some little village near the old French town of Beauvais. Everyone was as happy as a king. Here we heard that the plan was to form a corps of the Second Division and our division, train and recruit them for a month, and make an offensive with us some time late in August or September. General Bullard, our division commanderwho had been, in turn, colonel of the Twenty-eighth Infantry, brigadier general commanding the Second Brigade, and division commander, was to be corps commander. This pleased us very much, as we had great confidence in him.

We had been in these villages only for a few days when orders reached us to entruck and proceed to some towns only a short distance from Paris. This appealed to us all, for if we were going to train and rest for a month, no more delightful place could be chosen for one and all than the vicinity of Paris.

The buses arrived and all night we jolted southwest through the forest of Chantilly. By morning we arrived and detrucked and the brown columns wound through the fresh green landscape to the charming little gray stone towns. The town where we were to stay was called Ver. It was built on rolling country and its gray cobble-paved streets twisted and wound up hill and down through a maze of picturesque gray houses in whose doors well-dressed, bright-cheeked women andchildren stood watching us. On the hill were the remains of an old wall and château, and at the foot, through a broad meadow shaded with trees, a fair-sized brook rippled. Jean Jacques Rousseau lived and wrote there. How he could have been such a hypocrite and have lived in such a charming place is more than I can see.

The men were delighted. "Say, Buddie, this is some town; look at that stream!"—"Bonne billets."—"Let's fight the rest of the war here"—were some of the remarks I heard as the column swung in.

Everything was ideal. The stream above mentioned furnished a bathtub for the command. We had had no opportunity for about two months to thoroughly bathe, as we had been on active work the entire time, and you can imagine in just what condition we were. To put it in the words of one of my company commanders, "The command was as lousy as pet coons." The first day we spent in orienting ourselves, getting the kitchens arranged and the billets comfortable. Meanwhilethe troops were down bathing in the stream, to the admiring interest of the French inhabitants, who lined the bridge. To our staid Americans the unconventional attitude of interest in bathing troops displayed by the French inhabitants of all ages and both sexes was a source of constant embarrassment. I have known a platoon sergeant to guide his men to quite a distant point to take their baths. When I asked him why, he replied, "Sir, it isn't decent with all them frogs looking on."

That evening, at officers' meeting, everyone was on the crest of the wave, "sitting on the world," as the doughboy puts it. The officers established their mess in various houses, and I remember to this day Lieutenant Kern, as gallant an officer as ever it was my pleasure to know, who was mortally wounded some three days from this time, telling me that they had the prettiest French girl in all of France as a waitress at his company mess and that they were all going to give her lessons in English. We talked over training and made all arrangements for a long stay. The onlydissenting voice was that of the medical officer, Captain E. D. Morgan. He, Cassandra-like, prophesied that the town was too nice and we would be moved soon.

Next morning, while I was out going over the village, selecting drill grounds and planning the schedule, a motorcycle orderly arrived and handed me a message which read, "You will be prepared to entruck your battalion at two this afternoon." This meant no rest for us. We realized that a move on our part now meant one thing and one thing only, that something serious had arisen, and that we were going in again. Rumor had been rife for two or three days past that the big Hun offensive was about to start again. In the army, among the front-line troops, practically all you get is rumor about what is happening daily. Where the rumor starts from it is impossible to say, but it travels like lightning. Officers' call was sounded, and when they had assembled, I read them the order and told them it was my opinion we were going into a big battle right away. The men were immediatelyassembled and told the same thing. We always felt that all information possible should be given to the men. Instead of the command being downcast at the idea of leaving their well-deserved rest, their spirits rose. Immediately bustle and preparation was evident everywhere in the town.

By one o'clock the truck train was creaking into place on the road. Oddly enough the truck train was made up of White trucks, made in Cleveland, with Indo-Chinese drivers and was under the command of a French officer. The troops filed by in columns of twos toward the entrucking point. The men were laughing and joking. "They can't do without us now, Bill." "Say, Nick, look over there" (pointing toward a grave yard), "them's the rest billets of this battalion, and that" (indicating a rather imposing tomb) "is the battalion headquarters." Many of them were singing the national anthem of the doughboy,Hail! Hail! the Gang's All Here.

I got into the automobile of the French commander of the train, taking with me LieutenantKern, as he was pretty well played out and I wanted to spare him as much as possible. The French train commander had no idea what our ultimate destination was. All he knew was a route for about sixty kilometers, at the end of which he was to report for further orders at a little town. As we ran up and down the column of trucks checking the train to make sure that all units were present and all properly loaded, the men were singing and cheering.

As all afternoon we jolted northward through clouds of dust, rumors came in picked up from French officers on the roadside. The Hun had attacked in force east and west of Rheims in a desperate attempt to break the French army in two. East of Rheims they had met with a stone-wall resistance by Gouraud's army and been hurled back with heavy loss. West of Rheims their attack had been more successful, and they were reported to have broken through, crossed the Marne, and to be now moving on Châlons.

As night fell the jolting truck train pressedever farther north. At the regulating station, by the shaded flare of an electric torch, we got our orders: we were to proceed to Palesne. We guessed on receiving them what our mission was. We were pushing straight north into the reëntrant into the German lines, at the peak of which was Soissons. Our destination was a large wood. We realized that we were probably to form part of an offensive to be made against the Hun right flank, which should have as its object, first, by pressure at this point, to stop the attack on Châlons; second, if it was possible, to penetrate far enough to force the evacuation of the Château-Thierry salient by threatening their lines of communication. In the early dawn the troops detrucked, sloshed through the mud, and bivouacked in the woods. Every care possible was taken to get the troops under cover of the woods and the trucks away before daylight in order to avoid any possible chance of observation by the Germans.

All day we became more certain that our guess as to our probable mission was correct.We heard that the Foreign Legion and the Second American Division had come up on our right. We knew that our division, the Foreign Legion, and the Second Division, would not be concentrated at the same point if it did not mean a real offensive.

Soon after the orders for the attack were given us. Apparently the idea was to stake all on one throw. Marshal Foch had decided on a counter-offensive in this part and had delegated to General Mangin, commander of the French army, the task of putting it into execution. Mangin desired to make this offensive, if possible, a complete surprise. All care was used that no unnecessary movement took place among our troops in the back area. We were not to take over the position from the French troops holding the front line, as was generally customary for the attacking troops before an action, but rather to march up on the night of the offensive and attack through them. Fortunately, from the point of view of secrecy, the night before the attack it rained cats and dogs. The infantry sloggedthrough the mud, up roads cut to pieces by trucks and over trails ankle deep in water. The artillery skittered and strained into place. The tanks clanked and rattled up, breaking the columns and tearing up what was left of the road. It was so dark you could hardly see your hand before your face.

As a part of the element of surprise there was to be but a short period of preparatory bombardment. The artillery was to fire what the French call "the fire of destruction" for five minutes on the front line, and then to move to the next objective. This bombardment was to commence at 4.30, and at 4.35 the men were to go over the top.

The troops all reached the position safely by about 4 o'clock. Our position lay along the edge of a rugged and steep ravine. The rain had stopped and the first faint pink of the early summer morning lighted the sky. Absolute silence hung over everything, broken only by the twittering of birds. Suddenly out of the stillness, without the warning of a preliminary shot, our artillery opened with a crash.All along the horizon, silhouetted against the pale pink of the early dawn, was the tufted smoke of high explosive shells, and the burst of shrapnel showed in flashes like the spitting of a broken electric wire in a hailstorm. After the bombardment had been going on for two or three minutes, D company, on the right, became impatient and wanted to attack, and I heard the men begin to call, "Let's go, let's go!"

At 4.35 the infantry went over. The surprise was complete. Germans were killed in their dugouts half dressed. One of the units of the division captured a colonel and his staff still in his dugout. So rapid was the advance on the first day that the German advance batteries were taken. The French cavalry followed up our advance, looking for a break-through. By night all the objectives were taken and the troops bivouacked in the captured position. During the night Hun airplanes flew low over us dropping flares and throwing small bombs. Next morning the attack started again. We ran into much machine-gun fire. "Only those who have danced to its music can know what the mitrailleuse means."

i_215

AN AIR RAIDDrawn by Captain George Harding, A. E. F., August, 1918

The Germans now rushed up all the reserves they could to hold this threatened point. On the second day we took prisoners from four Hun divisions in front of the regiment. One prisoner told us he had marched twenty-four kilometers during the preceding night. For five days the advance continued, until the final objective was taken and we held the Château-Thierry-Soissons railroad and the Germans ordered a general retreat. I was not fortunate enough to see the last half of this battle, as I was wounded. I heard about it, however, from men who had been all through it.

Our casualties were very heavy. At the end of the battle, companies in some cases came out commanded by corporals, and battalions by second lieutenants. In the battle the regiment lost most of the men that built it up.

Colonel Hamilton A. Smith, as fine an officerand as true a gentleman as I have ever known, was killed by machine-gun fire while he was verifying his outpost line. Major McCloud, a veteran of the Philippines who had served with the British for three years, was killed on the second day. I have somewhere a note written by him to me shortly before his death. He was on the left, where heavy resistance was being encountered. I had just sent him a message advising him that I was attacking in the direction of Ploisy. His answer, which was brought by a wounded runner, read: "My staff are all either killed or wounded. Will attack toward the northeast against machine-gun nests. Good hunting!"

Lieutenant Colonel Elliott was killed by shell fire. Captain J. H. Holmes, a gallant young South Carolinian, was killed. He left in the United States, a young wife and a baby he had never seen. Captains Mood, Hamel, and Richards were killed. Lieutenant Kern, of whom I spoke before, was mortally wounded while gallantly leading his company. Lieutenant Clarke died in the hospital from theeffect of his wounds a few days later. Clarke was a big, strapping fellow who feared nothing. Once he remarked to me: "Yes, it is a messy damn war, sir, but it's the only one we've got and I guess we have got to make the best of it." These are only a few of those who fell. Both Major Compton and Major Travis were wounded.

The Twenty-sixth Infantry was brought out of the fight, when it was relieved, by Lieutenant Colonel (then Captain) Barnwell Rhett Legge, of South Carolina. Colonel Legge started the war as a second lieutenant. When I first knew him he was adjutant of the Third Battalion. Later he took a company and commanded it during the early fighting. He was then made adjutant of the regiment, and two or three times I recall his asking the Colonel to let him go back with his company. Captain Frey, killed earlier, who was originally my senior company commander, thought very highly of him and used to "josh" him continually. Once Legge took out a raiding party and captured a German prisoner fifty-fouryears old. Frey never let him hear the last of it, asking him if he considered it a sportsmanlike proceeding to take a man of that age, and saying that a man who would do such a thing would shoot quail on the ground and catch a trout with a worm. All during my service in Europe, Legge served with me. During the latter part he was my second in command in the regiment. I have seen him under all circumstances. He was always cool and decided. No mission was too difficult for him to undertake. His ability as a troop leader was of the highest order. In my opinion no man of his age has a better war record.

An amusing incident occurred in Lieutenant Baxter's platoon during the battle. The men were advancing to the attack perhaps a couple of hundred yards from the Germans. They were moving forward in squad columns as they were going through a valley where they were defiladed from machine-gun fire, though the enemy was firing on them with its artillery. Suddenly Baxter heard rifle fire behind him. He wheeled around and saw that a rabbit hadjumped up in front of the left of the platoon and the men were firing at it.

The worst strain of the battle came during the last two days when casualties had been so heavy as to take off many of the field officers and most of the company commanders, when the remnants of the regiments pressed forward and captured Berzy-le-Sec and the railroad. It is always more difficult for the juniors in a battle like this, for they generally do not know what is at stake. General Frank Parker told me how, during the fourth day, when battalions of eight hundred men had shrunk to a hundred and it looked as if the division would be wiped out, and even he was wondering whether we were not losing the efficiency of the division without getting a compensatory gain, General C. P. Summerall, the division commander, came to his headquarters and said: "General, the German high command has ordered the first general retreat since the first battle of the Marne."

General Summerall took command of the division just before Soissons, when GeneralBullard was given the corps. He had previously commanded the artillery of the division. The division always regarded him as their own particular general. He was known by the nickname of "Sitting Bull." He is, in my opinion, one of the few really great troop leaders developed by us during the war. At this battle General Summerall is reported to have made a statement which was often quoted in the division. Some staff officer from the corps had asked him if, after the very heavy casualties we had received, we were capable of making another attack. He replied: "Sir, when the First Division has only two men left they will be echeloned in depth and attacking toward Berlin."

Beside the First Division, the Foreign Legion and the Second Division were meeting the same type of work and suffering the same losses. No finer fighting units existed than these two. A very real compliment that was paid the Second Division was the fact that the rank and file of our division was always glad when circumstances ordained that the divisionsshould fight side by side. I have often heard the junior officers discussing it.

The division was relieved by the Seaforth and Gordon Highlanders. When I was going to the rear, wounded, I passed their advancing columns. They were a fine set of men—tall, broad-shouldered, and fit looking. They, too, were in high spirits. The morale of the Allies had changed within twenty-four hours. They felt, and rightly, that the Hun had been turned. Never from this moment to the end of the war did it change.

This Highland division showed its appreciation of the American division by the following order that was sent to our higher command:

Headquarters 1st Division,American Expeditionary Forces,France, August 4th, 1918.General OrderNo. 42.The following is published for the information of all concerned as evidence of the appreciation of the 15th Scottish Division of such assistance as this Division may have rendered them upon their taking over the sector from us in the recent operation south of Soissons:15th Scottish Division No. G-705 24-7-18To General Officers Commanding,First American Division.I would like on behalf of all ranks of the 15th Division to express to you personally, and to your staff, and to all our comrades in your splendid Division, our most sincere thanks for all that has been done to help us in a difficult situation.During many instances of taking over which we have experienced in the war we have never received such assistance, and that rendered on a most generous scale. In spite of its magnificent success in the recent fighting, your Division must have been feeling the strain of operations, accentuated by very heavy casualties, yet we could discern no symptom of fatigue when it came to a question of adding to it by making our task easier.To your artillery commander (Col. Holbrook) and his Staff, and to the units under his command, our special thanks are due. Without hesitation when he saw our awkward predicament as to artillery support the guns of your Division denied themselves relief in order to assist us in an attack. This attack was only partly successful, but the artillery support was entirely so.Without the help of Colonel Mabee and his establishment of ambulance cars, I have no hesitation in saying that at least four hundred of our wounded would still be on our hands in this area.The 15th Scottish Division desires me to say that our hope is that we may have opportunity of rendering some slight return to the First American Division for all the latter has done for us, and further that we may yet find ourselves shoulder to shoulder defeating the enemy in what we hope is the final stage of this war.Signed:H. L. Reed,Major GeneralComdg. 15th Scottish Div.By Command of Major General Summerall:H. K. Loughry,Major, F. A. N. A.,Div. Adjt.

Headquarters 1st Division,American Expeditionary Forces,

France, August 4th, 1918.

General OrderNo. 42.

The following is published for the information of all concerned as evidence of the appreciation of the 15th Scottish Division of such assistance as this Division may have rendered them upon their taking over the sector from us in the recent operation south of Soissons:

15th Scottish Division No. G-705 24-7-18

To General Officers Commanding,

First American Division.

I would like on behalf of all ranks of the 15th Division to express to you personally, and to your staff, and to all our comrades in your splendid Division, our most sincere thanks for all that has been done to help us in a difficult situation.

During many instances of taking over which we have experienced in the war we have never received such assistance, and that rendered on a most generous scale. In spite of its magnificent success in the recent fighting, your Division must have been feeling the strain of operations, accentuated by very heavy casualties, yet we could discern no symptom of fatigue when it came to a question of adding to it by making our task easier.

To your artillery commander (Col. Holbrook) and his Staff, and to the units under his command, our special thanks are due. Without hesitation when he saw our awkward predicament as to artillery support the guns of your Division denied themselves relief in order to assist us in an attack. This attack was only partly successful, but the artillery support was entirely so.

Without the help of Colonel Mabee and his establishment of ambulance cars, I have no hesitation in saying that at least four hundred of our wounded would still be on our hands in this area.

The 15th Scottish Division desires me to say that our hope is that we may have opportunity of rendering some slight return to the First American Division for all the latter has done for us, and further that we may yet find ourselves shoulder to shoulder defeating the enemy in what we hope is the final stage of this war.

Signed:H. L. Reed,Major GeneralComdg. 15th Scottish Div.By Command of Major General Summerall:H. K. Loughry,Major, F. A. N. A.,Div. Adjt.

The Highlanders cheered as the wounded Americans passed by them. One lieutenant called out to me, "How far have you gone?" I answered, "About six kilometers." "Good," he said. "We'll go another six."

After the battle the division was withdrawn to near Paris. Many of the officers came to see me, where I was laid up with a bulletthrough the leg. Major A. W. Kenner, the regimental surgeon, who had again distinguished himself by his gallantry, and Captain Legge were both in, looking little the worse for the wear.

ST. MIHIEL AND THE ARGONNE

Back to IndexNext