Capt. Colonna and Lt. Foulkes at Camp Dix, 1918.

You, my comrades of the past two years, for whom this history is written, know that I have but small gift of expression at any time, and least of all for the things closest to my heart. At your request, however, made when we parted for the last time, I am writing the story of our company. I shall do my best to put down everything as it occurred, so far as my knowledge and memory will serve; and I trust that if the matter is true, you will overlook crudeness in the form.

“Company B, 311th Infantry”—Only a letter and a number? Only one company out of the hundreds in the National Army? Yes, to outsiders; but to me, and I trust and believe to you, Company B was a living and vital being, composed of part of what was best in each of us. Its official life was twenty months; in that time it was born, grew to full strength, was trained, travelled some 7500 miles, fulfilled its destiny—fought, suffered, lost; and finally returned to its birthplace and was mustered out. But the spirit of B Company is still with each of us, and not a man but has carried away more than he gave.

Relatively, B Company was a very small part of the army. But to us, it was the army; just as we shall always think of the war in terms of St. Mihiel and the Argonne. We have heard of the Marne, Ypres, Verdun, Chateau Thierry; but every man sees the war through his own eyes.

For this reason, I am writing in the first person. The best I can do is to relate things as I saw them so I shall not take refuge behind an artificial impersonality. Probably a good many things were pulled off that I did not know anything about. And then you may discover that I knew more about some little matters than you thought I did.

On May 5, 1917, I reported for duty at the Officers’ Training Camp at Madison Barracks, New York, with a commission as Second Lieutenant of Infantry in the Reserve Corps. My call to active duty had cut short my law course at Columbia University two months before I was to take my degree.

Having graduated three years before from the Virginia Military Institute, and served there a year as sub-professor of German and tactics, I had some idea of the fundamental principles of military training; but, like almost all the other reserve officers, army paper work and administration was a closed book to me.

A few days later I was told off to report to Capt. Haynes Odom, U. S. R., commanding Co. 5 of the 2d Provisional Training Regt. Capt. Odom was already conspicuous among the batch of reserve officers for his efficiency and tireless energy and industry. The tall, upstanding figure, with the mark of the regular army man indelibly stamped upon him; the head carried well back; the weather-worn, sun-wrinkled face, the hooked nose, cool hazel eyes; the smile that accompanied alike a friendly greeting or a merciless balling out; the soft Southern accent indescribably harshened by thousands of commands given—do you recognize the Major, boys?

The three long, hot, arduous months of training at Madison Barracks can be passed over briefly. My cot in the long frame barrack was next to that of a tall, lithe, black haired lad from Rochester, N. Y., with the merriest, keenest, black eyes I ever saw. Before a week went by he stood out above the average candidate. He was young, just twenty-one—I was at the venerable age of twenty-two. But he had the keenest, quickest, practical mind I have ever met, and the gift of natural leadership, which is compounded of courage, intelligence, unselfish sympathy, and a sense of humor. He had graduated from Cornell in 1916. Later you knew him as 1st Lieut. Louis Sinclair Foulkes, the best officer in “B” Company; the best officer it was my fortune to come in contact with during the war.

One of the training companies was organized as a cavalry troop. We saw them now and then being led in physical drill by a handsome, muscular young chap, so alive and vibrant with nervous energy that it was good to watch him work. He was Roy A. Schuyler, of Schenectady, a graduate of Union College, and a descendant of that General Schuyler whose record in the Revolutionary War makes so bright a page in American history. Brilliant, impulsive, generous, full of the joy of life, passionately eager to serve; he was a worthy descendant of a long line of fighting patriots.

In Co. 9 was an earnest, dignified, hard working reserve first lieutenant, one of the most capable of the reserve officers on the post. He was a prominent lawyer of Utica, N. Y., and one of the leaders in the Plattsburg movement. Though well over the draft age, he had given up his large practice and had[7] gone into the service at the first call. This was Russell H. Brennan, the first commander of “B” Company.

At last our course drew to a close; the commissions were announced and we departed for ten days’ leave before reporting to Camp Dix for duty. Will we ever forget those ten golden August days? The world was ours, and life was sweet. No one knew what lay ahead, but we all made the most of our last taste of the old life for some time.

Most of you saw it for the first time when you rolled into the long train shed, and hiked up to your barracks through a mile or more of company streets, in a city of forty thousand men, the hundreds of large barracks already weatherbeaten with the snows and rains of winter.

We, however, after changing trains several times, finally rolled up to what was apparently a piano box in a lumber yard, and were there assured by the conductor that this was Camp Dix. We tumbled off, and trudged away through six inches of New Jersey dust toward the only building in sight with a roof on it—camp headquarters. Our bags became heavier and heavier; our new uniforms were fearfully hot; our new shoes and puttees, with which we had been dazzling admiring womenfolks and causing menfolk to grunt with assumed indifference, were abominably tight and pinchy.

Finally we straggled in to headquarters, to indulge for a couple of hours in that amusement so familiar to every man in the army—standing in line for an hour to do two minutes of red tape. When our turn was over, we went over to a partially completed barracks, where we were each allowed to appropriate 1 cot, iron. This was the limit of our accommodation—those who couldn’t get away to some nearby town slept on the soft side of a piece of bristol board. We walked to the ether side of camp for all our meals—about two miles, if you didn’t lose your way.

The next morning we attended a rollcall at 9 A. M. There we met Col. Marcus B. Stokes, the commanding officer; and Lt. Col. Edgar Myer, second in command. We found that the officers from Madison Barracks, Cos. 5 and 6, with half of the Troop formed the nucleus of the new regiment.

Capt. Odom was Regimental Adjutant and to my horror I was at once made Regimental Supply Officer. The following officers were assigned to “B” company:

For a month the regiment went through the agonies of organization. Supplies came in by driblets; transportation there was none, save for two hopelessly over-worked motor truck companies, which put in half their time trying[8] to separate their trucks from the sacred soil of Jersey. A great swarm of civilian workmen were toiling feverishly to get up the barracks. The regiment was moved four times in as many weeks. The roads were six inches deep in mud or dust.

The first enlisted men in the regiment were three former candidates at Madison Barracks, who, through no fault of their own, had not received commissions, but who wouldn’t leave the bunch, and enlisted in the regiment,—Dave Gardenier, Art McCann, and Jimmie Hooker. McCann and Gardenier were made regimental sergeants major, and Hooker was my regimental supply sergeant.

In about a week a number of men came in from various Regular Army regiments, to form a nucleus of N. C. O.’s. “B” company received Ertwine, Robbins, and J. M. Newell. These men were shortly afterward made corporals on recommendation of Capt. Brennan.

From Sept. 19th to Sept. 22d, the men of the first draft came in. As Supply Officer, my own troubles kept me pretty busy during those strenuous days. I knew “B” company, however, as a good outfit. Capt. Brennan’s steady, methodical, tireless work, and the energy and devotion of his three lieutenants showed results from the first. Lt. Fish, a former National Guard officer, was an old hand and steadied the younger officers.

After two months of hard work, the companies began to round out into some sort of shape. The non-commissioned officers were selected, with as much care as was possible in the limited time allowed for observation of the new men. The first top sergeant of “B” Co. was Eilert, a sturdy and sterling product of the first draft, who had been a foreman in a large factory. The “top” is, absolutely, the most essential man in a company. His position is such that he has to see to the carrying out of all the disagreeable orders, and making the details for all the dirty jobs, while at the same time he is not protected by any barrier of rank. He is usually cordially detested and thoroughly respected by the men, and is about as useful to the officers as a right hand. We never had a top in “B” Co. who was not absolutely loyal to the service and to the company commander; never one who shrank from the most disagreeable duty, nor who gave a thought to his personal popularity. They were human, of course, and made mistakes like the rest of us; and sometimes they couldn’t help being placed in a bad light to the men. But you men—some of you, even, who beefed most against the tops—if you only knew how many times that same top came to the company commander or other officers to help out this fellow or that, to suggest some way of making things easier for the whole company; if you knew how hard and thankless a job they held; possibly you would have been a little more lenient in your judgments.

James McC. Newell was the first supply sergeant, and got away with everything not nailed down. Samuel Tritapoe was Mess Sgt. until Lt. Wagner recognized his ability and took him for a regimental supply sergeant, and Warren Sculthorp succeeded to this thankless but highly important job. The other sergeants, as well as I remember, were Ertwine, Perry, Anness and Robbins. Joe Levy was soon drafted by Newell to make the accounts balance; Harold Sculthorpe started on his culinary career; Sweeney, Rogers, Tom Viracola, Howard Lehy, Hayden and Long Bill Reid were corporals. Sutton[9] and Weber were detailed at the regimental exchange where they were a great factor in making it the best in the division. And last, but not least, deBruin was man of all work and plumber-in-chief. Red Sheridan also started his lurid career with “B” Co., and helped deBruin and “Bugs” Wardell to dispose of the vanilla extract rations.

Toward the middle of October, Lt. Foulkes arrived from Cambridge, Mass., where he had been sent for a special course in trench warfare. He was assigned to B Co., and remained as second in command until he was made battalion adjutant in July 1918.

Now started in the era of transfers. New drafts were constantly coming in; and as soon as we would get them uniformed and able to negotiate a “Squads Right” without losing each other, they would be drawn away to fill up some other division destined for overseas duty before the 78th. Not once, but a dozen times between September and May did this happen, leaving the company with its officers and a skeleton of N. C. O.’s, cooks and orderlies.

On December 6th, Capt. Brennan and I were interchanged, he taking over the Supply Company and I, “B” Co.

The winter wore on, and spring was upon us, and we seemed no nearer France than before. Changes took place in officers as well as enlisted men. Lt. Ashmore went to “A” Co.; Lt. Fish to the Supply Co.; 2d Lts. Dunn and Merrill and 1st Lt. Vanderbilt took their places with “B” Co. The time was filled with training and equipping the ever changing quotas of recruits and drilling them in fundamentals; for the training cadre of officers and N. C. O.’s there were special courses in bayonet fighting, bombing, trench digging—how many cold and weary hours were swallowed up in that trench system east of the regimental area!—and ever and always wind, mud and snow, or wind, sun and dust.

When the March drafts came in, rumors took a new lease on life. The 77th division was being equipped to leave Camp Upton; our turn would probably come next. The transfers went out now to fill up, not other divisions, but our own artillery regiments across the parade ground. Work on the target range was increased. Ah, the joys of being routed out of the hay long before daybreak, snatching a hasty breakfast, and hiking off through the cold dawn, five miles through the barrens to that wind-swept waste with the long rows of targets.

1st Sgt. Eilert and Supply Sgt. Newell had been selected to attend the officers’ training school. Sgt. Ertwine, who had shown exceptional ability while in charge of the recruits’ barracks, was made 1st Sgt., and Joe Levy, of course, became Supply Sgt.

It was not all work and no play, though. At night there were movies at the “Y” huts; the Post Exchange for those who had something left from insurance, allotments and other ornaments of the pay roll,—or who were gifted enough to fill a full house or roll a “natural” consistently. And on Saturday afternoon and Sunday the lucky 25% would be off for a few precious hours at home or in the city, while the camp would be filled with visitors to the less fortunate.

April passed, and May arrived with green trees and warm days. We bought baseball equipment, and each company had a team (I wonder who got[10] hold of all that stuff finally?). The April drafts had brought the companies above normal strength. Tents were put up in the company streets to accommodate the overflow.

These were busy days for Supply Sgt. Levy and Cpl. Jimmie Jones, Company Clerk. There was a continuous procession in and out the door of the squad room where Levy had established his headquarters; recruits going in with blissful visions of emerging in the likeness of a magazine ad. soldier; departing with murder in their hearts because their trousers bagged at the knees. And Joe, who remembered last September when recruits would bum around for a month before getting a sign of a uniform, had scant sympathy with them.

This was also an era of reports. Reports on how many men we had; how many shirts each man had; how many extra shoe-laces were in our possession; how many men had W. R. insurance; how many were yet to be inoculated and how many times. Twice a day did I have to report for officers’ meeting; twice a day would the Colonel hold forth on the reports the general wanted, which company commanders would prepare at once, personally, in writing; then the adjutant would begin on the reports the colonel wanted; then the supply officer would chime in with a few more that he had to have by six o’clock at the latest. Life was a veritable nightmare of typewritten figures. The supply sergeant of “L” company actually lost his mind under the strain. Drill was carried on in the intervals of lining up for another check or inspection. And the men, quite naturally, looked upon the officers as a set of lunatics who didn’t know their own minds for ten minutes at a time.

About May 1st, an advance party of some 25 officers and men left the regiment, so we knew we were soon to follow. Lts. Schuyler and Merrill were in this party. They attended the A. E. F. Schools at Chatillon-sur-Seine, and rejoined us about July 1st.

At last the company was filled up to war strength, and equipped down to the last shoe lace. On Friday, May 17th, all visitors were excluded from camp. That evening I assembled the company and put the proposition up to every man in it whether he wanted to go to France or not, offering to leave anyone behind who wished to remain. I am proud to say that not a man applied to be left.

Saturday was a hectic day of last preparations. The barracks were stripped down to their last mattress and swept out. The typewriters clicked busily until the last minute. Tom Viracola, one of our best sergeants, who had been tripped on a slight disability by the medicos at the last minute and was nearly heartbroken, was to be left in charge of barracks.

About nine o’clock the company was formed for the last time at its old home. Packs were heavy with the regulation equipment, tobacco, and gifts from home. As I was signing some last papers under the arc light, “C” company moved out silently. I gave “Squads left, march,” the company wheeled out and we were off for the station.

The road was lined with soldiers from the Depot Brigade as we passed. Here and there we saw a familiar face, and though the movement was to be kept as quiet as possible, there was many a husky “so long, fellows” and “good-bye, 311, good luck,” to cheer us on our way.

[11]Packs were heavier every step, and what with the extra rations, typewriter, etc., we were glad to have a half hour’s rest at the station. Then the word came to fall in again—how many times were we to hear those weary words, “Fall in”—and the company filed along to the day coaches awaiting them. Equipment was removed, and all made themselves as comfortable as they could for the night.

Early in the morning the train pulled out. As dawn broke, we made out the names of some of the New Jersey towns we passed through. Many a lad saw his home town for the last time as we rolled through it in the chill of that May morning.

At Jersey City we detrained and passed through the station to the ferry. Several civilians asked us where we were going; but the men realized the importance of secrecy, and all the curious ones got was a gruff invitation to “put on a uniform and find out.”

Then we were jammed on a ferry boat. It was some jam, too, leaving those who hadn’t been trained on the subway gasping.

Down to the street, on between the great warehouses, and into a spacious covered pier. Here was the point of embarkation, where we had been told every service record was examined, every man inspected; the focus of all the red tape that had been driving us insane for the past two months. To our very agreeable surprise, however, the loading was handled by two or three business-like men in civvies, who merely checked each company on the boat by the passenger lists as fast as the men could hike up the gangplank.

We were met by Lt. Gibbs, battalion adjutant, who led us below, pointed out three decks each about the size of our Camp Dix orderly room, and announced that these were B Co.’s palatial quarters. I gasped, and remarked that we were much obliged, but suppose someone should want to turn around, where would he be, and howinell was Geoghegan going to get in one of those little canvas napkins they called hammocks, anyhow? He replied that I ought to see “C” company’s place, and melted away in a fashion peculiar to Bn. Adjts. when leaving Co. Cmdrs. S. O. L. A few moments later we heard him consoling Capt. O’Brien on the deck above by telling him that he ought to see “B” Co.’s place.

By the time the space and hammocks were assigned to platoons and squads, the ship was under way. Orders were to keep below decks until out of the harbor; and for many, their last look at America was a glimpse of the harbor front through a port hole.

At this point Lt. Gibbs reappeared, with the cheerful order that life preservers would be donned at once, and kept on for the rest of the voyage. For the next ten days all waddled about feeling like motherly hens. The apparatus I drew seemed particularly dirty, and most unbecoming to my figure, which is built close to the ground anyway.

Breakfast had been nothing more than a cracker and bully beef, snatched at odd moments. The good ship hadn’t started to roll much yet, so all looked[12] forward to dinner with a robust interest. Then it evolved that this was an Australian transport, the “Nestor;” and as such, sailed under the British flag; and hence and therefore, the next meal would be tea at 5 o’clock. Eternity passed, and about half an hour thereafter the steward came around, and in queer, clipped cockney English introduced us to “dixies” and “flats.” Another half hour, and the first messes to be served saw their hash-grabbing detail returning, bearing through aisles of famished Yanks—bread and cheese and tea! A planked steak would have been more to the point, we felt, and a towering, raw-boned countryman in a corner,—Lory Price, I imagine—opined dismally that we were being mistaken for an orphan asylum. However, what there was aroused the boys sufficiently to take a less morbid view of life, and as the officers departed to the cabin, cards and books appeared, and the mystic words were softly chanted: “Natural, bones”—“Read ’em and weep.”

But there was not what you might call a festive air to that first evening; nor to many thereafter. Of course, for some fellows who had no one dependent on them, who were setting out foot loose for a great adventure, there was nothing to interfere with the thrill of the unknown before them. But the majority of these men had been taken out of their civilian life but two or three weeks before; they were among strangers, and in an absolutely foreign environment; their new uniforms still uncomfortable and scratchy, and army regulations and discipline an incomprehensible set of shibboleths. Far down in each heart the love of their country burned, steadily enough for the most part; white hot in some; in others, but recently kindled. All hid it diligently, of course, from the general view. They had been so fed up with windy orators, with politicians waving the flag with one hand and keeping the other on exemption certificates, that the real thing was jealously concealed.

As I made my final inspection that night, looking out from the companion-way over the rows of close slung hammocks, I wondered what their occupants were thinking; what forms of dear ones were present to their minds; to what homes their thoughts went back—a Harlem flat, a Jersey farmhouse, a great hotel, a tiny pair of rooms in Jersey City; comfortable, well-off American homes; tenements in the foreign districts—each one dear for its memories, each one the home to fight for. Would we have time to train these men into a fighting machine, or would we be thrown in at once to stop the great Hun drive in Flanders, then at its height? How many of us would see these homes, these dear ones again?—But a company commander has little time to indulge in reflections; and thoughts of the morning report, and how to distribute the chow more evenly, and a large budget of orders I had to read, soon chased away everything else.

The NESTOR carried the 1st and 2d Bns. and Headquarters Co. of the 311th Inf., a Machine Gun battalion, and Brig. Gen. Dean, our brigade commander, and his staff. Our colonel was in command of the troops on board, such things being below the dignity of general officers. He was in his element; he had an officers’ meeting the first thing, and dished out about 4 square acres of orders to be read and put into effect at once.

1st Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.

Now no one knows better than I how many orders you men received, and how it was often beyond human power to obey all of them. But I call any company commander to witness that we got them coming and going. The Co.[13] Cmdr. is the one man who can’t pass the buck on responsibility. We had to take the bushels of orders we received, eliminate those utterly impossible, select from those remaining what seemed essential and what we thought the Major and Colonel would deem essential, and then get those things done by the company—that is, issue orders to the 1st Sgt. for details, Supply Sgt. for supplies, Mess Sgt. for mess, officers for drill and instruction, company clerk for paper work, and then see to it that the whole is carried out. And then one usually amasses a balling out for something or other that he has left out.

One of these orders was the censorship order, of which we had heard so much. Instead of having all letters censored at post offices by clerks, some genius had decided to follow the British plan of having officers censor their own men’s mail. Thus at one brilliant stroke a situation was created which embarrassed men and officers alike, imposed an irksome and continual task on over-burdened officers, delayed the mail, and was in every way sweet incense in the nostrils of the little tin gods of the red tape; the exponents of the theory of How Not to Do It.

The principal morning sport on the trip was the ship’s inspection. The holds of that old tub received such a scrubbing and cleaning as they had never had before. In spite of the close quarters, everything was kept quite fresh and clean. It gave me a vast respect for the women who do such work all day for paltry wages. At 10:00 A. M. the call would be sounded, and all except the day’s orderlies would be massed on decks in their boat drill stations, and a merry little crush it was. Then the lords of the earth would solemnly parade along in single file, preceded by a bugler, who blew a seasick “Attention” at each deck. Everybody would then step on everyone else’s feet, and make a little lane for the procession. The adjutant, the ship’s captain, the colonel, the ship supply officer—poor old Gibbs was the goat for that job—would play “follow my leader,” and look into corners, and sniff importantly, and everything would be very formal and terrible, and grand.

The rest of the day would be taken up with physical drills—one company using the deck at a time—and fire and boat drills. It was given out at first that four long blasts of the boat’s whistle would be the signal for “Abandon ship.” This was changed later by the ship’s captain, but somewhere along the line there was a hitch, and the information never got down to the company commanders. About five nights out, at about 10:30 P. M., the whistle began to toot, once—twice—heads began to appear over the hammocks; thrice—the hammocks began to be agitated; four times—two hundred and thirty odd hearts gave a leap, four hundred and sixty feet hit the floor, and B Company started up the gangway, with three sergeants, who shall be nameless, leading the way to victory. Lt. Foulkes, who was on fire watch, judged hastily that it must be all a mistake somehow, and calmed the riot with his .45 and a few choice remarks in the vernacular.

Then the chow—oh, the chow; oh, the Gawd-forsaken chow. It was doled out as breakfast, dinner, and tea. It was none too much in quantity. There were here and there newly made n. c. o.’s who were not above holding out more than their share. And our American stomachs were several times abruptly introduced to strange dishes. First it was a weird looking mess that tasted like an explosion of mustard gas. How did we know it was[14] currie? Few had sufficient faith in human nature to down their portion. Then one day a ghastly odor tainted the noonday air, and we were introduced to tripe. The latter was finally buried with military honors, and I arrived on the scene just in time to save the ship’s cooks from being the star actors in a similar ceremony.

“Tea” was bread and cheese and tea. We thought of the days of plenty at Camp Dix and reflected that the culinary end of this war business was hardly a success so far.

The officers were fed well and in civilized fashion in the cabin, which didn’t help matters much for the men. Also some members of the boat’s crew took advantage of the situation by running a sub-rosa restaurant in the forecastle, gouging such as had the price. Of course the Americans thought right away that they were holding out part of our rations for this purpose, and international relations began to get very strained. The officers were finally informed, and the practice stopped.

There were ten or twelve other ships in the convoy, which was headed by the battleship Montana. At last one morning the latter was missing, and we knew that we must be nearly across. Precautions were redoubled and life preservers were not removed even at night.

On the morning of May 31st we sighted land—a welcome sight indeed. Capt. Breen at once identified it as dear auld Ireland, and was much disgusted when we learned later that it was Scotland. We had sailed around the north of Ireland, and were dropping down the Irish sea to Liverpool.

This was the submarine zone indeed. Destroyers appeared from the horizon and hovered on the outskirts of the convoy. A great silver dirigible swung lazily from the clouds and floated along above us. The Irish coast came into view on our right.

At about 2:00 P. M. there was a scurry among the destroyers. The dirigible descended above a spot some half mile off our port bow. Guns began to speak from the transports and destroyers. It only lasted for about five minutes, however, and we couldn’t see any visible results. But we were told that a sub had been spotted and destroyed.

Late that night we took the pilot aboard and proceeded up the Mersey. Few of us slept a wink. After the long strain it was good to see ourselves surrounded by the lights of shipping, and to see the shore on either side, though as few lights as possible were shown even then. However, we could open the portholes, and the long, long line of docks slipped by until we wondered if this great harbor had any end. At last, about 2:00 A. M., we docked and settled down to wait until morning for a glimpse of Merry England.

The next day we waited around until 1:30, when we disembarked. We were marched about half a mile through the streets to a railroad terminal. The people hardly glanced at us. They were well used to soldiers by that time. Not a cheer, not a sign of curiosity. Another herd for the slaughter house. A few wounded soldiers, in their flaring “blues,” looked us over with some professional curiosity.

At the railroad station we were halted on a cobbled street for a weary three hours’ wait. There was an English-American Red Cross canteen there, and we bought them out of buns in short order and distributed them to the companies.[15] An aviator appeared on the scene and amused us for a while by doing all sorts of acrobatics—loops, whirls, twists through the air—such as we had never seen before.

Finally we were formed and marched into the station, and boarded the funny little English coaches, and were locked up in different compartments. Canteen girls gave each of us a printed letter of welcome from King George, and finally we jolted out of the station, rolled along between factories and munition plants—manned mostly by girls and women—and so out into the countryside.

That was a wonderful ride through England on the last day of May. It was a perfect evening, the air soft and balmy; light until ten o’clock. It was like a toy country to us, beautifully ordered and groomed, with little villages here and there, and green hedgerows, and usually one or two Tommies on leave walking down the lane with their sweethearts—that made us homesick already. And the train sped along, stopping only once for us to get out and have some coffee and a drink of water; and we were all thrilled and excited and felt a little tickly in the stomach, as you do before a big football game. We were fast drawing near the greatest game, now being played to a finish.

As the night wore on, and it became dark, and we couldn’t look out the windows any more, our cramped quarters were anything but comfortable. Also, sanitary arrangements on European trains are conspicuous by their absence. When at last, at 2:00 A. M., we were told to detrain, we were pretty thoroughly uncomfortable.

After the usual hubbub of detraining—“which way’s comp’ny form?”—“I dunno”—“First squad”—“Ninth squad”—“Where’s me bayonet?”—“Oh, thanks”—“D’ja get the can open all right?”—We departed into the night, filing past a little station out into a dark road, and then at a good round pace on through silent, dark streets, for about a mile. There we were introduced to our first billet.

It was a large empty stone house in a row of similar ones. Bare floors, bare walls, but clean, and not so bad. After a vast amount of unnecessary fussing about the company got itself settled. Sixty men were to leave at six o’clock under Lt. Foulkes.

That night and early the next morning we heard for the first time the distant rumble of the guns in France.

In the morning we discovered that we were in an embarkation camp at Folkestone, near Dover. A beautiful place it was, something like Atlantic City, only everything seemed more permanent, and the boardwalk was lacking. The camp was a section of the town set apart for the purpose. Everything was well ordered. These Englishmen had been at the game a long time, and after some chafing and fussing around we discovered that though no one displayed any particular “pep,” nevertheless things really got done quite well; in the British way, of course. But woe be unto the ambitious Yank who sought to alter anything.

Most of the company had not even been in the service long enough to master the manual of arms, and part of the day was used in instilling the rudiments of this essential into them. Time was still left for a short ramble about Folkestone, however; and the promenade, town, pubs, Tommies and Waacs were[16] all investigated enthusiastically and as thoroughly as time and opportunity permitted.

The next morning the battalion was formed at 6 A. M. and marched along cobbled streets to the pier, where we were sardined into a fast channel steamer, and donned those confounded lifebelts again for a short farewell wearing. Then, with an American destroyer racing along on either side, we slipped swiftly down under the Dover Cliffs, then swerving out and across the channel to Calais. A dock, a Red Cross train on the other side of it, a fisherman in a little boat alongside us—France at last.

The company filed off the boat, and crossing the dock stumbled into formation down the railroad track by the hospital train, and was introduced to a bit of backwash from the drive. Some English wounded were being carried from the train to the boat by German prisoners. We looked curiously at the latter. These were the Huns we were taught to hate, whom we were to kill. They were husky, blonde chaps, in faded greenish gray uniforms, with their little flat caps. They paid scant attention to us, but carried the English very carefully and gently. Maybe the Tommy who walked near by with fixed bayonet had something to do with it. At any rate, I didn’t feel any very lusty rage or horror at them, and though one or two of our men cursed at them under their breath, it didn’t seem at all convincing, but rather forced. Most of the wounded men whose faces I saw glared at us with the usual British “What the devil do you mean by looking at me, sir?” so I suppose they were officers. I don’t blame them for not liking to be stared at. One or two fellows couldn’t help groaning when their stretchers were lifted.

But “C” Co. is moving off, and we swing into column of squads and hike off behind them, our great heavy packs, religiously packed with all the items prescribed for us and much besides, getting heavier and heavier. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Calais was quiet; the cobbled streets apparently peopled only by a few little gamins of both sexes who greeted us with the cries that accompanied us through France—“Souvenir,” “Bis-keet,” “Chocolat.”

We passed through the outskirts of the town and into a dusty, sandy road between green dikes or ramparts dotted with anti-aircraft guns. Then we passed by a group of weather-worn barracks, dusty and dreary, labeled—doubtless by some wag, we thought—“Rest Camp,” surrounded by wire fences.

We cross a canal, turn to the left, and pass along to another—“Rest Camp No. 6.” The leading company turns in at a gate in the wire fence; we see American uniforms and campaign hats; one or two officers in overseas caps, strange looking to us then; then we pass in through the gate and realize that this is our temporary destination.

We were billeted in tents, about 12 feet in diameter—and about 20 men to a tent. Sand everywhere. A hideous open latrine next to the mess hall. After the usual hurly-burly and confusion, we finally kick other companies out[17] of our tents, are in turn kicked out of theirs, and, after a long wait, get—“tea.” Oh, how Americans did love that word!

The officers were lodged in luxury—the five of us had a whole tent, with some boards to sleep on. We ate at the British officers’ mess, where meals and very good beer and wine were served by Waacs. The next thing was an officers’ meeting, and that night a talk by an English major. He cheered us up by telling us that very few ever came back, and narrated several choice tales of sudden death in unusual and gruesome forms. He was apparently bent on removing from our minds any impression that we were in for a pleasure trip. We afterwards heard that he was severely criticised by other British officers for trying to get our wind up first thing.

The next morning our equipment was cut down. We could only keep what we could carry on our backs. The contents of our barrack bags, the extra equipment, the complete outfit that had been subjected to so many inspections, upon which we had turned in reams upon reams of reports at Camp Dix, were ruthlessly collected, dumped into trucks and carted off to Heaven knows where by a Q. M. 2nd Lieutenant. No count was taken, no papers signed. The omniscient powers, who had deviled our lives out to collect this stuff, hadn’t told us anything about this little ceremony. So underwear, socks, extra pairs of shoes were a drug on the market; and we simply couldn’t give the cigarettes away. A great quantity were turned over to the Y. M. C. A. canteen. Of course, we never saw our barrack bags again.

The next day we formed with rifles, belts and bayonets, and marched about four miles out into the flat, flat country; past windmills and hedges and a little estaminet here and there, until we came to a British gas house. Here some English and Scotch sergeants issued English gas masks, and after a couple of hours gas mask drill we went through the gas house, and started back to camp. On our way we stopped by at an ordnance hut where our American Enfields were exchanged for English Enfields, with their stubby looking barrels and heavy sight guards. In our army issuing or exchanging any piece of ordnance property is like getting married, and when a rifle is involved it is like five actions at law and a couple of breach of promise suits. Here we filed in one door, shoved our rifle at a Tommy, beat it for the other door, grabbed an English weapon and bayonet, and the deed was done. I happened to be in command of the battalion that day, and somewhere I suppose the British government has a couple of grubby slips of paper on which I’ve signed for 1,000 gas masks, rifles and bayonets. The transaction would probably have been a fatal blow to a U. S. ordnance officer. Being only a reserve officer of infantry, it seemed to me pretty sensible.

Back in camp we were pretty much left alone, and some there were who lost no time making an acquaintance with the estaminets of Calais. In thirty-six hours we had learned enough English to discourse glibly of “tuppence ha’ penny,” and I even overheard Price offer to “Shoot you a bob,” and somebody promptly took “six penn ’orth of it.” But this was nothing compared to our excursions into the unexplored fields of the long suffering French language. By that evening most of the men seemed quite proficient in a few such indispensable phrases as “Vin rouge tout de suite” or rather “Van rooge toot sweet,” “Encore,” “Combien,” and “Oo la la, ma cherie.”

[18]The next morning—Wednesday, June 5th—we left Rest Camp No. 6, and glad we were to leave it, for a dirty, hot hole it was. We hadn’t been bombed, though the town got its usual raid, and the camp was complimented the next night by the Boche.

The hike to the station was long and hot and made without a rest. Of course, not knowing as much as they would later, the men’s packs were tremendous. The overcoat, blanket, 100 rounds of ammunition and extra shoes and rations alone are a good load, and when one adds several suits of underwear, extra toilet articles, Jenny’s sweaters, Aunt Sarah’s wristlets, a couple of cartons of cigarettes and pipe tobacco, and some chocolate, it gets tremendous. Little Effingham’s pack as usual, was down to his heels, but he stoutly refused assistance, also as usual. The company arrived at the station feeling like a dyspeptic bear with scarlet fever.

We were forthwith introduced to the famous “Hommes 40, Chevaux 8.” It was seldom that bad, but even 25 or 30 men are a tight fit in those little cattle cars, as you all can testify.

We rolled out of Havre, pursued to the last by the children and orange sellers, who seemed to spring up from the ground everywhere in Northern France.

This first trip was short. We passed from the low country into a gently rolling terrain, and at about 1 o’clock arrived at Marquise, where we detrained.

We were met by a couple of Scotch officers from the 14th Highland Light Infantry. They guided us up the road to the village where we were billeted, about two miles away. On the way one of them, Captain “Jimmie” Johnston, told us that their battalion was detailed to act as instructors for the 311th Infantry.

The first little crossroads village was our billet—Rinxent. The command “Fall out t’ right of th’ road” sounded quite welcome to the overloaded marchers and we watched the rest of the battalion march by enroute to their billets at Rety, two kilos further.

The company was scattered along the road in small billets of from ten to forty men. Company headquarters was established in the corner estaminet. This was our first introduction to French billets. The usual procedure consisted of:

1. Protest to billeting officer or N. C. O. at putting human beings into such a place. Unsuccessful.

2. Long argument with house holder, he speaking French very fast and we speaking American very loud. Usually ended by the argument of a five franc note to the frugal French peasant.

3. Cleaning out the stable, chicken house, or barn, with voluble protests from f. F. p.

4. Making sundry discoveries during the first night.

5. Pitching pup tents in nearest field.

We got permission to use a field about 100 yards square for a drill ground and two platoons pitched pup tents there.

The first night a few of the boys became slightly excited over the privilege of visiting the estaminets, and tried to drink up all the vin rouge and cognac[19] at once. The consequence was that the dispensers of good cheer were put under the ban for several days.

Now the training of the company began in earnest. The majority of the men had had only the most hasty smattering of the elements of squad drill; many could not shoulder arms properly. Two platoons would use the drill field while two drilled on the roads outside. The training schedules called for a good nine-hour day of drill and ceremonies, varied occasionally by short practice hikes by company or battalion.

Lewis guns were issued to us here. A few officers and n. c. o.’s had taken courses in the use of this weapon at Camp Dix; company and battalion schools were at once started, the latter conducted by Scottish n. c. o.’s from the 14th H. L. I.

In addition, there were battalion, regimental and corps schools for bayonet, gas defense, liaison (for the runners), bombing, rifle grenade, musketry and several more. From this time until we left France there were always a number of men away at schools. Of course this was necessary, but it broke up the training of the company as a whole. Also, we were brigaded with the British, and some men would go to a British school and qualify as instructors, only to come back and find that the American system was being used, and vice versa. Both systems might have their good points, and did have, but the rate at which orders and instructions and ways of doing things changed from day to day was enough to bewilder old hands at this game; and we were greenhorns.

“Jimmy” Johnston helped a lot. He was in command of what was left of the 14th battalion, Highland Light Infantry—about four squads. Of medium height, rather stocky build, with a bonny, handsome face and bright blue eyes under his Scotch cap, Jimmy was one of the finest fellows and best officers that ever stepped. He had been through the Gallipoli expedition, and two years on the Western front; had been reported killed in action, and gone home on leave to be greeted as one risen from the dead.

Jimmy had been through the mill. He knew. Always with a word of encouragement, to avoid dampening our American energy, he would help along with quiet hints and canny suggestions that were worth their weight in gold. When we came staggering along under heavy packs, he said nothing, but strolled along with his little cane and admired the landscape. When orders would come in thick and fast, each one contradicting the last, and all to be executed at once, Jimmy would intimate verra, verra cautiously, that if we used our own judgment we should get along somehow, and that C. O’s and chiefs of staff had to keep themselves busy, and what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt ’em. Like most Scotch officers he seemed to live mostly on whiskey, and throve on the diet.

On June 11, Major Odom went to a Corps school, and I was left in charge of the battalion. Of course, that evening orders came in to move next morning. We had just begun to get in our English transport—the little limbers and the cranky rolling kitchen with which we were to become so familiar later. Up to then we had cooked on our American field ranges.

At 7 o’clock next morning we pulled out and marched down to Rety. There we fell in behind the 2d battalion, and started on our first full day’s hike. The packs were still heavy, and those full cartridge belts—Lord, how[20] much 100 rounds of ammunition can weigh after a while! As usual with green troops, the leading element set too fast a pace. Rests seemed but a minute. Finally, on a long, long up grade, we halted for lunch. After chow and an hour’s rest, we pulled on, picking ’em up and putting ’em down. On, over broad white roads; turning off into narrower roads shaded by rows of tall trees, turning into the highroad again. We passed stragglers from the 309th and 310th Infantry, so knew that the whole 78th Division must be in France and on the move near us. The hills were higher, the women were older. We came to a village; three estaminets, two stores, a school house, a blacksmith’s shop, a sign. “Brunembert.” Regimental Hdqrs. and Supply Co. are halted there. We keep on; on the other side of town “C” and “D” companies meet their advance party guides and turn off; we hike on half a kilometer, half way up a hill, turn off to the right, hike around the hill, and finally, at about 3 P. M., plumb tuckered, the company is split, two platoons going to one farmhouse, the other two to another, at Haute Creuse.

Haute Creuse itself was only a crossroads, with one poor cottage. Battalion headquarters was there. The company billets were a good quarter of a mile apart. In addition, when I inspected the billet assigned the 3rd and 4th platoons, I found a remarkably dirty old barn, with a cesspool and manure heap outside that was awful, even for France. The only spring was near the pool. So the next morning we moved these platoons over to the other billet, pitching pup tents in a beautiful field just on the other side of the barnyard.

That afternoon an old duffer in an English major’s uniform came ambling along. He expressed great anguish at our not using the billets assigned to us. It meant nothing to him that our comfort, health, convenience were served by our using our own tents. The plan was that that lousy old typhoid trap should be occupied, and so it must be done. And he, it appeared, was the “area commandant.”

So I said “Yessir,” and tipped Sgt. Ertwine off to have some men make a great show of striking tents, and resolved privately to take a chance yet. Jimmy Johnston came along later and told me that area commandants were a tribe of dud officers who were given that job to keep ’em out of mischief.

I was hauled over the coals three or four times about it. The old Major wrote to his General Hdq., and they wrote to our hdq., and it came down the line to our Colonel, whose soul shivered before the wintry blast. But finally Lt. Col. Myers took it up and obtained permission for us to stay where we were.

At Rinxent a number of second lieutenants, just commissioned at the Officers’ Training Camp at Langres, had joined us. We had a captain and five or six second lieuts. attached to “B” Co. The captain, who was commanding the company in my absence at bn. hdq., was a peculiar individual, with very fierce and imposing mustachios, and a manner to match; but an absurdly incongruous weak and husky voice, due to throat trouble. The lieuts. were rather a good bunch; men who had been n. c. o.’s in outfits that had come over during the preceding year, and some of whom had been in the trenches already. We were fortunate in keeping one of them, Lieut. Bivens Moore, in the company; the others we lost by transfers from time to time.

Training was resumed again; schools ran in full force. Officers and men were continually going off to sundry corps or army schools in the vicinity; at[21] St. Omer or points near by. Harold Sculthorpe went off to a cooks’ school, and we didn’t see him again for many a month. Sgt. Peterson was made Brigade Postal N. C. O. We received our first mail from home, and nobody can ever tell how welcome it was. Letters were the one slender thread that connected our new life with the old. A bit of mail cheered up a soldier for days; a disappointment when mail came in without one for him made him blue for a week. It was pleasant to see the earnest faces of fellows like Sgt. Schelter, and Corporal DeGrote beaming when they heard from their wives and little ones. With the impatience and eagerness of the newlyweds, I was of course sympathetic. And as for the majority, who were waiting for letters from the best little girl in the world, they were either insufferable in their glamourous egotism, or serio-comic in their suffering, according to whether the lady had seen fit to be kind or cool when she took her pen in hand. Certain ones, too, who shall be nameless, would receive letters in sundry handwritings, with a variety of post-marks. Don Juans, these; gay and giddy Lotharios in the old home town.

We were billeted at a typical French farm of the larger type. As you turned in off the road through the gateway, a black dog chained in a little stone dungeon just inside barked fiercely. This poor beast had been chained in that one place for so long that he knew nothing else. He was half blind; and one day when I unchained him and took him for a walk down the road, he was desperately frightened; and as soon as he got back he made a dash for his kennel, and refused to come out.

The long, two story house took up most of the left hand side of the courtyard. The officers had two rooms here, one of which we used for a mess. The family lived mostly in the big kitchen, where a little fire burned on the great hearth. On the other two sides were stables, some of which were used as billets, storeroom and orderly room. The manure heap adorned the center of the courtyard. Behind lay a small but important yard, which in turn opened on the big field where two platoons were in pup tents around the border, and where the company formed.

The people here were dull, homely, grasping and churlish. I do not recollect ever having been given a pleasant word by one of them; but of complaints and claims for damages there was no lack. They seemed to resent our presence from the very first; we were apparently as much intruders to them as German troops could have been.

The men soon began to resent this attitude, and to reciprocate in kind. Soldiers are apt to be heedless, and are of course a nuisance to the people they are quartered on; but at Rety they had greeted us in the main as friends, and we in turn tried to give as little trouble as possible. Here our notions of being the welcome young warriors got a good severe jolt.

We on our side took some time to learn how to conduct ourselves. How were we to know that a French peasant would far rather have you walk over him than over one of his fields? Why was it a crime to cut down a stunted dead tree for the company kitchen? And where, oh, where were the pretty mademoiselles?

But even in Northern France all the people were not like this. Remember the old woman just down the road, who lived with her daughters in the cottage which was battalion headquarters? They were very poor, and worked very[22] hard; all the long summer day—and it was light from 4:30 A. M. to 9:00 P. M.—they were busy, indoors and out. Her three sons were in the army, one a prisonier de guerre, two at the front. When one of them, only a young lad, came home for a few days’ permission, he went out every morning at 6:00 o’clock and worked until dusk. How many of us would have done as much? And the old lady and girl always had a smile and cheery word, and would give soldiers a drink of milk and insisted on having officers going to bn. hdq. stop for a cup of coffee. Even the pretty little goat in the yard grew friendly with olive drab, and would romp with us like a dog.

For several days we used whatever little fields we could for drill; every square foot of land that was suitable seemed to be under cultivation. This was unsatisfactory, to say the least. Finally Col. Meyers arranged for us to have the use of the top of the great hill. It was a splendid place to drill—after you got there. But oh, that hike up that young mountain and down again, twice a day! Will we ever forget it?

When we had been here about a week, Major Odom returned, and a day or so later Lieuts. Schuyler and Merrill rejoined the company. They were all primed with the new wrinkles they had picked up at school at Chatillon, and took over the first and third platoons respectively. Schuyler’s conscientiousness, high spirits and inexhaustible energy made him a great asset to the company. Merrill was an equally hard and willing worker, and though young, was one of the brightest men in the regiment. He had graduated from the school at the head of his class, which included majors, captains and lieuts. from all over the A. E. F.

We were stationed about 50 kilometers behind the lines; and had the Germans made one more drive on Calais that summer we should have undoubtedly gone into action. No lights were shown at night, and it was seldom that we did not hear the droning buzz of the great Boche bombing planes winging their way to bomb Calais or Boulogne, or maybe some nearer town, Desvres or St. Omer.

At the beginning of July details of officers and n. c. o.’s were sent up to the front lines for four day tours of observation. Sgts. Ertwine, Perry and I went on the first one, and were in the line with a battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. Our experiences, while interesting, hardly belong here. Lieut. Foulkes went up the next week and landed in the midst of an attack, so he saw plenty of action. Then Lieut. Schuyler went up with an Australian outfit, who didn’t let him pine for excitement during his stay. It was an excellent system, and we saw at first hand how things were really run in the trenches.

When I returned from my tour, an orderly brought around late that night some red covered books and leaflets, and we were told that these would be put into effect the next day. These were the new system of combat formations, involving an absolutely new extended order drill, and formation of the company. Lieut. Moore had drilled a few times in these formations; the rest of us knew no more about them than the company cooks did. So next morning we sallied forth, books in hand, and worked the formations out step by step. Everyone was quick to see that this was something like business, as of course our old army regulations were absurd when it came to using the new special[23] weapons, such as automatic rifles, hand and rifle grenades, and so on. So the new formations were mastered remarkably quickly.

A bayonet course with trenches, “shell holes” and dummies was installed, and a sergeant of the Northumberland Fusileers was instructor. He was a good one, too; but as usual, we were up against it, as he taught some things slightly differently from the American methods.

It was while going over this course that Gustave Fleischmann stepped in a hole and broke his leg. It was a bad break, for I saw his foot and lower leg go out sideways at a right angle, in spite of his leggings. He was game enough, though, and smoked a cigarette while waiting for an ambulance and surgeon. We heard from him several times from English hospitals, but he was never able to rejoin the company.

We also lost another very valuable man in Corporal Edward Johnson. This man could have claimed exemption for either dependents or a weak heart. He refused to do either, and we managed to get him passed by the medicos for foreign service. The daily hike up that hill, however, and the strenuous life generally, were too much for him, though he kept at it until he was worn down to a very dangerous point. I made him go before the surgeon, who at once ordered him transferred to a depot brigade. I know that Johnson was not liked by some of you men on account of his conscientiousness. I believe, however, that when you look back upon it you will appreciate his honest, unselfish and unceasing labor for his squad, platoon, and company.

That countryside was beautiful at this time. It rained often, but in showers; not the continuous drizzle that came later. Maybe it was because we took more notice of such things than usual, not knowing if we would see another summer, but the green fields, fresh in the early morning and cool and sweet at night, and the hedges, and the pretty little bits of woodland along the creeks and ravines, all seemed lovely as never before.

In the next town, just over the hill, was an Australian rest camp. We got along with the Aussies much better than with Tommies, and every night numerous visitors went down to cultivate the entente cordial with the assistance of the town estaminets.

Our first payday in France came about this time, and what with back pay coming in, and the high rate of exchange, and being paid in francs, some of the boys waxed rather too exuberant over the flowing bowl. What with Janicki and Effingham trying to clean up Brunembert, starting in with a couple of Tommies and ending with an abrupt thud when they got around to “D” Co. headquarters; and sundry members of the Irish brigade making a Donnybrook Fair out of the highways and byways, I had a busy night.

Another night we shall remember is that of July 4th. Sgts. Ertwine, Perry and Anness were going up for commissions at the Officer Candidates’ School at Langres, and the officers gave them a farewell supper that evening. The company was, I understand, also celebrating the national holiday conscientiously. When the festivities were at their height, we heard the squealing of bagpipes, and the curious bump-bump-bumpetty-bum of the Scottish drummer, that nobody on earth but a Jock can keep step with. The band of the H. L. I. had been serenading the Col. and were going back to their billets.

All turned out to see them pass, and as they swung up the road, Lt.[24] Foulkes, in an inspired moment, detailed Supply Sgt. Levy to bring ’em back for “B” Co.

In five minutes the pipes returned, with Joe marching at their head twirling the drum major’s baton. They turned into the courtyard, and were taken into our midst with a mighty burst of cheers, skirling of pipes, and thunder of the drums. That was a scene I shall never forget—a wonderful setting for a musical comedy. The dark courtyard, fitfully illumined by the glare of a few lanterns and torches—the crowd of olive drab figures around the Scotties in their kilts, with one in the center doing a Highland fling. The visitors were already fortified, but additional liquid refreshments were hastily procured for them, and a testimonial taken up in the way of a collection. In the meantime the drummer, well on the shady side of sober, rendered several ballads. We reciprocated with Irish songs by Peter and others, and a breakdown by Kitson. It was well on towards midnight when they left; and next morning the Major wanted to know “what the hell was B Company up to last night?”

Another pleasant time was had by all one day while I was at the front. Someone at staff hdq. felt an idle curiosity to see how fast the division could turn out, if it had to. Accordingly the order went forth—march at 2:00 P. M. Thinking the Boches had broken through and we were “for it,” there was a mad scurry and scramble; the kitchen pulled to pieces; rations hastily issued; and the company, under Lt. Dunn, reported to the Brunembert road about half an hour after the time set, and about two hours sooner than had seemed possible that morning. After fussing about a bit, the companies were marched back to their hastily abandoned billets.

All the time we were in the English area, rations were short. The British ration must have been much smaller than ours, or else there was a hitch somewhere. Our men were used to three square meals a day. The British only had porridge, tea and bread and jam for breakfast; a regular meal—stew or meat and vegetables—in the middle of the day, and tea and bread and cheese at night. This didn’t go far to relieve the aching void that every American soldier cherishes under his belt. We spent thousands of francs from the company fund buying potatoes and whatever else we could to eke out the ration. But even so, there was never any difficulty in following the advice of those doctors who say to stop eating while you still feel hungry.

July 14th was Bastile Day. We were turned out for a ceremony to celebrate it. The ceremony consisted of marching to Brunembert in the rain, squads left, right dress, present arms, order arms, squads left, and hike back in the rain. I can’t say my bosom dilated with enthusiasm, nor did the spectators—a dozen children, two estaminet keepers and the usual “orangee” girls—emit any rousing cheers.

I see by the Regimental History that the Duke of Connaught and General Pershing “honored us with a visit” at this time, but said visits were practically painless for “B” Company, as we didn’t even see the dust from their automobiles.

By this time the regimental transport was complete—or as nearly so as it ever was; all furnished by the British. Each battalion was now functioning as a separate unit, and Lt. Gibbs had his hands full with the supply and transport. He was accordingly made bn. transport and supply officer, and the Major[25] selected Lt. Foulkes as battalion adjutant. So we lost the best officer in “B” Company, and I believe the best line subaltern in the regiment. I know he hated to leave the company, and there wasn’t a man but missed him from that time on. He always had a soft spot in his heart for us, as Bn. Adjt. and later as Regimental Adjt. Foulkes was one man I was never disappointed in. McMahon, his striker, went with him. Mac was a good scout too.

By July 18th we had skirmished over every inch of the big hill; hiked over all the roads within a six mile radius; bayoneted about 500 “Boche” gunnysacks apiece, and made ’steen triangles at musketry drill. We got another march order, and after the usual bustle of cleaning up we pulled out with full equipment on July 19th at 9:00 A. M.

It was only a four mile hike this time, to Lottingham, the nearest railway depot. There we were parked in a little yard off the road, and saw the 309th and 310th Inf. go by to entrain. We waited about an hour, and I broke up a very promising crap game, to my secret regret. I afterward chucked the bones out of the car window, much to Dunn’s disgust.

At 11:30 we were packed into a train, which rolled off in the usual nonchalant manner, at an average speed of six miles per hour. We passed through some pretty enough country during the afternoon, and speculated wildly on our destination, as usual missing it completely.

At 8:30 P. M. we pulled up at Ligny alongside an American Red Cross train, with a couple of real American nurses in it. How good they looked to us! The car windows were nearly all shattered, and the cars scarred with bullets and shrapnel. This was a bit of the real thing.

The battalion detrained, formed on the road, and we hiked off through the long summer twilight, guided by Vafiadis, our advance party detail. We were being introduced to the Arras-St. Pol road, with which we were to become well acquainted shortly. We went on, over the railroad tracks at Roellecourt, stopped for a ten-minute rest at dusk and watched the cows come home down the hill—another homesick sight for the country lads—and hiked on and on. At last, well after dark, we turned off up another road; past a bit of woods, then off to the right past a large farmhouse, and Vafiadis pointed out a little plot about as big as a Harlem flat and said we were to billet there. I remarked “likell” and pushed ahead into a nice grassy field where we pitched pup tents for the night. I knew there would be an awful yowl from the owners in the morning, but let it slide.

Next morning we found that this was St. Michel, and that St. Pol, quite a sizeable town, was only a quarter of a mile away. Pup tents were pitched up the hill from the field, in the woods, along a rough lumber road. The kitchen was installed under some trees near the farmhouse, which was deserted. We found a lot of kitchen utensils—the place had been an estaminet—and put some of ’em to use. The day was spent in resting and getting cleaned up and settled. In the evening some went into St. Pol.

That night we found out why the place was deserted. St. Pol was a railroad center, and quite convenient for the Boche bombers. No bombs landed in camp that night, but they were hitting all around, with a roar and a jar that gave a fellow a queer sensation in the stomach. Being bombed is such a helpless, hopeless sort of process.

[26]Earlier in the war St. Pol had been under long range artillery fire; and between that and the air raids there were plenty of shell holes all around. There were some among our pup tents, and a couple of huge ones just across the road in the woods.

Company headquarters was established in the attic of the farmhouse, battalion headquarters being on the first floor. Regimental Hdq. was at Foufflin-Ricametz, about 4 kilos away.

In a couple of days a vitriolic and voluble French woman descended upon us. It appeared that we had broken into the house, used her things without permission, taken eggs the hens had laid, used several priceless old boards from the barn to make a mess table, walked on the grass, and disturbed the manure pile. I never did believe she and her husband ever lived there; but we put everything back, and ate in the mud until Thompson and Farry found some boards elsewhere. These two French people made life as miserable as they could for us while we were there, continually claiming damages and protesting at everything we did, it seemed.

Most of the inhabitants of St. Michel and St. Pol slept at night in long dugouts tunnelled underneath the hills. They were very damp, foul close holes, with little cubicles scratched out of the walls to sleep in. They weren’t taking any more chances with H. E.

Our “intensive training” was continued here. We were rejoiced that we hadn’t that awful hill to climb, and somehow we got away with using the field to drill on. The mornings were taken up with problems, and before long we were well acquainted with those woods; then there was bayonet drill, bombing, the everlasting gas mask drill, musketry, physical drill, and so on. The afternoon was devoted to special drill for Lewis gun, V. B. and hand bombers, runners, etc., while the rest of the company did problems or musketry. We stood retreat and reveille along the lumber road—oh, yes, and that 15 minutes of manual of arms before retreat every night.

Usually it rained here. Drill went on just the same, though. We could hear the thunder of the big guns at night, and the crash and roar from the droning bombing planes let us know that this was in grim earnest, and it behooved us to make the most of our time.

Regimental, brigade, and divisional problems began to be all the rage. Since nobody below majors ever get any information as to what these are all about, the troops were usually represented by flags. In good weather these things are just a bore; when it rains, they’re considerably worse.

On August 3d, the H. L. I. detachment left us, and we completed our training on our own.

About two weeks after our arrival at St. Michel, the word was passed that Elsie Janis was coming to visit the division. Of course that afternoon was marked by a good old Northern France soaker. How it rained! We hiked about three miles through it, and were packed into a courtyard with five or six thousand other shoving, soaking doughboys. Miss Janis had our band to help her out, and a little platform with a bit of canvas overhead, which kept off a little of the rain. Half of us couldn’t see her except for occasional glimpses; officers and men were drenched right through and through. Besides, Miss Janis was physically about all in from overwork, and had a peach of a cold—a[27] real A. E. F. cold, not the kind that amateur singers always use for an alibi. The bunch was sore at being hauled out in this weather for anything short of going into action.

And yet, from the first moment that girl stepped on the platform, she had the crowd with her. We were fed up, lonesome in a strange land, sick of hearing a foreign tongue, longing to see a regular girl again. And here was a bit of real America before our eyes; pep incarnate—a snappy, clean cut, clean girl from home, laughing with us, making us laugh at ourselves and in spite of ourselves, jazzing it up in the rain. And we sloshed and squnched back to St. Michel, singing:

On August 5th the battalion left St. Michel at 9:00 A. M. in full marching order. We were going to occupy a trench sector for a practice tour.

As you all know now, the trench systems of each side during the war were in triplicate, or maybe quadruplicate. There was the system actually being occupied against the enemy. A couple of miles back was another complete system, to be defended in case the first was taken; and, if time permitted, yet another behind this.

We were to take over a sector of the G. H. Q., or second system, just behind Arras. While this was partly a regular item on our training schedule—the last one before actually going into the line—it was also contemplated that in case the Boche uncorked another drive on Arras, we should occupy this line and bar the road of the enemy should he break through, as he had done in the spring further north.

After a long 12 mile hike up the Arras road, we turned off to the right, past a long train of British motor lorries, of which there seemed an inexhaustible supply. On through roads ever rougher and narrower we went, and halted at last in a clearing in a patch of woods. The officers went out to reconnoitre the sector and have their company sectors assigned, and the company stacked arms in the wet woods—it was raining, of course—and wondered if we’d get any chow.

It was dark when we had had supper from our one lunged rolling kitchen and filed off to take up our position. “B” Co. was battalion support. The trenches were only dug about waist high; there were no dugouts or cubby holes to sleep in; not even a firing step to keep you out of the mud. We splashed and squatted through the pitchy blackness; no lights were allowed, of course. We reached our post finally, and settled down in the bottom of the trench in abject misery. The only lights were from the star shells that the Germans were sending up from their real lines, only a few kilos away; and the rumble of artillery fire there ahead reminded us that we were pretty close to the real thing.

While I was making my final inspection, I saw a light come flashing down the communication trench towards us. This was against all orders, so I snarled out a peremptory command to put it out. The light didn’t pay any attention. This was the last straw; I thought that so long as we had to go through this performance it was going to be done right, with nobody privileged to cross their fingers and say they weren’t playing. I wallowed off in the direction of[28] that flash light, wet through and getting pretty sore. I hailed it; I adopted a false, feigned politeness; I remarked that this was not puss in the corner, nor was I talking for my health, and if they couldn’t douse that glim I had a .45 that could. The light went out abruptly. I asked if he was simulating a steamboat on the Mississippi. I finally got quite near and demanded whoin’ell that was anyhow. And it was the Colonel. Yes, of course.

The best of it was that he had issued the order against lights himself about two hours before, and couldn’t very well blame me.

An order came round to send a detail after some corrugated iron at point “G24a7.3.” I stumbled around until I walked on a sergeant, Bill Reid, and so I made him the goat, and told him to take a detail and go to it. The place was about 300 yards away over a couple of fields. Bill and his detail floundered off, and roamed about until 3:00 A. M., when they hailed a figure in the darkness as “Hey, buddy.” It was Lt. Col. Myer, at regimental hdq. at Hermaville, a couple of kilos away. He steered Bill back to the company, where he arrived at dawn—without the iron.

During the day the sun shone at intervals, and we scraped out cubbies in the side of the trench, and tried to get a little dry. Barney O’Rourke, who had been missing since the night before, showed up under guard, somewhat the worse for wear. He had wandered off to Hermaville, met an Irish Tommy, found a hospitable estaminet, and subsequently had severely rebuked an officer from Rgt’l. Hdqrs. who undertook to reprove him. Regt’l Hdq. was all for having Barney shot at sunrise or something, and of course I got a call. At the courtmartial, though, we got him off with a month’s hard labor and a $10.00 blind, which was really quite all that happy-go-lucky, golden-hearted son of Erin deserved. He never did the month at that, or rather we all did. But he dug me a company headquarters when he came back, and it would have been fine only someone walked through the roof.

We were relieved that night by “E” Co., 24 hours before we expected. We marched back to the clearing in the woods, had supper at the rolling kitchen, pitched pup tents and had a comparatively dry night’s sleep. Jerry came over and tried to drop an ash can on the kitchen, but didn’t succeed.

They let us sleep late next morning, and we started for our billet at 10:00 A. M., leaving the 2d bn. to the joys of make-believe trench life.

Right here I want to say a word about our experience with court-martials. There has been much criticism of military justice as administered in the A. E. F., but the 78th Division was fortunate in having as Judge Advocate a most capable, honest, experienced, broad minded man, Major George G. Bogert, formerly Professor of Law at Cornell, I believe. His assistant, Lt. John J. Kuhn, was an equally fine type of lawyer and gentleman. I know of no accused man who did not get an absolutely square deal from them, and from the courts-martial before which they appeared.

Well, here we are back in St. Michel, rocked to sleep every night by the free fireworks from our aerial visitors. We had hardly rested from our trench experience before I was ordered to take details from each company to the rifle range. Part of “B” company had gone a week before, and their tales of woe had in some measure prepared us.

We had no guide. As we hiked through Foufflin-Ricametz, I stopped off[29] and Capt. Wagner showed me our destination on a map. We plodded on and on, through about 20 villages, all alike, and all with a maze of crooked little streets that weren’t on any map. We passed by a lot of Canadian artillery back for a rest. The Canadians had been badly shot up before we got to France, and were being reorganized and recuperating that summer. They, the Anzacs, the Australians, the Scotties, and the Guard regiments were the shock troops of the British Army.

Finally we came upon a welcome sign, “Target Range,” and we bivouacked in woods behind the slope whereon the targets were. The next day we plugged away at 200, 300 and 500 yards at four rickety swivel targets. It rained, of course; but we finished in the afternoon, and hiked back to St. Michel. It seemed even longer than before, though we took a short cut by a back road; and we were for once glad to see the lonely tower of St. Michel rising above the woods outside St. Pol.

I returned to find Major Odom on the eve of departure for another school. From this time, then, until he returned on August 20th, the company was commanded by Lt. Schuyler, who carried out his additional duties with characteristic energy and conscientiousness.

On August 12th, the whole regiment was on the move; and this time we were leaving St. Michel for good, though a small detail was left to guard the baggage. Sgt. Haynes, who had hurt his leg in bayonet practice, was left behind with water on the knee, and never succeeded in rejoining the company. Our faithful company clerk, too, Cpl. Jimmy Jones, broke his ankle, and was sent to a hospital in England. Fortunately for me, we had Cpl. Stiles ready to step into his shoes. From this time on Stiles handled the company paper work in a most efficient and conscientious fashion. Most fellows never have any idea of the long hours, day and night, that a company clerk puts in, struggling with the labyrinth of forms, records, reports and correspondence that are vital to the running of the company. The greater part of the paper work that was done at Camp Dix by the officers and Co. Cmdrs. was turned over to the Co. clerks in France, and many a night Stiles and Jones have pored over that field desk, by the light of a candle, keeping us straight with the authorities. If records ever went astray, or passes went awry, it was not their fault. “B” Company was certainly most fortunate in its company clerks.

It was a long, hot march that sunny August day up toward the front, and the company pulled into Lattre St. Quentin pretty well tuckered. I had been taken up in a British staff car as we passed through Regt’l Hdq., and, with the other two battalion commanders, was taken to reconnoiter the sectors of the front line which we were to take over. Each battalion was to be brigaded with an English regiment, and to hold the front lines for a regular tour of duty as the last step in the training schedule.

The 1st Bn. was to go in with the 1st London regiment. The officers of this brigade and regiment received me very cordially. Our proposed battalion sector was just outside Arras. The town itself was within the English lines, which ran along the eastern outskirts. The position was well organized, and the trenches were in good shape, as this part of the line had been practically stationary for a year. The outfit we were to relieve were in high glee, as they had been in the trenches for 8 months straight. It was a “quiet” sector, but[30] Jerry buzzed a few shells quite unpleasantly close while I was roaming about.

I rode back in luxury in the staff car to find the battalion billeted and asleep. We had arranged for officers and platoon sergeants to go up in a couple of days to reconnoiter their respective positions.

Lattre St. Quentin was a village of some sixty houses, about 20 kilos from Arras. “B” Co. was billeted in the barn behind the house where Bn. Hdq. was located, and in the house next to it down the road.

During the next few days we had a platoon competition in the battalion. “B” Co. was represented by the 4th platoon. The event was won by the “C” Co. 3d platoon, but all the contestants did well.

There was a nice “vacant lot” by the billet, and we had some good fun kicking a football and staging several baseball matches there. The weather was fine, and we were in great fettle.

On August 14th orders arrived promoting Lt. Col. Myer to Colonel and putting him in command of the 129th Infantry. This was a great loss to the regiment. Myer was the best officer we had, thoroughly efficient, devoted to his profession, always on the job, an excellent judge of men, and an adept at picking out the essential things that counted. He placed the good of the service first, and himself last, and he had the trust and respect of every officer and man in the outfit.

The officers and platoon sgts. left on the evening of the 15th for the front line via a little narrow gauge railway, returning the next morning. All was now in readiness.

But at noon on the 16th, orders arrived postponing the relief. On the 17th, rumors began to fly that we were to go to another part of the front. Then we were ordered to turn in the Lewis guns, with which we had become quite familiar. Somehow it leaked out that we were to go South to the American sector. This rumor became a certainty when we turned in all our British rifles and ammunition, receiving instead American Enfields. Our overcoats and other supplies that we had left at St. Michel were brought over in motor trucks. The details guarding them said that Jerry had bombed the old billet to a fare-you-well the night after we left it.

Our joy at moving was heartfelt and unbounded. Those who had been south to schools or on other duties told us what a “bon secteur” it was. And the prospect of drawing American rations and being with American troops and transport again was welcomed with acclaim. To tell the truth, we were rather fed up with being under the wing of our British Allies. Their ways were not our ways; we would feel better when with our own kind. Theoretically, we were brothers in the great cause. Practically, in the mud and sweat and thousand petty aggravations and misunderstandings, we had undoubtedly gotten upon each other’s nerves. The average Tommy looked upon us as a bunch of greenhorn Yankees, who had all made fortunes during the first three years of the war and were now over in France three years late spending them and raising the price of vin rouge and “oofs.” We looked upon the average Tommy as a degenerate, tea drinking, saluting bellyacher. The Australians and Canadians were our sworn buddies, however, and we liked the Scotties. Maybe this was because the only British combat troops we had been in touch[31] with were these organizations. To me, the few English combat troops that I encountered seemed a fairly decent bunch.

2d Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.

It was with light hearts, then, that we pulled out of Lattre St. Quentin on a beautiful summer morning, at 10 o’clock, August 20th. It was only an 8 mile hike to Tinques, a rail head on the Arras road. We turned into a big held and I halted the battalion while I went to find the R. T. O. in charge of entraining.

All was bustle and hurry. Things were being rushed through in the American fashion. Nobody knew where the R. T. O. was; everybody was too busy to know anything. At last I saw Lt. Gibbs on top of a flat car loading wagons. He shouted that our train was across the platform and was due to leave in 20 minutes. I dashed back to the battalion, hurried it across the tracks, entrained them and sure enough the train pulled out just as I got the outfit aboard. As I was finishing, a dapper U. S. Major of the Division Inspector’s Dept. toddled up and said it was the worst entraining he had ever seen, and why weren’t the men marched up to the cars in column of squads? I saluted the boob wearily and swung aboard just as the train pulled out.

Now came our longest rail journey in France. For two days we bowled along pretty steadily. We swung around by St. Pol, with a farewell glimpse of our old billet, and then south, through Amiens, up to the outskirts of Paris. Hearts beat high, and had the train stopped for five minutes at a likely looking place, I was prepared to see the battalion make a break for la vie Parisienne. The only stop, however, was for a few minutes to get routing orders from a business-like French R. T. O. From these orders I learned that our destination was Passavant. It might as well have been Timbuctoo for all that meant to me; but I had learned by this time that these French trains, with all their misery and sin, did get you to the proper place at last, so I didn’t worry.

The houses of Paris fell behind, and we rolled east along the famous Marne river. At Haute Creuse and St. Pol we had read in the Paris editions of the “New York Herald” and “Daily Mail” of the desperate fighting along here in July, in which the mettle of our American regulars and marines had been put to so stern a test; and the next morning, a beautiful, bright day it was, too, we began to pass through towns whose names were yet ringing all over the world. The familiar signs of nearing the front began to appear—the roofless houses, shell holes, and so on. Then we began to see debris lying about—discarded bits of equipment and uniform, empty bandoliers, then here and there a new grave, marked by a helmet, and sometimes a little cross. Presently we went right through Chateau Thierry—one of the first trains since the battle. From our cars we saw the little firing posts that the Americans had scratched out in the side of the railroad embankment. Here and there a grave showed where one had died where he fought. Some German helmets over graves on the south side of the river showed where perhaps some of the enemy had gotten across before they fell under the fire of the Springfields.

But the most impressive and inspiring sight of all to Americans were the hills that stretched up to the North of the river. A long steep, smooth, stretch broken only enough to allow of cover for reserves and machine guns—a position that looked absolutely impregnable if defended by modern weapons. And up these heights, defended by the flower of the German army, flushed with[32] recent success, our countrymen had swept forward, carried the position, and hurled the foe back. It must have been some scrap.

The Marne here is about as large as a good-sized American creek. There were quite a few dead horses and men still bobbing around in it. The countryside had not been under fire for very long, compared to the Arras section; some crops were still standing, and a few people at work reaping them already. I am sorry to say that one of our men was thoughtless enough to grab a pile of new cut hay from a field during a stop. I happened to see him and of course he put it back, and got a summary out of it. I mention this to remind you that in most of our trouble with the French peasants we were at fault to some extent. Of course, it isn’t pleasant to sleep for several nights on the floor of a jolting cattle car. But neither is it enjoyable for poor Jacques to see his hay miraculously preserved from the H. E.’s, laboriously gathered, and then have a doughboy coolly annex it and roll away in a train.

We rolled on through the sunny August day, east to Chalons-sur-Marne, then southeast, away from the battle front. Night came on, and dragged along toward dawn. At about 2:00 A. M. we stopped at a little way station for hot coffee, ready for us in great G. I. boilers. The French corporal in charge of the station gave me a cup out of his own private pot, cooking over a smelly little oil stove, thick as mud, black as night, reeking with cognac, altogether very satisfactory. I wished every man could have had such a shot.

Early in the morning we passed the walled heights of Chaumont, A. E. F. headquarters. On past the picturesque battlements of Langres, centre of the Army Schools; then east again. The country was more rugged and less highly cultivated. Here was a place where one might get off the road without stepping on Jacques’ garden. It looked more like home. The woods were sure enough ones, not little, severely confined, neatly trimmed groves such as they had in the north, with every tree numbered and recorded.

Best of all, we were in the American sector. The M. P.’s at the stations were doughboys instead of Tommies or poilus. Here an American ambulance hustled along the road; there a good old 3-ton Q. M. truck lumbered along. Overseas caps were sprinkled about the stations. No more now of “What is the name of this bally station, old top?,” and “Kesky eessy, Mossure.” We could yell: “Say, buddy, what t’ell burg’s this?” like civilized persons.

Off on a branch line, around hills, over a long, white stone bridge, and the train slid up to the long platform at Passavant station.

The battalion tumbled off, very greasy as to face and stiff as to legs. The rolling kitchens were unloaded; the Colonel and Lt. Gibbs appeared and disappeared. We saw our own supply company hard at work in the adjacent field. In a few minutes it was “Fall in,” and we hiked across the railroad and down into the centre of the little town.

At the town square we halted, and lay around for an hour in the shade waiting for our French guides to take the companies to their billets. There[33] was a cool fountain splashing in the center of the square, but it was marked “Non potable,” so we had to wait until we could get some chlorinated water from our lister bags. Oh, that chlorinated water! Will we ever get the taste of the stuff out of our mouths?

At last a guide came along, but only to take off “C” Co., which was billeted at the little village of Rochere, about 4 kilos outside Passavant. Finally our guide appeared, and “A” and “B” companies hiked off down a narrow street, skirting the great chateau, then up a long hill, under the railroad bridge, and into our billeting area, a little “suburb” of the town across the railroad tracks.

At once we noticed a difference in the people. This town was far behind the lines. No air raids had visited it; lights could be shown at night. And the people seemed actually glad to see us. Instead of lowering brows, grudging admission, furious protests, we met pleasant smiles, bon jour’s, readiness and willingness to accommodate us. Even when we swept out the stables and outhouses where we were billeted there was no objection. Oh, boy, this was something like it!

The rolling kitchen was put to work in a field on the outskirts, and Wilson, deBruin, Lusier & Co. got busy. Everyone was pretty tired, but after chow things looked much brighter.

That night occurred an incident which shows how thoughtless soldiers are. A couple of men, who shall be nameless, patronized the estaminets far too freely. When they had acquired a skinful of vin rouge apiece, they went forth and nobly robbed a hen roost, and had a chicken dinner.

Now had this happened a week before, there would have been immediate and voluble protests to the authorities, and a bill for damages as long as your arm. And on our side, I fear the matter would have been looked on as righteous retribution, and the officers would have received very little assistance in investigating the affair.

But this was different. Wilson and some others found the little girl at their billet and her mother in tears over their loss. The offenders were promptly trailed and spotted, and reported to Lt. Schuyler. And nobody felt more ashamed than they when they woke up in the guardhouse the next morning. Meanwhile, that same evening a hasty collection had been taken up in the company, and the French lady reimbursed a good many times the value of her loss. I understand she wouldn’t take all they collected; but next day I met a couple of the boys, Wilson and Weber, I think, coming back from town with the little girl between them, proudly bearing the finest bonnet that Passavant “epiceries” could produce, and enough chocolate to satisfy a dozen youngsters.

The days at Passavant were about the brightest spot in our stay in France. The training schedules were on hand again, of course. Chauchats were issued to replace the Lewis guns of the English sector; much to the disgust of the auto riflemen, who had worked so hard learning the Lewis, and found the Chauchat but a crude affair comparatively. But the weather was beautiful; there was a stream to wash in, and a lovely lake about a mile away where you could have a swim—the only time we enjoyed this luxury that summer. The people were pleasant; we were getting American rations; all went well.

It was too good to last long. On August 27th we got a march order, and at 1:00 P. M. the next day we pulled out, down the hill to Passavant, up hill[34] through the town, and fell in behind the second battalion for a long, long hike through the summer afternoon and evening.

Six o’clock came, and seven. Still no sign of camp. It was growing dark. The men were good and tired; but “B” company held to its record as the best marching company in the outfit, and plodded along doggedly. I felt uncomfortable every time I looked back at my four platoons; I felt that I ought to be hiking with them instead of on the Major’s horse; knowing, however, that I had a couple of hours hard work ahead of me after we camped, I turned back to the road ahead, and wished the Major were back.

At last, at 8:00 P. M., when it was quite dark, we turned off to the left, crossed several fields, and came to a number of frame barracks. These had bunks within them—about half enough to accommodate the men, but we were glad to lie down anywhere. After the usual turmoil we got supper under way, and as fast as chow could be obtained and swallowed, we hit the hay—some in barracks, others in pup tents in the fields outside. We had done about 20 kilos that day.

The next morning we pulled out at 9 o’clock, hiked into Fresnes, the village near by, and then out on a good wide road, heading generally west. The Colonel, who was making the hike in an automobile, had a theory that no man needed more than a pint of water on any march, and the march discipline was to be very strict. The everlasting rain started again; it was hike, hike, hike. Who that hasn’t done it can ever understand the awful, soul tearing grind of a long hike with full pack? After the first hour, the pack gets heavy on the back and shoulders. You see the feet of the fellow ahead—up and down, up and down, remorselessly, steadily—doesn’t he ever get tired? If he can make it, you can. Some buckle or piece of equipment gets loose, and goes jingle, jingle, jingle, and slap, slap, slap against your leg. It gets irritating. You are sweating and hot and dirty and uncomfortable. “Close up!” You mentally damn the officers, who haven’t any rifles; the ones who ride horses, doubly damned; and as for those birds in the autos—ahem! How long to the 10 minutes rest? Then it starts to rain. It beats into your face. You damn the boob who wished upon the Americans that prize inanity of equipment, the overseas cap. It is ingeniously designed to give the eyes and face no protection from sun, wind or rain, and at the same time efficiently to direct water down the back of your neck. On, on, on, plod, plash, squnchy, sqush. The Major looks at his watch. You eye the side of the road for a likely looking place. At last: “Fall out t’ right th’ road.” You stumble over and plump down on the ground. Oh, blessed moment! you ease the load on your shoulders; your feet are tingling with happiness at being off duty; after a few breaths you fish out a cigarette or the old pipe, and light up for a few puffs. You lean back—

Oh, murder! You know it hasn’t been four minutes, let alone ten.

Toward noon we passed through Bourbonne-les-Bains, quite a sizable town; and as we went plugging along by the railroad station there was Major Odom. He was carried off by the Colonel in his car, but took command of the battalion that night, and I was glad to get back to “B” Co.

Up that long, long, steep street we plugged along, rested, then pushed on well clear of the town, and halted beside a pretty green meadow in the woods[35] for lunch. After we finished our hard bread, corned willy and jam, and were lying about in heavenly idleness for a few minutes, Roy Schuyler’s eye fell upon the bn. adjutant’s horse; a dignified and rotund, rather elderly mare, indulging in a roll while her saddle and bridle were off. In a minute Roy was on the astonished beast’s back. Encouraged by a couple of hearty thwacks from a club, Mary started on a very creditable imitation of youthful gamboling. It was a gallant sight for a summer afternoon. Often since, the picture has come back to me—the prancing horse, the laughing young rider with one hand in her mane, the other brandished aloft. But our time is up; Mary must resume her saddle, and we our packs, and off we go.

The shadows lengthened; the sun dropped down behind the hills, and the long French twilight set in. Still no sign of our guides to indicate our billet was near. Village after village came into view, raised our hopes, and dashed them again as we plodded on. At last, at about 6:00 P. M., we slogged into Merrey. There the Colonel was waiting, in his car. He remarked cheerfully that he had had quite a hunt for billets, but had found a splendid spot. We hiked through the village, and turned off the road into the splendid spot—a pine grove, very wet and rooty as to floor, and no water around. We were satisfied to get off our feet, however. After the usual procedure of getting kicked out of X company’s area, and kicking Y company out of ours, we rigged up shelter tents or sleeping bags. Of course the water carts weren’t on hand, and dinner was held up. There are two recurrent occasions in a soldier’s life when the seconds drag most fearsomely; the interval between a shell’s landing and bursting; and the interval between the end of a hike and chow.

Some of the boys went off to wash their feet in a pretty little pond a couple of fields away. That pond concealed some dark secret beneath its placid bosom. Whew! Didn’t it stink when disturbed?

At reveille we rolled out of our blankets, pretty stiff and cold, but rested. Packs were rolled again, and we fell in at 9:00 A. M., Major Odom again commanding the battalion, and were off on the last lap. This was to be a short one, only about five miles. We passed a large field with a number of Boche prisoners at work, and at about 11:00 A. M. crossed a railroad, turned off the road to the right, and came upon a cantonment just outside of Breuvannes, where the battalion was billeted.

While these frame barracks were not so picturesque as other billets we had had, they were infinitely better adapted to our uses. There were bunks for all, mess halls, a parade ground large enough to form the battalion, and a fine level drill field near by, along the railroad track. A good-sized creek ran close by, and Breuvannes was only 5 minutes walk away. A pretty enough little village, with five or six stores and estaminets. Also there was a Y hut, where you could see movies at night if you got there soon enough.

The 42d Division had been here until the day before, resting and replacing their losses from the fighting in July. A bn. of the 5th Marines had preceded them, and that evening I ran across a Marine lieutenant who was following up his outfit. My own alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute, furnished a number of officers to the Marines, and I was particularly interested in news from them. This officer told me of the death of several of my old school fellows at Belleau Woods. When he said that only one in ten had come through out[36] of his own company, however, I thought he was pulling a long bow.

The next morning, August 31, we resumed the familiar drill schedules. Every effort was made to teach the use and mechanism of the new Chauchats. Special training went on as usual, and we practiced the formations of the O. C. S. U. (Offensive Combat of Small Units) on all the bushes and trees in the vicinity.

Barney O’Rourke and I spent one day on a pilgrimage to Bourmont, where the courtmartial heretofore referred to took place; Barney quite prepared to be shot at sunrise, and I suspect a little disappointed at the affair ending so undramatically.

The drill field furnished a very fair baseball diamond, and several inter-company contests were staged. We played one ten-inning thriller with “A” Co., in which Joe Fahey finally pitched us to victory, supported by an able cast. We had the makings of a good football team under way, too, and I remember I had most of the skin off my right arm. But more serious business was on hand, and our athletic activities had to be temporarily laid aside.

On Sept. 4, we prepared to move. The battalion was formed at dusk, and at 9:00 P. M. we filed off for our first night march in France. It started raining promptly, of course. Wasn’t it dark! In an hour you literally could not see your hand an inch before your nose. No lights or smoking were allowed; and even a chew was risky, as you never knew who you’d hit when you let fly. Now and then a glimmer of light from some cottage fire would show the shadowy forms of the last squad of “C” Co. in front, hastening on into the darkness. I walked into an ungainly quadruped and requested the rider to get his damned mule out of the road; and was immediately and discourteously informed that I had better keep my mouth shut and drive on. I recognized Major Odom’s voice and drove on.

Rain, hike, rain, slog, mud, mud, sweat, damn. Halt and fall out and sit in the mud for ten minutes and feel the rain percolate. Fall in, and hike again, your cold, wet clothes clinging to you.

Eight weary hours of this. At last, just before daybreak, we turned off the road through the gateway of a once palatial estate, and hiked across a park to a grove where we were billeted. The fifteen miles we had covered seemed like 30. We were done in enough to fall asleep, many without unrolling their packs. The rain, however, found us out, trickled in at every corner, and morning found us miserable enough.

No word was vouchsafed to us as to when we should move again; and this playing at secrecy cost “D” and “C” Cos. their meal. It was more luck than good management that gave me the hunch to rout out our weary cooks and have chow at 11:00 o’clock. At 12:00 o’clock orders came in a great hurry that we were to clear the crossroads at 2:30. We did it at 3:00.

Our new lieutenant-colonel, Arthur Budd, had joined us the night before. During the first halt Lt. Foulkes came galloping up on old Mary, and his former platoon—the first—chortled with glee every time daylight showed between Louis and the saddle. Col. Budd promptly treated me to a cold and fishy stare, and inquired if it was the custom for “B” Co. to yell at officers when they passed. I hastily delivered a brief resume of Louis’ career with the company and the estimation in which we held him, intimating that he was regarded as[37] one helofa good fellow, and that no mutiny was breaking out. Meanwhile I had hastily sized up our new acquisition as a goof. I had reason to revise this estimate, and that shortly.

The rain let up this evening, for a wonder, and the march wasn’t half bad, except for the mud under foot, which we were pretty well used to. We passed by a sizeable cantonment of Chinese labor troops, and Diskin wanted to fall out and leave his laundry. We had only the most vague idea of where we were; in fact, our notions of French geography were of the crudest anyhow. Bill Reid, from his six-foot eyrie, solemnly announced that he saw the Alps ahead, and had the 1st platoon craning its respective necks for an hour.

Just as darkness fell, we ran into an ammunition train, the tail end of the 42d Division. We pushed on behind them up a hill into the village of Viocourt, where our old dependable of the advance party, Sgt. Hill, met us and pointed out our billets, in lofts and stables on both sides of the “street.”

We all knew pretty well by now that we must be in for action soon. The St. Mihiel salient meant nothing more to us than it did to folks at home then. The general impression was that it was to be a drive on Metz; and this wasn’t so far out of the way, at that.

By this time it didn’t take us long to make ourselves at home in a strange place. We had bagged a good place for the rolling kitchen, and the billets weren’t so bad. Between showers we got in some drilling, and a couple of hours on an extemporized 30-yard range that Lt. Schuyler put up one morning before breakfast. Everyone tried his hand at the Chauchat for a magazine full. This was the only chance we had to fire this gun before we had to meet the enemy with it. The men armed with pistols punctured a few tin cans after a vast expenditure of lead.

There was a beautiful meadow below town, and on Sunday, the 8th, we staged a couple of good ball games. On Monday we had a company problem through the woods beyond the meadow, and Tuesday we got in the target practice.

Wednesday morning the Major assembled the Co. cmdrs. and ordered us to be ready to march at 1:30. After the usual bustle all was ready for the road, two days’ rations being carried. Our kitchen and cooks were attached to the regt’l supply train.

It had been raining all the morning, but old J. Pluvius had only been practising for the real show. We started off in a steady downpour, which speedily became a regular deluge. The wind rose to a gale, which drove the sheets of water directly at us, penetrating right through slickers and clothing. In 15 minutes we were all wet to the skin.

It was only an hour’s march this time. At 3:00 P. M., we came to a crossroads just outside Chatenois. There stood a long line of motor trucks, stretching away in either direction as far as the eye could see. The embussing was well handled, and in 20 minutes we were packed in, 20 or more to a truck, jammed as tight as they could be, every man wet through and chilled. Even our incorrigibly optimistic regimental history says, “We shall never forget this day because of its miserable and nasty weather.”

These busses were driven by Chinese in the French service. With their impassive Oriental faces looking out over their great sheepskin coats, they[38] looked fitting agents of destiny; grave Charons, bearing us on the last lap of our progress toward our fate.

At 4:00 o’clock we were off, with a jerk and a clank of gears and a steady rumble. On and on, over the long French road, rolling on through rain and wind, steadily, inevitably; each lorry nearly touching the one in front. Darkness fell; the long gray train rolled on, not a light, not a sound save the rumble of the trucks. We got colder and colder; more and more cramped. Capt. Fleischmann and I spent most of the night each cherishing the other’s icy feet in his bosom. On and on, through gray, silent towns, past the ghostly figure of a lonely M. P. at a crossroads; through fields, woods, villages, all wet and quiet in the falling rain.

Just as the daylight began to thin the inky mist, the train halted, and the word was passed along the line to debus. Wet, shivering, miserable, “B” Co. struggled hastily into clammy shoes and slung their heavy, soggy packs. As we formed on the side of the road, the busses started again, and rolled swiftly off into the shadows ahead, leaving us on the road, with heavy woods on either side.

We marched down the road to an open field on the left. Here a railroad track entered the corner of the wood. We turned off up the track, and about 300 yards along we came upon the 2nd battalion bivouacking. We went on just beyond them, and were allotted our own share of squishy ground and drenched underbrush.

A limited number of fires were allowed, and we made ourselves as comfortable as we could under the circumstances. I was detailed on O. D. and spent a busy day dissuading the regiment from straggling all over the road and open fields. All knew that a big attack was in preparation, and that it was important that the concentration be kept under cover from the enemy’s aircraft. But some men apparently couldn’t compree that we weren’t roosting in that bally old dysentery generator of a wood for sheer sport.

Showers fell intermittently during the day, but nothing like the previous day’s deluge. At about 4 P. M. there was an officers’ call, and we were warned to march at 7 P. M. Co. Commanders were issued maps, and we learned that our present bivouac was in the Bois de la Cote en Haye, east of Tremblecourt.

About 5 P. M., six French tanks came clanking down the road, did a Squads Left, waddled across the fields and disappeared over the brow of the hill, toward the rumble of intermittent artillery fire in the distance that meant the front.

The 312th Inf. was bivouacked on the other side of the railroad track, and the rest of the division was hidden in the woods near by. Across the main road was a great artillery ammunition dump, big enough to blow up ten divisions if a bomb ever hit it. But I kept this to myself, and what a soldier doesn’t know doesn’t worry him. He has enough to worry about anyhow.

The kitchens came up late in the afternoon, and we got outside of a ration of hot slum before dark.

By 6:45 P. M. we had rolled packs, and were ready to hit the road again. I went to sleep on the ground, with my pack on my back, and was awakened by Dunn to find it nearly dark, and the battalion ready to move off.

It seemed hours before we got out of the wood into the open field. We[39] would go forward a few steps along the track, and then stand and wait for ten or fifteen minutes. The road by which we had arrived was crowded with transport and artillery, and we turned off on a bypath through the woods. It was now quite dark, and blind work it was blundering along, touching the man ahead to keep from losing him, slipping and tripping in the wet underbrush. It is remarkable how exasperating a pack and rifle become under such circumstances. However, the excitement of anticipation buoyed us up, and “B” Co. wallowed through the wood, across a mushy field, and scrambled up a slippery embankment on to a strange road, much more cheerfully than now seems possible.

Once re-formed on said road, we hiked along briskly in column of squads. Soon we overtook a long column of transport wagons, trucks and artillery. Road discipline was something apparently unknown; every vehicle seemed to be trying to pass every other one. The consequence was of course wondrous confusion, and here and there a total jam, through which we had to thread our way in single or double file as best we could.

When we got clear of the last jam, the company ahead had gained about 15 yards, and was consequently as completely out of sight as if they had been in Timbuctoo. We passed through a village in hot pursuit of them. At the crossroads, by sheer good luck I turned off up the right one. After a long hour’s stern chase we were relieved to see the bobbing forms of Headquarters Co. show through the gloom ahead.

At about 10:30 we came upon Sgt. Hill waiting for us by the roadside, with the welcome news that our temporary destination was only a couple of kilos off. We toiled up a long hill, and turned off the macadam into a rough road that was a series of four inch ponds. We plashed along to the edge of a large wood, and Hill showed us a pile of empty bandoliers and boxes, where the Marines had been issued ammunition and grenades about an hour before. They had just pulled out, and were going over the top at dawn.

A hundred yards or so, and we turned into the woods, on a road which was from ankle to knee deep in all varieties of mud, from sticky to liquid. We moved on, stumbled over a railroad track, and finally Hill said we were at our bivouac. The trees and underbrush grew so thick along the road that we blundered about a bit before we found a couple of places where we could force our way through. As each man reached a place where he could sit or lie down, down he flopped, and the rest of the company walked over him. The woods already had some occupants, and more and more poured in every minute.

At last “B” Co. had distributed itself on the ground, and was preparing for a dismal wallow until morning. In spite of wet, mud and chill some were already asleep. We were just within the artillery zone, and the jar and grumble of the guns ahead was occasionally punctuated by the roar and scream of one of the heavies nearer by. This, however, was only normal artillery fire, such as we had been accustomed to at St. Pol and Lattre St. Quentin, and we settled down to wait for the big show. Some of the more energetic started to pitch their pup tents.

Just as I dozed off, some idiot shouted “Gas!” Our long hours of gas drill, and many vivid and gruesome lectures on the subject, promptly bore fruit. In fact, the good seed shot up like Jack’s beanstalk. The cry was re-echoed[40] by a dozen, then a score of startled voices. Everyone reached into the familiar canvas satchel that he cherished on his bosom, donned his mask more or less expeditiously, and sat expectantly awaiting developments.

In the midst of the rumpus I heard Lt. Foulkes’ voice from the road bawling for the company commanders. I thought sadly that the lad had probably lost his mask, or the gas had caught him suddenly and he was raving. However, for sake of auld lang syne, I took a long breath, and shouted, “Whatsmatterwhydontyouputonyourmask?” I replaced my mouthpiece, and started blundering toward Louis’ voice, hoping I might be in time at least to view his remains.

During the next two minutes I walked on every man in “B” Co. at least once, and probably on most of “A” and “C” Cos. Then Foulkes roared my name within five yards of me.

“Where’s the gas?” I demanded.

There wasn’t any gas.

The Major was waiting for us up the “road.” He informed us that the 156th Brigade was the alert brigade. We were not to pitch tents nor unroll packs, but lie on our arms ready to reinforce the front line division should occasion demand it. The barrage was due to start at 1 A. M.; at 5 A. M. the infantry was to go over the top.

I waded back with this gladsome news, and we lay in the mud and wet leaves and shivered and wished we could smoke, and waited for the show to start. Word had passed that there was a big French railroad gun about 30 yards away, and a pleasant time was anticipated by all.

At 1 A. M. the sullen jar of the usual cannonade was shattered by a tremendous crash. And that crash lasted solid for four hours. I shall not try to describe a real A-1 barrage to men who have been there.

The railroad gun came across according to plan too. Every five minutes her mighty roar and scream would announce the departure of a G. I. can towards Metz, and then would come the clanking of the cars as the recoil drove the train back along the track against the logs piled behind it. After an hour or so we got accustomed to the barrage and the glare that lit up the sky ahead; but as often as we drowsed off, the thunder of this mighty gun would shake the earth beneath us, and jar us into consciousness.

The night wore on, and the gray morning light crept into the woods; and still the thunder rolled unceasing. I watched the glow of my wrist watch hand creep to five o’clock. There was a slight lull as the artillery shifted to their rolling barrage schedule. Then she started up again with renewed fury. We knew the doughboys were off. The A. E. F. was starting its first show on its own. The overture was over, the fiery curtain raised, the act begun; and we were awaiting our cue.

Morning broke, cloudy, but little or no rain, and about 7 o’clock it quite cleared off. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could, and prayed for our kitchen.

[41]I went wading through the mud along the road to look for it. There were several Marines about, belonging to the skeleton organization, left behind to act as a nucleus in case a whole outfit was wiped out. I passed a Marine lieutenant whose face looked familiar, and after a moment recognized “Happy” Mason. He had been a cadet at V. M. I. with me, and had helped me wind a red silk sash around my middle for many a dress parade. It was a far cry from the Blue Ridge to the Bois de la Rappe, and from dress parade to the St. Mihiel drive.

We had a glad reunion there in the mud, and he invited the “B” Co. officers to share his breakfast. Their rolling kitchen, or “galley” as they called it, was on hand, and they had hot coffee and peach turnovers!

Those Marines were regular guys. When they heard our transport wasn’t up yet, they turned to and fed as many of our men as they could, until their supply ran out. They had been through the mill before, at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood. As one of them said “Better help the other fellow now. Tomorrow’s a hell of a way off here.”

The Marines have had an awful lot of joshing, of course, about their press agent stuff—“Ace high with the Satevepost,” and so on. But these were certainly a fine bunch, and gave us a lift when we needed it. Naturally, those of them who did the fighting did the least of the blowing about it afterward.

The sun came out to look at the battle after awhile, and we got warmed and partially dried. Also the kitchen arrived, and a hot dinner was in prospect.

About 11 A. M. bulletins began arriving from the front, and were read out to us. All objectives were being taken according to schedule, and the number of prisoners and guns captured mounted by leaps and bounds. We were not allowed out of the woods, but even from the trees on the outskirts one couldn’t see much except a great cloud of smoke and dust slowly rolling up the slope of a range of distant hills.

The wet exposure and irregular eating of half cooked food had already started to tell on us. Dysentery was appearing; nearly all the company suffered with constant diarrhoea from this time on.

The afternoon dragged on; still no call for the alert brigade. We were allowed to pitch pup tents, but no fires were allowed; the wood was too wet and smoky.

Night fell; we crawled into whatever shelter we had, and surreptitiously smoked, and talked, and listened to the rumble of the guns until we got to sleep.

At about 1:30 A. M. a battalion runner fell over my feet and lit on Lt. Dunn. After a few hasty remarks we stopped for breath, and were informed that the battalion was to form on the road right away. Stiff and sleepy, I stumbled out into the dank night, routed out Chiaradio, my staunch little runner and striker, and broke the glad news to Robbins and the company runners. The woods were soon in a bustle as we rolled packs, donned equipment, and filed out by platoons into the mud of the road.

By 2 A. M. the battalion was standing ankle deep in the slushy mud in column of squads, the Major at our head. Half an hour passed. Not a sound except an occasional “su-luck-slosh,” as someone shifted his heavy pack, or[42] tried in vain to find a less liquid footing. The leaden minutes dragged by. Three o’clock; no move. Half past four—the company ahead moved off, and we sloshed along behind, but only to the edge of the wood. Dawn broke—another gray and misty dawn. Oh, that awful wait in that awful hole! It was quite light before, at 5 o’clock, we finally moved out, and, splashing and sliding over a muddy field, finally hit the road and were off toward the scene of action.

As we were stretching the kinks out of our legs on a fairly good road, we passed a U. S. Coast Artillery outfit; a 12-inch gun. Some of the crew came out to the roadside from the emplacement, and Capt. O’Brien recognized his old outfit, in which he had served as an enlisted man years before.

On we go toward the distant booming of the guns. We wind around hills, hike across a valley, over another long hill. Then the road runs along the bottom of a long, long valley. During the ten-minute rests we snatch a hasty breakfast from our reserve rations, with growls from those who don’t get in on the jam.

Now we begin to see traces of the battle—an overturned wagon, abandoned in the ditch; a train of ammunition trucks crossing the road ahead of us; a motor truck repair shop, hastily set up in a little cabin along the road, from which came a smell of hot coffee that tantalized our cold stomachs. Further on we passed a field hospital; great white tents pitched in a sheltered dell, with red crosses glaring on the tent flies.

At the next halt, a Ford ambulance came down the muddy road with a load of wounded. It stopped by us, and the driver went around behind to see to one of the occupants. The canvas curtain was pushed aside from the top, and a head lolled out—a face of ghastly yellow paste, surrounded by dirty light brown hair. The poor chap was evidently badly gassed. He retched violently time and again, spat out some blood, stared vacantly at us with glassy, miserable eyes. The driver put the head inside with a kindly “All right, buddy; nearly there now;” and the old Henry started off again with a jerk, and a groan from within.

As we resumed the march, a youngster from the 5th Division overtook us. He wore an M. P.’s brassard, and no equipment but a .45 and a canteen. We with our heavy packs and ammunition envied him. He was sleepy eyed and jaded, but still enthusiastic. Ever since the drive started he had been on the job escorting prisoners from front line division headquarters to the pens in the rear.

By 9 o’clock we had done twelve miles under our full pack, ammunition, and two days’ rations, with a breakfast of a little corned willy and hard bread and chlorinated water; the whole preceded by three hours’ standing in eight inches of liquid mud. We felt pretty well done in, for a fact. The auto riflemen were the worst off, having their heavy Chauchats and several big magazines of ammunition besides. One of them lightened his load by the ingenious means of “forgetting” his bag of magazines at a halt. When Lt. Schuyler discovered it, the culprit was promptly accommodated with a double dose to carry.

But this was the exception. As I shifted about, hiking first with one platoon and then another, I always found a set of determined grins, and a[43] cheerful “Oh, we’re all right. How’s the rabble up ahead?”

We had been passing through the rear area of the former Allied sector. Now and again a trench system—trenches, barbed wire, emplacements, all complete—stretched away on either hand. Here and there were great stretches of barbed wire filling gullies and ravines.

At 10 o’clock we crossed a stone bridge and started up a long, long hill. At the top we found that we were on a ridge that had been the front line before the attack. Shell holes covered the whole place. To our left, the ground fell away in a long dip, and we saw the ground over which the first wave had attacked. The battle was now far away over the horizon.

For a couple of kilos we hiked along the road on top of the ridge. It had already been repaired roughly, and all sorts of traffic was passing over it. Once it had been bordered with trees, set at regular intervals, like most self respecting French roads. Now only a shattered, blasted stump stood here and there.

A few men began to straggle from the outfits ahead, but “B” Co. stuck to it gamely. On that day not a man fell out.

Now we drew near a large barbed wire enclosure filled with men. It was a P. W. pen, where prisoners were collected on their way to the rear. A couple of detachments of them were going in as we came by.

We turned off here to the left, toward the front. About a kilo down this road we hit a traffic jam—a regular one. This road was badly cut up, and poor road discipline soon did the rest. Some truck or ambulance had tried to pass another, and both had stalled. Others, arriving from both directions, instead of lining up behind on the right of the road, pressed up as far as they could go, until the road was so completely jammed that even we on foot could not get through. Belts of barbed wire that ran up to the road on either side prevented us from going around. So there we were.

It was a most cosmopolitan collection. French 75’s, Ford ambulances, a general’s Cadillac, rubbed shoulders with lumbering lorries, sturdy steel ammunition Quads, and limbers. A French transport wagon driver cracked his long whip and argued volubly with the chauffeur of a tank, who spat and regarded him contemplatively. Field kitchens, huddled in the jam, held the food that was so desperately needed up front.

At last a Colonel of Marines blew in from somewhere, and plunged into the mess. He got it thinned out enough for us to filter through on the outskirts. And then—Glory be—we turned off the road into an open space, with no barbed wire and comparatively few shell holes. Here we found part of the 312th Inf., and the battalion stacked arms and fell out.

We slipped off our packs, and fell to on monkey meat and hard bread with a will. The sun had come out, and we lay around and soon got warm and dry, and felt nearly human again.

All too soon we fell in, and set off again. We threaded our way across the jam—now nearly as bad as ever—and spent the afternoon drifting down a little valley at right angles to the road we had just left. Nobody seemed to know just where we were going, or why. We heard later that a jumbled order somewhere between Division and Brigade Hdqs. had caused us to spend this day in a wild goose chase.

The Colonel and Regt’l Hdq. had not been seen since the morning. We[44] hiked a few hundred yards, waited awhile, then moved on a bit again. We passed, and were in turn passed by artillery, supply trains, infantry. We sweated and chafed under our burdens, and wondered what t’ell, but supposed it was all part of the game.

At last, about 6 P. M., we came to the head of the valley. There we spied the Colonel and his car, on a road up on the top of the hill. We climbed up to the road, pushing a stalled rolling kitchen ahead of us. We were urged to “Step out,” and showed our military discipline and Christian forbearance by not saying what we thought of this request. We got on a good road that led over the hill and up toward the front. Along this we hiked a little way, then turned off to the left, and up a lumber road that led straight up the hill into the woods. It was nearly dark; the road was so steep that I could never understand how six inches of liquid mud stayed on it. The climb up this road soon put our feet into their usual muddy and wet condition. We turned off into the woods, the Bois de Hoquemont, and were told that we would bivouac here for the night.

Our kitchens pulled up along the main road shortly, and the cooks, tired as they were, got to work at once. The rations consisted mostly of dehydrated vegetables. They say they are good if you can soak them for twenty-four hours. A stew and coffee were soon under way.

I toiled back up the hill and found a message to report at once to the regt’l commander. On a hunch, I had Schuyler get a detail out and bring up the chow right away. Sure enough, at the officers’ meeting we were ordered to make combat packs and be ready to move again in twenty minutes. We got our coffee and slum, though; and the half cooked stuff tasted pretty good at that.

Then we again donned our equipment, and plashed down the sloppy road on weary feet. The night was very dark, and the road, as usual, jammed with transport, our kitchens among others. As we threaded our way through, we got mixed up somehow with a company of Marines going in the same direction. Finally the jam thinned out, and we turned off on another road, though we had to sort out B company and the Marines almost man by man. And so we plodded on.

It is remarkable how much a man can do after he thinks he is all in. We picked ’em up and put ’em down for three hours. At last we drew near some woods. Our orders were to proceed to Bois d’Euvezin and bivouac, and show no lights. Well, we couldn’t see a map, and didn’t know where we were on one anyhow, so this wood looked pretty good. At any rate, we turned off the road and headed for it.

Easy enough for a staff officer to look at a map and say, “Bivouac in these woods.” Unfortunately, there was a 30 foot belt of wire fringing this particular one. Orders are orders, though, so we scrambled through somehow, and pushed in far enough to hide from any further marching orders that night. Then we flopped down, any place at all, and dropped off.

It seemed but a couple of minutes before the sun came prying through the leaves and under my eyelids. I rolled over, and saw Lt. Col. Budd, sitting up with his back against a tree, wrapped in his trench coat—no better off than we were. Right away my morale went up.

[45]An American outfit is never so weary that it doesn’t furnish a few inquisitive souls. Already curiosity was driving the doughboys out of the woods, by two’s and three’s, to see what was around. Just over a knoll they found a little fragment of history. A German machine gun, cunningly camouflaged; across it the body of a big “Feldwebel,” or German top sergeant, with a bayonet wound through his body; a couple of yards away a dead Marine, riddled with machine gun bullets, still grasping his rifle with the bloody bayonet fixed.

At 9 A. M. the outfit was rounded up, and we were off again. As we plugged along the road in column of squads we thought with some disgust of the night marches we had made a hundred kilos behind the lines. Fortunately this hike was short. In an hour we entered another and larger wood, the Bois d’Euvezin sure enough, this time. Here we found the rest of the brigade, and bivouacked in the woods just off the road.

The woods were full of German dugouts, evacuated by the enemy only a day or so before. Most of these were preempted by various headquarters. We settled down to make the most of our rest. For a wonder the sun was out; and despite the mud under foot, we were soon fairly warm and dry—and oh, how hungry! It was well along in the afternoon before the water carts pulled in, though, and we got our hot slum and coffee.

The Y. M. C. A. kicked through with a canteen, and after some trouble in keeping the men from mobbing the place, crackers, chocolate and tobacco were sold.

That night our gas training blossomed forth again. The Boche dropped a couple of shells around and our over-anxious sentries promptly bawled “Gas!” The alarm would be taken up and spread through the brigade, and by the time things quieted down they were off again. We finally got some sleep by the primitive but effective expedient of promising to blow the head off the next guy that raised the cry.

Next day a great bunch of orders were dumped on me to read—all about the new censorship regulations. After wading through these, the officers were summoned to go up on a reconnoitering party to look over the sector which we were to take over that night.

We set out, and after a couple of hours’ stiff hiking arrived at a very elaborate system of dugouts, in the edge of a wood, the Bois St. Claude. Here was the Regt’l Hdq. of the 61st Infantry, 5th Division, which we were to relieve. About five hundred meters north lay the little village of Vieville-en-Haye. Descriptions of this charming hamlet are superfluous, as we all had plenty of opportunity to contemplate it thereafter.

It was early afternoon, and the Boche was behaving rather well; only occasionally slamming an .88 into the village in a perfunctory sort of way. From the northeast, however, came an intermittent crackle of rifle and machine gun firing, where the outposts were snarling and chattering away at each other.

We sat around for an hour while the regt’l hdq’s made their arrangements. I found out that the C. O. of the 61st was an old friend of my father’s—his father had been in my father’s company at V. M. I. in the Civil War.

At last the dope filtered down to the Co. Cmdrs., and we were given ten minutes to reconnoiter our positions. We then had to make haste back to the[46] regiment, so that we could be ready to start again at dark. Packs were made, the platoons gathered together, and at 7:30 P. M. we filed out onto the road and were off on the last lap of our journey to the battle line.

Hardly were we clear of the woods when we halted, for some unknown reason. We sat and lay on the grass by the roadside, among shell holes, and listened to the drone of airplanes above us. It was an eerie, ominous sound; and though we were pretty sure the motors were not the deep voiced monsters of the enemy, still we were relieved when they drew off without dropping any H. E. into our midst.

In half an hour we started, this time in earnest. It was rough going, and blind work at best. We stumbled up a ravine, out onto a road, skirted a wood lined with artillery, and so drew near our position south of Vieville-en-Haye.

The 1st battalion was in support, the 2nd holding the front line, and the 3rd brigade reserve. I never did know where the battalion was that we were relieving. A and B Cos., however, were to hold the crest of a slight swell of the ground about 300 meters south of the village. Trenches there were none; but there were plenty of shell holes, and the company was posted so as to command the terrain in front with Chauchat and rifle fire; two or three men to a shell hole. The 4th platoon found a little stretch of trench which they improved for themselves. A Co. was on our left; C and D Cos. were posted about 700 meters to our right rear, behind Regt’l Hdq.

We had gotten pretty well settled, when just before dawn a battalion runner came up, with the cry that haunted me day and night, “Commanding Officer, B Co.” Hard on his heels came the Major. Two companies of the 2nd battalion had lost their way and were temporarily missing, and B Co. was to go up and hold the line of resistance at once.

So B Co. was routed out of its bivvies, and donned packs and ammunition, and set off in double file. I was to report to the C. O. of the 61st Inf. front line battalion at Vieville.

We hiked down to the road, and up to where the houses began; then through a spacious barn, climbing over a dead horse, and arriving finally at the northern outskirts of the town. Not finding the Bn. Hdq. I had the company take what cover they could in the road and barn while the Major and I strolled up to the top of the hill beyond to have a look ’round.

Near the top of this long hill were two German concrete pillboxes, nicely turfed over. We found one of these occupied as a first aid post; in the other we found a machine gun company hdq. Nobody knew any dope about where we were wanted, but they said that Bn. Hdq. was about a kilo away to the right.

Just then Heinie started his morning strafe of Vieville-en-Haye. Three or four whiz bangs came hurtling over our heads, and landed in the east end of the village, right where B Co. was lying. I saw no necessity of our doing a Casabianca, and hastily obtained permission from the Major to take B Co. back to its former position until we knew where to go. As I shuffled down the hill, hitting the dirt now and then when one landed close by, I chanced to look back just in time to see a shell hit the first aid pillbox and pivot it neatly around, so that the door faced us instead of the enemy. It didn’t take long to start B Co. toward our bivvies, very much disgusted with the morning’s work, but glad to stop playing target for a while. Fortunately, no one was hit.

[47]The 2nd Battalion located its wandering sheep later in the day, so we were not called on for that errand again.

The regiment’s task was now to organize and strengthen our sector of the line. The main line of resistance, as indicated on the map, was being held and dug in by three Cos. of the 2nd Battalion, H Co. holding the outpost line about two kilos in advance.

Our kitchens were established in the woods behind Regt’l Hdq., and started work on the old standby, slum. The rough roads leading into these woods were all ankle deep in mud, and the ration detail wasn’t any bed of roses.

The day we spent in deepening our bivvies as best we could, though our intrenching tools made little impression on the hard and stony ground. Whoever salvaged a man-sized pick or shovel was lucky. While it was light, we kept down under cover as much as possible, for the German observation balloons were peeping sinisterly over the horizon, and we didn’t care about drawing attention to our position.

On Wednesday, September 18th, at about 1 P. M., A and B Cos. received orders to report to the Engineer Dump at 368.3-240.3, as a working party. Several enemy observation balloons were up, and it was a clear afternoon; but orders were orders, and off we filed.

At the dump we met an Engineer Lieutenant—very stout, very bullheaded and very incompetent. I asked where we were to work, and he replied he didn’t know—over there somewhere—pointing in the general direction of Germany. Having had enough of that sort of business in the morning, I told him to toddle right off and find out where he was to take us. He got quite huffy at this, but finally set out, and returned with some definite information. We drew picks and shovels, and hiked away after him; I being forced to hurt his importance again by refusing to march the company along in single file on the sky line.

Our task was to dig a communication trench, already taped out, from the point where the line of resistance entered the Bois Gerard back over the brow of the hill. The first platoon was in plain view of the enemy’s observation balloon, the other three were just behind the rise.

We posted sentinels, and set to work, absolutely out in the open, no cover save a few shell holes. For ten minutes we dug. Then it came. A whistle, scream and slam, just over the hill; another; then a fierce, deadly whir, right in our ears. We hit the dirt, and a second later Lt. Dunn called to me “Captain, there’s a man killed here and I don’t know how many wounded.”

For an instant of horror the company gazed at the spot. I sent Sgt. Hill to the first aid pillbox for stretchers, put the others to work again, and hastened up to see the situation. The shell had landed just between the 1st and 2nd platoons. Lt. Schuyler was already having the wounded carried into the edge of the woods near by, and had the rest of the 1st platoon take cover there. Poor O’Hara was lying dead right by the shell hole. It had burst nearly underneath him, and a fragment of shell had torn its way through his temple and right out through his steel helmet. His brains were oozing out through the hole.

Seeing that nothing could be done for him, I went over to the woods.[48] Lester Farry, our mechanic, as fine a man as ever walked, was sitting up between Lt. Schuyler and Sgt. Reid, with a big hole in the side of his head. He never uttered a word of complaint; just sat still while they bandaged it; and the stretchers came up and took him off. He died in hospital six days later.

Curcio had a great hole in the upper part of his leg. Donohue had an ugly bit of shell in his back, and Bogucki, Fielding, and Hauber were wounded, but less seriously.

This was a nasty introduction to shell fire, because the whole company saw the thing happen. Their behaviour, however, was excellent. Doggedly the men continued at the work, and soon we had enough cover to at least be in while the shells burst near by.

Our gallant friend, the Engineer Lieutenant, had promptly vanished, and I never saw him again. I withdrew the first and second platoons behind the hill, and we kept on the job until 6 P. M., as ordered. At about 5:30, A Co. came along over the hill, and the Heinies sped them on their way with a few gas shells, which made them scamper.

As we turned in our shovels at the dump, every man mustered up a grin as he passed by; and though it had been one hell of a party, the old morale was still on deck.

On the top of the knoll where our position was, the Germans had had an anti-aircraft gun, gaudily camouflaged. Some cooks from an artillery outfit had found a lot of ammunition belonging to it, and, dragging it into Vieville, had amused themselves during the day by shooting Fritz’s own H. E. in his general direction. This apparently annoyed Fritz; and just as I got back to our bivvies at the tail of B Co., two ash cans—whoppers—arrived at the gun’s former position, right in the midst of A Co. Our comrades promptly departed to the woods until the next morning.

The cooks sent up a good chow—steaks and coffee—and we got to sleep in our holes as best we could.

The next day—Thursday, September 19th—was rainy. We dug our shelters a little deeper, and wished this war thing were over. I found a German translation of one of De Maupassant’s novels, which I read through, but for the life of me I can’t remember a bit of the story.

In the afternoon the chaplain, Lt. Cressman, came around, and O’Hara’s platoon was allowed to attend his burial service in the little cemetery in the edge of the Bois St. Claude, east of Vieville.

In the meantime I had been called to Btn. Hdq., where Mr. Morse, our faithful old “Y” man, had brought up some chocolate and cigarettes. He was supposed by the regulations of the “Y” to sell them, but he refused to take any money from the Co. Cmdrs. at first, intending to account for them out of his own small pay. When we understood this, we insisted on paying for the stuff out of the company funds. The news got out that the “Y” was charging for chocolate and tobacco, and caused some bitterness, under the circumstances. But thereafter Mr. Morse made some arrangement whereby the stuff was issued free.

As for Mr. Morse himself, I think we should here express something of our appreciation of his faithful and unselfish devotion to the men of the battalion. A man well past the prime of life, he shared our hardships, hiked with us—not[49] sticking like grim death to a Ford as some of his confreres were prone to do—; slept in mud and rain with us. Right under shell fire he would come plugging on up with his little bag of smokes and chocolate. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, were only names to us. But the “Y,” which we cussed out so frequently, surely did us proud when they gave us Mr. Morse.

That night the 1st, 3rd and 4th platoons went out as separate working parties. Apparently the deaths of O’Hara and Farry had demonstrated even to our friends the Engineers that sporting about in sight of Hun balloons in the daytime was magnificent, but not war.

The Boche had the range, though, and shelled the area all night. The 1st platoon ran on an average schedule of dig two minutes and duck five. The 3rd was in no better case, and Barney O’Rourke got an ugly little piece of shell through his foot. He hobbled off between Hill and Weber, adjuring me as he left “Don’t let th’ byes get up too soon afther they bor-r-rst, sor-r-r.” And thereafter we didn’t.

Rifle bullets were cracking by over our heads now and then, and the rumor got about that snipers were concealed in the nearby woods. The whole sector had of course been in German hands five days before, and all sorts of tales were current about death traps found in dugouts, and lurking snipers, lying close in the daytime in cunning shelters, well provisioned, who came out at night to pot a few of us and eventually escape by underground passages.

Most of these tales I recognized as old friends originally met with in the Sat. Eve. Post. But digging was quite unpleasant enough as it was, and the source of the impression was not so important as the fact that it existed. So Osterweis, Woolley and I went forth to bag the franctireurs. We waded through a vast deal of mud, but couldn’t flush anything except a disgusted runner looking for Brigade Hdq.; so I sent the corporals back, and set out myself for the 4th platoon, which was stringing wire over on the left of the sector.

On the way I stumbled over the body of a 5th Division soldier. He had a red runner’s brassard on his arm, and was all ticketed for burial. His face seemed to be in shadow. There was a plug of chewing tobacco sticking out of his pocket and this seemed to be in the shadow too. Then I realized that his face had turned black—it was just the color of that plug of tobacco. The vicious shriek of a shell approached, and I hit the dirt. A bit of the shell hit the dead man by me, and he jumped as if alive. I got up and was on my way.

The majority of the 4th platoon had taken individual leases on shell holes; Sgt. Rogers and a few others were making valiant efforts to make some headway with the wire. The shelling quieted down after awhile, however, and we got down to business. Then I started back to see how the others were faring.

On the way I heard Capt. Fleischmann’s voice from the darkness; his men also were worried about the stray bullets overhead. As I came up, a couple of his sentinels thought they had spotted the snipers, and cracked down on some figures moving past a clump of bushes to their left. A few remarks in choice American made it clear that they were potting away at my 3rd platoon, which had decided that it was time to quit for the night. Privately I was heartily in sympathy with this view; but officially I had to lead the way back to the trench and set the boys to work again. Meanwhile the C. O. of the 4th platoon, laboring[50] under a similar delusion, had taken his wiring party back to their bivvies. Sgt. Rogers, Slim Price and one or two others were still on deck, very much disgusted. So we had a good long trudge back, routed the lads out, and all hands returned to the hill.

At last 3 o’clock came, and we turned in tools and quit for the night. As Rogers, Hayden and I were crossing the belt of wire north of the Vieville road, four or five gas shells landed quite near by. We all got a pretty good snootful before we got our masks on; and Rogers, the Co. gas N. C. O., was so busy cussing the wire that he didn’t notice the gas soon enough, and got enough to put him in the hospital.

My shell hole looked pretty luxurious to me; Chiaradio had swiped a piece of corrugated iron for a roof, and it wasn’t as wet as it might have been. I was glad to crawl in between him and Robbins and go to sleep.

At about 9 A. M. Heinie set to work to blow us out. His range was fifty meters short, fortunately, and he shelled away on a line between us and Vieville with characteristic diligence and thoroughness. The flying fragments made promenading unhealthy. Lt. Schuyler came over to my bivvy with a rumor that the Austrians had quit. Two minutes after he left, a long jagged piece came whistling along and half buried itself just where he had been sitting, and six inches above my foot. Cheery-O used it to hang his mess kit on thereafter.

That night we only furnished two small working parties, and the rest of us had a cushy sleep.

On Friday, the 20th, the Co. Cmdrs. were assembled at Bn. Hdq., and were told that we were to relieve the 2nd Battalion on the night of the 21st. That afternoon we went up to reconnoiter the position we were to take over. The guides took us up past the Engineer dump, through the woods to the 2nd Bn. Hdq. Here we found Major Adee and his staff taking advantage of a quiet hour to have lunch above ground. They were using a couple of German dugouts as headquarters—very good ones, about 20 feet under ground and well timbered.

Major Adee seemed to have aged twenty years. His face was lined and haggard with care and responsibility. His runner had been killed at the entrance to the dugout that morning by a shell.

Fleischmann and I with two runners apiece, our officers and top sergeants, were furnished with a guide to take us to the outpost line. B and D Cos. were to relieve H Co.; A and C were to hold the line of resistance.

It was a long two kilos up to the outpost line, especially as we had to keep under cover of the woods all the way. We crossed and recrossed one of the little narrow gauge railways that the Germans had running everywhere. My right ankle, which I had broken the previous fall playing football at Camp Dix, had a touch of rheumatism, and the nagging pain from it made a background for all the rest of my time in the line. Even now when I think about the Limey sector, the old ankle comes through with a reminiscent twinge. I suppose each of you had some corresponding petty aggravation which worried you absurdly out of proportion to its intrinsic importance.

We toiled up the little wooded hill at the edge of the Bois Hanido, and passed a gun pit, the ground around strewn with German arms, equipment, and[51] clothing, and several dead Germans lying about. Just on the other side of the hill was a German rest camp, with several bunk houses, a movie theatre, and a little open air Catholic chapel, with a wooden cross.

At the bottom of the hill we came to the narrow gauge railway again, followed it up a little way, and then turned down one of the straight paths that the Boche cut through the woods, barring all other approaches with barbed wire, and commanding these with machine guns. It was a good stunt, too, as we found out later. After you’ve struggled in barbed wire for a while you’ll take a chance on machine gun bullets to get on a path.

It was not far to H Co.’s headquarters. There we found Capt. Ressiguie, commanding the company—a most cool-headed, courageous and efficient officer. Lt. Col. Budd was also there, inspecting the outpost. The company headquarters was a shelter half stretched over a two foot ditch. Earlier in the afternoon, the left flank platoon had had a skirmish with an enemy machine gun patrol, losing two men killed and a couple wounded, including Lt. Stern. We made our reconnaissance and started back, arriving at our own Bn. Hdq. by nightfall. There we were issued battle maps of the sector and the relief order, which makes the arrangements down to the last detail on paper.

Two platoons went out as working parties that night, and got off with comparatively little shelling. The next morning Capt. Fleischmann and I were issued an assortment of pyrotechnic signals—rockets, Very lights, etc.,—with lengthy directions as to their use.

In the afternoon a division order postponed the relief for twenty-four hours. Working parties had been called off on account of the relief, and we all got a night off.

As soon as dusk fell on Sunday, September 22nd, the platoons were assembled under full equipment, and we started. The guides didn’t appear, and it was fortunate we had been up before. Several times I thought I had lost my way, and was leading the two companies into the German lines. Trying to keep in touch with the man ahead while blundering through those woods, laden down with rifle and equipment, tripping over logs, roots and barbed wire, slipping in the mud; occasional shells bursting to remind us that any noise would be disastrous, and, of course, a nice rain falling—I’ve been on lots of pleasanter walks.

At last we came to the old German rest camp, and I knew where we were. Soon we met Capt. Ressiguie, and the sgt. commanding his left platoon took us in tow.

The first and third platoons furnished the line of outguards, along the line 368.8-242.4: 368.3-242.8; the first platoon on the right. The second and fourth platoons were the support, and were to organize a strong point at the north of the little strip of woods at 368.1-242.5. Co. Hdq. was established at 368.6-242.4, just off the path through the woods.

Only a small part of our sector had been held by H Co., and we had to dig our own bivvies. Our intrenching tools made little headway in the rocky ground, laced with tree roots; and even those who found German picks and shovels made little better progress. The support was somewhat better off, as they had one or two good dugouts and gun pits.

By the time all the dispositions were made and inspected it was beginning[52] to get light. There was plenty of German clothing and equipment lying around, and in ten minutes you could have collected enough souvenirs to satisfy even a Paris Q. M. sergeant. The heavy fleeceskin German coats came in especially handy, and the other stuff was good to line our bivvies, though it was soaking wet and smelt most damnably. Hun machine gun ammunition in long canvas belts was scattered around in abundance; and down in the corner of the field on our left was an abandoned field kitchen.

Raymond Harris and a couple of battalion runners were running a field telephone up from B. H. Q. to the Co. Hdq. We had crawled into our holes for some sleep, when about 1 P. M. a nasty, shrill little whir like a giant mosquito heralded the arrival of a small one-pounder shell about a hundred meters down the line. It was repeated rapidly, dropping shells right along that path which ran parallel to the outpost line at about twenty-five yard intervals. And to our dismay, we realized that the shells were coming from behind us.

Cheery-O had carefully cleaned and oiled his rifle and leaned it up against a sapling at the edge of our hole. The vicious whir came again directly at us, and, as our muscles grew taut against the shock of the explosion, the butt of the rifle suddenly vanished. A moment later Cheery-O scrambled out and returned with a rueful face, bearing his precious rifle, bent neatly at the breech into a right angle.

Just then one of the battalion runners came up, with a bleeding hand, saying that his mate had just been killed down the path. I took the two first aid men attached to the company and we went down and found Harris, my own runner, lying by the coil of telephone wire he had been laying, with a great hole in the side of his head—a horrible thing to look at.

I stopped only long enough to see a dressing applied and a stretcher brought, and then hastened down the path to D Cos. headquarters, where a phone had been installed. I found Fleischmann shooting off all the fireworks that would go off—about one in ten—and his first sergeant grinding the bell handle of the field phone like mad. To make things pleasanter, our artillery dropped a couple of shells neatly among our outguards. We sent back runners to B. H. Q., and the shells stopped.

We never found out who was responsible for that one-pounder. Our own was far in the rear, and the outfits on either side—the 90th Division on the right, the 312th Inf. on the left—disclaimed any knowledge of it. So headquarters solved the problem, as usual, by telling us we were green at this game and didn’t know what we were talking about.

It seemed so pitifully unnecessary about Harris. He was such a handsome, bright, intelligent and cheery little chap, a favorite with all the company; and we carried him off with half his face torn away, moaning and unconscious. I never dreamed he could live. But somehow they pulled him through and I have just had a card from him today, from Walter Reed Hospital, where he is yet.

The nearest first aid post was at Bn. Hdq., and we had to carry all our wounded back those two long kilometers through the woods, with only the rough dressings that we could apply on the spot. For our rations we had to go back another two kilos, to Rgt’l Hdq., making four kilos each way, nearly all the way through woods and under shell fire. The continual wetness, exposure[53] and loss of sleep made us easy prey to dysentery, and this weakened us a great deal. Under these conditions, to have to carry a stretcher or a can of stew several kilos in the dark was—well, it was just hell. I think the ration parties had the worst job, though their loads were not so heavy as the stretcher bearers’ were. The latter were held up by sympathy for the poor devil on the stretcher. There isn’t much inspiration in a can of slum or a bag of bread.

Joe Levy had charge of the ration parties, and a thankless job it was. The Major arranged to have the chow brought as far as the line of resistance in a limber; but when shells were banging about—which was pretty generally the case—either the limber didn’t get up that far, or the chow was dumped down and abandoned. Worst of all, we only had enough thermos cans to carry one ration for the company; so the ration detail had to go back, get the chow, bring it up and distribute it, collect the cans, lug them back to the kitchens, and then return to the outpost line. It did seem absolutely inexcusable that this had to be done, all for lack of a few cans. It cost us several unnecessary losses in killed and wounded, and after all had done their turn at this detail, weakened from diarrhoea and exposure as we were, it made us very low physically.

The night of the 23rd passed comparatively quietly for the outpost line, though the line of resistance was well bucketed, and the ration party had a hard time. Shells landing near the kitchen transformed several thermos cans into sieves, and made the shortage worse than ever. Besides, Regt’l Hdq. decided that the kitchens were attracting enemy shell fire in their direction, and ordered them moved another kilo back, to the brigade reserve.

Our orders were to do no patrolling in front of the line of outguards, as this was to be done by the battalion scouts under Lt. Drake. I believe this was a mistake, and if I had it to do over again I should send out patrols every night. It makes all the difference in one’s confidence and peace of mind, and no information can equal that gained at first hand.

At about 3 P. M. on the 24th, as I was dozing in our bivvy, Lt. Col. Budd’s face peeped in. He and a Major from Division Hdq. were inspecting the outpost line. I was glad to see someone higher up than myself dodging shells. It might have been wrong in theory for him to be up there, but I surely appreciated it. I did the honors for our sector, asked for more thermos cans, and got a couple of cigars from the Lt. Colonel. He brought the news that the 90th Division on our right was pulling off a battalion raid that night, covered by a barrage, and to lie close.

About three times a day I would go down to chew the rag and swap dope with Capt. Fleischmann. It was funny that I nearly always met him on the way, coming over to do the same with me. The idea always struck us at the same moment. Somehow it seemed to help share the responsibility, and cheered us up a lot.

The barrage started about 11 P. M. The Boche replied with a counter barrage, and he had a very fair range on our outpost line. In five minutes the shells were ripping the tops off the trees all around, and the air grew acrid from the bursting lyddite. He was just about 50 meters too high, and it was his shorts that did the damage to us.

In about fifteen minutes, when the din was at its height, Cole, a runner from the 3rd platoon, came up, out of breath and shaken. A shell had hit[54] directly on platoon hdq.; Lt. Merrill and Sgt. Hill were both wounded, and several men killed.

I left Sgt. Robbins in charge at Co. Hdq., and with Cole, Winemiller, Chiaradio and our two medical detachment men went out to see the situation.

We pushed through the thick underbrush to the shallow hole that Merrill was occupying. It was raining a little; the only light came from the flashes of the bursting shells and the guns on the horizon. Merrill and Hill had been lying in their bivvy, with the other platoon runner, Laurencell, sitting on their feet. A shell had hit Laurencell right at the shoulders, carrying all his head, neck and shoulders and arms away. His bleeding trunk and legs, an awful corpse, was lying across Hill and Merrill, who were both badly wounded in the feet and legs, and could not remove the body.

We took up poor Laurencell’s remains and laid them to one side, and then got Merrill on a stretcher, and Cheery-O and Cole carried him off. Sgt. Hill’s feet, however, were so mangled and mixed up with the bottom of the hole that our attempts to raise him out of it caused him intense agony. He said, “Captain, there’s a German razor in my coat pocket. Please cut my foot off, and then I can stand it.”

I couldn’t see, but I could feel with my hands that this was about the only way to extricate him. So I took the razor, and cut away his shoe and the mangled part of his foot, which was all mixed up with a German overcoat they had been lying on. Then we were able to lift him on to the stretcher; but he wouldn’t be carried away until we took all his cigarettes out of his pocket and gave them to him.

Then I went down toward the line of outguards. When I got out on the road by the German kitchen, I was challenged by Cpl. McGarrity. It did my heart good to hear his stern, cool voice coming out of that night of blackness and horror. He reported that several men in the outguards were killed and wounded, and that he and Corp. Welsh were arranging for the wounded. Sgt. Schelter had gone to Co. Hdq. for stretchers, and hadn’t been heard of since. We never saw him again. His body was found in the woods several hundred meters away several days later; he evidently lost his way, and while wandering about in search of Co. Hdq. was killed by shell fire.

Welsh and McGarrity took hold of the situation like veterans. I designated them first and second in command of the platoon, respectively, and told them they would be relieved before morning.

On returning to Co. Hdq. I found the wounded beginning to stream in. Nearly all were from the 3rd platoon; the 1st platoon, strangely, suffered very little. All the Co. runners and buglers were soon carrying stretchers, and I again left Sgt. Robbins in charge while I went over to the support to see to bringing up more stretcher bearers and relief for the 3rd platoon.

That walk across the fields to the support’s position was certainly a thriller. As I came out of the woods and started across the open, the shells were going just overhead and bursting in the field to my left, along a line about 50 meters away. After I doped this out it was easy enough to plan my route so as to avoid them.

I found the platoon commanders and their sergeants in their dugout—quite luxurious it looked, lighted with a candle and comparatively dry. They[55] thought I was wounded, as my hands, arms, trousers and gas mask were all spotted and spattered with blood. I ordered a detail from the 2nd platoon to report to me at once for ration and stretcher carrying parties, and the 4th platoon to report as soon as the barrage lifted to relieve the 3rd on the line of outguards. As soon as the carrying parties were ready, I started back with them.

Sgt. Levy was placed in charge of the carrying parties, and they were soon on their way. The men knew nothing of the country; it was pitchy black, the shelling was still heavy, and they were wet, weak and miserable. It was very hard to make orders understood, and everything was wrong at once. Besides, there was the possibility of a counter-attack or raid by the Boche.

In about half an hour the shelling died down and the 4th platoon came up. When they were posted, while inspecting the outguards, I stumbled over a body. As I could not see the face, I cut off the front of his gas mask pouch where the name of the owner was printed. Next morning I saw it was Kindt, of the 3rd platoon. He had been killed instantly by a small piece of shell through the heart.

As I got back to Co. Hdq. it was getting light. I crawled into our hole, which had a shelter half over it, and lit my pipe—the old black briar I have in my face now as I write. Before I had taken three puffs I fell off to sleep. A few minutes later Sgt. Robbins woke me with the news that the ration detail had returned. I had been breathing through my pipe which made me very sick and dizzy for awhile.

It was too light then to get the rations out to the outguards. The ration detail was lying about on the ground, dead beat, among the pots and cans. Sgt. Wilson and his cooks had worked all the day before to make up a good chow, and Wilson had come up with it himself, though that was no part of his duty. It almost broke his heart to be too late. I tried to eat some, but everything tasted like blood.

Someone in the rear—not Sgt. Wilson—had the idea that we needed coffee worse than water and so while we had plenty of strong, thick, cold black coffee, we only had water that was left in our canteens. Our upset stomachs refused the coffee; I used mine to wash the blood off my hands and wrists. Robbins shaved in his.

Just then Capt. Fleischmann came striding along the path. He greeted me with “Hello Daddy. Isn’t this awful?” D Co. had suffered even worse than we, and they had not enough men to carry in the wounded, though they had stripped the outguards as much as they dared. He asked me for men to carry in four wounded that were still at his Co. Hdq.

I looked at the men lying on the ground asleep—the only ones available. They had been carrying all that awful night under the heavy shell fire, and I had not the heart to order them to make the trip again. But I woke them up and told them that D Co. had some men lying wounded, and asked for volunteers to take them in.

They stared dully for a moment, too tired to understand. Then Joe Levy, who had been on the go all night, dragged himself to his feet, and said “Hell, I’ll go. Come on, fellows.” Nobody wanted to go, and nobody pretended to. But they went. It was one of the finest things I ever saw, and every man that[56] went should have had a D. S. C. No excitement to it though; nothing to thrill the penny-a-liners, so they didn’t get it.

When night fell, a detail went out to bring in the bodies of Weidman, Kindt and Laurencell. Cpl. Weidman had been hit right in the waist by a shell; his legs were lying several yards away from his body. It was a gruesome task bringing him and Laurencell in. We laid the bodies, covered with a blanket, near the graves of two H Co. men who had been killed, just off the path at the place when it crossed the good road—about point 368.8-242.3.

The night passed comparatively quietly; we got the rations issued, and some water came up too late. Holly, one of the company runners, had twisted his knee badly, and could not walk; so Cole was made runner in his place; and a faithful, fearless lad he was, too.

Wednesday, September 25th, dawned a bright fall day. About 10 A. M. Lt. Cressman, the regimental chaplain, came up. Winemiller, Cole, Cheery-O, and Slover went with us to bury our three comrades. We turned over their personal belongings to the chaplain, wrapped each poor mangled body in a blanket, and laid them side by side in the shallow graves—the best we had been able to dig. The chaplain read the burial service, while an occasional shell tore through the air far overhead. Then we filled in the graves. It was hard on our over-strained nerves, and when we got through most of us were crying more or less. We hadn’t as yet seen so much as one of the enemy to shoot at; it was all such a hopeless, dreadful, ghastly business. Winemiller and Cole made three little crosses and set them up at the head of the graves.

At 2:30 P. M. a message came up for Capt. Fleischmann and myself to report at once to Btn. Hdq. We set out together wondering what was up; leaving Lts. Hultzen and Schuyler in command.

We reported to Major Odom, who was studying his battle map by the light of a couple of candles. Louis Foulkes greeted us on the side and slipped me a couple of cigars.

After a few minutes, the Major took out his Bull Durham and started rolling a cigarette, saying:

“I have a little problem for your companies to do tomorrow morning,” quite as he had been saying any afternoon for the past year. Then he went on to explain.

The great Argonne drive was to begin the next morning. It was to be a surprise attack, preceded by only a couple of hours’ artillery preparation. We were to make a demonstration, a sham attack, with the object of keeping the enemy guessing for a few hours as to where the real blow was to fall, and so to delay his concentration of troops to meet the main drive.

The 312th Inf. on our left, and the 90th Div. on our right, were to advance several kilos. We were to advance about half a kilo, to approximately the line 368.3-243.4; 369.5-242.3. This line we were to hold, and the units on our flanks were gradually to fall back and re-establish the outpost line on us as a guide. We would have no barrage, but there would be an hour of concentration fire—that is, our artillery would shell points in the sector of the advance like crossroads, probable strong points, battery positions, etc.

Zero hour was 5:30 A. M. At that moment we were to cut loose with all our small arms fire. The battalion scouts had reported that there were no[57] Germans for 500 meters to the front, but this Fourth of July stuff was to get the enemy’s wind up.

The arrangements for supplies and liaison were soon made. We had had no chance to use any ammunition, and about all we asked for was water and food.

Foulkes said that orders had arrived at Regtl. Hdq. detailing me to report to the Army School of the Line at Langres on Oct. 1st. I thought of the men we had buried that morning, and reflected grimly that I should probably not matriculate.

When the Major finished his instructions, we sat quiet for a moment. Then Fleischmann said “Well, come on, Daddy; we’ve got a lot to do before dark,” and we set out.

As we climbed Dead Man’s Hill, the Boche balloon saw us, and they amused themselves by sniping at us with a couple of 88’s. We kept about 20 yards apart, so that if one was potted the other could see to the attack. It was rather like playing “Going to Jerusalem.” We would linger by a good shell hole and then hustle for the next one; and of course the shells would always catch us between two holes, and we would have to flop into some six inch puddle.

On arriving at Co. Hdq. I sent for the platoon commanders and sergeants. Welch and McGarrity were left in command of the 3rd platoon; I had perfect confidence in their ability to handle it after their showing two nights before.

I knew that the moment we opened fire the German barrage would drop. If he hadn’t shortened his range since Monday night we would have it behind us. If he had, we would have to go through it anyhow, and the sooner the better.

B Co. was attacking over a full kilometer front, which in a regular supported attack would be the sector for at least a battalion. If we met any serious opposition, we could not hope to push through to our objective on this frontage. I therefore made my main objective the edge of the open field along the line 369.0-243.0 to 368.6-243.2. This line was along the top of a rather steep reverse slope, which would give us protection from frontal fire, and from this as a base we could throw out combat patrols to the flanks, and eventually get in touch with the units on either side.

The company was to advance with the 1st, 4th and 2nd platoons in the first wave, in above order from right to left; all in line of combat groups. The 3rd platoon was to follow at 50 meters, and would act as support and mopping up party. All would jump off from the line of outguards, so that all would get clear of the enemy’s barrage as quickly as possible. The 1st Plt. already had a common post with D Co., which was to move down the road on our right flank as a combat patrol. Our left flank post was to arrange with the visiting patrol of the 312th Inf. to advance similarly along the left flank of our sector.

By the time these orders were issued and the ground reconnoitered, it was nearly dark. Our rations were to be brought up that night by details from the rear; but they lost their way—or their ambition—and the chow never got beyond the foot of Dead Man’s Hill.

About midnight Capt. Fleischmann came over for a last consultation, and we explained our plans to each other. Then we shook hands hard, wished each[58] other “Cheery-O” after the manner of the Scotties; and the night closed behind his tall figure as he strode off down the path.

Various details of the arrangements kept me busy until the 2nd and 3rd platoons came up at 5 A. M. to take their posts for the attack. Things were comparatively quiet; only the usual shells going overhead. There was just time to see the platoons properly disposed and to get my headquarters platoon into position between the 1st and 4th platoons. Then I watched my wrist watch tick off the last five minutes, as the first tinge of dawn crept into the sky on our right. I ran everything over in my mind hastily, to be sure nothing was forgotten. And then the minute hand pointed the half hour.

Nothing happened.

The seconds ticked away. I listened and listened for ages—twenty seconds by the watch—and nothing happened.

Finally I heard Schuyler’s voice over to the right, calling cautiously “Hey, Cap, isn’t it time yet?”

“Sure it is,” I replied irritably. “Turn ’em loose. It’s after the time now.”

The words were not out of my mouth before his rifle cracked and his voice rang out “First platoon, Fire.”

The shots began to ring out, singly, then a rattle as the other platoons took it up, each man firing a clip; then the rackety-split of the Chauchats. An instant’s lull as we reloaded, and then the command was “Forward!”

Then Hell broke loose.

The Germans had shortened their range. Their barrage dropped right on us. The company runners were behind me in single file, Slover at the rear. A shell burst behind us, killing him in his tracks before he took a step. We knew nothing of it at the time. We pushed across the field to our front, a field studded with stumps and full of underbrush. Shells were bursting all around; the air filled as if by magic with the stifling acrid smoke of high explosive. Several times the concussion of a close one nearly knocked me off my feet, and the fumes blew against my face like the blast from a furnace door. I wondered vaguely when I’d get it, and shouted “Come on, B Company,” until I was hoarse. Occasionally I heard Schuyler cheering on his men. You couldn’t see ten feet for the smoke.

At the far edge of the field we ran into a broad belt of barbed wire. We spread out, looking for a passage. Joe Levy called “Here’s a place, Captain,” and we struggled through; I was dragging a long French VB rifle after me. The wire was about 20 feet across.

We found ourselves at the bottom of a wooded slope, on a rough wagon track. Lt. Schuyler, with Sgt. Reid and a couple of men, had gotten through further along, and we started up the hill, sheltered somewhat from the shells, though they were bursting in the treetops overhead.

I dumped my pack and V. B. rifle by a tree and christened the place company headquarters. Then we went on up the hill. I got out my map and pencil to be sure this was our objective.

It was quite light now; a beautiful September morning. Schuyler and I gained the top of the ridge together. The woods ended there, giving way to a little open plateau, about 250 meters across, with woods on the other side again. I verified the position on my map, and ordered Schuyler to post his men[59] along the ridge under cover of the trees and underbrush, while I did the same further to the left, where men from the 4th platoon were coming up the slope in groups of two and three as they got through the wire.

I had not gone twenty paces when Sgt. Reid came running after me and said “Lieut. Schuyler’s been hit, Captain.” I answered mechanically “All right; bring him behind the ridge, take charge of the platoon and post the men as they come up.”

Rifle bullets were beginning to snap overhead, coming apparently from the woods across the field, which was held in some force by the enemy, as we soon realized. Our only chance of meeting a counter-attack was to build up a firing line to sweep the plateau in front, and as fast as men from the 4th platoon came up I posted them to command our front and left flank.

Slim Price, in a German’s black fur coat that came about to his hips, came stalking up the hill with his Chauchat, and disappeared over the crest, subsiding in a little clump of bushes out on the left of the plateau. He was telling the world that he was a “fighting —— of a ——.” A moment later I heard the rattle of his gun as he spotted a Heinie machine gun squad advancing down the gully on our left. I guess Slim was right, at that.

The C. O., 4th Plt., came up by this time. He was badly shaken, but I put him in charge of the left flank until the 2nd platoon should arrive, and went back to the right.

They had brought Lt. Schuyler a little way down the slope, and laid him down until a stretcher came up. A shell had burst right beside him, between him and Reid. He was still breathing, but very heavily, and was quite unconscious; his eyes were nearly closed. I bound up his head as best I could with his first aid packet, but my heart sank—the concussion had been near the base of the skull. Oddly enough, he was not at all disfigured; but it had been a terrible blow, and only his magnificent vitality was keeping him breathing. That was a bitter moment, with my best officer and best friend in the outfit dying, the company shattered; and not a German had I seen.

Sgt. Levy came up with a couple of stretchers and the news that both the Medical Detachment men attached to the company were killed. Hoping against hope I had him put Roy on the first stretcher, and they bore him away to the rear, though the shells were still bursting behind us. It was no use; that gallant spirit breathed its last before they had gone a kilometer. The bearers wanted to take him on to the surgeon anyhow, but there were many others desperately wounded, and stretchers were pitifully few.

In the meantime I had sent out patrols to the flanks to try and get in touch with D Co. and the 312th Inf. A patrol of 6 men from D Co. came in on our right, but they were separated from their outfit and didn’t know what had happened. Brisk machine gun firing to our right rear made us fear things were not going well there.

On our left, a party of the Boche under an officer had advanced down the ravine toward the end of our ridge, and had driven in our advanced riflemen; but had been checked, largely by the doughty Price from his clump of bushes. Three runners sent to the left to find the 2nd platoon did not return, and I feared the latter had lost its direction and was in trouble.

During a temporary lull, I strolled out to the left, map in hand, and[60] crossing the ravine started up the next ridge to find them. About a hundred yards ahead I caught a glimpse of a man walking through the trees, and thought I recognized one of our runners. I shouted “Hey.” He turned around. I asked “What platoon are you in?” Then I noticed how nicely his helmet came down around his neck. He unlimbered a rifle that looked about eight feet long, and cracked a bullet past my ear. I reached for my .45, remembered my last target score with that weapon, and promptly betook myself off to our own ridge.

There I took a dead man’s rifle and ammunition, and called for volunteers to go on a combat patrol to find the 2nd platoon. We needed them badly, for if the enemy got in on our left flank they could enfilade our ridge and shoot us down at pleasure.

I took Martocci and four other men—their names I can’t recall, though their faces stand out sharply in my memory. We advanced up the ridge on our left in skirmishing order. My Boche friend was waiting for us, and before we had gone fifty yards he cracked down on us from the woods above. We answered, firing by ear at the sound of his rifle. It was blind work; we couldn’t see fifty yards through the woods.

We worked up to the top of the ridge, and then along it toward the west. Two of the patrol were missing; lost or killed, I never knew which. We pushed on cautiously, a few yards at a time, stopping to look and listen. Now and again the enemy would spot us, and his bullets would snap past us viciously. The German rifle has a high, whip-like crack, easily distinguishable from that of our Enfield or Springfield; but the noise of the bullet passing by is much the same.

Suddenly I felt a sharp blow on my shoulder; one of the gentlemen had pinked me neatly. Down the ridge the bushes rustled; all four of us let drive at the sound. There was a shrill scream, and then silence. One of us had found a mark.

This was all very interesting, but my business was to find that 2nd platoon. My mind was working away industriously at that problem, with a peculiar detachment. I only remember feeling vaguely annoyed at our patrol’s unpleasant situation, and did my share of the shooting almost mechanically.

Of course, as we found out later, the 312th Inf. outpost made no advance at all that morning, and our patrol had pushed in behind the German line of outguards; to our mutual bewilderment and disgust. The Boche began to fall back through the woods, not stealthily as we were moving, but clumping and crashing along, and shouting to one another to know what in donner und blitzen was up.

We were now well beyond the left of our own regimental sector, and a long half kilo from the company. The withdrawing outguards of the enemy were passing all around us. For twenty minutes we played a desperate game of blind man’s buff with them. Occasionally we would catch a glimpse of a gray form or a green helmet through the trees, and our little messengers of death would speed him on his way. Then bullets would sing over our heads from all directions, and we would hug the ground until we could push on again, to repeat the performance from another position.

Finally I gave up hope of finding the 2nd platoon, and got out my compass[61] to steer our course back to B Co. Cautiously we stole through the woods to the southeast. We could still hear the Boche trampling the bushes all around us.

Suddenly from the bushes ahead came a challenge, in the mechanical, drill-book German that means bullets are coming. We hit the dirt, just as a brisk rapid fire opened on us, cutting the twigs overhead. We let drive into the bushes in front, firing low. As I slipped a fresh clip into my magazine, I glanced at Martocci, his olive cheek white with excitement, but firing quite steadily and coolly from a kneeling position.

I signalled “Cease firing.” All was still, except for a trampling receding off to the right. Warily we circled round the bushes, and came upon a road—one of those straight German roads, with a 2-inch pipe line running along the side.

One of the men crossed, while the rest stood ready to cover him. I crossed next, with Martocci. As I glanced down the road, I saw two Germans lying at the side of it, about ten yards away. Nice looking, fair-haired lads they were. One of them just then stretched out his hand towards his rifle, which lay beside him. It may have been only a convulsive movement, but we weren’t taking chances. I put a bullet into him, squeezing the trigger carefully. He jumped and rolled out into the middle of the road, where he lay still enough. Then I did the same for the other, mechanically, with a cold disgust at the whole business. My mind seemed to stand aloof and watch the proceeding for a moment; then it went on thinking, planning, weighing carefully our next move.

After this, the enemy seemed to steer rather clear of us, though we passed near several other groups. One fellow was shouting for “Emil;” and I reflected grimly that Emil’s military career was probably blighted, anyhow. So we came at last to the foot of the ridge again, and about 200 meters along the road at its foot we found our left flank post. And there at last we found the 2nd platoon—Lt. Dunn, Sgt. Sweeney and four men. The rest were lying back in the field where the barrage had struck them, or were on that long, long trip back to the first aid post.

At this time—about 8 A. M.—a German plane appeared, coming at us with a rush, low over the treetops, almost head on. We could see the aviator looking over the side of the car. He spotted someone moving, and flew low along our line, firing his machine gun, but more as a signal than at us particularly, I think. We cracked away at him, but had no luck. With superb nerve he flew slowly the length of our line, returned, and then banked lazily and disappeared toward his own lines. Ten minutes later shells were bursting about us with devilish precision, and machine gun squads pushed up on either flank, until stopped by our Chauchats. They were still somewhat leery of us, though, possibly suspecting a trap, and the attack was not pressed home. The German snipers in the woods across the little plateau in front were reinforced by machine guns, and both sides greeted every shaking bush or exposed head with a vicious crackle of bullets.

Corporal Apicelli’s squad, lying out in the advanced posts where they had been stationed by Schuyler and Reid, were especially exposed, Apicelli and two other men being killed during the morning. At least one of the enemy[62] was using dumdum bullets, as I saw one of our men shot in the hip, and where the bullet came out you could have put your fist in the hole.

Levy and Winemiller were set to cutting two lanes in the wire behind us, so that we would not be hopelessly in a cul-de-sac.

At about 9 A. M. Lt. Wolcott of D Co. appeared with his platoon, reduced to some 20 men. He was out of touch with the rest of his company, and did not know how it had fared. He was posted on our right flank, and sent out a patrol to get in contact with D Co.

The firing died down to incessant sniping, and I set about completing my situation report for the Major, having given up hope for the present of establishing contact on the flanks. As I was finishing, Lt. Drake came up with a squad of the battalion scouts, among them the honest face of our own Sgt. DeGrote. I explained the situation, and gave him the report to take back. I shall never forget “Ducky’s” eyes, sick with seeing horrors, as he turned to go.

As he disappeared, a tall figure came striding along from the right—Capt. Fleischmann, with dark circles under his eyes, blackened and stained from head to foot with blood and powder. We greeted each other as risen from the dead, and compared notes. He had run into the enemy in force strongly established in concrete pillboxes and machine gun posts; and while scattered groups of his company had won through to the company objective, they were unable to hold it without machine guns against the enemy’s enfilading fire. The remnant had retired to their old line of outguards, after suffering heavy losses.

Since I still thought the 312th Inf. might be far out to our left front, and depending on us to cover their ultimate withdrawal, we decided that B Co. should hold on where we were, while D Co. would string scattered Cossack posts along their old line until relief or further orders came up.

The morning wore on; still no news from our left flank. I kept on the move up and down the line, assuming a confidence that I did not feel; for of course if the enemy advanced in any force we were done for. Still we had our orders, and there was nothing for it but to put up the best scrap we could.

Some things were funny, even then. I remember the company barber, that sterling son of Italy, after a Boche sniper put a bullet past each ear. He wriggled back from his unpleasant position on the crest of the ridge, and retaliated by holding up his rifle at arm’s length over his head, pointed northeast, and executing rapid fire, pulling the trigger with his thumb, while he regarded my approach with the complacence of conscious ingenuity. I think the Boche must have laughed too; for the branches of a tree across the field began to shake, and a bullet brought a gray body tumbling down from branch to branch.

We had some food—hard bread, corned willy and goldfish—but very little water. It was pitiful to see the wounded, who wouldn’t take any from the others, because they were going back when the stretcher bearers got around to them. Levy and his detail worked like Trojans, but it was a long trip, and every time they returned there was a fresh batch of wounded to be carried.

There was one man—I wish I could remember his name, but though every event stands out clearly in my mind, I cannot remember the names connected with them. He was sitting with his back against a tree, wounded[63] by a shell in the legs and stomach. When I asked him if I could do anything for him, he said “If I could have a little water.” I gave him my canteen, which had a couple of swallows left in it. He shook it, and grinned and shook his head. “Not your last, Cap’n.” I told him that Levy had just brought up a can, and hurried off to the left, where the firing was getting heavy. When I passed that way again, the man was dead. And the water was still in my canteen, and he had screwed the stopper back on; so he must have thought I was lying about Levy.

Three o’clock came, and shortly after a platoon from A Co. under Lt. Bigler came up to reinforce us. They were posted on our left flank to hold the ravine up which the enemy had been trying to advance and flank our position. I couldn’t understand why the Germans in front of D Co. had not come in on our right flank yet.

At 3:30 a patrol of two officers and six men came up the road on the left, and as they drew near I recognized Capt. Gray, of the 312th Inf., who I knew commanded their outpost line. His news was not encouraging. His company had received no orders to advance; they were still on their old line to our left rear. We arranged that he should run a line of Cossack posts along the road up to join us, so that we would have at least a continuous line of outguards on the brigade front. On the way over the ridge from his right flank post, his patrol had had several skirmishes with German outposts or patrols; so the enemy was apparently venturing back to the positions where our patrol had flushed them earlier in the day.

Just after he left—about 5.30—Lt. Col. Budd came up with several men. I was certainly glad to see him, and even more glad to see Levy with a can of water, which he doled out, a swallow to each man. Col. Budd looked over the situation, and decided that we should hold the ridge until nightfall, when we would be relieved. While he was there, three German snipers managed to get into a rifle pit on the plateau about a hundred yards in front of us, and made things very hot on the right flank. Sgt. Lehy took our last two rifle grenades, and dropped the second one plumb into the pit, which discouraged those three for the day.

Col. Budd departed to arrange for sending up water, ammunition and the relief.

At 5:30 the enemy’s artillery started in on us again, sweeping the top of the ridge with shell and shrapnel, and dropping time shells into the ravine behind it. For twenty minutes he poured in a heavy barrage, while we hugged the ground and gripped our rifles. If this meant a counter-attack in force we were up against it, because our ammunition was running low; but if we could beat them off once more we might hold out until night brought the relief.

But this time the enemy was starting the real thing. He knew the ground like a book, of course; and I must say that his attack was ably planned and bravely executed. While his artillery shelled us, machine guns worked around behind both our flanks. At 5:50 men from D Co’s outguards came running in and reported that the enemy had advanced in force, broken their skeleton line, and was coming in on our right flank with machine guns. Even while they spoke, the “Tap-tap-tap” of the machine gun broke out on the right to confirm them, and our Chauchats spat back in answer.

[64]In those woods, it was merely a question of who could throw enough lead to keep the other fellow’s head down; and at this game our Chauchats had the chance of the proverbial snowball. With Sgts. Reid, Lehy, Fahey and Levy, the right flank, which had been disorganized and driven in with the D Co. outposts, was re-formed, and a firing line built up at right angles to our front to face our new foes. The enemy in front was pouring in a hot fire; we could not encircle the enemy machine guns to the right because of that belt of wire behind us. Meanwhile those same machine guns were enfilading our main line along the ridge.

Our only chance was a frontal attack on them. First we tried a series of rushes. I realized then exactly what was meant by “fire superiority,” and the enemy certainly had it. One Chauchat ran out of ammunition. The other was in Cocker’s hands, and he used it well until it jammed. He worked at it desperately for several minutes, as he advanced with the line; then he threw it up against a tree in disgust, crying bitterly “That’s a hell of a thing to give a man to fight with.” From then on we had only our rifle fire against their leaden hailstorm. Neither side could aim their shots, but they were shooting twenty bullets to our one, and our hastily formed line was driven back.

As they retired, Sgt. Fahey and I, with two other men, tried to sneak up along the top of the ridge and get close enough to bomb one of the machine guns. We were lucky at first, the enemy being busy with his bullets further down the slope. We saw four Germans, carrying ammunition ahead of us, but held our fire, hoping they would lead on to their gun. Fahey slipped me a bomb, and I pulled the pin, ready to throw. Just then a new devil’s tattoo broke out about fifty yards away to our left, and the bullets came showering about our ears. They must have caught sight of us through some opening in the trees, and were probably waiting for just such an attempt. One of our patrol was riddled through the stomach and back, and started crawling back on one hand and his knees, with strange, shrill moans like a wounded animal. The other was killed instantly. Fahey and I looked in each other’s eyes for a startled moment; each, I think, wondering why the other was not killed. A bullet went through the tube of my gas mask, as I noticed later. Fahey lifted his eyebrows and pointed at the new gun. I nodded, and we started for it. But the first gun’s crew heard the cries of the wounded man, and traversed back and forth by us. Fahey staggered, shot through the chest. We could not see to throw a bomb, and it would probably hit a branch and light on us anyhow. Our slender chance vanished, and we slipped back through the trees.

As we returned, I saw our left flank retiring in some disorder, further confusing our hard pressed right. The enemy had driven back the post holding the head of the ravine on our left, and we were in the desperate position of being enfiladed from both flanks. Our losses were heavy, and ammunition was very low.

I glanced at my watch—only 6:20. No chance for the Lt. Col. to have gotten a counter-attack under way. The position had become untenable, and at any moment might develop into a complete cul-de-sac. It was time to pull out.

I gave the order to withdraw by squads and fall back to the old outpost line; 4th platoon to go first, covered by the 1st and 3rd; then the 4th platoon[65] to cover our withdrawal from the other side of the wire.

As the first squad from the 4th platoon started through the wire, a machine gun opened on the wire and the road before it, killing two and driving the rest back. The platoon leader reported that it was impossible to get across.

To remain, however, meant almost certain death for all, with very little chance of inflicting compensating losses on the enemy. So as a last resort I took the 1st platoon, and during a momentary lull in the firing we made a rush for it in two or three groups at different places.

The wire clawed and tore at us as though it were alive. My group scrambled through, somehow, anyhow, marvelling that the bullets did not come. When half way through I noticed that I was still mechanically holding Fahey’s bomb, with the pin out. I went a bit carefully after that, so was the last one through. As I ripped my puttee free from the last strand of wire, the machine guns started up again, and I hugged the dirt while bullets cracked viciously overhead. The grass and green leaves felt cool and smelled fresh and green, and a little green bug went scrambling along a creeper, two inches from my nose.

Presently another lull came, and I proceeded to worm my way through the underbrush, looking for my half platoon. Not a sign of them. They had gotten clear of the last burst of fire, and then made a break for it.

The machine guns were still firing intermittently, but I heard no reply from our rifles, and hoped that the others had followed us through the wire. Most of them had, as I found out later.

Then came the hardest moment of the war for me. A group of about 20 men had remained on the hill, apparently despairing of crossing the wire alive. An officer was with them, and upon him lies the responsibility of what happened. The men themselves had done brave service before that time. But, as I understand by permission if not under orders, they raised the cry of “Kamerad.”

When I realized that this had really happened, I tried desperately to cross the wire to them again. But I was in too big a hurry, and made too much noise. The machine guns spotted me promptly, and streams of bullets made the sparks fly from the wire six feet ahead of me. Before I could work around to another place, I heard the sound of their withdrawal toward the German lines, and knew I was too late.

My next job was to get back to the old outpost line and take charge there. The enemy machine gunners had penetrated well to our rear, and I had to go very cautiously, hearing their voices all around. They were withdrawing, however, and in ten minutes I found out why. Their artillery completed the day’s work by shelling the ravine and vicinity in their usual methodical manner. Not to be outdone, our own artillery did the same. This was the last straw; I was too dead tired to dodge American shells as well as German. So I crawled under a bush and waited for whatever was on the cards. In two minutes I dozed off, with the shells banging all around.

I must have slept for about twenty minutes. Waking with a start, I found dusk setting in. I took off my tattered slicker and wound it around my tin hat, to keep the twigs from playing an anvil chorus on it. The shelling had stopped. My short rest had revived some interest in life, and I slowly retraced[66] our advance of that morning. I didn’t think the enemy had left any outposts behind, but in any case was too tired to care, and went clumping along like any Heine. I arrived at our old outpost line, which we had held long, long ago, it seemed. It was absolutely deserted. I went along the path, past D Co.’s headquarters, and noticed that a shell had landed there and set off those pyrotechnic signals which had been quite fireproof two days before.

Apparently the war had been called off around here. I pottered about for quite a bit, but could find no one. Somehow my principal feeling was an immense relief that for the present I had no responsibility, no one to look out for but myself. Presently, however, it was evident that as I had not even a runner, I had to go back to Bn. Hdq. myself and report on the situation.

Wearily I plodded off, back over Dead Man’s Hill. It was quite dark, about 11 P. M., and I was making very slow time. As I drew near the main line of resistance, I came upon two D Co. men, lying where they had been hit by a shell. One was dead; the other had a leg shot off. He said he had been lying there for about three hours. His comrade had helped him tie up his leg before he died. I left my blouse over him, as it was chilly, and went on to the firing trench, which had wire in front of it by this time. I had some trouble convincing the occupants of my identity. In truth, with no blouse, my ragged slicker draped about my helmet, the shoulder of my shirt all torn and bloody, and my breeches and puttees in tatters, I didn’t look much like an officer, and not at all like a gentleman.

I stumbled down the ramp into Bn. Hdqrs., where I found Maj. Odom, Foulkes, Strawbridge and Lt. Col. Budd, to whom I reported. Capts. Markewick and Laing, of “I” and “L” Cos., were also there. Thinking the position in front was strongly held by the enemy, the idea was to send these companies up at dawn behind a rolling barrage to re-establish the outpost line. I was glad to tell them that this was unnecessary, and they later strolled on up in single file and occupied our old line without a single casualty.

Major Odom in turn told me that Lt. Dunn with most of the 1st and 2nd platoons had already come in, and had been sent to the kitchen for chow. Louis Foulkes gave me some water and a couple of doughnuts, which I was nearly too sleepy to eat.

I had to report to Regimental Hdq. then, and rehash the day’s operations; but all I remember is that Capt. Brennan gave me some grape jam and bread and water, and the regimental surgeon swabbed my shoulder with iodine. I have some hazy recollection of the Colonel himself pulling a blanket over me, though this may not be correct.

Late next morning I woke up to be greeted by Strawbridge with the news that our travel orders had come, and we—he, Capt. Brennan, and myself—were directed to be at Langres—wherever that was—by October 1st.

As soon as possible I rejoined the company, which had been stationed at Brigade Reserve with the remnants of D Co. We had about 50 men left, not counting 20 who were on various special details. Sgt. Wilson and the cooks fed us like lords, and we made up for the past week. Big shells landed around occasionally, but it was a Philadelphia Sunday compared to what we had just left.

The company was reorganized as a platoon, with Lt. Dunn in command[67] and Reid as top sergeant. We slept in pillboxes or gun emplacements, or anywhere else where there was a bit of shelter.

The next day I said goodby to the company for six weeks, as I thought. There were rumors that the Bulgarians were nearly done, and the Austrians weakening; but I don’t think that anyone dreamed that the armistice was only six weeks off. I stopped off one night with Sgt. Stiles to write up the company records, and finally boarded a motor truck for Toul.

From this point the history is taken up by Lt. Gardenier, Sgt. Stiles, Sgt. Peter and Sgt. Tracy White.

Sept. 28th: Today the company commander left the company, leaving same in charge of Lt. Dunn, the only officer left. He reorganized the company—two platoons of about 40 men each was our strength. We remained in reserve in the Bois des Grandes positions until the night of October 4th. It was during this period that rumors of the enemy countries, Bulgaria, Turkey and Austria having quit reached us, causing a great deal of discussion and doing much to keep the morale at its highest. Sergeant Reid left for Officers’ Training School.

Oct. 4th: “We are going out for a rest”—These words were heard all through the company. Shortly before dark we left our position and marched to the road that led through Limey and remained there until midnight. We then started on what was one of the most tiresome hikes we ever experienced, and finally, at 5:30 A. M., reached the forest de la Reine. A fact that is worthy of mention and probably refreshes the reader’s mind of incidents of the night was what seemed to be a direct hit on an ammunition dump to the right. The sky was brilliantly illuminated and was the cause of numerous rumors and suggestions as to the reason of the glare. We remained here until about 4:00 P. M. October 6th, and then started off for what we fondly believed was a rest. Subsequent events proved that our hopes were not to be fulfilled. It was here that Lt. Luhn joined the company. After hiking until midnight, most of the time through rain, we reached Mecrin and were so tired that regardless of the weather we threw ourselves on the ground and without further aid went to sleep until the following morning. Sgt. Perry rejoined the company at this place. At 11:30 A. M., we started again on a hike to Pierrefitte, arriving at 10 P. M., having covered about 24 kilos. It was again our fate to have mother earth for a bed this night.

From here we hiked a short distance to Nicey, where we took busses for a 40 kilo trip to Beauchamp Ferme in the Forest de Argonne, arriving about 10 P. M. in what seemed to be the darkest spot on earth. As usual it was raining, and this added greatly to our discomfort. There were only sufficient barracks for one company, the rest of the outfit had to sleep in their shelter tents, pitched in spots that were not very appealing when revealed at dawn. Lt. Dunn having been ill for some time left us here and Lt. Lahey took command of the company, having been transferred from Company “I.” Sgt. Perry having been made 1st Sergeant upon his return to the company aided materially[68] in reorganizing the company. We had a few days of much needed rest here and also consumed quantities of wood in making bonfires that dried us out and made life a little more cheerful.

At 2:00 A. M. October 10th we aroused from our slumbers with orders to roll packs and be ready to leave at once. This was another example of how things are done in the army. Having spent several hours in rolling packs and getting breakfast, it was 7:30 A. M. before we started out. Our hikes of several days previous to arrival at this camp had taken us through many ruined villages and parts of the country recently evacuated by the enemy. Today’s hike covered 22 kilos and brought us into the heart of the Argonne, the same ground having been bitterly contested by opposing armies only a week previous. It was here that we were able to form a definite idea of how the Germans lived behind the lines. Every hillside was covered with dugouts made of concrete and heavily timbered and furnished in a style that had been unknown to us during the past four months. In the Limey Sector we found some German camps that were fitted up in grand style, but these could not be compared with the ones mentioned above. The officers’ quarters were equipped with shower baths and in one place a large swimming pool. Everything seemed to denote that the Germans intended to stay there for all time. The signs on the trees and every crossroad led one to believe that the Germans were a nation of sign painters. Arriving at our destination after hiking about 23 kilos we appreciated an opportunity to rest and lost no time in pitching tents and getting a much needed sleep.

The following day we marched about 4 kilos and took up a position in the Bois de Chatel. It was here, on the eve of October 12th, that our much battered company of approximately 80 men, all veterans of the St. Mihiel, received 104 replacements from the 86th Division. Some of these men had never fired a rifle and were not familiar with the use of the gas mask. The company was again reorganized. The four platoons were placed in charge of Sergeants Newell, Lehy, White and Weber, respectively; to these men and our two officers, Lts. Lahey and Luhn, is due the credit of training these new and inexperienced men so that when they were called upon they made a creditable showing. Too much cannot be said about the way these men took care of what seemed to be almost a hopeless task.

October 15th again brought us under shell fire. About 8:00 P. M. we left our positions and marched through heavy rains to relieve a unit of the 308th Infantry, west of La Folie Ferme. We took up our position about 3:00 A. M. and despite the fact that we were wet through, made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit, only to be awakened at 5:30 A. M. to prepare to advance at once. While preparing, Jerry saluted us with a barrage that, while it lasted, was very annoying and upset the new men exceedingly, this being the first time they had ever been under shell fire. This lasted only for a few minutes and after their baptism they all acted like seasoned veterans. This relief having been made during the darkness of the night, the units encountered great difficulty in keeping the men together. There was considerable mixup on the road that led to Chevieres; three columns of troops and a transport train trying to pass at one time. This caused a great[69] deal of confusion and the result was that many of the new men became separated from the company and did not rejoin us until the following morning. On October 17th Sergeants Levy and Wilson left for Officers’ Training School. This morning we lost Sergeant Lehy; he was killed just one hour before he was ordered to leave for Officers’ Training School.

Oct. 18th: At 10:00 P. M. we took up a position in the front line to the west of Chevieres, relieving our 2nd Battalion. At 3:00 A. M. we stepped off in a line of combat groups in support of “C” company, and advanced through heavy artillery and machine gun fire. We reached our objective at daybreak and held same through the day under continual fire from the enemy snipers and machine guns. Enemy planes endeavored to locate our position and flew so low that the aviators were easily seen. Their object no doubt was to signal their artillery the location of our position, but judging from the heavy barrage that fell directly in back of us, their efforts were not crowned with success. We suffered quite a few casualties during this attack, among whom was Sgt. Welch, who had been recommended for a D. S. C. for bravery at St. Mihiel. He was wounded in seven different places by machine gun bullets, but refused to be evacuated until the other wounded men had been taken care of. Owing to our advanced position, and both the units on our flanks having failed to obtain their objectives, we were subject to such a heavy fire that it was impossible to evacuate our wounded until dark. Toward evening the enemy closed in on both flanks, and on our front, making our position untenable, and under cover of darkness drew close enough to drop hand grenades among our fox holes. This caused our officers to call for volunteers to carry a message to the Battalion Commander. After several runners had failed to get through, Sgt. White had volunteered to carry the message and reached Battalion Headquarters P. C. in safety and returned with instructions to have the company withdraw. He was awarded a D. S. C. for this brave act. His entire route was continually subject to heavy artillery and machine gun fire. By performing this deed he undoubtedly saved many lives and enabled the company to make an orderly retreat to the position they left that morning. He also assisted in directing the evacuation of the wounded; every man was removed without further casualties. During the activities the enemy continually sent up rockets and flares so that our movements could only be made during short minute periods of darkness. Too much credit cannot be given to both Lt. Lahey and Lt. Luhn. Their bravery and unselfish action in face of the enemy did much to keep up the morale of the men. We fell back to the position we had left that morning, and remained until 6:00 A. M. Then we fell back to railroad track running from Chevieres to Grand Pre, where we remained about four hours and then advanced again and took up our position along the River Aire. Here we remained for nine days and nights under continuous shell fire. While we suffered no casualties at this place from the enemy fire, several of our men were evacuated with influenza. One great difficulty that we experienced here was that of obtaining rations, as it was impossible to bring them up during the day, and at night Jerry threw over such a heavy shell fire that made the work of the ration parties extremely hazardous.

On Saturday evening, October 26th, we were relieved by the 310th[70] Infantry and took up a position in Brigade Reserve in the Bois de Negremont. This day Lt. Luhn was transferred to “D” Company, and we were again left with only one officer. Having lost a great many men, it was necessary to reorganize the company again. There were only sufficient men left to form two platoons. This position was subject to intermittent shell fire which caused occasional casualties.

The night of October 29th-30th will be one that will be long remembered by those men who were present with us. The enemy had been shelling us the entire evening without causing any casualties. It was about 1:30 A. M. a shell, the last one he fired that night, struck a tree directly over our camp and exploded. It killed or wounded 14 men, and Lt. Lahey was also severely wounded. Lt. Lahey’s bravery at this critical period was such that his men never cease praising him. While wounded so seriously that he died two days later, he directed the evacuation of all the other wounded men and gave instructions to the non-commissioned officers left with the company, before he permitted himself to be evacuated. Sgt. Newell, then acting 1st Sergeant, was killed instantly by this same shell. Sgt. White was now in command of the company and did excellent work keeping the company organized until the arrival of Lt. Gardenier. The following day, October 30th, the enemy resumed their heavy shelling and we suffered several more casualties in killed and wounded. During our stay in the Bois de Negremont we were fortunate enough to get a bath by walking five miles for it, and a change of underwear, but seldom it was indeed that we received more than one meal a day, so continuous was the enemy shell fire.

Oct. 29th: The position of the company was still in the Bois de Negremont, in Brigade Reserve. Pvt. Koehler was killed by shell fire during the day. Toward evening the shelling let up and was fitful and erratic from that time on. Lt. Gardenier arrived in the evening and took command of the company which was at the time in charge of Sgt. White.

Oct. 30th: The morning was spent in reorganizing the company and issuing equipment preparatory to the drive which was to start the following day. The company was divided into two platoons, the first under Corporal Ahearn, and the second under Corporal Thomas White; with Sgt. White second in command of the company. Pvt. Koehler was buried at La Noua le Coq, near the chateau. There was considerable shelling during the afternoon, but there were no casualties, and the appearance of a big consignment of rations in the evening did much to hearten the men. Enemy shell fire had interfered with the rations considerably up to this time, as there was but one route the ration parties could take and it seemed to be quite familiar to the Boche artillerymen.

Combat packs were made at night and the company was ready to move early in the morning as the 2nd and 3rd Battalions were to attack at dawn. In the afternoon a pirate 75 was moved up behind our position and engaged in an artillery duel with a Boche battery until late at night. The only result being a fairly continuous shelling of our area.

Nov. 1st: At 2:30 A. M. the barrage preparatory to the launching of the second phase of the Meuse-Argonne opened. The sky behind us was a flickering, gleaming red. The roar was as of myriad drums rolling almost in unison,[71] and the air overhead seemed almost alive with whistling visiting cards to the departing Jerry. The effect of this on the men who had heard little but shells coming in their direction was tremendous. The men walked about the hills whistling and singing and the erstwhile quiet forest was alive with conjectures as to what was happening when the winged death that was flying overhead arrived at its destination. After the firing had ceased there was extreme quietness and there was no activity during the night.

Nov. 2nd: The company was held in readiness throughout the day, and after mess in the evening packs were slung and the Battalion moved out. It began to rain just at the start, and the path we followed in the pitch black forest was steep and slippery. We progressed slowly over the plain between la Noua le Coq and the Aire River and entered the shell-torn town of Grand Pre. Passing through the ruins along the Kron Printz Strasse, we went north to the road fork between Grand Pre and Ferme des Loges. Here the company was detached from the Battalion, Lt. Conroy was placed in command and we waited for trucks to enable us to overtake the now flying enemy. Trucks were boarded about 11:00 P. M. and we bumped over the shell-torn road in the general direction of Germany, until our way was blocked by a mine hole not yet repaired. We debussed and hiked to Briquenay, where we found the 312th Infantry had the situation in hand and with the exception of about twenty men who formed an ammunition detail for the 309th Machine Gun Battalion, we turned into some German billets about 2:30 A. M. The infantry advance up to this time had been so swift that the artillery had been unable to catch up to us, having set up their guns three times without firing a shot.

Nov. 3rd: During the day the 2nd Battalion passed through Briquenay and we were held there. Most of the time was spent in improvising meals and exploring the debris left by the enemy in his hasty flight. Toward evening about 200 American airplanes in combat formation flew over going north. Lt. Conroy returned to Battalion Headquarters. About 5:00 P. M. the rest of the Battalion moved out and through a misunderstanding the company was left behind. When our plight was discovered we set out for Germond, and after passing a Battalion of the 308th Infantry on the road arrived just in time to get the last available billets. Germond at that time held the four Regimental P. C.’s of our division, one of the 77th and somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 troops.

Nov. 4th: At 5:00 A. M. we started for Authe, after the heartrending procedure of passing a battalion of the 308th Infantry lined up for a hot meal. We went through Authe to Brieulles under fairly heavy shell fire where the road had been blown up, six mines having been placed at a bridge and we were forced to make a long detour through a swamp. From there we proceeded to Les Petites Armoises as the advanced guard of the Brigade. It was a gruelling hike and considering the condition of the men, the spirit shown was remarkable, and we halted south of the town only four men less than we had left Germond with in the morning. Artillery was quite active there and we witnessed some wonderful work by German batteries and an airplane in destroying a group of buildings to the west of us.

On entering the town we were greeted by delighted civilians who had[72] been under German rule for four years and who gave us some atrocious black bread covered with lard which almost tasted good. They also warned us that the enemy had a machine gun nest to the north of the village.

After deploying we started up the hill, and soon as scouts appeared above the crest machine guns opened up on them. In the subsequent reconnaissance Privates Sullivan and Burchell were killed by machine gun fire. One gun was located about 300 meters in front of us and in an effort to flank its position the right of the company was deployed along the crest of the hill, and was in position to rush it, but it was cut off by fire from the flank. After three attempts Sgt. White brought the left flank to a similar position only to have the advance halted by another machine gun. As it seemed impossible to advance without auxiliary weapons the company was withdrawn and dug in half way down the hill. “D” company established contact on our left but there was nothing on our right but German machine guns. Corporal Miller led a patrol in an effort to put the guns out of action, but was unsuccessful because of the covering fire from other guns and the openness of the country. About 3:00 P. M. two airplanes arrived and one by his near presence causing a Boche plane to retire, dropped a message which said “There are Boche machine guns in a shell hole 200 meters to your front.” This information was somewhat superfluous, but the affair was interesting. The other plane, endeavoring to locate Company “D” flew too low and landed on a hill about 500 yards in front of our line. The aviator unhurt got out of the machine and in spite of the hails of our outpost he headed for Germany and was seen no more. The plane was dragged by the enemy to a point north of Tannay and demolished. About 5:00 P. M. Boche artillery opened up and played a steady stream of fire on the town, and by no means neglected our position. A strong point made up of men from Company “C” was scarcely located in their new position when a shell severely wounded two of their men. The loss of our First Aid Man who was killed by a shell early in the evening greatly handicapped the evacuation of the wounded.

From 5:00 P. M. to 1:00 A. M. there was a perfect hail of shells and machine gun bullets while enemy airplanes dropped bombs on the town itself. Corporal Peter did excellent work during this time keeping the outposts organized. Casualties—killed 5, wounded 9.

Nov. 5th: About 3:30 A. M. the enemy machine guns pulled out and at 5:00 A. M. the company retired to les Petites Armoises for breakfast and then went on to Tannay. After reconnaissance by the Battalion a patrol of 30 men was called for to establish a strong point in a patch of woods northwest of the town. An effort was also to be made to obtain liaison with units on our right. The first platoon was called upon and though practically exhausted they responded promptly and went up to take their position. Lt. Gardenier with three runners went on until contact was established with the 165th Infantry just north of Sy. Sgt. Ahearn meanwhile, finding no opposition in the woods designated, pushed his jaded men to the edge of the Bois de Mont Diens, about two kilometers further on and began to exchange courtesies with a lonely machine gunner. To this detachment belongs the distinction of being the unit of the 78th Division nearest Germany when the relief came.

[73]When the 166th Infantry had leapfrogged us at 3:30 P. M., the company pulled back into Tannay at 4:15 P. M. just in time to begin hiking back. It was raining again, and it was a dismal hike to Les Petites Armoises where no billets were available, and the only alternative was Brieulles, 7 kilometers further on. Over a road pitted with shell holes, filled with troops, transport and artillery headed in the opposite direction, the company plodded on, arriving at Brieulles about midnight. A conservative estimate of the distance covered by the first platoon that day is thirty kilometers and all under the most trying conditions. On reaching Brieulles we shared a church with “C” company and while some sat up and others stood crowded into corners, everybody slept. We left Brieulles at 5:00 A. M. and hiked to Authe where, Nov. 6th, a hot breakfast put new life in the company, which was fortunate, because though we did not know it at the start, there were twenty-two gruelling kilometers in front of us. After hiking continuously until 5:30 P. M. we reached La Folie Ferme and stayed the night in these familiar haunts.

Nov. 7th: Packs were slung and we were on the move early in the morning and after hiking until 4:00 P. M. we were presented with a soaked, battered section of the Argonne not far from Appremont, and told to make ourselves comfortable. We were doing the best we could when there was an unholy din and a fireworks display, owing to a signal corps outfit hearing “Officially” that the war was over. We mistook it for a German air raid, however, so we did not derive much comfort therefrom. But it is worthy of notice because it was the beginning of the greatest conglomeration of rumors in the history of civilized warfare.

Nov. 8th: It took most of the day trying to follow out the order to make ourselves comfortable and we were just beginning to accomplish this when on the morning of November 9th we pulled out and hiked to Florent, remaining there the following day. Lt. Gartley, who had joined on November 8th, assisted the company commander in re-acquainting the jaded doughboys with the intricacies of the manual of arms and that evening the pearly notes of “Retreat” and The Star Spangled Banner made us feel nearly civilized again. The rumors were still running high.

Nov. 11th: On this historic day the 1st Battalion celebrated by taking its longest hike of the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. We moved from Florent to Varimont, a distance of twenty-nine good long kilometers. While we were passing through Ste Menehould, the French papers with gigantic headlines “C’EST SIGNE” were shown us and we passed innumerable grinning French men and women repeating over and over again the words which were like music to our ears—“la Guerre Finie.”

We arrived at Varimont about 5:00 P. M. nearly exhausted and resumed back area existence at once.

Nov. 12th-14th: Our stay in Varimont was punctuated by determined efforts to get separated from Argonne Mud and getting policed up and generally put in shape for a Fifth Avenue parade, which was to come off very soon. Lt. Gartley left for the 1st Division.

Nov. 15th: The company moved to Givry-en-Argonne to act as a loading detail for the Brigade which was to entrain, and the following day was spent in that occupation.

[74]Nov. 17th: The company entrained about 11:00 P. M. and started on a two-day journey to Les Laumes, where they arrived about 3:00 P. M. on the 19th. With much grunting and puffing the initial ascent of the now well known hill was made, and about 5:00 P. M. we arrived at Flavigny, which was to be our home until we began our journey homeward.

It might be interesting to insert here a brief description of Flavigny, taken from a letter written home by one of the men:

“To say the least, Flavigny is a town that is somewhat interesting. There is a bit of history attached to the place in that we are told that Caesar fought a battle against the Germanic people in this neighborhood about 55 B. C., using the plateau across the valley as his base for operations against a town a few miles from here.

“Flavigny was then standing on its present site, although, perhaps, much smaller than it is today, and there are no evidences that any of the buildings then existing are now standing. It would hardly seem possible that they could be. Today, the village stands on the top of a high plateau, which is reached by a road winding around the mountain. Although it was a cold dismal day when we came here, we were dripping with perspiration by the time we reached the top.

“It is a walled village—part of the wall being formed by some of the buildings—having three entrances large enough for vehicles and a fourth one large enough for only persons or animals in single file. The main entrance, ‘La Porte du Bourg,’ opening to the road up which we came and which seems to have its ending in the centre of the town. About a quarter of a mile before reaching the town this road branches off to the left, winding around some farm buildings, and running along the outside of the wall overlooking the valley, and as it passes the rear of the village making a steep descent into the valley again.

“Opening into this road at about the centre of the village is the second entrance, ‘La Porte du Val.’ While this entrance seems to be of less importance than the others, as it is reached from the inside by a narrow alley, yet it is well protected, or was considered so as regards weapons of mediaeval warfare. There are two towers built of heavy stone, one on either side of the gate, each with peep-holes at the height of a man’s head. Between the towers and over the gate the wall is about twelve feet high, so built that soldiers standing on a ledge running behind the wall and over the gate from tower to tower could fire down on anyone along the road, or who might be trying to approach the town up the side of the mountain.

“Everything here is built of stone, of course, but with the exception of the more modern buildings there is decay everywhere. In many places the wall is crumbling and the houses are patched and crumbling and the thatched roofs are covered with moss, mould and dirt collected for ages. At ‘La Porte du Val,’ one of the gates which is still hanging being made of wood, worm-eaten[75] and decayed, looks as if a slight puff of wind would blow it to dust.

“There are a very few new buildings. Some of these are stucco and seem to be quite modern.

“A large church stands near the centre of the town in whose tower is a clock which rings out the time every fifteen minutes.

“There is only one or possibly two streets in the town large enough to be called streets, but there is a great maze of little narrow alleys running everywhere and crossing, turning sharply around corners, sometimes leading into a barnyard, and again plumb into the side of a building and others seem to lead nowhere. Sometimes you will start for a store just a block down the alley, when suddenly you find you have chased yourself right back to where you started from, having reached nowhere, not even the end of the alley. It is one of these that begins in the centre of the town where the street through ‘La Porte du Bourg’ stops, and after winding and twisting around a bit leads you to the little entrance at the rear of the village from which a steep, narrow path leads to the Valley of the Ozerain.

“The village is electrically lighted, gets its current from a little power-house down by the Ozerain River.

“A convent building and grounds occupies a large portion of the village extending from near ‘La Porte du Val’ to the extreme lower corner of the town.

“About half way between ‘La Porte du Bourg’ and ‘La Porte du Val’ is another entrance, just inside of which is a large and very old abbaye. Both this and the convent are now used for the accommodation of tourists and travelers.

“Just outside this entrance the Y. M. C. A. building stands. The road going from this entrance leads to the inevitable wash-house where on wash-days congregate a large number of women with large bundles of clothes and plenty of gossip.

“There is a Post and Telegraph Office combined, as is usual in France, a butcher shop, several grocery stores, a bake shop, drug store, barber, tailor, milliner, wooden shoe maker, barrel maker, rope maker, numberless cafes and little shops.

“Inside the majority of homes are neat and well-kept even where one room has to serve as kitchen, dining room, living room and bed room, often serving all purposes at one time. There are, of course, more prosperous homes that are as pleasant and comfortable as those we have in America.”

This was our home for over five months. That time will be merely sketched, as it was a monotonous existence punctuated by flurries of excitement caused by rumors of westward bound ships with which we never connected. Imaginary Bolsheviki were driven from every hillside; the Campe de Cesare was the slaughter house for thousands of imaginary machine gunners; and drills and manuevres of every sort made up the schedule. Mr. McNab tried (and failed) to get us excited about the gentle art of rifle shooting. French weather was at its abominable worst. But through it all, if the writer may insert a personal tribute into an impersonal history, through it all there was in Company “B” a bunch of boys whom it was both a pleasure and an inspiration to be with. Joking at discomforts, chafing, but bearing with as much[76] courage as it took to face the Hun, the seemingly interminable wait and showing a spirit, a snap, and a dash which overcame everything, you formed a body of men which was a privilege to command and a pleasure to serve.

The month of March arrived, bringing with it the news that the 78th Division would return to the United States in May. The weather was still unchanged, but notwithstanding that they were slopping around in the mud and wet from the continual rains, and every “good rumor” that came floating around was eventually salvaged, the men were still in fine spirits.

Towards the end of the month it was officially announced that the Division would begin to move towards a port April 16th, and on April 6th it passed into the command of the S. O. S., but also came the rather disheartening news that our movement had been postponed for ten days, and by the time the 26th rolled around it had been further postponed until May 2nd, causing a downcast of spirits that had not obtained since our arrival in France. However it was quite evident that our time of departure was drawing near by the various preparations that were taking place, and when it finally became definitely known that we were to go direct to Bordeaux instead of having to pass through Le Mans, the spirit of the men took a remarkable jump and then, when it was announced that the movement from Flavigny would begin with Headquarters company’s departure on Sunday, May 4th, their joy was unbounded, and this was not noticeably marred by the last days of April being the bearer of the heaviest and longest snow storm that we had experienced. Saturday night, May 4th, Taps was blown by a quartette of cornets from the Regimental Band, and farewell parties were held in nearly every home in Flavigny.

At 7:00 A. M. Monday, May 5th, “B” Company “fell in” in front of the Abbaye with full equipment, and at eight o’clock, with the command: SQUADS RIGHT, MARCH, moved out with the remaining troops, from the town that had been our home for nearly half a year, and our long journey homeward had at last really begun. By easy marches we reached Les Laumes-Alesia Station at 10:00 A. M., where we were given a big dinner by the American Red Cross, consisting of a good beef stew, bread, jam, coffee (with both milk and sugar in it), apple sauce, cigarettes and candy, which was followed by hot chocolate and cakes given to us by pretty Y. M. C. A. girls. At 12:30 P. M. we entrained in American “60 Hommes-20 Chevaux,” which we had lined with bed sacks filled with straw and about thirty-five men to a car, which proved the most comfortable ride we had had since our arrival in Europe nearly a year previous. We made several stops to get coffee or warmed corned beef. The trip lasted about 42 hours, arriving at St. Jean Station, Bordeaux, at 4:00 A. M. May 7th, from which we marched to the “Entrance Camp,” reaching there at 9:00 A. M. and immediately having breakfast served. The men were kept pretty busy during the day on various details, and the following morning, May 8th, we left this camp and marched about a mile to the “Permanent Camp.” The memory of this camp will probably remain with most of us by reason of the “MILL,” which was the first thing to which we were introduced[77] and which consumed most of the conversation during our stay here.

The MILL was well named in every respect. First we were marched into a “hangar” very similar to those used to house air planes. This had a dirt floor and after unslinging packs the men filed along one side of the hangar leaving their rifles in a heap, then filed back to their packs. Next they took their blankets which had been rolled together before leaving the Entrance Camp, and threw them in a pile. Next, everything the soldier carried was placed in his shelter half and carried thru a wicket gate, by which stood a long desk behind which were several men. The first asked your name and army serial number, which he wrote on two slips of paper which you had to sign. This seemed quite natural because no one knew what they were signing, and if anyone should stop to ask he would be informed that he would learn that in due time, a statement which no one doubted because no one thought any more about that phase of it, probably for the reason that about one-tenth of a doughboy’s time is spent in signing papers he does not know anything about, the same being part of his military training.

The next man took the “dog tags” and asked your name and number and compared your answer with the tags; if they agreed all well and good, if they disagreed something was checked on the slip of paper you had signed and you began to wonder how many checks you would get and if each check meant an additional month in France, or an extra tour of K. P. The next man gave you a Red Cross bag which often brought a smile because of the name—“American Red Cross” was stamped in ink on a white patch on the bag, otherwise you would have looked for a deduction on the next pay roll. At this time someone in the farthest corner of the building called out a number which sounded like a cell number, but which proved to be nothing more than their manner of ushering you to a certain litter into which you dumped everything you had, from your steel helmet which had just been painted to your last handkerchief which you had failed to wash. The object of this being for the man to see if you had more than he did. If you did not have as much, he handed you a barrack bag and helped you to put all your things into it except such personal things as your pocket book, tooth brush, shaving brush, etc. These you put in the Red Cross bag, then handed your slip of paper to the man who then asked what you had in the barrack bag or on your back. If you guessed right, all right; if you guessed wrong he checked an item on the slip of paper.

If you did not like your blouse he would give you a chance to draw again. If your underclothes were too large for you he would give you a chance to draw a larger pair, and so on. After you were all out of breath talking to this man, you hung your Red Cross Bag around your neck, threw your Barrack Bag on your shoulder and marched out of the door across a wood pile to another building in which was another long row of desks, and for a moment you thought you were going to get your discharge papers toote de suite, but these hopes were soon dashed to the ground. An officer handed you your Service Record, which seemed rather a strange thing because the company clerk said that he had it when you asked him the day before you left Flavigny. Struggling along with this in one hand and dragging your barrack bag with the other you passed down the line until you came to a blank file with a typewriter and a man behind it.

[78]Here you stopped and handed him your Service Record, after which he asked you your name, number, name and address of your wife or mother. He evidently wanted to know this in the event you did not come through the mill alive he could advise your nearest relative that you had been killed in action, or words to that effect. When you afterwards inquired what this slip was you were informed that it was a certificate to show that you had been through the mill. But why should they issue such a certificate before you had been through? Probably the government took a chance like the doughboy does when he signs the pay roll a month before he gets paid. If he did not sign re would not get paid and often when he does sign he don’t get paid, so “sanferriens.” Any way this man kept the Service Record, “mill slip,” and all, and you were ushered into the engine room.

There was a great racket going on and your heart was beating like a trip hammer. You remembered you had not cut your toe nails for several weeks and you wondered if they would scratch your neck. You also wondered what part of your body went in first. Someone ordered you to move along, and along you moved until you came to a bin which reminded you of where your grandfather kept his potatoes. You looked around for the man who was administering the “Dope,” because you heard nobody scream or groan—or were some of those noises groans? Through the middle of this bin ran a railroad and in the middle of the track stood a man issuing orders, none of which you understood. Besides, the man in the bin behind you was talking louder than the man in your bin, so that you heard more of what he said than of what your man said; but after listening for a while you gleaned the fact that you were supposed to take off all your clothes, which you did.

By that time two large doors in the side of the building opened and out came a car that looked like the ones they have in circuses to carry animals in, which was divided into compartments with numbers corresponding with the number of your bin, which were full of shelves and hooks. Into your compartment on this car you put everything you had except the articles in the Red Cross bag. This you still had hung around your neck. Everything had to be taken out of the Barrack bag; your puttees could not be wound; your underclothes and socks which you took off were not put in the car however. They said this was to kill the cooties, and suddenly you had a feeling of pity for the poor cootie. As suddenly as the car came out of these big doors it went back again and the doors were closed; then you were ordered to pick up your soiled underclothes and “move along.” A little further along you threw your soiled underclothes out of a window marked “Salvaged Clothes.” You were wearing your shoes but nothing else. As you passed out of this room you were handed a towel and as you entered the next room you were met by a couple of doctors who asked you if you had been to Paris and then refused to take your word that you had not. From here you entered the bath room where you had the grand and glorious feeling of a real shower bath, although the so-called soap was beyond description. From here you passed another long line of doctors that reminded you of your first day at camp, and then you passed into a room which reminded you of Gimbel Brothers at home. Your famous slip of paper which had been kept in your Red Cross Bag, now came into use and you began to learn the reason for it. Everything that your Supply Sergeant at[79] Flavigny had refused to give you was handed to you here. First you were given a suit of underclothes and a pair of socks to take the place of the ones you had salvaged. Then down the line you went, getting new blankets for the ones you had left in the hangar, and new trousers for the ones you had said were no good, and even a new tape for your dog tags. From here you passed into another bin similar to the first one, and while you were putting on your underclothes out came the car with all your things on it, but everything so hot you could hardly touch them. Poor cooties, not a one remained alive to tell of what happened inside.

After dressing, which you had to do in four seconds less than a minute, you stuffed everything into the barrack bag except your overcoat which you put on, and, with barrack bag over your shoulder and your slip of paper in your hand, you passed into another room. Here you handed said slip of paper to a man whom you could just see over the top of a heap of them, then passed by a man who examined the condition of your hair and then passed outside with the perspiration streaming down your face and marched about two blocks down the street to another building. There you completed your toilet and were guided to your company barracks which was either 212, 214 or 216, and there you set yourself down more exhausted than you were the day you marched from Florent to Varimont. But you were still in the army though not in the mill, and there was work to be done. The first detail was to carry all the rifles from the mill to the barracks. You were given dinner and then given more detail, and more detail the next day.

Friday, May 9th, the commanding officer was notified that Company “B” would embark the next day, and accordingly, at 5:00 P. M. Saturday, May 11th, the company was lined up and marched to the American Docks, reaching them about 7:00 P. M. A peculiar coincidence it was, that during the greater part of this march it rained. It had been bright and clear all day but when we started on our last march in France the sky became darkened, with a heavy cloud, and shortly after we had started for the docks it began to rain and did not clear until after we had embarked. After reaching the dock, we were served sandwiches, chocolate, cigarettes, candy, and a handkerchief by the Red Cross. Miss Colby, the Y. M. C. A. worker who had been with us all winter at Flavigny, followed us to the dock and there bade us good-bye. She was not to return to America for several months. The rest of the Y. M. C. A. outfit had departed with Regimental Headquarters. Mr. Allen, the K. of C. worker who had been with us at Flavigny, returned to America with us. We embarked at 8:00 P. M. May 10th, on the good ship “OTSEGO,” formerly the Prince Eitel Fredrich III, one of the German liners that had been turned over to the American Government for the transportation of troops to America. It was her second trip in this service.

The trip was long, somewhat tedious, and uneventful. The food was excellent, the best we had had since we had left home. The Azores lay along our route and we passed close enough to see some of the buildings. A couple of schools of small whales were sighted, and porpoises were continually playing about the ship. The third or fourth day out we began to have trouble with the boilers, which continued nearly all the way across, which accounted for the length of the voyage. On the morning of the 25th we passed the “Ambrose”[80] Lightship and soon after sighted land. We expected to dock in the afternoon, but it was five o’clock when we entered the Upper Bay at New York and dropped anchor off St. Georges, S. I. Many small boats loaded with sight-seers came by. The Mayor’s Committee of New York City brought a band to play for us. The next morning, May 26th, 1919, about eight o’clock we weighed anchor and sailed up the river to Hoboken, where we docked a half hour later. We were given a light lunch by the Red Cross and were then put on a river boat and went to the West Shore docks, where we got on a train and went to Camp Merritt. It was a grand and glorious feeling to be riding in an American train once more. We arrived at Camp Merritt about 11:00 A. M. and had lunch shortly after. In the afternoon we again went through the mill or “Sanitary Process” and the next morning went to a different part of the camp, where the company was broken up into Casual Detachments. The men from most of the Southern and Western camps being assigned to Hoboken Casual Detachments, and the others into Camp Dix, Camp Upton, or Camp Grant Casual Detachments. We did not move out, however, until Sunday afternoon, June 1st. Passes were issued daily, however, and a majority of the men took advantage of this privilege and went home to visit their folks. At 2:00 P. M. June 1st, the Camp Dix C. D. entrained for Camp Dix, where we arrived at 7:00 P. M. and immediately turned in all our equipment and then marched to the barracks formerly occupied by the Third Battalion.

June 2nd: All company records were turned in and Company “B” was only a memory. The days dragged slowly by until Thursday, June 5th, when we had our final examination. One incident happened at this time which to us seemed almost tragical. A Welcoming Committee from Elizabeth came down Wednesday, June 4th, three days after we entered Camp Dix, to see the Elizabeth boys, and upon inquiring at Camp Headquarters for our location, were told that we were not in the Camp, as they had no record of us. This probably was the reason why several outfits that arrived in camp as late as Wednesday were discharged ahead of us. Saturday morning, June 7th, is a day in the lives of the remaining men of Company “B” 311th Infantry never to be forgotten, as it was then that we received our final pay and discharge from the Army and once more became civilians.

Including all officers and men assigned to and present with the company upon arrival in France, and all replacements of men received overseas.

The information shown in the following roster is compiled from data from the Company Records. The information regarding men who were wounded is taken from reports sent in to Personnel Headquarters of the Regiment by the Medical Detachment and Battalion Headquarters. All the information is shown regarding men killed in action that was obtainable from the records of the Regiment and from eye witnesses.

All men shown as having joined prior to May 19th were with the company when it arrived in France; those who joined October 12, 1918, were replacements from the 86th Division.

Men who were wounded or evacuated for other causes did not return to the company unless so stated. All other men returned to the United States with the company except a few who were kept at the port of embarkation on account of missing records, which was due to no fault of theirs.

Bell, John P., Capt. U. S. Inf.

Colonna, B. Allison, Capt. U. S. Inf.

Devereux, John C., 1st Lt. U. S. Inf.

Dunn, Raymond B., 1st Lt. U. S. Inf.

Foulkes, Louis S., Jr., Capt. U. S. Inf.

Gardenier, David, 1st Lt. U. S. Inf.

Lahey, William S., 1st Lt. U. S. Inf.

Merrill, Henry M., 2nd Lt. U. S. Inf.

Norton, Robert H., 1st Lt. U. S. Inf.

Proctor, William S., 2nd Lt. U. S. Inf.

Schuyler, Roy A., 1st Lt. U. S. Inf.

Shanks, Thomas H., 2nd Lt. U. S. Inf.

Vanderbilt, Herbert R., 1st Lt. U. S. Inf.

[83]

3d Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.

4th Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.

WHEN SAILING OVERSEAS

JOINED OVERSEAS

From Other Units of the 311th Infantry

From 86th Division

Miscellaneous

NUMBER OF CASUALTIES IN THE COMPANY

KILLED IN ACTION

DIED OF WOUNDS

GASSED

ACCIDENTALLY WOUNDED

WOUNDED IN ACTION

[B]MISSING IN ACTION

FIRST SERGEANT, CHARLES A. ROBBINS.

FIRST SERGEANT, TRACY S. WHITE.

SERGEANT, JOSEPH H. FAHEY.

SERGEANT, EDWARD J. WELSH.

PRIVATE 1st CLASS, JOSEPH S. ALDRIDGE, JR.

PRIVATE 1st CLASS, LUKE E. SLOVER, JR. (Deceased).

EXTRACT: “The Division Commander desires to record in the General Orders of the 78th Division some of the deeds of men of this command which were marked by the display of the highest of soldierly qualities—initiative, dauntless courage, self-sacrifice and steadfast devotion to duty which offered a constant inspiration to all who came to have knowledge thereof and which contributed largely, in the aggregate, to the success of the division’s operations against the enemy.”

1st LIEUT. ROY A. SCHUYLER, (Deceased)

2nd LIEUT. RAYMOND B. DUNN.

SERGEANT WILLIAM M. REID.

SUPPLY SERGEANT JOSEPH LEVY.

CORPORAL JOSEPH R. McGARRITY.

PRIVATE LORY L. PRICE.