IN THE ST. MIHIEL OFFENSIVE

Our train journey took us south to the divisional area, about Langres. The regiment detrained at Bourmont, and from there the batteries hiked to different towns, E to Bourg Saint Marie.

This is as close as the battery ever came to spending leisure at a “rest camp,” of which we heard rumors at the front, and it promised to be quite the opposite of a rest, from the schedule laid out. No more than promised, however, for the ten days spent there sufficed for only a day or two of the schedule, after the time required for settling down and before the days required to prepare for moving.

The men who went to the “scabies” hospital, at Bourmont, of whom there was a considerable number, were the ones who had the rest. Those who were members of the “Two Weeks’ Club” enjoyed only what rest the corporals, honorary members because their sentence was three weeks, who were in charge of the details which did various choice bits of excavation work allowed them; whether that was insufficient or excessive can only be determined by testimony.

The dread schedule appeared only for one day, Monday, August 26. Reveille was at 4:30; breakfast, 5; watering and feeding horses; foot drill, 7:30-8:30; pistol drill, 8:30-9:15; standing gun drill, 9:30-10:30; stables, 10:30-11:30. In the afternoon two hours of pistol drill and standing gun drill were followed by stables, 4 to 5 p. m., filling the time as completely as in the morning.

Next day reveille was at 5:45, and the schedule was thus rid of its most disagreeable feature, early rising. Otherwise it was nearly as the preceding day. Wednesday, however, a regimental review, and the consequent washing of harness, and cleaning and greasing of carriages, upon return, knocked out the schedule completely, and it had no time to regain its feet. Next day the caissons went after ammunition, and at night the regiment marched again on its way to the front.

Before this departure, the battalion witnessed the presentation of colors donated by Corporal Beatty’s father to Battery E. The summing up of the battery’s work on this occasion, the formal statement of its standards and achievements by Captain Robbins were indeed impressive.

All traveling on our way to the St. Mihiel front was by night. Particular care was being taken that no troop movements should be revealed to the enemy. To us this plan had its advantages because we hiked during the cool hours of night and rested when the day was hottest. The first day we passed in woods near St. Ouen des Pahey, the next under trees at the fork of two roads, and that evening made the two hours’ hike to a large camp of wooden barracks at Rebeuville, just over the hill from Neufchateau.

Here we stayed four days, visiting the city of Neufchateau, bathing in the river, and grooming and grazing the horses. Troupes of Y. M. C. A. entertainers played two afternoons, giving a performance of “Baby Mine” on the hillside behind the barracks. The last night of our stay, the whir of planes overhead caused the cry “Lights Out!” The explosion of several bombs gave proof of their being enemy planes. But fortunately the bombs damaged nothing but farm land on the other side of Neufchateau.

Next night we took the road at 8:30 and hiked till midnight, passing near Domremy, the birthplace of Jeanne d’Arc. Our billets for the day were several hay mows, in the town of Brancourse.

Starting out at 5 p. m. September 5, we made a record hike, going forty-seven kilometres before making camp after daylight. At the end of the journey, the carriages, having followed the wrong road, had to cross a narrow embankment, sloping dizzily to a deep valley below on each side. Misfortune struck the very first carriage. A wheel went over the edge, and gun, limber, horses and drivers rolled over and over down the slope. Kadon and Searles fell free and unhurt. Al Overstreet, being wheel driver, was brought down by the pole and pinned beneath a horse. His situation was precarious, but he was finally extricated, suffering from the fall and a badly wrenched leg. The horse escaped unhurt. The chief damage was done to the wheels of the gun carriage, both of which were broken. These were replaced that day by two spare wheels from the battery wagon. After a day of frequent rain and little rest, the battery drove through Toul that night and camped next day in the Bois de la Reine, near Sanzey. Here we stayed for four days, moving up into position for the attack September 10.

Amid spasmodic showers, the firing battery started forward at 5:30 p. m. Brakes, mogul springs and trace chains had all been wrapped, to muffle their clatter. Our position, a short distance past Mandres, was within a thousand yards of the enemy’s lines. The road from which we turned into an open field was being shelled, and the fire increased after we pulled into position, at about 10:30. Shell splinters cut ropes and a stake of the Third Section camouflage. A fragment struck Baker in the knee, making a bad wound. His leg was stiffening, but he was lifted to a limber seat, and rode there back to the aid station.

The crowded roads on the way up, teeming with supply trains, batteries of artillery, machine-gun carts and caissons of ammunition, gave evidence of what thorough and powerful preparations the American army had made for driving the enemy from the St. Mihiel salient. The roads themselves, very vital to an advancing army, had been put in excellent condition, and guide posts and marks were on every hand to expedite and facilitate traffic. Infantry was billeted in the towns as close to the line as they could be kept concealed, and came up in long lines when night fell September 11. By that time each section had dug its trail pit and shelter trenches, improvised some sort of a platform for the gun wheels, and cleaned and greased all its ammunition.

As darkness came on, rain began to fall. It became a heavy downpour later, and in a couple of hours the trail pits and trenches were a foot deep with water and mud. At 11 o’clock came the command through the dark, “Chiefs of sections, report!” Huddled at the entrance of the captain’s tent, the sergeants received the data for the firing that was to prepare for and accompany the attack to take place next morning.

At the same time the rattle and clank something like that of a steam roller told us of tanks coming up for the attack. We could see their clumsy silhouettes against the sky, as they crossed in front along the crest. The rain had ceased, and the sky was clearing. Long, dark lines resolved themselves into files of infantry winding their way up and over the crest ahead, into the trenches beyond.

At 1 a. m. began the preliminary fire, at the low rate of twenty rounds per gun an hour. This continued until 5 o’clock, when a huge shower rocket signaled with a great burst of light the beginning of the advance. At this we increased the rate of fire, commencing the barrage that preceded the infantry’s line. The heavy rain had so softened the ground that it gave way beneath the improvised platforms on which the gun wheels rested. When the firing was slow, the planks could be straightened, the gun crews tugging to lift a wheel out of the mud. But the barrage could not be interrupted. Before long the planks were thrown aside altogether, and the wheels sank with the shock of each round until they were eight to ten inches in the mire when the order to cease firing came at 10 o’clock.

By that time group after group of prisoners were passing us on their way to the rear, in such numbers as to indicate our great success. Still more infantry filed past to the trenches. Reports of incredible progress and amazing figures of prisoners filtered to us. At noon we packed up, ready to go forward when the limbers should come up. But, though they had started at 7 o’clock that morning, they did not arrive till 8 in the evening. The roads were black with advancing troops and supply trains. The broad fields between us and Beaumont suddenly turned an O. D. hue when a battalion of infantry pitched their pup tents there for the night.

At 11 p. m. our battery was on the road, after a hard pull to get out of the soggy field. We went only a kilometre or so to the left, toward Seicheprey, when we found the way impassable. After waiting an hour or more, the battalion turned around and headed in the opposite direction. Here, too, was blocked traffic and delay. At Flirey, in the early morning, the dismounted men were distributed along the road to assist the M. P.’s in clearing a way for us. There was, it appeared, but one road to advance into the territory ahead of us evacuated by the enemy. And it, as we found later, had been shelled almost to extinction. Had it not been for corned beef sandwiches and coffee from kitchens at the roadside near here, the boys would have gone hungry all day, although a good many levied successfully on the ration dump in the town.

Advance was at a snail’s pace, and halts were frequent and long. Not far out of town, we gained the summit of a ridge that gave us a wide view of what had yesterday been the battlefield. It had been so plowed up by shells that trenches were obliterated, abris buried beyond sight save for some timber jutting up from the torn earth, and the woods and thickets swept as by fire. Recently captured Germans were gathering stones to fill shell holes in the road and make it passable for the long line of wagons, carts, ambulances, guns and caissons.

By afternoon we had reached the town of Essey, where large vegetable gardens, stores and warehouses full of supplies, and furnished houses showed how comfortable the enemy had been in their four years there. Now that they were gone, a throng of black-clad refugees, old men and women, a few girls, and little children, crowded the market square, with carts piled high with bedding and household belongings.

In the afternoon the battery went into position in front of LaMarche, the limbers and caissons going into woods a few hundred yards ahead. The horses, watered in a small stream, broke the dam that held it, and allowed the water to flow into the dry gulley below, in which the guns were placed. By morning the second platoon was flooded out, and had to move back a few yards to dry land. In the race between the two sections the Third Section won Lieutenant Leprohon’s prize of a keg of beer, which, however, they were destined not to drink. There was compensation for the labor caused, however, in the presence of water for bathing and washing. Since we did no firing in two days we stayed here, this was of real advantage.

The battery kitchen, in town, a few hundred yards away, put the Germans’ vegetable garden to good use, cooking the carrots, cabbage and turnips in vessels which the Germans had abandoned a practically complete kitchen equipment. Fresh vegetables were so rare that they were highly appreciated. The wounded cow divided, according to Solomon’s principle in the dispute of the two women over the babe, in equal parts between E and F batteries proved to be more venerable than we thought, and though boiled for many hours, provided only soup for our nourishment.

By the afternoon of September 14 details came to us of the clearing of the entire St. Mihiel salient, freeing 150 square miles and yielding 15,000 prisoners, as well as considerable prestige to the American army in its first independent effort. Occupying the center of the advance, the 42nd Division had advanced nineteen kilometres in twenty-four hours.

The following day came the order for us to advance. The move was a short one, only two kilometres ahead, but the road was uphill through mud up to the axles. The horses, succumbing already under the heavy labor and scanty food, required all the assistance the dismounted men could give them. Sometimes there was question whether the cannoneers were not pushing the horses as well as the caissons. Even such famous teams as Hardy’s “Omar” and “Ambrose,” Grund’s “Bunny” and the mare, Hedgepath’s “Dick” and “Fatima,” and Young’s “Red” and “Bud,” were worked to their utmost to pull up carriage after carriage through “Lepage Avenue,” as the muddy way was named from its resemblance to the famous glue.

The position was on the hill top in the midst of woods, the greater part of which had already been cut by the Germans. A well equipped saw mill was not far away, and from its yards was obtained lumber for the gun pits and for shacks built for the officers and for the kitchen. Corrugated iron huts housed the B. C. detail and the extra cannoneers, who brought up supplies and ammunition on a narrow gauge railroad which ran from LaMarche up through the woods to St. Benoit station in front of them, where there was a full gauge track. When the Alabama doughboys first discovered the narrow gauge railroad, it furnished them high entertainment for a couple of nights. They coasted on flat cars down the hill to LaMarche. They ran the little engine on a wild journey through the woods, tooting the whistle and shouting loud enough to wake Fritz in his dugouts two or three miles away. Then the 117th Engineers took over the rolling stock and operated it for practical instead of amusement purposes.

The gun crews finished their gun pits and dug abris, employing the lumber and corrugated iron left by the enemy, before there was call to fire. Now that the salient was cleared, the chief work was the establishing of a firm defensive line. On the 19th the battery fired twenty rounds on an American aeroplane which had fallen within the enemy lines, in order to destroy it before the enemy carried it off. That day also the battery fired for adjustment.

Rocket guard was established when the data was provided for an indicator board. By sighting along an arrow on this board, the sentinel could tell from the location of the place where the red rocket rose whether it called for normal barrage, “green” barrage, or whatever other barrages might have been given us.

The following morning, September 20, about 5 a. m., the call came over the telephone for normal barrage, no rocket having been seen. No sooner was that fired than orders were given for green barrage. Later we learned that the enemy raiding party had gone around the first barrage but were caught by the second and none escaped back to his lines.

Two days later, September 22, we crawled out of our tents at 3 a. m. to carry 100 rounds per gun from the piles along the road back of the position. From 4 to 5:45 the battery fired a slow bombardment and then a barrage till 6:30, to accompany our infantry’s highly successful raid of Marinbois Farm, strongly held by the enemy. About noon a few rounds were fired on an enemy working party.

At 3:30 a. m., September 23, at the cry, “Normal barrage,” from Kulicek, then on watch at the rocket post, the guard in each gun pit woke the men sleeping in their pup-tents in the bushes behind. Hastily pulling on our shoes, we dashed out into a drizzling rain, and fired about 100 rounds per gun in the next two hours. A raiding party of American troops and one of the enemy had accidentally stumbled on each other in the darkness. The following night there was heavy firing on both sides, and the battery was aroused twice, but fired little either time. Both sides, it seemed, were uneasy in anticipation of the great drive that began September 26.

Though the actual drive on this date was northward, by troops west of Verdun, the preliminary cannonading stretched along the line facing eastward, south of Verdun, as well, thus concealing from the enemy the actual line of attack until it was too late for him to concentrate his forces. Battery E, firing from 11:30 p. m. till 6:30 a. m., the morning of September 26, expended about 1,500 rounds in this ruse, our infantry having been withdrawn from the front lines, in anticipation of heavy counterbombardment.

Perhaps the worst task on this night was that of the drivers on the caissons which carried the shells from the railroad track to the position. The haul was short, but the mud was deep and heavy. They made trip after trip, using every possible means of urging the horses to their task. But when the last load had been carried, about 3 a. m., the horses were so exhausted that they could not pull the empty caissons through the long stretch of gumbo on the way back to the horse lines. When the gun crews had ceased firing, therefore, the cannoneers went to the drivers’ assistance. The latter lay, dead asleep, on top of the caissons, while the horses munched in the bushes at the roadside. By much shouting and more pushing, the men at last got the caissons past the wallow of gumbo to the hard road, where pulling was easy for the horses.

On the night of the 27th the battery moved to the front edge of the woods. It was another struggle against heavy mud, and morning came ere the second platoon was finally in position. The two platoons were about half a kilometre apart, Lieutenant Leprohon commanding the first, and Lieutenant Lombardi the second. Brush and trees had to be cut down to permit firing without danger of a shell bursting prematurely in the tree tops in front of the guns. Gun pits were commenced, proving a difficult task in the sticky clay full of wiry roots. But these were not finished by us. After three days here, the battery was relieved by artillery of the 89th Division, and started on the cross country hike to the Argonne, whence had come a hurry call for the tired veterans of the 42nd Division to aid the troops held up at one part of the line by terrific resistance on the part of the Germans.

The horse lines, near Nonsard, occupied one of the many elaborate camps which the Germans had constructed in the vicinity. Boughs had been used with the lavishness of a millionaire building an elaborate rustic garden. Walks, roads, fences, shacks, ornamental gateways, were all of this material, in camps covering acre after acre. Piles of empty hogsheads, and wicker tables and benches, gave evidence that the enemy troops had not lived an overhard life while they had been here.

The battery pulled out of the horse-lines at 8 p. m., October 1, and hiked without stop till after midnight. After covering thirty kilometres, the battalion pulled in at an old German remount camp, near Ambly, alongside the canal. The following night the distance was shorter, but progress was slow and waits were long during which the drivers fell asleep on their horses with blankets over their shoulders, and the dismounted men dozed in the grass at the side of the road, mindless of cold and damp. At 6 in the morning came the climb up the hill into the Camp du Bois de Meuse, where the whole 67th Brigade encamped.

Spending the day of September 3 there, we made the next journey by daylight on September 4, rising at 4:45 and pulling out on the road at 8. Our way led past the many camps where the French troops had been assembled to engage in the terrible struggles about Verdun, and past fields, at Vadelaincourt, where the red crosses of French dead seemed to grow thick as wheat. A little beyond Rampont, we pulled into another camp, in Brocourt woods, where we spent the succeeding day greasing the carriage axles and cleaning the firing mechanism. On October 6, the brigade moved forward up the hills from Recicourt, through Avocourt, razed to a mere pile of bricks and mortar, over roads still in process of mending by engineer battalions, and that afternoon into a wide valley, pock-marked with shell holes and bearing a desolate look, emphasized by the stark black tree trunks, stripped of their branches, as though the whole area had been swept by a blaze. This was what was left of the forest of Avocourt. Occasional shells burst on the ridge ahead, and orders were strict for every man to dig a hole for his bunk that night.