July 31st was a day of comparative quiet. The longer the struggle lasted the more it was borne in upon the Lords of High Decision that the ousting of the enemy from their position was a matter for artillery. It was the first time we had the opportunity to observe with reluctant admiration the German development of the use of the machine gun in defensive warfare. To send infantry in under the intense fire of their numerous guns was like feeding paper to a flame. Our artillery, however, was good,—none better in the whole war, we confidently assert, and we waited with assurance for them to reduce the resistance. If our air service were sufficiently developed to give them good photographsof positions, and to register their fire, we felt sure that the Infantry would soon be in a position to make short work of enemy opposition.
That day we had our first experience of another auxiliary arm. The day before there landed at the regimental P. C. a section of our 30th Engineers, our Gas and Flame regiment. With them there was an Australian officer with a name that would qualify him for the 69th, and a young lieutenant who, we discovered after he was killed, was a son of the famous baseball manager, Ned Hanlan of Baltimore. They came out with their men on the 31st and threw over thermite and smoke bombs on Bois Brulé and Meurcy Farm. Under their protection Company D occupied the woods.
Company A, under Lieutenant Stone, finally took possession of the Farm. The first attempt failed. A patrol led by Corporal Sidney Clark started up but four men were hit in the first three minutes, Michaels dying of his wounds. Another attempt was made in the evening and the farm was occupied by a patrol under Corporals John Dennelly and Van Arsdale.
It was evident that the enemy’s resistance was weakening and that it would be a matter of a very short period before he would retreat to his next line of defence. On August 1st the 3rd Battalion relieved the 1st in line. Company M had had serious losses after being drawn out from the line on July 28th, as the battalion had been bombed in its reserve position at the sunken road, and the Company had suffered other losses in a ration detail which was caught out under a heavy fire. Of its officers, Lieutenant Hunt Warner was badly wounded; Lieutenant Collier was wounded but stuck to his post. Edward Brennan, Hugh Kaiser, Alfred Schneider and Johnnie Madden were killed and Sergeant Nicholson wounded. Captain Meaney and Lieutenants McIntyre and Bunnell escaped uninjured. Lieutenant McIntyre was blown into the Ourcq by the concussion of a shell, but he stuck to his task till he finished it.
Company K also suffered further disaster while in reserve,and Sergeants Peter Crotty and Bernard McElroy, who had done prodigious deeds in action, received mortal wounds; and also William Bergen, who did more work as a stretcher bearer than any other man I have ever seen in a battle. Louis Gilbert and Everett Seymour of Company L were killed in the same bombardment and Sam Klosenberg fatally wounded.
In fact, the town of Villers sur Fere was throughout the action a part of the battlefield. Its church square at the northern end was not more than a thousand yards from the place of actual conflict. The front line forces were at times too near each other to allow artillery fire from either side, as each side had to avoid the danger of shelling its own infantry—an event which is always most disastrous to the morale of troops. But the approaches to Villers sur Fere lay under the eyes of the enemy, and they could see a constant stream of liaison men, litter bearers, hobbling wounded, and food and ammunition carriers going in by the entrance to its one street. They knew it to be the center of our web so they very wisely concentrated most of their fire upon it and especially on the square which opened out after the short narrow northern entrance of Dead Man’s Curve. Even before dawn they had been raking its streets as a natural mode of approach of an oncoming enemy, killing and wounding a large number of men. Indeed nearly one-third of those who lost their lives in this action received their death wounds from shell fire in and around Villers sur Fere.
Early in the morning of July 28th, Lieutenant Joseph J. Kilcourse, Medical Officer attached to the Third Battalion, had opened his aid post in the schoolhouse facing on the square, and the development of the battle soon made it the regimental dressing station. The schoolhouse quickly filled up with wounded. A constant stream of limping men, of men with bandages around their heads or with arms carried in rough slings, of men borne on rude litters, were coming into town along the narrow entrance. No ambulanceshad gotten through and there were no directions as to where atriagecould be found. The courtyard in front of the hospital was filled with “walking cases,” discussing the battle with that cheerfulness which is always characteristic of soldiers who are not fatally wounded. A menacing whiz came through the air and a shell fell amongst them, followed by two others, one of which struck the wall and spattered the litter cases with plaster and broken bricks. The survivors in the yard scattered in all directions but nine of them lay quivering or motionless. Lieutenant Kilcourse ran out sobbing and swearing and working like mad to save his patients from further harm. Those who could walk were started down the road towards the Château de Foret in the hope of being picked up by an ambulance or truck. Inside the hospital nobody was seriously hurt, but the men of the Sanitary Detachment labored energetically to get them into places of comparative safety. These were Sergeant 1st Class William Helgers, James Mason, James McCormack, Ferraro, Planeta, Larsen and Daly.
Before long, Lieutenants Lyttle, Martin, Mitchell and Lawrence had arrived, and the wounded received all the attention they could be given with the facilities at hand. But the worst cases lay there till the next morning before they could be evacuated. They bore their sufferings with cheerful fortitude, their thoughts being for others. Father Hanley was sore because he had been put out so soon. Sergeant John Donahue’s thoughts were with his beloved Company L; Tommy Delaney, an innocent lovable boy, talked of his mother and what a good son to her he had planned to be if he had lived, and Tom Mansfield, with his leg shattered, was full of Irish pride that he had been given a chance to be in a big battle with the “Ould Rigiment.”
Headquarters Company was located in town in the shattered houses and stables but most of its sections had to take a frequent part in field operations. The signal section, under Lieutenant James Mangan, labored at great risk in putting down the wires for connection with the front lineon the night of July 28th. Sergeant Beall, Corporal Brochen and Privates J. McCabe, Kirwin and Olson kept the lines intact, while the remainder of the platoon did great service as ammunition bearers. The intelligence section under Captain Elmer had an observation post 100 yards northwest of Villers sur Fere which did excellent work in reporting machine gun nests and the direction of fire of enemy artillery. Dick Larned acted as Chief of Scouts with the Third Battalion and Joyce Kilmer and Levinson with the First Battalion. In the headquarters section little Corporal Malone was on the job day and night with his runners. Edward Mulligan of this section was killed.
Coming to what we might call the Infantry Artillery, the Stokes mortar platoon rendered excellent service throughout the battle. Two sections of this platoon under Sergeants Jaeger and Fitzsimmons took up the advance with the Infantry on July 27th. Early Sunday morning, July 28th, an infantry patrol drew fire from enemy machine guns located on the banks of the Ourcq river. Major McKenna called for one trench mortar, and a gun crew in charge of Sergeant Fitzsimmons and Corporal Harvey reported and shelled the enemy position in front of the Ourcq. At three in the morning Colonel McCoy ordered a barrage to be fired by the four guns on a machine gun nest. This was done and then the men waited for the advance of the Infantry at 4:30. When the first wave started to cross the Ourcq a barrage was laid down until the troops had crossed the river and were ascending the height beyond it. The men then followed the advance as far as the river when they were ordered back to their position of reserve in the village. It was during this advance that John Perry, a fine youth, received the wound which later caused his death.
On July 29th, one section under Lieutenant Frank McNamara and Sergeant Cudmore, entered the lines to support the first battalion. This section fired an effective barrage when the enemy attempted a counter-attack. During this action Private Malcolm Robertson was killed by anenemy shell and Sergeant Cudmore and F. Garvey were wounded. On August 1st at two in the afternoon one gun was set up in front of the woods facing Meurcy Farm. Despite the fact that enemy aeroplanes constantly harassed them, machine gun nests in and about Meurcy Farm were shelled with good results. After two hours work the men were driven to cover by enemy machine guns, Corporal Clark and Private Casey receiving severe wounds. The platoon was relieved on August 2nd and lent their aid to the burying of the dead.
The 37 mm. guns, commonly known as the one-pounders did excellent work, the small platoon paying a heavy price in losses. On July 28th, three members of the crew were killed with one shell in the village square as they were advancing with their gun—Cornelius Grauer, Joseph Becker, Frank Guida—Grauer, a youngster of seventeen, being a particular favorite with everybody that knew him. On July 30th the platoon took part in the attack on Meurcy Farm. During the operations the crew were caught in a box barrage by the enemy artillery and serious wounds were sustained by Sergeant Willemin, who was in command, and Privates Monohan, B. J. McLaughlin, John Seifried and John Kelly. Although the crew was almost entirely wiped out, the gun was kept in action by Corporal Charlie Lester and Private Berry. Another gun crew under command of Lieutenant Joseph O’Donohue was kept going all morning and did great execution. Of this crew John C. McLaughlin was killed while firing his gun.
The members of the Company whose duties detained them in the village worked for the interest of the whole regiment in positions almost equally exposed with those in the front line. Captain Walsh, a soldier of many campaigns, knew what the men in line needed was not encouragement (he took it for granted that every man had courage) nor sympathy (his own feeling was one of envy of them), but ammunition and food. His own company kitchen worked night and day to feed everybody who came intotown on any business. Mess Sergeant Louis Goldstein and Cooks John Wilker and Leo Maher, moved by his example, set up their kitchen under an arch just off the square and fed 800 men a day while the engagement lasted.
That square was an interesting sight throughout the battle. Men drifted in, singly or in twos or in parties, fresh from scenes of death. Liaison men, ammunition details, litter bearers carrying stretchers dripping blood. They were fresh from the field where bullets were flying. They had been forced to drop on their faces as they crossed the valley under fire. They had scurried around Dead Man’s Curve and they were still only about 1,000 yards from the fighting, with shells still screaming in the air above their heads and enemy planes forcing them to scuttle out of sight, but they were not breathless or anxious or excited. They borrowed the “makings,” or got a cup of coffee from John Wilker and stole a few minutes to gossip about the fight or to relate something that struck them as interesting. A year ago if one lone maniac had been lying in Central Park taking pot shots at passers-by going along Fifth Avenue they would have run down a side street calling for the Police, would have gotten home excited and out of breath, and would have stood outside of the church the next Sunday after ten o’clock Mass to tell all their friends what an adventure they had had.
It was magnificent, but it was not war. Especially with the aeroplanes overhead. Those German aeroplanes—they circled over our troops in line, over our men in the rear. Colonel McCoy sent word to inquire about the aeroplanes that were promised us. General Lenihan wanted to know. General Menoher sent orders; entreated. But the only ones we could see had the black Maltese cross—the same old story.
There was but one thing to do if we would prevent a recurrence of the catastrophe which had already occurred at the hospital in that same square. And that was to prevent the men from gathering there. The kitchen was moved toa less exposed spot. This was done to draw the men away from the square and not from any sense of timidity on the part of its operatives. On the contrary they had made a bold attempt to get that kitchen up to the front line. On the night of July 29th the bold Jim Collintine had hitched his trusty mules to the beloved goulash wagon and driven it right up to the Ourcq. When they found they could not cross, the Mess Sergeant and cooks unloaded its contents for the men in line. Mooney of Company A tried the same thing, and, when the river stopped him, sent the food up on litters.
One of the officers whose duties kept him near the hospital appointed himself as Police Officer in addition to his other duties, to keep the men under cover. On the second day of the fight he saw a tousled looking soldier without hat or rifle coming from a barn.
“What outfit do you belong to?”
“I belong to the 165th Infantry, sir.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came in last night with an ammunition detail and we got scattered under shell fire and I crawled into the barn.”
“Yes, you slept there all night and let the other fellows do your work. You must be a new man. But I see you have a service stripe.”
“Well, I am new in the regiment and I don’t belong in this game. I was in the S. O. S. and they sent me up here as a replacement after I got into the hospital.”
“Where is your rifle.”
“I lost it and it ain’t no good to me anyway cause I don’t know anything about it, and I can’t see good anyway.”
The situation was too much for the officer and, like everyone else in emergency, his mind turned to Captain Walsh.
“Go down that road about forty yards and you will see a farm yard with soldiers in it and ask for Captain Walsh. Tell him I sent you and tell him the story you gave me.”
The hatless soldier obeyed very willingly because the street led towards the rear. An hour later Captain Mikebreezed into the square and came over to the officer with the demand,
“Who was that bird you sent me?”
“What did you do with him, Mike?”
“What did I do with him. I salvaged him a nice new rifle, strapped two bandoliers around him, led him gently out into the street, faced him north and said, ‘Keep right on going in that direction until you see a Dutchman and when you see him shoot him for me.’ And I gave him a good start with my boot and by the way he made his getaway I’ll bet he’s going yet.”
The Commander of our Sanitary Detachment was Captain Wm. B. Hudson, who had been assigned to us from the 117th Sanitary Train when Major Lawrence was called to Division Headquarters. On July 28th, Captain Hudson had taken his post at the Chateau de Foret, General Lenihan’s Headquarters, most of which the General had given over for the accommodation of the wounded who had managed to get back that far. Here, too, the wounded men met with fresh disaster. A German aeroplane dropped bombs in the courtyard and killed seven men, including Sergeant Brogan of Company B, one of the best men we had.
On the next day Captain Hudson started to look for a better place for the wounded in Villers sur Fere, accompanied by the ever-faithful Jewett, the “Y” athletic instructor. He was standing in the door of the place he had selected when an enemy gas shell came over and a fragment of it hit him full in the chest, killing him instantly.
We buried him sadly by the cemetery wall where already too many of our men were lying in their last long sleep.
In the town also we buried many who were killed by shell fire as they advanced to go into action during the night of the 27th-28th. In this our Machine gunners were the greatest sufferers; almost a whole platoon was wiped out. A shell landed in the midst of them, creating havoc. The uninjured rushed boldly to succor their comrades, when another shell and still another, fell in the same spot, scatteringdeath afresh. Sergeant Phil Brooks here gave up his life and Ray Nulty, J. R. Keller, H. Van Diezelski, Frank Carlin, G. Foster and C. G. Sahlquist.
Accompanying Lieutenant Connelly on his mission of the morning of the 28th was the Second Platoon of our Machine Gun Company under Lieutenant Carter, who was wounded during the action.[4]The Platoon was kept together by Sergeants Bruhn and Kerrigan, and Doherty, and afterwards went through the whole battle with our First Battalion.
While the first battalion was lying under the hill during the afternoon of the 28th they were very much harassed by enemy planes which came across flying low and shooting from their machine guns at the men on the hill and under the bank. Here Harry Martenson was killed and Hugh Heaney badly wounded and carried back by Sergeant Devine. Sergeant Frank Gardella thought it was time to try reprisals, so he set up his machine gun as an anti-aircraft weapon and began blazing away at fourteen planes which were above his head and flying low. He got a line on two planes which were flying one above the other, and by a lucky shot hit the pilot of the upper plane which crashed into the lower one and both came tumbling to earth not far from the river, their crews being killed.
When Company C was advancing towards Bois Colas they met opposition from enemy light machine guns some of which were operating from the tree tops. Lieutenant Bell’s platoon, Sergeants Stephens and Gardella, Corporals J. McBride, Paul Fay and Williams were given the task of dislodging them. They carried up their heavy guns on their backs, and without taking time to set them up, they made use of them as if they were automatic rifles, with great effect, killing or capturing the enemy.
From the time that Company C took possession of Bois Colas the Machine Gunners kept their pieces busy from their positions on the north edge of the woods, keeping down German fire from Seringes and around Meurcy Farm. Of their twelve guns, five were put out of action. In the later encounters Lieutenants Davis and Bell were wounded and Jack O’Leary, a famous fighting man, received a wound which afterwards caused his death.
In the front line, on August 1st, there was a comparative lull in the activity. Our artillery was still going strong, but the Germans held command of the air and used it to the full. They flew down to the rear of us and hovered over the tree-tops of the woods where our artillery was emplaced, dropping bombs on them and shooting at them from levels so low that the artillery men answered with fire from their pistols.
It was the sudden leap of the cat at the dog’s nose before she turns to flee. At four A. M., August 2nd, our patrols reported no resistance. Word was sent to the Ohios, but they found the enemy still in their path. However, under orders from General Menoher, the whole Division started forward and found that the main body of the enemy had gone. Our Infantry hastened on through the Foret de Nesles, keeping in touch with neighboring regiments left and right. Finally they encountered resistance near Moreuil en Dole, north of the forest. The 4th Division was coming up to relieve us but Colonel MacArthur wanted a last effort made by his Division. He called on one regiment, then on another, for a further advance. Their commanders said truthfully that the men were utterly fatigued and unable to go forward another step. “It’s up to you, McCoy,” said the Chief of Staff. Our Colonel called Captain Martin Meaney, now in command of what was left of the third battalion. “Captain Meaney, a battalion is wanted to go ahead and gain contact with the enemy; you may report on the condition of your men.” “My men are few and they are tired, sir, but they are willing to go anywherethey are ordered, and they will consider an order to advance as a compliment,” was the manly response. As the brave and gallant few swung jauntily to their position at the head of the Division, Colonel MacArthur ejaculated, “By God, McCoy, it takes the Irish when you want a hard thing done.” The battalion located the enemy and took up the fight with them, but already the 4th Division was coming up and the orders for relief were issued.
In that bloody week the Rainbow Division had met the 4th Prussian Guard Division, commanded by the Kaiser’s son, Prince Eitel Friedrich, the 201st German and 10th Landwehr and the 6th Bavarian Division, had driven them back 18 kilometers to the last ridge south of the Vesle at a cost in killed and wounded of 184 officers and 5,459 men.
Back came our decimated battalions along the way they had already traveled. They marched in wearied silence until they came to the slopes around Meurcy Farm. Then from end to end of the line came the sound of dry, suppressed sobs. They were marching among the bodies of their unburied dead. In the stress of battle there had been but little time to think of them—all minds had been turned on victory. But the men who lay there were dearer to them than kindred, dearer than life; and these strong warriors paid their bashful involuntary tribute to the ties of love and long regret that bind brave men to the memory of their departed comrades.
FOOTNOTES:[4]Wounded here were Harris, Fleckner, Lang, McDonald and later during the battle Sergeant Kerrigan, Hal Sang, Jack Corrigan, Bart Cox, William Patterson, James O’Connor, Maurice O’Keefe, H. McCallum, Frank S. Erard, Bob Holmes, J. J. Spillane and Tom Doherty.
[4]Wounded here were Harris, Fleckner, Lang, McDonald and later during the battle Sergeant Kerrigan, Hal Sang, Jack Corrigan, Bart Cox, William Patterson, James O’Connor, Maurice O’Keefe, H. McCallum, Frank S. Erard, Bob Holmes, J. J. Spillane and Tom Doherty.
[4]Wounded here were Harris, Fleckner, Lang, McDonald and later during the battle Sergeant Kerrigan, Hal Sang, Jack Corrigan, Bart Cox, William Patterson, James O’Connor, Maurice O’Keefe, H. McCallum, Frank S. Erard, Bob Holmes, J. J. Spillane and Tom Doherty.