CHAPTER VIII

THE ST. MIHIEL OFFENSIVE

The field orders for the attack on the St. Mihiel salient were received on September 10th, the date not being specified. Our division was to attack as part of the 4th U. S. Army Corps of the 1st U. S. Army; and we were given the honor of being made the point of the arrow which was to pierce through the center of the salient along the base of the triangle that was to be cut off. The 89th Division was on our right and the 1st Division on our left, with the 3rd in Army reserve.

Our Division was to be formed with both brigades abreast, the 83rd being on the left of the 84th. The relative places of regiments with regard to each other was to be in the same order in which they fought at the Ourcq—from left to right: Ohios, New Yorks, Alabamas and Iowas. Each regiment was to have one battalion in the first line and one in the second, the remaining battalions acting as brigade or division reserves. Battery F, 149th F. A. was to follow up with the infantry of our brigade after their capture of the first position. The brigade had also the co-operation of a battalion of our Engineers for road and bridge work, one platoon of the first gas regiment and two groups of French Schneider Tanks.

On the night of September 10th we moved forward to the vicinity of Mandres, where we relieved elements of the 89th Division which were transferred further to the right. Our headquarters on September 11th were at Hamonville, not far from Seicheprey where the 26th Division had played a savage game of give and take with the Germans when they held the trenches last Spring.

Copies were issued of the very elaborate plans which had been prepared by Army Chiefs of Staff outlining with great definiteness the part that each element of our Army had to play in the work that lay ahead of them.

The men were encamped in a forest of low trees, a most miserable spot. It had been showering and wet all the week and we were living like paleozoic monsters, in a world of muck and slime. The forest roads were all plowed by the wagon wheels and when one stepped off them conditions were no better, for the whole place was really a swamp. I made my rounds during the afternoon and got the men together for what I call a silent prayer meeting. I told them how easy it was to set themselves right with God, suggesting an extra prayer for a serene mind and a stout heart in time of danger; and then they stood around me in a rough semi-circle, caps in hand and heads bowed, each man saying his prayers in his own way. I find this simple ceremony much more effective than formal preaching.

When I got back to headquarters I found my own staff very considerably increased. Father Hanley had come back a couple of days before. The rumors of approaching action were all over France, so, sniffing the battle from afar, he got the hospital authorities to let him out and rejoin his regiment for the coming fight. I kept Father Carpentier attached to the regiment for the time being until I could get the Protestant chaplain that I had been petitioning for so long. Father Hanley still had a perceptible limp and was moving around with the aid of a stick so I told him that he would have to look after the hospital center (_Triage_) while the fight was on, a commission that he took with no good grace. To Father Carpentier I gave a roving commission to look after Catholics in the Ohio and Alabama regiments, a task for which his zeal and endurance especially qualified him.

Now I found two more Chaplains on my hands—one from the Knights of Columbus, Father Moran, an Irish Priest, and one assigned to the regiment, Chaplain Merrill J. Holmes of the M. E. Church. I liked him on sight and we were not long in getting on a basis of cordiality which will make our work together very pleasant. It was too late to send the extra chaplains to other regiments as we were even then getting ready to move forward into line, so I decided to keep them all under my wing. I told the lieutenants of the Headquarters Company that it would not be my fault if they did not all get to Heaven because we had five chaplains along. “Five Chaplains,” said Lieutenant Charles Parker. “Great Heavens! there won’t be a thing left for any of the rest of us to eat.”

The terrain which was to be the object of the attack of our three divisions was completely dominated on the left by the frowning heights of Mont Sec; and if they had been held in force by the enemy artillery it would have exposed our whole army corps to a flanking fire which would soon make progress impossible. It fell to the 1st Division to make their advance along the mountain side.

The ground over which we were to pass was for the most part fairly level up as far as the twin towns of Maizerais and Essey, to the left of which the Rupt de Mad made its way through swamps at the base of the hill which was crowned by these two villages. A number of woods dotted the surface; one of them, the Bois de Remières, stood directly in front of our advance. No Man’s Land at this point was seven or eight hundred yards wide; and the German trenches, as we afterwards found, were not in very good condition, though there was plenty of wire standing both here and at other points that were prepared for defence. We were to jump off at the east of Seicheprey, and regimental headquarters and dressing station were established by Colonel Mitchell and Major Lawrence in the Bois de Jury, not far to the rear.

We moved up to our jump-off point on the night of September 11th. The rain was falling in torrents. The roads were like a swamp and the night was so dark that a man could not see the one in front of him. And of course no lights could be lit. The road could not be left free for the foot soldiers, but was crowded with ammunition wagons, combat wagons, signal outfits and all the impedimenta of war. Time and again men had the narrowest escapes from being run down in the dark, and scarcely anybody escaped the misfortune of tripping and falling full length in the mud. It is a miracle of fate or of organization that the units were able to find their positions on such a night, but they all got where they belonged and found the lines neatly taped by Colonel Johnson’s excellent body of engineers. The 1st Battalion was in the front line commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Donovan, who was not willing to let his newly conferred rank deprive him of the opportunity of leading his battalion in another fight. The 2nd battalion under Major Anderson was in the second line, and picked men from each of its companies were given the task of following close behind the 1st, as moppers up, i. e., to overcome points of resistance which might be passed over, take charge of prisoners, etc.

The men shivered through the night in the muddy trenches waiting in patient misery for morning and the orders to attack. At 1:00 A. M. September 12th, our artillery opened fire on the enemy. We had expected a night of terrific noise like that which preceded the German offensive on July 15th, but the present one was not nearly so fierce, though it would have seemed a wonderful show if we had not heard the other one. In July the guns on both sides were shooting everything they had without cessation. But, here, there was no enemy counter preparation fire and our own fire was more deliberate.

Dawn broke on a cold, windy day and a cloud darkened sky. Donovan had been moving up and down his line with a happy smile on his face (unless he detected anything out of order) telling the men: “There’s nothing to it. It will be a regular walkover. It will not be as bad as some of the cross-country runs I gave you in your training period.” And when H hour arrived at 5:00 A. M., the feeling of the men was one of gladness at the prospect of getting into action.

Their way was prepared by a screen of smoke and a rolling barrage delivered by our artillery. Tanks advanced with our infantry crawling like iron-clad hippopotomi over the wire in front to make a passage-way. Some of them came to grief on account of the rain-softened ground, the edges of a trench giving way under the weight of a tank and standing it on its nose in the bottom. During the two days of advance we were well supplied with aeroplane service and possessed undoubted superiority in the air.

The four-inch Stokes Mortars had been put in position to lay down a smoke barrage and the barrage began to pound the enemy front line at the zero hour. The shells whistled overhead much closer than they had done during the artillery preparation and broke on the enemy trenches kicking up red fire and black clouds where they hit. It was raining slightly, there was a mist, and dawn was not yet breaking when the machine gun barrage which took the men over began to fire. The men began to whisper among themselves “That’s our stuff; no it’s not, yes it is.” All the sounds of battle were heard; the artillery, the small guns, and then, a little too soon, the Stokes Mortars in front of the Alabamas starting their fire-works which illuminated the entire front when the thermite shells exploded.

Then everybody jumped and started forward. The Bois de Remières lay in front of the right flank of our first battalion and as they moved forward, the flank units gave way to the left to pass around instead of through the woods. For a moment they lost direction. The support companies seemed to hesitate at the first belt of wire and began picking their way rather too fastidiously through it. Lieutenant Harold L. Allen was with the headquarters group which consisted of a mélange of runners, pioneers, liaison men, snipers, etc. He tells about Donovan running back from the front line shouting to the men “Get forward, there, what the hell do you think this is, a wake?” These words seemed to inspire Captain Siebert and as the lines moved forward he shouted loud and profane encouragement to the machine gun carriers burdened with boxes of ammunition and struggling forward through the tangle of trenches and broken wire.

Machine gun resistance was met on the enemy’s second line. The assault waves deployed and began firing. Automatic teams and snipers crawled forward to advantageous positions. Donovan, with his usual disregard of danger (never thinking of it in fact, but only occupied with getting through), moved back and forth along the line giving directions, and the enemy resistance did not last long, most of their men surrendering. Donovan led his men at heart-breaking speed over the hills, smashing all resistance before them and sending in small groups of prisoners. St. Baussant was taken at the point of the bayonet and the line swept on. On the hill overlooking Maizerais the battalion was halted once more by machine gun fire, and a battery of artillery behind the village less than five hundred yards away. The Germans had evidently decided to make some sort of a stand, taking advantage of the hill and the protection of the Rupt de Mad. But Donovan with about thirty men jumped into the river, made his way across it under fire, and when the Germans saw this determined assault from their flank they threw up their hands and cried “Kamerad.”

They attempted further resistance near Essey where they had machine gun pits in front of the village, but the resistance was quickly reduced by the aid of a tank and the village was cleared of the enemy. Donovan kept the battalion in the stone walled gardens on the outskirts of the town. Our own barrage was still pounding the village, for Essey represented the objective of the “First Phase, First Day,” and some of our men who wandered into town were hit by flying stone from the walls of houses.

Prisoners began to come in and a prisoner park was established near a big tree on the road leading into the village. French civilians were still living in this village, having spent the period of bombardment in a big dugout—the first civilians that we had the pleasure of actually liberating. They laughed and wept and kissed everybody in sight and drew on their slender stock of provisions to feed the hungry men. The soldiers began wandering everywhere looking for souvenirs. Corporal Kearin was in charge of the prison park. All the captives were from the regiments of the 10th Division, except a few from an attached Minenwerfer company and an artillery regiment. They were eager for fraternization and chatted and laughed with their captors. The men of the support battalions and from the units on our right and left, attracted by the town, began to straggle over. It resembled a County Fair, the prisoner park being the popular attraction of the day. Americans literally swarmed around the prisoners in idle curiosity while others rummaged through the German billets and headquarters looking for pistols, maps, German post-cards and letters—anything that would do for a souvenir.

However, this did not last long, Donovan had his battalion out and going for the objective which was marked as “Second Phase, First Day,” which lay beyond the next town of Pannes; and Anderson, coming in with the bulk of the 2nd Battalion, imposed his rigorous discipline on those whose business it was to be in town. He certainly was not loved for knocking in the head of a barrel of beer which some of the fellows had found (and, by the way, there can be no better proof of the rapidity with which the Germans evacuated the town than the fact that they had left it behind).

Donovan met with further resistance when he arrived before Pannes about one o’clock in the afternoon. He called for artillery and tanks and filtered up his men along the trees on the edge of the road while the Ohios advanced on the left and the Alabamas make a flanking movement against the town from its right. They soon had the opposition broken and by 1:45 P. M. our advanced elements, widely extended, were proceeding from Pannes towards the Bois de Thiaucourt, and at 1:55 the objective “Second Phase, First Day” was occupied by the 165th Infantry.

[Illustration: AT QUENTIN ROOSEVELT’S GRAVE THE CENTRAL FIGURE IS COLONEL McCOY]

The whole day it had been a wild gallop with occasional breathing spells when the Germans put up some resistance. From the rising ground around Essey men looked back, and towards the west and east where the 1st and the 89th were also moving forward. It was like a moving picture battle. Tanks were crawling up along the muddy roads and khaki colored figures could be seen moving about in ones and twos and fours along the edges of the woods and across the grassy plains. Toward the rear were passing ever larger groups of prisoners in their blue gray uniforms, carrying their personal belongings and in many cases their own wounded as well as ours on improvised litters. Overhead the shells were still screaming from our heavy artillery with a good deal of answering fire from the German batteries, which caused most of our losses.

The prisoners were mainly Austrians and Austrian Slavs. They had not been very keen about the war at any time and were made less so on finding that they had been left behind after the bulk of the army had withdrawn. Many of them had been in the United States, and the first question that one of them asked was “Can I go back now to Sharon, Pa?” One of them was found seated in a dugout with a bottle of Schnapps and a glass. He immediately offered a drink to his captor saying “I don’t drink it myself, but I thought it would be a good thing to offer to an American who would find me.”

During the afternoon of the 12th the brigade P. C. was moved to Essey, regimental P. C. to Pannes. The 1st battalion organized their position just south of the Bois de Thiaucourt which was held by patrols who took more prisoners; the 2nd battalion about 1,000 yards further back on the reverse slope of a hill; and the 3rd battalion just outside the town.

The next day’s task was still easier. Donovan’s men jumped off at 6:10 A. M. with Companies B and C in the lead and A and D in support. Their patrols to the front at the time reported no contact with the enemy. Major Reilley with the 3rd Battalion was sent as Division Reserve for the 1st Division but was later ordered back. The 1st Battalion, followed by the 2nd, pushed through the Bois de Thiaucourt and the Bois de Beney capturing a couple of prisoners and meeting with no resistance. At the Sebastopol Farm a woman told them that the Germans were just ahead and retreating. The advance of our men was somewhat delayed by a gun in our supporting artillery which kept firing short and endangering the men, as one of the greatest difficulties in a rapid advance such as was made at St. Mihiel is that of maintaining liaison with the rear. By half past nine they had captured the enemy’s supply depot along the railway track, with the neighboring village of St. Benoit and the Chateau St. Benoit. It was a foot race all the way between the four infantry regiments and our fellows claim they won it by a good half hour, but I haven’t heard yet what the others have to say. I only know that if I ever have to follow up our infantry again in such an attack I am going to wait for an express train.

One thing that stands out most impressively in the memories of the 165th regarding this action is the devotion and courage of one of our former commanding officers. The dugout where Lieutenant Colonel Donovan established his temporary headquarters on the night of September 11-12th, was very small and very crowded. Every officer commanding a unit of the auxiliary arms crowded into it to avoid the nasty drizzle and darkness outside. The room was full of smoke, some of which managed to get outside as officer after officer came in to report the position of his unit. It was like the headquarters of an army corps. Parker of the one-pound cannons was perched on the upper deck of a bunk flanked by Siebert of the machine guns and a French Lieutenant who had come in to report that the accompanying tanks were ready. Lieutenants Allen and Betty were trying to carry out Donovan’s numerous orders. Captain Stone of the 149th Field Artillery pushed his way into the crowded room and reported to Donovan that his battery had been detailed to roll forward with the assaulting infantry. There was some conversation between them as to the conditions of the roads near Seicheprey and the possibility of having the battery follow close behind the assault, the number of available rounds of ammunition with the guns and the chance of delay in getting them forward over No Man’s Land. The conversation continued for a few minutes and was ended by Donovan saying, “Well, we have not done it before but we’ll give it a whirl this time.”

Just then Major Lawrence opened the door and called “Colonel, here’s an old friend of yours.” It was Colonel Hine. Wet and muddy and tired but evidently delighted to be back with the old regiment. Donovan gave him an enthusiastic welcome as did all the rest, although Betty whispered to Allen in a humorous grouch “I’ll bet Donovan will want us to get a room and bath for him”—referring to the Colonel’s practice of inviting everyone in to dinner or to share quarters no matter where he was or what he might have, and then putting it up to the staff to provide. Everybody naturally thought that Colonel Hine had come to view the battle from the regimental observation post on the hill near the Bois de Jury but later in the night when they moved down to the parallel of departure Colonel Hine was still along, sharing the experiences of the rest of them, stumbling into shell holes and tripping over barbed wire in the darkness. When they went over in the morning he was still there, and with the first wave; and all through that day’s fight and the next, he fought along by the side of his old men, who conceived an admiration for him in their loyal souls that nothing will ever efface.

Colonel Hine had obtained leave from his duties in order to satisfy his desire of going through a big battle with his beloved 69th. It was a unique compliment to the regiment itself. The regiment appreciates it as such, but it dwells more on the soldierly ardor and high courage of its first Colonel, who, though he had been transferred to less dangerous duties, found his way back to us and fought as a volunteer private in the regiment he had commanded. Such deeds as this are set forth in the story-books of history as an inspiration to the youth of the land.

In picking up stories of the fight I got one from Lieutenant Allen which I have jotted down as he gave it to me. “We came in front of Essey. Here there was a hill marked on the aeroplane photographs and maps which were issued before the attack as ‘Dangerous, go to the right and left.’ As we came over the top of this hill and advanced on its forward slope the battalion drew machine gun fire from the enemy guns disposed in pits in front of the village. I was out in front in a shell-hole with two snipers. One of them I sent back to Donovan with a message; the other began firing on the enemy who now began to run back into the village. In an adjoining shell-hole a few feet away, a soldier from our battalion sold a German Luger Pistol to an officer from some other regiment who had wandered from his sector, for thirty-five francs. A French tank caught up to us at this stage of the fight and moved down the hill until it was in front of the shell-hole where I was. I rapped on the side of his turret and called to the pilot, who reversed the turret and while the bullets slapped the side of his tank, opened the window. He was a dapper little Frenchman with the ends of his moustache waxed in points, and was clean and smiling. I gave him a target in front of the town and he fired several round at a mass of retreating Boches hurrying over the next hill. Opening the window again, he smiled and said ‘How’s that?’ then he went lumbering on.”

As the first battalion was making its advance during the second day it was held up in front of Sebastopol Farm by our own barrage which had not yet lifted. While waiting there they saw a French peasant woman with a small boy grasping her hand running through the shell fire from the direction of the farm. When questioned, she was in a great rage against the Boches and reported that a battalion of their troops had evacuated St. Benoit during the night. She also gave the welcome information that there were supplies of food in the farm and was very grateful to the Americans for releasing her from four years of captivity. She was the only woman that we saw actually on the battlefield during the war.

When our fellows reached St. Benoit they found that the Germans had started a fire in the Chateau, but it was quickly extinguished. The church too, had been set on fire and was beyond saving. When Jim Barry of C. Company saw it blazing he shouted “Glory be to God, those devils have burnt the church. Let’s see what we can save out of it.” With Tierney and Boyle and others following after he ran into the burning building and carried out statues and candelabra which they deposited carefully outside. Having finished their pious work they began to remember that they were hungry. Barry took from his musette bag some German potatoes which he had stored there in place of grenades that had been used up in action, and said, “Well we have done what we could, and now we’ve got a good fire here, and we might as well use it.” They stuck the potatoes on the ends of their bayonets and roasted them in the embers. Just then another party came along with some bottled beer that they had salvaged from the German supplies in Pannes, so they picnicked merrily in the square in front of the blazing temple.

It was well for all of us that the Germans had departed so suddenly that they left supplies behind, because it was an almost impossible task to get the kitchens and ration wagons through, on account not only of the poor condition of the roads but of the congestion of traffic. We never saw a worse jam in the whole war than on the main road from Seicheprey to Pannes—tanks, guns and caissons, ammunition wagons, trucks, infantry trains, all trying to get forward along one narrow road, and the whole line held up if a single vehicle got stuck; mounted men and foot soldiers trailed along the edge of this procession often having to flounder through the swamps of the Rupt de Mad.

The situation became dangerous towards evening of the second day when a large squadron of enemy battle planes swooped down on our own, and after the fiercest contest I have ever seen in the air drove two of ours to earth and regained the mastery. They did not, however, resort to bombing, satisfying themselves with reporting conditions to their own artillery. Our wagon train had a most uncomfortable half hour as it passed along the road between Beney and St. Benoit. Shell after shell came hissing towards them, but luckily the German guns were firing just a trifle short. If the shells had carried another fifty yards the train would have been wiped out; but the drivers sat steady on their boxes and kept the mules going at even pace until they reached their destination.

Pannes had still a number of civilians, about thirty in all, and all of them very old people or children, the able-bodied ones having been carried off by the enemy. Those remaining received their deliverers with open arms, and all the old ladies insisted on kissing Lieutenant Rerat, very handsome and blushing in his neat uniform of _horizon-bleu_. They had been rationed by the Germans during the four years of occupation; none too well, but with enough to keep them fit to work. They gave us all they had, and we had an opportunity to get an idea of what German soldiers got to eat. The bread was an indigestible looking mass on the order of pumpernickel. The coffee was far from being Mocha, but sugar seemed to be more plentiful than in France. The Fall vegetables were not yet ripe but the fields had been sown with potatoes, turnips, kohlrabi, and acres and acres of cabbage. The French authorities gave orders to have all civilians evacuated to the rear whether they wanted it or not; and Lieutenant Rerat and I assembled them with their pitiful little collection of belongings and sent them back in ambulances.

[Illustration:

Sketch To Illustrate The Offensive _of_ The St. Mihiel Salient.

_T. C. Ranscht Sgt. H.Q. 165 Inf._ ]

It was a great place for souvenir hunting—pistols, spurs, German post-cards, musical instruments—all sorts of loot. I saw Bill Schmidt with a long steel Uhlan’s lance; while Tom Donohue, true to his instincts, came by with no less than four violins. Most of the men, of a more normal type of soldier, passed up the musical instruments in search for German sausages and beer. There were also vast amounts of military stores and ammunition, as well as the field pieces and machine guns which had been captured in the battle.

Major Lawrence thinks that five or six of his men deserve a citation, for going out voluntarily under the leadership of Sergeant Eichorn and James Mason to rescue a wounded officer in another regiment. The Sanitary Detachment is very happy because they not only have the Major back but also three popular sergeants—Grady, Hayes and Maher who for a time have been attached to the Ohios.

Lieutenant Clifford is enthusiastic about the courage of Sergeant Gilgar of Company B who went ahead with five men against an enemy position, manœuvred his party into a position where he threatened the German rear, and then, by putting on a bold front as if he had a whole company behind him, frightened them into surrender and returned to our line with thirty-two prisoners. Sergeant John Mohr’s life was saved by the quickness of John Moran who was just in time in killing a German who was trying to get our veteran Sergeant.

Chaplain Holmes, who had walked into fight his very first day at the front, was anxious to do his full share, and volunteered while we were at Pannes to scour the battlefield in order to bury the dead. Lieutenant Flynn and a detachment from Headquarters Company went with him and carried out this mournful task. At the time we had no way of knowing for certain just how many of ours had fallen on the field. The battlefield was in our hands from the first and anyone who had a spark of life in him was carried quickly to the rear. Later estimates placed the number of our dead, up to the present, as about thirty-five. The highest in rank was Thomas J. Curtin, 1st Sergeant of Company D, who was hit by a rifle bullet advancing at the head of a platoon. In Company A we lost another good Sergeant, William Walsh; and in the same company Corporals Patrick Doolan, Patrick McDermott and John McDonald with Privates Joseph Biskey and William Williams; in Company B, Mechanic Henry Schumacher and Private N. W. Blackman, Douglas Cummings, Humberto Florio, William Poole and Dominic Zollo; in Company C, Privates John Nanarto, Felix Curtis, Manfred Emanuelson, Thomas F. Petty and Augustus Altheide; in Company D, Corporal Philip Greeler, Privates Ferdinand Urban, Ernest E. Martin, Horace Musumeck, William Mitchell, Walter Long, Clarence Gabbert, with Corporal James MacDonald and Daniel Harkins (died of wounds); Company E lost Corporals Michael Rooney and William Bechtold; Company F, James Wynne, Rex Strait, Eugene Rogers, Angelo Kanevas and Jesse Scott; Company G, William Perkins; Company H, James Spiker and Joseph Deese; Company K, Privates Joseph Dearmon, G. C. Kenly and W. H. Leach, Company M; O. O. Dykes and Edward Kiethley, while the Machine Gun Company suffered the loss of John F. McMillan, Edward Hantschke and Charles Brown. Lieutenant Boag was wounded.

The Chateau St. Benoit is a fine roomy building—a perfect palace of dreams after the outlandish places that had constituted our abodes. But every body in it has an uneasy feeling that it makes a splendid target for enemy artillery. Charles Carman said to me: “Any gunner that couldn’t hit this building at night with his eyes shut ought to be sent back to whatever the Heinies call their S. O. S.” They have missed it however, and more than a few times; but perhaps that is because they have still hopes of occupying it. Three big 150’s came over last night and just missed knocking off the corner of the building where General MacArthur was sleeping. They landed in the stable and killed some of our horses.

We are in for a considerable amount of shelling periodically. A high trajectory shell, like our American rattlesnake, has at least the rudimentary instincts of a gentlemen. It gives fair warning before it strikes, and a man can make an attempt to dodge it; but the Austrian 88’s are mean all the way through. It sounds Irish to say that you hear it coming after it explodes, but that is literally true if it falls short of you.

The whole sector has been pinched off by the operation and we are now in touch with the French on our left, the 1st Division being crowded out by the operation, and the 89th Division still occupying the positions to our right. We are faced now in the general direction of Metz, and the Germans occupy the Hindenburg line as their line of defense. Our main business has been to organize our newly acquired positions and to throw out frequent patrols to test out the enemy.

Colonel Donovan established his battalion headquarters in the Forester’s House on the road to Haumont which was the nearest village held by the enemy. Here Sergeant Moore of B Company brought him a German prisoner whom he had just captured. On interrogation he said that he was a sentinel of a machine gun cossack post and that in the post there was an officer and eight men including one non-com. All of these he thought would be willing to surrender except the officer and perhaps the N. C. O. Colonel Donovan suggested that a rope be tied to the prisoner and that he be compelled to guide a patrol to the outpost, but the German protested that it was entirely unnecessary, as he was willing to betray his comrades. A patrol was sent out which captured the outpost and killed the officer, who, as predicted, put up the only resistance encountered. Our patrol was delighted at making the capture, but if a chance shot had ended the career of the man who had betrayed his own officer, no one amongst ours would have shed any tears.

Patrols from the 1st and 2nd battalions were sent out frequently both by day and by night until September 17th. Some prisoners were captured, and we had our own losses. In the first battalion a patrol of Company F came back without Bernard Cafferty and Lawrence Whalen who put for shelter with the rest, under withering German fire, and are probably killed.

I have picked up a couple of stories which relieve a little this sombre side of war. Lieutenant Ogle took out a patrol one dark night and found in his party one soldier without a rifle, for which he rebuked him in a savage whisper. Later on he discovered that it was Father Carpentier who had accompanied the patrol—he says to render spiritual first aid if anyone was wounded. “Yes,” I said, “that’s what the priest told the bishop: that he went to the horse races so as to be handy if one of the jockeys were thrown.”

Allen likes to tell stories on Donovan, for whom he has great admiration. One afternoon he came in from patrol very hungry after being away since early morning, and he dropped into Captain Buck’s shack near Hassavant Farm, which was also occupied by Colonel Donovan. “Captain Buck’s orderly promised me a roast beef sandwich and left the room to prepare it. I repeat I was very hungry and was anticipating with great pleasure the coming roast beef sandwich. In a few minutes the orderly returned with the food. It was a large sandwich with a luscious rare slice of roast beef protruding from the slices of bread, and with it the orderly brought a cup of coffee which he placed with the sandwich on the table. Precisely at this moment a soldier entered with two prisoners; one a small Roumanian about sixteen years of age, and the other a tall, gaunt, dirty looking soldier, both members of a labor battalion. They had been lost in the retreat and had wandered several days in the woods, until encountering one of our patrols they had surrendered. Donovan grabs the sandwich with one hand and the cup of coffee with the other. The small boy got the sandwich and the old man the cup of coffee. I immediately protested ‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘it is against regulations to feed prisoners before they have been questioned at Division. You should not feed these men.’ ‘Allen,’ he said, ‘you ought to be ashamed of yourself. This poor little boy has been, wandering around in the woods for two days with nothing to eat.’ ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘that was my sandwich.’ ‘And you,’ he continued, ‘a great big healthy man, would take his meal away from him.’”

LA MARCHE

_September_ 26th

On September 17th our regiment was relieved by the Alabamas and the men were encamped altogether in the town of La Marche, which consists of one large _ferme_ with a few extra stone buildings and a number of wooden shacks which were constructed by the Germans. In the big farm house we are a happy party. Colonel Mitchell likes to have his officers around him and they share his feelings to the full. We have plenty of provisions, a good many of them German, and Staff and Field Officers are messing together. At table are Colonel Mitchell, Lieutenant Colonel Donovan, Majors Reilley, Anderson, Kelly and Lawrence, Captain Meaney, Adjutant, Captain Merle-Smith, Operations Officer, Lieutenant Rerat, Lieutenant Spencer and myself. If my fancy leads me to the open air I can walk down the road to Pannes where Captain Mangan with Kinney and Frank Smith are working away with their doughty mule-skinners, unless perchance the German shells chase them underground; or across the open field to the woods where our men are leading a lazy though muddy existence.

Various incidents, amusing or tragical as is the way of war, broke the comparative monotony of these ten days. There was a captive observation balloon just outside the village which evidently must have had a good view of the enemy because they were most anxious to get it down. No aeroplane succeeded in setting fire to it, so the Germans got after it with long range guns. One afternoon the fire got so hot that the chauffeur of the truck to which it was attached started down the road to get out of range with the big sausage still floating in the air at the end of its cable, the Germans increasing their range as their target moved. Sergeant Daly, the mess sergeant of the Machine Gun Company, was peacefully crossing the field on a lazy going mule unaware of what it was all about, when a German shell aimed at the aeroplane down the road passed with the speed and noise of a freight train about twenty feet above his head. The mule gave one leap forward, and Daly was not trying to stop him; and two thousand soldiers who had been watching the flight of the balloon burst into a tremendous laugh.

On the night of September 23rd, a large calibre German shell made a direct hit right into a shelter pit in the woods where five of the best men in our machine gun company were lying asleep; Sergeant Frank Gardella, who had won the D. S. C., Sergeant Harry P. Bruhn and Sergeant J. F. Flint, with Privates H. McCallum and William Drake, who was one of three brothers in the company. All five were blown out of the hole by the concussion as high as the lower branches of the trees. Sergeant Flint landed, bruised and stunned, but untouched by the fragments. He gathered himself together and found Gardella killed instantly and the other three terribly wounded. He bound them up, calling for help, which was brought by Lieutenant De Lacour, and the three wounded men were gotten back to the hospital by Major Lawrence and Captain Dudley, but we had little hopes for them, and have since heard that they died of their wounds.

Jim Cassidy, Frankie Maguire and Jimmy Kelly found some German flour which they brought into the Headquarters Kitchen. They are a guileless looking trio and I cannot say to this day how deep a part they played in this affair. They gave the flour to Joe De Nair. Now Joseph Patrick De Nair has knocked around this world for more years than he will acknowledge to anybody—long enough at any rate, to have learned how to turn his hand to anything; and he announced his intention of making pancakes for all hands, especially me. Everybody was set to work under Joe’s direction. Fred Miller and Anderson salvaged some molasses. Al Ettinger was hustled off on his motorcycle to Pannes to use my name with Lieutenant Scheffler for some oleo, of which we were short. Pat Sharkey rustled wood; Frank Clason built a fire and John Brickley flattened and polished a tin for Joe’s cooking. Bill Hanley and Humphrey were appointed assistant chefs. There was a group around me consisting of Proctor, Holt, Katz and Proudfoot, and Joe came over: “All you ginks have got to work. There are no guests around here except Father Duffy.” I told him they had been reading an article in the “Daily Mail” on the Irish question and were asking me about it. That saved them, for Ireland counted more with Joe than even the success of his pancakes.

The bustling preliminaries were finally completed and Joe proceeded to make his batter. He poured it on the tin and waited, turning-spoon in hand until, like St. Lawrence, it should be done on one side. Then with the air of an artist, he turned his first pancake with a flourish. It landed on the pan with a bang like a shell striking an elephant hut. “What the——,” muttered Joe, as he picked up the results of his labor. “Well I’ll be——!” “What’s the matter Joe?” I asked, conscious that something was going wrong and that my presence deprived him of the normal outlet for his feelings. “What’s the matter. Where’s those dummed kids?” “Well, what is the matter?” “What’s the matter. What’s the matter? The stuff they gave me for flour is plaster of Paris. That’s what’s the matter. Where the—— Oh for Heaven’s sake, Father, go inside until I can let myself spill.”

BOIS DE MONTFAUCON

_October_ 10th.

On September 27th, we relieved the 84th Brigade in the line, taking over the positions of the Iowas in subsector Marimbois, Major Anderson’s battalion being in the forward position. It was the usual business of patrolling until September 30th, when our Division was relieved in the Sector by the 89th, and withdrew to the Bois de la Belle Ozière, a little south of where we were before. Next morning, October 1st, we marched about 10 kilometers to our embussing point, where we found a tremendously large fleet of camions driven by the little Chinks whom our fellows now call the undertakers, because they associate them with deaths and burials.

Here I met an old friend, George Boothby of the New York _World_, who had finally succeeded in getting over to the war by entering the publicity department of the Y. M. C. A. The uniform with the red triangle somehow caused a smile when seen on George, but he was the first to grin.

We got started at four o’clock in the afternoon and spent the whole of a freezing night on the journey, most of it lying along the Voie Sacrée or Sacred Way, over which the supplies and reinforcements had been sent which saved Verdun. Our destination was Mondrecourt where we remained until October 4th, when we marched by daylight to Jubécourt. On October 5th we moved north again, an interminable march, with all the infantry in the Division going up on one mean road, to the woods of Montfaucon.

I had it easy myself because Colonel Mitchell with his usual fine way of doing a courtesy, asked me as a favor to get the automobile and some personal baggage through, as he was going mounted. So Brown and Dayton and myself got there by better roads ahead of the rest and found ourselves at the headquarters of the 32nd Division, where Colonel Callan and Father Dunnigan gave me a hospitable welcome. When I heard “32nd Division,” my first thought was “Now I can see McCoy again,” as he had been made General of the 63rd Brigade, but it was two days before I descried his familiar figure crowned with the French _casque_, a parting gift from the Comte de Chambrun when he left Chaumont. It was a memorable meeting, but all too short, for he had his brigade in line to look after.

The woods of Montfaucon, which lie in the area of the great battles for Verdun, fills exactly a civilian’s idea of what No Man’s Land should look like. In its day it was a fine forest of thick-girthed trees, but they had been battered by long cannonading until not one of them was as nature had fashioned it. Big branches had been torn off and heavy trees knocked to the ground. The shell holes lay close together like pock marks on a badly pitted face. It was almost impossible to find a level spot to pitch a small pup tent. Owing to recent rains and the long occupation of the woods by troops, both our own and the enemy’s, the place was in a bad state of sanitation. The roads, too, were bad and difficult for all kinds of traffic,

## particularly motor traffic. There were very few dugouts, all of

them small and most of them dirty and wet. Division headquarters established itself in trucks as being better than any existing accommodations. General Lenihan kindly took me in and gave me a share in the dugout occupied by himself and Lieutenant Grose. Together we made a happy week of it in spite of bad conditions.

While here we received word that the Germans had asked for an armistice. The older and wiser heads amongst us felt quite certain that they would not get what they had asked for until they were reduced to a more humble spirit; but we were worried about the effect it might have on the morale of the troops, because it would be

## particularly hard for soldiers to face another big battle if they had

made up their minds that the fighting was over. So Colonels Mitchell and Donovan asked me to go amongst the men, sound them out, and set them right if necessary. It was an easy commission. One of the first men I spoke to was Vincent Mulholland, one of my parish recruits and now 1st Sergeant of Company B. In answer to my first question he replied “Of course I would like to see the war over, but not while the old regiment is back here in army corps reserve. I want to see this war end with the 69th right out in the front line, going strong.” Not everybody was as emphatic as that, but I was able to make a very assured report that the old timers at least would go into a battle with the same spirit they had at Champagne or the Ourcq or St. Mihiel.

Jack Mangan has left us to take charge of the organization of the Headquarters Battalion of the new Second Army at Toul. Colonel Haskell, who is assistant Chief of Staff in the 2nd Army, visited us during our journey from Baccarat to Chalons and got a great reception from the old-timers. Even then, he had his eye on Mangan and wanted him to come with him. There is nothing that so much impresses me as a proof of the absolute sense of duty and loyalty of our old officers to this regiment as the attitude which they invariably take concerning invitations to improve their rank and fortunes by going elsewhere. The younger officers have no choice in the matter. We have been sending home as instructors a few of them each month, and have lost a large number of very efficient lieutenants. But those who are free to exercise any choice invariably view the opportunity as a question of conscience and put the matter up to me. Major McKenna (then Captain) did this in the Lunéville area when he had a chance for the office of Judge Advocate. In the same spirit Mangan said he would not quit to join Haskell unless I decided that the Regiment could spare him. My decision was that he could not go until Kinney was made a Captain, as I knew that the latter could fill admirably the extremely important post of R. S. O.

The hardest battle of all has been to keep Donovan with the Regiment, but he has made that fight himself, as there is no place else in the world that would tempt him for a minute. He has dodged orders to send him to Staff College (which would inevitably mean a transfer after he was finished), orders to go on special duties, invitations or suggestions to receive promotion by transfer. General Menoher and Colonel MacArthur have been always alert to take up the battle to retain him with us. He and I tramped the muddy road tonight while he disburdened himself of a new worry. The Provost Marshal General wants an assistant who is at once a good lawyer and a keen soldier, with a knowledge of French, and he has demanded that Donovan be sent to him. Colonel Hughes, our new Chief of Staff, has done his best to block it; but he has been informed by General Headquarters that the authorities of the 42nd Division have managed to evade the wishes of military authority in Colonel Donovan’s case six times already and that this order is peremptory. All that General Menoher has been able to do is to hold him until the next battle is over. Donovan is disgusted and sore for the first time in my knowledge of him.

Every now and then there is some desultory shelling in the woods, but the only sight of warfare that we get is in the sky. Our balloons must be well placed, because the German flyers have been very persistent in their attempts to bring them down, and their efforts are too often successful. Today, we saw a German aviator perform a feat which was one of the most daring things that any of us has seen during the war. The rapid and sustained discharge of anti-aircraft guns (which have their own unmistakable note) brought everybody to the edge of the woods. Guided by puffs of white or black smoke which dotted the sky above us, we were able to detect a single German plane headed unswervingly towards us, and not flying very high either. Our own planes were swooping towards him, but he came right on, without any change of altitude or direction. He passed over our line of balloons, and then turned abruptly and dived towards the one nearest us, throwing his dart and passing on. The flames did not show at once, and evidently noticing this, he checked his flight and started back to finish the job. Just then the flames burst up, and he wheeled in air to make his escape. Soldiers in combat divisions are the best sports in the world. There must have been twenty thousand of them watching this daring exploit of an enemy, and I feel certain there was not a man amongst them who did not murmur “I hope to God the beggar gets away.” There were a dozen of our planes after him by this time and before he reached his own lines they forced him to earth, landing in safety.

As I make my rounds amongst the men scattered through the woods, I find many whose names I do not know. In the original regiment I knew practically everyone by his name; but through a variety of causes half of those men are no longer with us and their places have been taken by others, with whom, on account of our constant motion, it has been impossible to get acquainted.

The wearing down of a regiment, even outside of battle, is constant. Brigade and Division Headquarters select those that they want for their own work, bright sergeants are sent off to Army Candidate’s School to be trained for officers, and are invariably sent to other divisions. There is a constant trickle of sick men to hospitals, from which many never return to us; and most of all, there are the tremendous losses that a regiment, particularly an infantry regiment, has to pay in battle. Our total losses in action of killed, wounded and missing up to the present are about 2,600 men. Taking all causes into consideration nearly 3,000 of our original men have been dropped, at least temporarily, from our rolls since we came to France. If none of them had returned there would be now only 600 of them left, but as a matter of fact, nearly all of our wounded who have graduated into the “Fit for Service” class have insisted on their right to come back. So about half of our present total of 2,983 men are of the original outfit. It is easy to pick them out by glancing down a company roster, because our serial numbers are all under 100,000 while the new men have numbers running into the millions.

I do not find that the spirit of the regiment as a whole has changed on account of these fresh accessions. A regiment is largely what its officers and non-coms make it. Practically all of our present officers have been through all the fights with us and have gained their present ranks in battle, and the non-coms are naturally men of the original regiment who have earned their stripes by good soldiering in camp and in the field. These men are the custodians of regimental pride and regimental tradition, and their spirit is communicated to or imposed upon the newcomers.

Most of these newcomers moreover, have proved themselves excellent material. The first few that were sent us in Lunéville were poor foreigners from the coal mining districts who could scarcely speak English, but in Baccarat we got three hundred men from Camp Devens who were a fine lot of fellows, and, now that they have gone through the big fights with us, are not to be distinguished in any way from the original volunteers. We received a lot of first class men also from the Kentucky-Tennessee and the Texas-Oklahoma National Guard organizations, among the latter being a number of Indians. All of these replacements who have gone through battles with us are now absolutely part and parcel of the 165th Infantry and have created bonds of battle friendship with our Irish and New York lads which are closer than any family tie can be.

In any extended campaign it is a very rare soldier who does not get the experience of being in a hospital at least once; although we could not possibly spend as much time in them as rumors that they get at home make our people think we do. I myself have been killed or wounded at least a dozen times. The other day Lester Sullivan, who comes from my parish, looked up from a letter he was reading and said to me “Father Duffy if you had ten thousand dollars insurance for every time you were killed you’d never need to work for the rest of your life.”

After battles of course they are being sent back by hundreds and thousands. Jim Healey was telling me a yarn which hits off a type of humor that is characteristic of the American. A hospital train pulled into a French station with its doors and windows and platforms crowded with “walking cases” and stopped on a track alongside a similar train with the same kind of a crowd looking out. “Where are youse guys from?” shouted one of the soldiers. “Fohty-second Division. Whey you all from?” “De rest of de Forty-second Division” came the reply—everybody shouting with laughter at this bit of delicate and tender humor.

Hospitals thus become, like London coffee houses in the 18th century, the clearing houses of news and the creators of public opinion. They are the only place where soldiers meet men who do not belong to their own Division; in fact, soldiers seldom meet anybody outside their own regiment and many a man’s friendships do not extend beyond his company. But in hospitals, and more particularly in convalescent and casual camps, where they are able to move around, they come into touch with the whole American Expeditionary Force. Battles are discussed, organizations criticized, reputations of officers made or unmade.

It is in these places also that the sentiment for one’s own Division grows strong. Regiments may fight with each other within the Division, but as opposed to other Divisions they present a united front. The regulars and marines in the famous 2nd Division have their own little differences, but they do not show when they come up against men from the 1st, 26th, or 42nd. Our own New Yorks and Alabamas started off with a small family row at Camp Mills which has been utterly forgotten, partly because they have always been fighting side by side on every battle front and have grown to admire each other, but even more, I suspect, because they have formed ties of blood brotherhood back in convalescent camps by getting together to wallop the marines.

Every soldier in a combat division thinks that his own division is doing all the work and getting none of the credit. But then I never met a soldier yet who does not say “It’s a funny thing that my platoon always happens to get the dirty details.” This much is true—that there is a number of divisions which can be counted on the fingers of one’s two hands that have been kept right up against the buzz-saw ever since last June. Of course we are not proper judges of the policies or exigencies of the high command, but everybody who is in touch with men knows that they would be better fitted for their work in the line if they could be taken out for a few weeks rest. The discomforts and anxieties of life at the front are cumulative, and men gradually get fretful and grouchy as well as run down physically. It is surprising to see how quickly they recuperate in a rest area. We ought to be taken out of these woods to some more civilized place where the men can go on leave or hang around billets, writing letters, reading, cleaning equipment and forgetting all about battle and bloodshed, and getting freshened up mentally and physically. As one fellow said to me “I’d like to get somewhere where I could hear a hen cackle and see a kid run across the road. I’d like to be where I could get a change from corn-willie by going off some evening with a few of the fellows and getting some old French lady to cook us up some oofs (_oeufs_) and _pommes frites_, with a bottle of red ink to wash it down.”

We knew that there had been going on for three weeks now a battle for the possession of all this Argonne District, in which many American Divisions were taking part, and amongst them our sturdy fellow citizens from New York, the 77th Division, who had succeeded us at Baccarat and in the Château Thierry Sector. We expected that we would be called upon to relieve the 32nd Division which was fighting just in front of us. But today, October 10th, came orders to proceed to the west along the river Aire for the relief of the 1st Division.

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