Part 7 (1/2)
The enemy trenches were found, as had been expected, full of Germans.
Most of them were in dugouts or funk holes, and did not make a severe resistance. ”Come out of there,” the man in charge of the particular detail for that part of the trench would call down the dugout. If the Huns came out, they were taken prisoner. If they did not, a couple of incendiary grenades were thrown down the dugout and our men moved on.
We captured, in all, thirty-three prisoners, of whom one was an officer, and probably killed and wounded as many more. Our losses were one killed and five slightly wounded. Unfortunately the one man killed was Lieutenant Freml, the raid leader, who fell in a hand-to-hand combat.
Freml was an old Regular Army sergeant and had fought in the Philippine Islands. After this war he was planning to return and establish a chicken farm. He always kept his head no matter what the circ.u.mstances were and his solutions for situations that arose were always practical.
His men were devoted to him and would follow him anywhere.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A TRENCH RAID Drawn 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 German helmet hanging from the end. As he pa.s.sed 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. They were 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 a.s.sault, was in support and took over the extreme right of the line after the a.s.sault. 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 ga.s.sed 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 ga.s.sing 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 Andrews doing 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 reenforcements 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,” and died. 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 fas.h.i.+on: ”h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, 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 a string of misfortunes happened. On account of the hurry and the difficulty of transmission, the artillery mistook the coordinate 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 sh.e.l.l 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 of a 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 Chateau-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 Compiegne, in an endeavor to straighten out the reentrant in their lines with its apex at Soissons. This latter attack pa.s.sed 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 holds good 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 Chateau-Thierry drive, Blalock, afterward sergeant of D Company, distinguished himself by a rather remarkable piece of marksmans.h.i.+p. Noticing a pigeon fluttering over the trench, he drew his automatic pistol and killed it on the wing.
The bird 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 sh.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l of a good soldier.”
Another time, when we were moving forward to reenforce a threatened part of the line, a sergeant called O'Rourke was. .h.i.t 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 d.a.m.ned good time.”
Sergeant Steidel of A Company was a fine up-standing soldier and won the D. S. C. and the Medaille 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 sh.e.l.l-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.