Hun infantry in considerable force held Fismes. Their big guns had been moved across the Vesle, tacit admission they had no hope of holding the south bank of the river, but the strength of the force in the town indicated the customary intention to sell out as dearly as possible to their dogged and unfaltering pursuers.
Lying in the woods, or whatever other shelter they could find, our infantrymen for two days watched French and American batteries moving into position. It seemed the procession was interminable.
"There'll be something doing for Fritz when those babies get going," was the opinion of the Pennsylvania doughboys.
French and American forces already had crossed the river east and west of Fismes, which was almost the geographic center of the line between Soissons and Rheims. To stabilize the line, it was essential not onlythat Fismes be taken, but that the river crossings be forced and Fismette seized.
Forward bodies of infantry continually had been feeling out the German positions in Fismes and on Saturday afternoon, August 3rd, reconnaissance parties from the 168th Infantry, formerly the Third Iowa National Guard, of the Rainbow Division, entered the southern edge of the town.
They clung there desperately until the next day, but the Germans deluged them with gas, which hung close because of the river and the heavy atmosphere, and it was deemed inadvisable for the small force to remain. Their reconnaissance had been completed and they were ordered to return to their lines. The information they brought back aided the staff materially in planning the general attack.
The Germans had placed heavy guns on the crests of hills one or two kilometers north of the river, from which they poured in a flanking fire.
A few hours after the return of the men of the 168th, the massed French and American batteries turned loose with a racket that seemed to rend the universe.
The Germans had been dropping shellsintermittently since daylight, but even this spasmodic firing stopped entirely under the hurricane of shrapnel, high explosive and gas shells from the Allied artillery, which swept the town, the river crossings and the country to the north. It was a case of "keep your head down, Fritzie boy," or lose it.
The artillery preparation was not protracted. After an hour or so, it steadied down into a rolling barrage and the first wave of attackers went over. The 32d and 42d (Rainbow) Divisions, exhausted, had been brought out of the front line and Pennsylvania's iron men slipped into place.
It fell to the fortune of the 112th Infantry to lead the advance on Fismes and, supported though it was by other regiments and by tremendous artillery fire, it was the 112th Pennsylvania that actually took Fismes.
Into the Maw of Battle©Committee on Public Information.Into the Maw of BattlePennsylvania Guardsmen attacking a German position in the Soissons-Rheims pocket. A bombing squad leads to blow up the German wire and open the way for the infantry waves which are seen following close, headed for the holes in the wire network.
©Committee on Public Information.
Into the Maw of Battle
Pennsylvania Guardsmen attacking a German position in the Soissons-Rheims pocket. A bombing squad leads to blow up the German wire and open the way for the infantry waves which are seen following close, headed for the holes in the wire network.
There was the usual harassing fire from enemy machine guns and snipers, especially to the east, but these were silenced after a time and the 112th romped into the southern edge of the town. Then ensued a repetition, on a larger scale, of the street and house fighting that had been experienced before in other villages and towns.
Scouts crept from corner to corner, hiding behind bits of smashed masonry, working through holes in house walls and into cellars. A haze of dust kicked up by the shells hung in the bright sunlight.
Every open stretch of street was swept by rifle and machine gun fire from one or both sides. Americans and Germans were so mingled that sometimes they shared the same house, firing out of different windows on different streets, and varying the procedure by attempts to kill their housemates.
As the Americans crept slowly forward, always toward the river, the Germans showed no slightest inclination to follow their comrades to the north bank, and it became apparent that they were a sacrifice offered up by the German command to delay, as long as possible, the progress of those terrible Americans. They had been left behind with no hope of succor, simply to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Quite naturally, they fought like trapped wolves as long as fighting was possible. When convinced they had no further chance to win, they dropped their weapons and squalled: "Kamerad!"
Two American officers and some woundedmen worked their way into one of the houses. Inside, they found two unwounded men from Pittsburgh. Almost as the two parties joined forces, one of the unwounded Pittsburghers, venturing incautiously near what had been a window, stopped a sniper's bullet and fell dead. The wounded were made as comfortable as possible to await the stretcher-bearers and the two officers and one enlisted man started to investigate the house.
They were crawling on all fours. They came into a dismantled room and raised their heads to look over a pile of débris. They looked straight into the eyes of two Germans. One had a machine gun, the other a trench bomb in each hand. These German trench bombs were known among our soldiers as "potato mashers," because they are about the size of a can of sweet corn, fastened on the end of a short stick. They are thrown by the stick, and are a particularly nasty weapon—one of the worst the Germans had, many soldiers thought.
The German with the bombs was slowly whirling them about by the handles, exactly like a pair of Indian clubs, as one of the Americans described it afterward.
For the time you might have counted ten, there was not a movement on either side, because the men were so surprised, except that the German with the bombs kept whirling them slowly, around and around. The other German stood like a statue, but making funny, nervous noises—"uck-uck-uck"—in his throat. The Americans, telling about it later, frankly admitted they were too scared to move for a few moments, expecting every second the man with the "potato mashers" would throw them.
The remarkable tableau ended with the crash of a rifle. The American private soldier had fired "from the hip." The German with the bombs bent forward as if he had a sharp pain in his stomach, but he did not come up again. He kept on going until his head hit the pile of débris, as if he were salaaming or kowtowing to the Americans. Then he collapsed in an inert heap on the floor, still holding his bombs.
The other turned and ran, stumbling through the wreckage, out through the little garden in which flowers and green stuff still struggled through the broken stone. As he ran, he cried in a curious, whimpering, muffled tone, like a frightenedanimal, his big helmet crushed down over his ears, a grotesque figure. He got out into the street, out into the open where machine guns and rifles still called from corner to corner and window to window. He was drilled in a dozen places at once and collapsed like a heap of dusty rags.
There were innumerable instances of individual gallantry and of narrow escapes. In days of fighting when virtually every man performed a hero's part, it was impossible for anyone to keep track of all of even the more outstanding cases, and many a lad's deed went unnoticed while another's act brought him a citation and the coveted Distinguished Service Cross, the difference being that one was observed and reported and the other was not. A very small proportion of the deserving deeds were rewarded for this reason.
Among the narrow escapes from death, probably Lieutenant Walter A. Davenport, formerly of Philadelphia, established a record. A machine gun bullet struck his belt buckle, was deflected and ripped a long gash in the muscles of his abdomen. He returned to duty before his regiment, the 111th, had finished its workin Fismette, a few weeks later, and was slightly gassed.
It was at Fismes that Captain John M. Gentner, of Philadelphia, acting commander of the first battalion of the 109th, was wounded. He had been commander of Company C, but took over command of the battalion when Captain Gearty was killed in the Bois de Conde, below the Marne. After he was wounded, Captain Gentner was made the subject of a remarkable tribute from men of his battalion. They wrote for newspaper publication a letter of eulogy, in which they said:
"The influence of Captain Gentner is still leading on the men of his battalion. None speak of him but in admiration and thankfulness for having helped them to be good soldiers. Daring, even brilliant, he led his men into seemingly hazardous attacks, and yet we felt a sense of safety. Other commanders say: 'I wouldn't send a man where I wouldn't go myself,' but Captain Gentner wouldn't send men where he would go himself. We looked upon him as a father. He has brought in wounded men from places where no one else would venture. He delighted in dangerous patrolsand often regretted that his position prevented him from leading combat patrols. In places where food came to us rarely and in small quantity, he would claim that he had eaten when we knew that neither food nor water had crossed his lips for twenty-four hours. He was filled with admiration for his men—men who willingly would have followed him through the gates of hell, just because no trouble, no privation was too great for him to make his men comfortable."
What a difference between that relationship of officer and enlisted man, and the sight our men saw of German soldiers being kicked and beaten with sabres by German officers in an effort to drive them forward into battle while the officers remained behind out of harm's way!
With their never-failing sense of the dramatic and their natural tendency to picturesquely appropriate nomenclature, our men named the valley of the Vesle "Death Valley" after the desperate fighting they encountered there.
And so they took Fismes, these gallant American daredevils. Slowly but surely they went through it, mopping it up in ascientific manner. It was costly—such warfare always is—but they wiped out one German post after another, driving the Huns to the very edge of the town on the north, where they held on desperately for a few days until the American occupation was complete, and the last German foothold was gone from the Soissons-Rheims pocket, which for two weeks had been the focal point for the eyes of the world.
Even before the operation was complete, and in callous disregard of the men they themselves had left behind to impede the American advance, the Germans cut loose with a hot artillery fire from the heights north of the river.
They are not unlike the chalk cliffs of Dover, only not so high, these elevations along the Vesle. There were several high points on the north bank on which the Germans had observation posts, from which they could look down upon Fismes and the surrounding country as persons in a theatre balcony view the stage, and it was a terrible fire they poured in.
Already their big guns had been withdrawn to the line of the Aisne, which is only five miles to the north and thereforewell within range. Lighter pieces in great number crowned the high ground nearer the Vesle, and machine guns held their usual prominent place in the German scheme. Once more they brought flame projectors into play, using them in this instance at what is believed to have been the greatest distance they tried to operate these weapons during the war. They accomplished little with the "flamenwerfer," however.
Night and day the gun duel continued. The French and American batteries methodically set about to break up the concentration of Hun fire. Monday, August 5th, the shelling became so violent that observation virtually was impossible and maps had to be used, the American gun commanders picking out German positions that had been marked down earlier.
German 105's and 155's (about four and six inches) hurled their high explosive shells. Shrapnel sprayed over the entire territory, and the American positions in the rear were heavily pounded and deluged with gas. The Germans shelled forests, crossroads, highways, clumps of trees and all other places where they thought troops or supplies might be concentrated or passing.
Every position in the American lines which ordinarily would have been good from a military viewpoint became almost untenable from the fact that the Germans, having so recently been driven out, knew the terrain and the positions accurately. It was as safe in the open as in the supposed shelters.
No sooner had the occupation of Fismes been established completely than the Americans calmly prepared to cross the river and take Fismette, regardless of the German resistance. For some reason still unexplained, since after developments have made it clear the Germans had no real hope of stopping short of the Chemin-des-Dames, north of the Aisne, they made the taking of Fismette almost a first-class operation, even driving the Americans back across the river after they once had established themselves, and counter-attacking repeatedly.
Presumably, they had been unable to get away their vast quantities of munitions and supplies between the Vesle and the Aisne, and needed to hold up the pursuit while these were extricated.
As a first step in the crossing of the river,Major Robert M. Vail, of Scranton, commanding the 108th Machine Gun Battalion, operating with the 55th Infantry Brigade, sent over two companies of machine gunners. They waded the river, which was nearly to their armpits in places, holding their weapons above their heads. Others carried ammunition in boxes on their heads. They went over in a storm of shells and bullets, which took a heavy toll, but they established a bridgehead on the north bank and, fighting like demons, held it against tremendous odds while men of the 103d Engineers, ordered up for the work, threw bridges across the stream.
It was in this work that units of the engineer regiment, particularly Company C, of Pottsville, were badly mauled. Working swiftly and unconcernedly in the midst of a tornado of almost every conceivable kind and size of shell, most of the time sustaining the discomfort of their gas masks, the engineers conducted themselves like veterans of years of service, instead of the tyros they actually were. Officers and men of the other organizations, watching the performance, thrilled with pride at the outstanding bravery of these heroic youngAmericans. Their own officers were too absorbed in their task to appreciate the work of the men until afterward, when they had also to mourn their losses.
Methodically, working in water above their waists, many of them, the engineers thrust the arm of their bridge across the stream. Shells raged about them, churning the water to foam and throwing up geysers of mud and spray. Now and then a flying fragment of steel struck one of the toilers, whereupon he either dropped and floated downstream, uninterested in the further progress of the war, or struggled to the bank for first aid and made his way to a hospital.
The first bridge was nearly completed when a big shell scored a direct hit and it disappeared in a mass of kindling wood. Patiently and tenaciously, the engineers, deprived by their duties of even the satisfaction of seizing a rifle and trying to wreak a little vengeance, started to rebuild the structure.
Hampered by the German fire, the bridge building was slow and, the machine gunners having made a good crossing, infantry was started over the ford. The process ofthrowing men across was greatly hastened when at last the first bridge was completed. Other spans soon were ready, but the engineers knew no cessation from their task, for all too frequently Hun projectiles either tore holes in the bridges or wrecked them altogether.
In Fismette, the Pennsylvanians ran into a stone wall of resistance. The enemy made desperate efforts to dislodge them and drive them back across the river. One counter-attack after another was met and beaten off by the valiant little band of Americans, supported by the roaring guns on the heights to the south.
The Pennsylvanians had the double satisfaction now of knowing their own artillery brigade was mingling its fire with that of the other American and French batteries. On August 8th, Brigadier-General William G. Price, of Chester, rode up to regimental headquarters of the 109th Infantry and greeted his friends among the officers. He informed them that his brigade was immediately behind and that he was hunting division headquarters to report for action. A guide was assigned him and the General left in his motor car. Word soon spread through the infantry regiments that all thePennsylvania gunners at last were in the fight.
The weather turned wet again, varying from a drizzle to a heavy downpour, but never quite ceasing.
The penetration of Fismette went slowly but steadily on, in the face of strong resistance, the Germans reacting viciously at every point of contact. Here, as elsewhere along the front between Soissons and Rheims, the action consisted of a series of sharp local engagements, with considerable hand-to-hand fighting, in which American bayonets played an important role.
Amid the fever of battle and not knowing what moment may prove their last, men move as if in a trance. Hours and days pass undistinguished and unrecorded. With the fundamental scheme of existence shattered and with friends of years and chums of months of campaigning killed between sunrise and sunset, it is no wonder that men's minds become abnormal and their acts superhuman.
In quiet, peaceful homes it is impossible to understand this psychology. One may comprehend the mental shock sustained when a relative or neighbor or close friendfalls victim to accident or disease, but that feeling is but distantly related to the effect upon the soldier when he realizes that a dozen, possibly half a hundred, of his comrades and close associates of weeks of work and recreation have been wiped out of existence in an hour—men with whom he had talked daily, possibly was talking at the time of dissolution.
The same experience is repeated day after day with deep effect upon his mental, as well as his physical, state of being. Even in civil life, one learns that loss of sleep in time acts like a drug. After twenty-four or thirty-six hours without sleep, it becomes increasingly easy to do without further, until the limit of human endurance is reached and the victim collapses. Also, infrequent food and drink may be borne at increasingly long intervals. The condition is not infrequently described, accurately enough, as being "too hungry to eat," or "too tired to rest." Inevitably the reaction comes, and the longer the relief is postponed, the worse is the reaction. For this reason, the first day in repose for soldiers after a long campaign is usually worse than the campaign itself.
But while the deprivation of sleep, food and drink continues, it is undeniable that, though the physical being may support the loss with decreasing discomfort up to the point of collapse, the effect upon the senses is almost that of an opiate. Men lose their sense of proportion. Everything ordinarily of prime importance recedes into the background. The soldier is imbued with but one overmastering aspiration—to go on and on and on.
It is no wonder that, in such case, he feels that his own fate is a small matter, as it is liable to be sealed at any moment, in the same way as that of his comrades; no wonder that he faces death with the same indifference as a man at home faces a summer shower.
This, then, is the state to which our Pennsylvania soldiers had now been reduced, and in consequence their deeds of personal heroism began to multiply. This was the period when individual men achieved most frequently the great glory of the service—citation and decoration for bravery in action. They had overstepped, individually and collectively, all the bounds of personal fear of death or injury.
The Germans hurled one fresh regiment after another into the inferno which was Fismette, in a determined effort to dislodge that pitiful handful of Americans which had found lodgment on its river edge. Five times fresh, vigorous forces, with hardly a lull, were hurled at the position. All the time the guns kept up an incessant cannonade, both of Fismette and Fismes and the back reaches of the Allied front, while the attacking forces were strongly supported by airplanes, artillery and machine guns.
The tide of battle swayed back and forth as the Americans, reinforced at intervals by groups of men who succeeded in crossing the river, worked their way forward, only to be hurled back by vastly superior forces of the enemy, and hero after hero stalked, actor-like, across the murky stage. Some gallant acts were recorded and, duly and in due time, won their reward. Many more never were heard of, for the reason that participants and witnesses were beyond mortal honor, or else the only witnesses were part and parcel of the heroic act and therefore, according to the Anglo-Saxon code ofhonor, their lips were sealed. They could not tell of their own fine deeds.
It was the 111th Infantry which came into its gallant own in the first penetration of Fismette, and its men took high rank in the heroic galaxy constituting the Iron Division.
Probably the most noteworthy deed of individual heroism was that of Corporal Raymond B. Rowbottom, of Avalon, Pa., near Pittsburgh, member of Company E, and Corporal James D. Moore, Erie, Pa., of Company G, both of the 111th.
They were on outpost duty together with automatic rifle teams in a house beyond the spinning mill on the western edge of Fismette. The mill had been one of the hotly contested strongholds of the Germans because of its size and the thickness of its old stone walls. The situation was such that the loss of the firing post in the house would have endangered not only a battalion which was coming up under Lieutenant L. Howard Fielding, of Llanerch, Pa., but also would have made the whole military operation more difficult, if not impossible.
A flare thrown from a German post landed in the room where Rowbottom andMoore had established themselves, and in a moment the place was ablaze. This was on the night of August 12th. The flare had been thrown for the particular purpose of providing illumination for the German snipers and machine gunners to see their target. The fire that started from it not only answered this purpose better than the flare alone could have, but also distracted the attention of the American outpost and threatened to drive them from the house.
There was, of course, no water in the house except the small quantity contained in the canteens of the men. With this absurdly inadequate supply and their own bare hands, fighting flames in a room as bright as day and under a heavy, concentrated machine gun and rifle fire, Rowbottom and Moore extinguished the blaze and then calmly resumed their automatic rifle work. For hours they went thirsty, until their throats were parched and their tongues swelled. For this deed, both men were cited and given the Distinguished Service Cross.
Five wounded men were left behind unavoidably when a detachment of the 111th was called hurriedly back from anadvanced post which it was seen could not be held without too great sacrifice. Private Albert R. Murphy, of Philadelphia, a member of the sanitary detachment of the 111th, volunteered to go out after them. Despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles and constantly under vicious fire from scores of enemy marksmen, Murphy stuck to his task until the last man was back, although it took three days and nights of repeated effort. He, too, was cited and given the Distinguished Service Cross.
A sergeant of Company C, 111th Infantry, was shot on August 10th and lay in an exposed position. Sergeant Alfred Stevenson, of Chester, a member of the same company, volunteered to go to the rescue. He successfully made his way through the enemy fire to the side of the wounded comrade. As he leaned over the man to get a grip on him so he could carry the burden, a sharpshooter's bullet struck him. Stevenson partially raised himself and said to the wounded man:
"Gee, they got me that time."
As he spoke the words, the sniper shot him again and he fell dead. The wounded man lay in a clump of bushes and betweenthere and our lines was an open space of considerable width. When Stevenson did not reappear with the wounded man, Corporal Robert R. Riley, of Chester, a member of the same company, and two comrades asked permission to go after the two.
At their first effort, all were wounded and forced to return. Corporal Riley's wound was not severe, however, and he insisted upon making another attempt. This time he reached the spot, only to find his old schoolmate, Stevenson, dead, and the man for whom the effort was made able to crawl back after having first aid treatment. Riley collapsed on his way back and was carried in by Private Edward Davis and sent to a hospital, where he recovered and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
On August 10th, a detachment of men of the 111th captured some enemy machine guns and a quantity of ammunition. Corporal Raymond Peacock, of Norristown, a member of Company F, was the only man available who knew how to operate the enemy gun, a Maxim. He had just been so badly wounded in the left shoulder that the arm was partially useless.Nevertheless, he volunteered to go forward and operate the gun. He participated in a spirited assault, firing the weapon with one hand, until he was wounded again. A Distinguished Service Cross was his reward.
An officer of the 111th called for a runner to take a message from Fismette back to Fismes. The path that had to be covered was pounded by big shells and sprayed with machine gun bullets, and the man who volunteered went but a short distance when he dropped, riddled like a sieve.
Undaunted by the sight, Private Lester Carson, of Clearfield, Pa., a member of Company L, promptly volunteered and was given a duplicate message. His luck held, for he got through over the same route, by an exercise of daring, aggressiveness and care, and delivered the note. He, too, won a Distinguished Service Cross.
For five days of the most intense fighting, from August 9th to 13th, Private Fred Otte, Fairmount City, Pa., a member of Company A, 111th Infantry, acted as a runner between his battalion headquarters in Fismes and the troops in Fismette. He made several trips across the Vesle under heavy shell and machine gun fire, and whenthe bridge was destroyed he continued his trips by swimming the river, in spite of wire entanglements in the water. For this he received a Distinguished Service Cross.
Bugler Harold S. Gilham, of Pittsburgh, Company H, and Private Charles A. Printz, of Norristown, Company F, both of the 111th, not only volunteered as runners to carry messages to the rear, but on their return showed their scorn of the enemy by burdening themselves with heavy boxes of ammunition which was badly needed.
Sergeant James R. McKenney, of Pittsburgh, Company E, 111th Infantry, took out a patrol to mop up snipers. When he returned, successful, he was ordered to rest, but begged and obtained permission to take out another patrol.
Sergeant Richard H. Vaughan, of Royersford, Pa., Company A, 111th Infantry, was severely gassed and his scalp was laid open by a piece of shrapnel. Despite this, he refused to go back for treatment, but had his wound treated on the field and continued to command his platoon for four days until relieved. He died later of his injuries, but a Distinguished Service Cross was awarded to him and sent to his father,Dr. E. M. Vaughan, of Royersford, together with the text of the official citation, which told the tale of the Sergeant's heroism and concluded with the statement:
"By his bravery and encouragement to his men, he exemplified the highest qualities of leadership."
Corporal James V. Gleason, of Pottstown, Pa., Company A, 111th, was publicly commended and given the Distinguished Service Cross for his "great aid in restoring and holding control of the line in absolute disregard to personal danger and without food or rest for seventy-two hours." How terse and yet how graphic are these precise words of the official citation!
Lieutenants Walter Ettinger, of Phoenixville, who later was killed, and Robert B. Woodbury, of Pottsville, the former an officer of Company D, and the latter of Company M, 111th Infantry, spent three sleepless days and nights aiding and encouraging their men to hold a position.
On August 12th, the Germans delivered an attack in force, preceded by an intense bombardment and accompanied by a rolling barrage, which was too pretentious to be met by the small American force inFismette. In the face of those onrushing German hordes, there were but two things to do—die heroically but futilely or retire. True to American army traditions, under which men never are required to lay down their lives uselessly, the American force slowly, reluctantly and stubbornly retired across the river.
Instantly the Franco-American guns gave tongue. They laid down upon Fismette a bombardment which made the German effort seem trifling. With the walls falling around them, the Germans began to flee. And then the task of conquering that stubborn little village was begun again.
This second advance was led by a detachment of the 111th, under Captain James Archibald Williams and Lieutenant H. E. Leonard, both of Pittsburgh. They swam the Vesle under a hail of fire, for the enemy centered much of his artillery upon the bridges, and shrapnel and machine gun bullets fell upon them like rain.
Soaked from head to foot, the Pennsylvanians got a footing on the northern bank, only to find they were unsupported as yet on either flank. Undaunted, they plunged forward into a little ravine whichseemed to offer some protection. On the contrary, they found there had settled into it most of the gas with which the enemy had been drenching the town. Various kinds of the poisonous vapor, mustard gas, sneeze gas, tear gas and chlorine gas, had accumulated there in a seething mixture, providing the worst experience with this form of Hun deviltry the men had met.
Gas masks were already in place, however, and forward they went on the run. Machine guns chattered angrily at them, and the gunners stood their ground until the flashing bayonets of the Americans were almost at their breasts. Then they either broke and fled or bleated the customary plea for mercy.
While all this was going forward, shells had wrecked all the bridges over the river but one and it was so damaged as to be considered unsafe, so the little force in Fismette had to hold on as best it could until reinforcements could be thrown across. It was at this juncture that there entered into fame a new set of candidates for military decorations.
The men of the 103d Sanitary Train of the Twenty-eighth Division had been performing their arduous and perilous tasks in a gallant and self-sacrificing manner, but they now achieved the apotheosis of bravery.
In the cellar of a house in Fismette there had been assembled twenty-eight American wounded, and it was necessary to evacuate them across the river in order that they might reach hospitals and receive proper treatment. Five times the house had been struck by shells and Sergeant WilliamLukens, of Cheltenham, Pa., and a few other men had to scrape the débris off the wounded. Four times the comrades of Lukens had to dig him out when shells buried him under an avalanche of earth.
Captain Charles Hendricks, of Blairsville, Pa., remained in the cellar three days and four nights, and twice was buried by shells.
The ambulance men who finally carried the wounded back across the river, after hairbreadth escapes and thrilling experiences, were headed by Captain George E. McGinnis, of Philadelphia, and were members of Ambulance Company 110, formerly Ambulance Company 2 in the National Guard.
The advance party of rescuers set out for Fismes in a touring car. It was made up of Major Frederick Hartung, of Pittsburgh; Major Edward M. Iland, of Coraopolis, Captain McGinnis and Privates Walter McGinnis and Walter Frosch, both of Philadelphia, and all members of the medical corps.
Frosch was at the wheel. They took the road down the hill on the southern slope of the Vesle at breakneck speed, for caution was useless. They were in full view ofscores of enemy gunners and their car at once became a target, being hit several times. Frosch drove on "without batting an eye," as the officers remarked.
Over the unsafe bridge they rushed at top speed and, to the amazement of the watching Americans on the south bank, the structure held. Then the car tore up through Fismette to the dressing station, around which big shells were beating a terrible tattoo. The men hurriedly looked over the situation and then made a preconcerted signal to the ambulanciers waiting on the other side of the river.
When the signal was received, the ambulances came out from cover and dashed for the river. They were conspicuously decorated with the red cross, but that seemed only to make them a special target for the enemy. The machines were manned by James T. O'Neill, of Aldan, Pa.; James R. Gunn, Joseph M. Murray, Samuel Falls, Alfred Baker, Originnes Biemuller, known among his comrades as "Mike," James R. Brown, Jack Curry, Harry Broadbent, Raymond Onyx and Albert Smith, all of Philadelphia, and John F. Maxwell, of Williamsport.
On the trip into Fismette, the ambulances escaped a hit, miraculous as it may seem. They went around corners on two wheels, thundering and rushing through the narrow little streets littered with dust and débris, and came to a halt in the lee of the dressing station. Their crews leaped to the ground and set to work loading the wounded.
The Hun artillerists and machine gunners vented all their varieties of hate on the gallant little group intent on an errand of mercy. It seemed as if the whole German army had determined they should not get their wounded back to Fismes. With more indifference to the fire than they felt for the clouds of flies which really annoyed them, the ambulance men worked quickly, smoothly and efficiently.
O'Neill was sent back to see if the bridge still was standing. Instead of contenting himself with making sure of this from the brow of the river slope, he bethought him of a cache of medical supplies near the river and continued on foot to the spot, carrying back with him a burden of needed stores. Officers, watching the splendid exhibition of cast-iron nerve through theirglasses from the far side of the river, alternately cursed him for "a blazing young fool" and blessed him for being "the kind of young fool that does things."
O'Neill reported that the bridge was still in place and at three o'clock in the morning the first ambulance was loaded and sent away. Captain McGinnis went with it. The second ambulance left a few minutes later. Broadbent and Maxwell still were loading. O'Neill had made another trip to the river to see if the bridge was all right.
The first two ambulances had just cleared the river when a shell landed fairly on the span and broke it through. O'Neill ran back to tell his comrades and as he arrived a big shell fell just outside the cellar. Broadbent was knocked down and deluged with earth at the entrance. He scrambled back into the cellar at top speed, but one of the wounded men in the ambulance, supposed to be too badly hurt to walk, beat Broadbent into the shelter.
One of the patients was wounded again in the leg and one of the ambulanciers held his hand over his cheek, where a screw from the side of the ambulance had beenblown clear through. Three tires of the ambulance were punctured, the sides were perforated in a score of places and the roof was blown off by shell fragments.
The patients were unloaded and carried back into the cellar to await a quieter moment. Repairs were made to the bridge and Captain McGinnis returned in a car and ordered the ambulances to get away. They started again at seven o'clock in the morning, but found the bridge again a mass of wreckage and had to return.
At last, at four o'clock in the afternoon, there came a lull in the enemy fire and two more of the ambulances began their perilous race across the river, the engineers having just completed the rebuilding of the bridge. For the second time they just cheated a big shell, which landed on the bridge immediately after the second car had crossed, and the structure was put out of service beyond hope of quick repair.
Thereupon the ambulanciers remaining in the Fismette cellar calmly proceeded to carry the remaining wounded on litters down the hill through the German fire, under protection of a well-organized defense by our fighting men. They forded theriver, holding the litters above their heads, while shells threw up waterspouts and bullets pattered like hail all about them.
On the southern bank, ambulances stood out in the open, backed almost to the water's edge, their drivers smoking cigarettes and watching and calling advice to the men in the water. Thus the last of the wounded were taken from under the noses of the enemy.
Captain McGinnis and most of the enlisted men whose names have been mentioned were awarded Distinguished Service Crosses. Most of them had worked seventy-two hours and many had absolutely no rest for forty-eight hours. Ten of their thirteen ambulances were demolished.
In organizing a protective offense to cover the evacuation of the wounded, First Sergeant Thomas J. Cavanaugh, of Pittsburgh, a member of Company D, 111th Infantry, distinguished himself in such a manner as to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
With a small force of men, he captured a building in the outskirts of the village and organized it as a strong point. He thentook a position himself at a street intersection where, by stepping around the corner of the buildings one way, he was protected from enemy snipers and machine gunners, and by turning the corner, he was open to the fire sweeping in gusts down the road the ambulance men had to cover. Cavanaugh, when an ambulance was ready to move, stepped into the open, like Ajax defying the lightning. If the Germans were not firing heavily for the moment, he whistled a signal to the ambulance men that it was safe to go ahead.
He was wounded by shrapnel, but refused to leave his post until he collapsed, an hour and a half after being struck. The next day, having had his wound treated, he insisted on resuming his position as a human target for the benefit of the ambulance men and their wounded.
Captain Edmund W. Lynch, of Chester, commanding Company B, 111th Infantry, who was killed a short time later, and Lieutenant Edward S. Fitzgerald, of New York City, exposed themselves in the same manner and for the same self-sacrificing purpose at other important corners.
And the fight for possession of Fismettewent forward ceaselessly. A daring and clever bit of work by a party of Pennsylvania machine gunners under Lieutenant Milford W. Fredenburg, of Ridgway, Pa., an officer of Company D, 112th Infantry, had a considerable influence on the final driving of the enemy from the town. The lieutenant led his gunners filtering through the German lines at night, like Indians, a man or two here, another there. They assembled beyond the town, took shelter in a wood and when the fighting was most furious the next day they were able to pour in a disconcerting fire on the rear of the German forces.
Lieutenant Rippey L. Shearer, of Harrisburg, with men of Company G, 112th Infantry, crossed the river in water up to their necks, in which the shorter men had either to swim or be supported by the larger ones. They had the center of the advance and captured a building which had been used as a tannery and had been a German stronghold. It was a desperately brave, although costly, bit of work for which the Pennsylvanians were highly praised.
Captain Fred L. McCoy, Grove City,Pa., commanding Company M, 112th Infantry, held the left flank. He and his men fought their way down the river bank to where an old stone mansion, known as the Château Diable, had been a thorn in the side of the American attack. They stormed and captured the building, taking thirty machine guns, a large quantity of ammunition and many prisoners.
Captain Lucius M. Phelps, of Erie, Pa., commanding Company G, 112th, and Captain Harry F. Miller, of Meadville, Pa., commanding Company B, of the same regiment, led their companies in an advance east of the tannery until they were ensconced behind stout stone walls, from where they were able to turn their guns on the enemy stubbornly clinging to the northern fringe of the village.
The 103d Trench Mortar Battery, made up very largely of members of the old First City Troop of Philadelphia and representative of many of the socially prominent families of that city, entered its first general action. Under command of Captain Ralph W. Knowles, of Philadelphia, the battery advanced with the infantry, lugging their Stokes mortars across the river and up thehill. They set up their squat weapons and soon the deep-throated roars of the mortars hurling their immense bombs joined in the chorus that was beginning to sound the knell of German hopes of hanging onto any part of Fismette.
West of Fismette, the broad Rheims-Rouen highway became, in the course of these operations north of the Vesle, an objective of commanding importance to the Americans for the purpose of breaking up lateral communications along the German line. Captain Arthur L. Schlosser, of Buffalo, N. Y., later killed, and Captain Robert S. Caine, of Pittsburgh, who went to France as lieutenants of Company G, 111th Infantry, on their own initiative started a raid which developed into a successful attack and resulted in the capture of the highway where it crosses the Vesle.
Captain Schlosser, who was almost a giant in size, carried a rifle himself and, instead of having his men advance in company formation, led them filtering through the woods in Indian fashion. He captured two Maxim guns and killed the crews and he and Captain Caine and theirmen held their positions against counter-attacks by the remnants of three German regiments.
Not all the losses were confined to the attacking troops. The enemy artillery, continually shelling the back areas, took its sad toll of American life and limb. The 103d Engineers, who had been performing prodigious work in their own line, suffered the loss of their second in command, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank J. Duffy, of Scranton, Pa. As he stepped into a side car in front of headquarters on the evening of August 17th to make a tour of the lines, a huge shell exploded immediately behind, killing him and the cycle driver instantly.
Back on the hills south of Fismes, the Pennsylvania artillery all this time had been earning the right to rank in the Iron Division glory roll along with their doughboy comrades. At one time, just as a battery had geared up to move and the men already were astride their horses, a big shell dropped plump upon the lead team of one of the guns.
"Steady, men," called an officer, and the men sat their plunging, trembling horses as if on parade. It was an ideal time for acostly stampede, but the conduct of the artillerymen prevented this and won the highest praise of officers and men of other units who saw the occurrence.
Two men were killed and three severely wounded and two horses were blown to bits. The wheel driver trotted to a first aid station to get help for the wounded men, while the regiment went on. After delivering his message, the driver obtained a supply of powder and shells and went on the gallop to the battery position to deliver the ammunition. Then he said to men about him:
"Now, if you fellows have all that stuff unloaded and one of you will help me down, I'll get you to tie a knot around this leg of mine."
Only then was it discovered that he had been attending to other wounded men and the ammunition needs of the battery with a bad gash in his own leg from a shell fragment.
Members of the headquarters companies of the artillery regiments maintained communications constantly, stringing telephone wires in the face of heavy enemy fire in almost impossible places. There was nothought of failing. When some men died in an attempt, others promptly stepped into the breach to "carry on."
Still the German guns from their hilltops poured down their galling fire upon the American positions. Still the snipers and machine gunners hung on in Fismette and still the crossing of the Vesle under bombardment was so hazardous that an attack in force was impracticable.
The fighting in the streets of the town swayed back and forth until August 28th. That day the Germans came down out of their hills in a roaring tide. They boiled into Fismette and drove the small force of Pennsylvanians back to the river, where an amazingly few men managed to hold a bridgehead on the northern bank, and the town once more was German territory.
Then our gunners went systematically to work to level the place, for the high command had lost all hope of taking it by infantry assault without an unworthy loss of brave men.