CHAPTER IX

THE ARGONNE OFFENSIVE

In the general operation which was shared in by all the Allied armies in France to turn the German retreat into a rout, the most difficult and most important task was assigned to the Americans. The Belgians, British and French could only exercise a frontal pressure on the enemy except for a few local salients which might be created here and there. But if the American army could smash their resistance on the southeast end of the German lines, and particularly if it could break through so as to capture the military trunk line which ran through Sedan to their depot at Metz, large bodies of Germans farther to the west would be brought close to the point of surrender. Naturally, the German Commanders knew this as well as Marshal Foch or General Pershing and they massed their defenses at the point of greatest danger. To the civilian mind, when troops are advancing ten or fifteen kilometers a day and capturing prisoners and guns, they are heroes of tremendous battles. But soldiers know that in the tremendous battles an advance of two or three kilometers is a big gain, to be paid for at a great cost of human life. We had an example of the first kind at Saint Mihiel, which loomed large in the imagination of the folks at home, but which to the soldiers was a walkover. The Argonne was no walkover during the first five weeks.

The nature of the country made it easy to defend, hard to capture. It is a hilly country—and that always means plenty of woods. The hills, moreover, connect themselves up in a general east and west direction and the advance had to be made by conquering a series of heights. When we went into the fight the line-up of Divisions nearest to us were the 77th, on the extreme left, going up through the forest, the 82nd on the other side of the Aire, the 1st, which we relieved, and on our right, the 32nd. Further east were other divisions extending up to the Meuse, while yet other bodies of Americans were working to cross that river and fight their way up its eastern bank.

In the sector on the east side of the Aire, which we now took over, the 35th Division had been first to go in. At great sacrifice it had captured successive villages and ridges, but had finally been repulsed on the last hill before reaching Exermont and had been forced to fall back. Then the old reliables of the 1st Division, who had been our first troops to arrive in France and the first to engage with the enemy at Cantigny, were called upon to do their share. They did it, and more than their share. They captured the ridges up to Exermont and Fleville and Sommerance, swept the Germans off the Cote de Maldah and there established their lines at the price of half the infantry in the Division.

Now it was our turn. If the others had a hard task, ours was certainly no easier, because it was given to us to break the final and long prepared line of German defenses, called the Kriemhilde Stellung.

We marched to our new positions on October 11th, our strength at the time being 53 officers and a little less than 3,000 men. Regimental headquarters were set up at Exermont, the Supply Company being down the road at Apremont. The first day the support and reserve battalions were in a wide gully to the east, called Chaudron Farm. The 3rd battalion effected the relief on the front line, Major Reilley commanding, Lieutenant Heller, Adjutant, Company I under Captain Michael J. Walsh, who had insisted on giving up the Headquarters Company and taking a line Company so that he could take part himself in the fighting; Company K under Lieutenant Guignon; Company L, Captain Given, Company M, Captain Rowley. In support was the 1st Battalion now commanded by Major Kelly, Lieutenant O’Connor, Adjutant, Lieutenant Connelly being Intelligence Officer. The commanders of A, B, C, and D, being Lieutenant W. Hutchinson, Lieutenant Clifford, Captain Bootz and Captain Buck. Second Battalion under Major Anderson, Lieutenant Fechheimer, Adjutant, with E, F, G and H under Captain Conners, Captain Marsh, Captain Stout and Lieutenant Ogle.

As the companies marched up to take their place in line I stood on a rising ground in the bleak and open plain to perform my own duties in their regard, which for many of them would be the last time. The frequently recurring rows of rude crosses which marked the last resting places of many brave lads of the 1st Division were an eloquent sermon on death; so that no words of warning from me were needed and I was able to do my holy business in a matter of fact way which soldiers like better than being preached at. General Lenihan is fond of quoting Private Terence Mulvaney’s remark: “What I like about the old church is that she’s so remarkable regimental in her fittin’s.”

In former days men massed together for battle; today they scatter. It is interesting to watch the deliberate disintegration of a Division as it approaches the front line. It breaks into brigades and into regiments for convenience in using the roads. Then the regiments are broken into battalions, usually, according to the stock phrase “echeloned in depth” that is, one on the line, one in support and one in reserve. The battalion breaks up into companies as it gets nearer the front; and the companies, when they reach the point where they are likely to be under shell fire, separate into platoons with considerable distance between them. In action men advance with generous intervals between.

When they get close to the enemy the advance is made by frequent rushes, about a fourth of the men in a platoon running forward, taking advantage of the ground, while their comrades keep the enemy’s heads down by their fire, until all of them can get close. In its last stages the warfare of these small groups is more like the Indian fighting in which the first General of our Republic learned the profession of arms, than anything which the imagination of civilians pictures it. To take machine gun nests—I am not speaking of regularly wired and entrenched positions which it is the business of artillery to reduce before the infantry essays them—it is often a matter of individual courage and strategy. Sometimes the fire of a platoon can reduce the number of the gunners or make the less hardy of them keep their heads down so that the pieces cannot be properly handled; but often the resistance is overcome by a single sharp-shooter firing from the elbow of a tree, or by some daring fellow who works his way across hollows which are barely deep enough to protect him from fire, or up a gully or watercourse, until he is near enough to throw hand grenades. Then it is all over.

Our supply company and band were stationed at the Ferme de l’Esperance on the Aire River. Going north along the river road as far as Fleville one finds a road going to the right through a deep defile which leads to the village of Exermont about a mile and a half away. On the north and on the south the view is bounded by steep hills which have been captured by the 1st Division. To the north a muddy trail winds around the base of hill 247 leading to a wide, rough, partly wooded plain. This was covered with the bodies of the brave soldiers of the 1st Division, more thickly than I have seen anywhere else with the exception of the hill where lay our 3rd Battalion north of the Ourcq. There were many German wooden shelters at the base of the hill to the right, with bodies of dead Germans, many of them killed in hand to hand conflict.

Our 3rd Battalion took over the front line on the Cote de Maldah, a maze of woods and ravines. Companies M and I were on the twin knolls of the Cote, K and L in the woods behind. To their left were the Ohios at Sommerance, while the Alabamas and Iowas held positions similar to our own on hills 263 and 269. Our 2nd Battalion was in a shrubby woods to the rear, and the 1st Battalion was originally held under protection of the hill just outside of Exermont, in which town were the headquarters of the 165th and 166th and the Regimental Dressing Stations of the 165th and 167th. Our artillery, which had been in support of the 32nd Division, rejoined us on October 13th, making a hard, forced march with animals that had been reduced in strength and numbers by our continuous warfare. Colonel Henry Reilly, a West Point graduate, and a man of great intelligence and force of character, was appointed to direct the operations of the artillery brigade, leaving Lieutenant Colonel Redden to take charge of his own regiment, the 149th Field Artillery. The artillery of the 1st division also remained to assist in the sector.

The German main line of defense—the Kriemhilde Stellung, was about three kilometers in front of our brigade but less than two in front of the 84th Brigade. It was a well prepared and strongly wired position consisting of three lines of wires and trenches. The first rows of wire were breast high and as much as twenty feet wide, all bound together in small squares by iron supports so that it was almost impossible for artillery to destroy it unless the whole ground were beaten flat. Back of this were good trenches about four feet deep with machine gun shelters carefully prepared. Behind this front line at thirty yards intervals they had two other lines with lower wire and shallower trenches. Starting from our left these trenches ran from west to east on our side of two small villages called St. Georges and Landres et St. Georges. From in front of the latter village the wire turned in a southeasterly direction towards us, following the lowest slope of the Cote de Chatillon and embracing LaMusarde Ferme, thence swinging east again to take in the Tuilerie Ferme. The Cote de Chatillon was a high wooded knoll which commanded the terrain to west and south.

The task of the 84th Brigade was to work their way through the Bois de Romagne and capture the two farms and the Cote de Chatillon. Our brigade front was of a different character, and with its own

## particular kind of difficulty. The terrain was the most nearly level

section we had seen in this country, and was mostly open, though with irregular patches of woods. From the Cote de Maldah it sloped off towards the north to a small brook that ran in a general east to west direction through ground that was a bit swampier than the rest; and from there, rising gradually, up to the German wire. A good road with a bridge over the brook ran northeast and southwest between Sommerance and Landres et St. Georges. At the beginning it lay entirely in the Ohio sector but our advance to the north would bring us astride of it.

Our attack had to be made over open ground with the purpose of carrying by direct assault wired entrenchments. It was the warfare of 1916 and 1917 over again, and everybody knows from the numerous British and French accounts of such action that it can be accomplished only by tremendous artillery preparation, and that even then gains must be made at a great loss of Infantry. But a glance at the maps, in which blue dotted lines represented the enemy wire, showed us that we had greater danger to fear than the resistance which would come from our direct front. The blue dots ran straight across the right of the Ohio front and all of ours, and then swung in a southerly direction for a kilometer or more. They prophesied eloquently to anyone who had the slightest knowledge of war that our main danger was to come from our right flank unless that hill could be taken first. Donovan’s desire was to advance until we would be on a level with the wire to our right, hold that line with a sufficient number of troops to guard against counter attack, and throw in our main strength on the left of the 84th Brigade, they striking from the south and we from the west until the Cote de Chatillon should be taken. Continuing the advance from there, we could take Landres et St. Georges from the east. The orders however were to attack, head on, with four regiments abreast. The 84th Brigade was given three hours start to fight their way through the southernmost German defences. It was calculated that they could get far enough forward during this time so that both brigades could keep advancing in even line.

Preparations for the assault were made difficult by weather conditions. The sun never shone and a large part of the time it rained steadily. It was difficult to observe the enemy lines or their troop movements from balloons, and the advantage of aeroplanes was theirs—not ours. The abominable condition of the roads made it impossible to get sufficient ammunition forward and our artillery was working under a great handicap. Facilities for communication with the front line were poor throughout the whole action. The wire, strung along the wet ground, was all the time getting out of order; horses were few and runners had to make their way back through seas of mud, which also caused untold difficulty in getting forward food and ammunition.

However, everything was planned as well as possible under the conditions. It was arranged to have tanks to help our men get through the wire. The gas and flame Engineers were also to render assistance, and Colonel Johnson sent detachments of his Engineers (for whom I have supplied a motto from an old song: “Aisy wid the Shovel and Handy with the Gun”) to go with the Infantry as wire-cutters, and to follow up to repair roads.

During the two days in which these plans were being made the battle

## activity on both sides was conducted mainly by the artillery. Company

G had barely occupied its position in the woods on the evening of October 11th, when it was subjected to a heavy shelling, with the loss of M. Black killed and Sergeant Edward McNamara, Corporal Framan, Kessler, Dan McSherry and William McManus wounded. Young Jim Gordon of Company E was running for a litter to carry off the wounded when a fragment from a gas shell struck him in the chest and killed him instantly. Arthur Brown of Company I was killed on the Cote de Maldah. Early on the morning of the 12th the men of Company C who were lying along the southern bases of the hill not far from a battery of artillery which the enemy were trying to get, had some shells dropped amongst them and H. Harbison, L. Jones and Frank Foley were killed and Gorman and others wounded.

Lieutenant Colonel Donovan was assigned by Colonel Mitchell to have general charge of the situation at the front while he with Captain Merle-Smith as operations officer and Captain Meaney as Adjutant, handled it from the P. C. in Exermont. Lieutenant Lawrence Irving, in charge of the Intelligence Section, was at the observation post.

Our artillery preparations for the assault were begun at 3:30 on the morning of October 14th. Our brigade, in touch with the 82nd Division on our left, jumped off at 8:30 in the same morning. In our regiment Companies I and M were in advance, with K and L in immediate support, a company of the Wisconsin Machine Gunners being with them and our 2nd Battalion supplying details for carrying ammunition, etc. The front wave had not gotten well started before it was evident that the enemy were expecting an attack, and from the beginning our men went forward through steady shell fire which increased as their purpose became more clearly manifested. Two enemy aeroplanes flew along the lines of our Division discharging machine guns and no doubt keeping their own artillery posted on the results of their fire. But, in spite of losses, our men kept going forward, stimulated by the encouragement of Major Reilley and his Company Commanders Walsh, Guignon, Given and Rowley. They had about two miles to go before reaching the enemy’s wire.

Captain Rowley with Company M was to the left alongside of the Ohios and Captain Michael Walsh to the right, and at the beginning in touch with the Alabamas, a touch which was soon lost, as the latter regiment came to close grips with the enemy at a point further south than our point of attack, and our companies pushing northward found it difficult to maintain liaison with them. The amount of time assigned to the 84th Brigade to capture Hill 288, the Tuilerie Farm, and the defenses at the base of the Cote de Chatillon was not sufficient for the magnitude of the task that was given them to accomplish. By noon their line had passed Hill 288 and was close to the enemy outposts, but at that time our Brigade was already at their Second Objective. From the outset the most destructive fire we had to undergo came from machine guns firing from this Cote to our right and enfilading our whole line; and the further forward we got the more destructive it became. By 1 o’clock half of the third battalion had been killed or wounded. Colonel Donovan, with Lieutenants Wheatley and Betty, and Major Reilley with Lieutenant Heller and Sergeant Courtney, were all over the field sustaining the spirits of the men.

There is no tougher experience than that of advancing over a considerable distance under fire. The trouble is that the men are being shot down by an enemy whom they cannot see. They reply with their rifles and machine guns, but have only the vaguest hope that they are accomplishing anything more than disconcerting their opponents. When a soldier gets where he can see the foe he develops a sort of hunter’s exhilaration. His blood warms up and he actually forgets that the other fellow is shooting at him. Advancing in the open against trenches he has only the sensations of the hunted. Heavy fire begins to rain around them, men are hit, the line drops, each man in whatever shelter he can find. Then the order is given to rise and go forward again; spurts of dust are kicked up, the first three or four men to advance walk into the line of bullets and go down before they have gone ten feet. And the others who have seen them fall must go straight ahead and take that same deadly chance, never knowing when they themselves will stop a German missile. It takes undaunted leadership and tremendous courage to keep going forward under such conditions.

That leadership the men possessed in their battalion commander and those under him. Captain Rowley, a quiet, determined man, kept M Company moving forward until he was knocked senseless by a tree which was blown down upon him through the explosion of a shell. His place was taken by Lieutenant Collier, who was shortly afterwards also wounded, and Lieutenant Don Elliott found himself in command. Company I was led by Captain Mike Walsh until he received a long tearing wound through the arm. He left his Company under command of Lieutenant Roderick Hutchinson, who led the company until he too was wounded, and started back alone to the Dressing-Station under the slope of the hill, to have his wound bandaged up. On his way back to the line he was hit once more and instantly killed. Nobody knew that he was killed until his body was discovered by Edward Healy, who buried him; and was shortly afterwards killed himself. It was well for his Company that they did not know the misfortune they had sustained because no loss in our whole campaign was more deeply felt than that of this rugged, whole-souled soldier and leader of men. Companies L and K, under Captain Given and Lieutenant Guignon, were also having their troubles, especially Company K under the daring leadership of its youthful commander. In all of the companies there was great loss amongst our old time non-coms as they moved around looking after the men instead of taking shelter with them.

But the outstanding figure in the mind of every officer and man was Lieutenant Colonel William J. Donovan. Donovan is one of the few men I know who really enjoys a battle. He goes into it in exactly the frame of mind that he had as a college man when he marched out on the gridiron before a football game, and his one thought throughout is to push his way through. “Cool” is the word the men use of him and “Cool” is their highest epithet of praise for a man of daring, resolution and indifference to danger. He moved out from the Cote de Maldah at the beginning of the attack with his headquarters group, just behind the supporting companies—his proper place, though he had no intention of remaining there if he could do more efficient work further forward. He had prepared himself for the task he had determined on in a characteristic way. Instead of taking off all signs of rank, as officers are supposed to do to avoid being made a mark for sharp-shooters, he had donned a Sam Brown belt with double shoulder straps, so that none of his men could miss knowing who he was; that the enemy also would pick him out was to him a matter of serene indifference. As soon as the advance began to slow up under the heavy losses, he passed to the front line of the leading elements. The motto of the Donovan clan must be “Come on.” It was “Come on, fellows, it’s better ahead than it is here,” or “Come on, we’ll have them on the run before long,” or with his arm across the shoulder of some poor chap who looked worried, “Come on, old sport, nobody in this Regiment was ever afraid.” He would stand out in front of the men lying in shell holes into which he had ordered them, and read his map unconcernedly with the Machine-gun bullets kicking up spurts of dust around his feet; and would turn smilingly, “Come on now, men, they can’t hit me and they won’t hit you.” It was more like a Civil War picture than anything we have seen in this fighting to watch the line of troops rushing forward led by their Commander.

But their task was more than any battalion could perform. The conditions on the right made it impossible to reach the wire in front with strength enough to break through it. The 84th Brigade was doing heroic work, but it was to take two days more of tremendously hard fighting for them before the Cote de Chatillon could be reduced. The nature of the fighting turned their front obliquely in a northeast direction, while our Brigade was advancing due north. Major Norris of the Alabamas filled in the gap between our right and their left during the afternoon, thus insuring against an attack from the Germans which might break through our line. Their brigade captured Hill 288 that day but was held up in front of the Tuilerie Farm. It was not until the evening of the 16th and by continuous and desperate fighting that our gallant brothers of the 84th Brigade pounded their way to the crest of the Cote de Chatillon.

In the afternoon, after six hours of battle, Donovan reported that the 3rd Battalion, which had gotten up to the slopes under the German wire, was too badly shot up to be able to push through. He requested an artillery barrage of an hour and a half to keep the Germans distracted while he withdrew the 3rd Battalion carrying their wounded, through the 1st Battalion under Major Kelly, who would take their place. At dusk Kelly made his advance by infiltration, Company C on the left, Company D on the right. The men stole forward, losing heavily but taking advantage of every inequality in the surface of the ground. Towards the right of our position a rough wagon road run up through a draw between two gradual slopes and just before it reached the main road between Sommerance and Landres it passed through a deep cut, in some places eight feet deep, part of which was included in the enemy’s wire defenses.

The battalion fought its way right up to the enemy’s wire, only to find it an impassable barrier. Our artillery fire had not made a break in it anywhere, as for lack of aeroplanes to register the effects of their work they had been shooting entirely by the map. Groups of our lads dashed up to the wire only to be shot down to the last man. Some ran through a passage made for the roadway, the only possible method of getting through, but this of course was absolutely covered by the German guns, and every man that went through it was shot and, if not killed outright, taken prisoner. Soldiers of ours and of the Engineers with wire-cutting tools lay on their faces working madly to cut through the strands, while riflemen and grenadiers alongside of them tried to beat down the resistance. But they were in a perfect hail of bullets from front and flank, and every last man was killed or wounded. Further back was a concentration of artillery fire, of bursting shells and groans and death, that made the advance of the support platoons a veritable hell.

The attackers finally fell back a short distance to the deep cut in the road. Our second attempt to break through had failed. Major Kelly with Lieutenant Connelly and parts of companies A and C held this place as a vantage point to make a third attempt in the morning. Bootz was in charge on the left of the main road. About one hundred and fifty yards south of the wire the ground sloped, and on this reverse slope Colonel Donovan established his P. C., with Lieutenant Betty as his adjutant, Wheatley having been wounded. With him also were detachments from the Headquarters and Machine Gun Companies under Lieutenant Devine and Sergeants Sheahan, Heins, Leo Mullin, Doherty and Gillespie. During the night, accompanied by Sergeant Major Bernard White, the Colonel himself scouted up to the enemy wire to examine the conditions for the next days’ attack. Tanks were promised to roll through the wire, shoot up the machine gun nests and make a passage for the infantry. Morning came but no tanks in sight. Lieutenant Grose and Boberg and Brosnan of Brigade Headquarters were scouring the roads in search of them. It took two hours to get a message back, as the telephone was out. The artillery barrage ran its appointed course and still no tanks. Kelly once more made his attack, under conditions that he soon discovered to be impossible for success. Every man that reached the wire was hit, and losses were heavy in his elements further back.

About half an hour after the advance began a rifle bullet struck Colonel Donovan in the leg, going through the bone and rendering him helpless. He would have ordered anybody else to be evacuated, but he refused to allow himself to be removed. In answer to the protests of his Adjutant he swore he would stay there and see the thing through. So he lay in his shell-hole and continued to direct the battle. It was bound to be a one-sided one until the tanks should come up. Our men in the sunken road were being shelled by trench mortars which dropped their shells into the narrow cutting, spreading disaster. Our elements in the more open ground to the rear were under continuous shell fire as the enemy artillery had the exact ranges.

One of the creepiest feelings in war is that of being boxed in by artillery fire. A shell lands to the right of a group of men; no harm in that—all safe. Then one lands to the left, to front, or rear, and the next is closer in between them. Then everybody knows what is happening. That square is in for a shelling until nothing living inside it will escape except by miracle. This was the experience of many a group that morning, and Colonel Donovan and his headquarters men had to undergo it to the utmost. There always has to be a good deal of motion around a Post of Command, so this slope was made a special target. Shells fell all over it, and men were blown out of their holes by direct hits. Thus perished Patrick Connors of Company H and Color Sergeant William Sheahan, one of the finest and bravest of men. Donovan (and Major Anderson, who had come up and was lying in the same hole with him) escaped without further injury. Messages which had to be carried the short distance between his shell-hole and where Kelly was were sent with difficulty, many runners being killed or wounded. They had no direct connection with the rear. It was a lone fight, but both Donovan and Kelly were of the same mind, not to desist from the attack so long as any chance remained of putting it through.

Finally the tanks appeared coming up the road from Sommerance. Everybody was elated. At last there was a chance to get through that wire and mop up those infernal machine gun nests. But the tanks were under artillery fire, some of which was evidently doing damage to them, and with disappointment and disgust the Infantry saw them pause, turn about and rumble down the road to the rear. About 10:30 Captain Buck, who had been wounded and was on his way to the Dressing Station, brought word to Donovan that a counter-attack was evidently in preparation. Donovan’s party urged him to let them carry him back, but he swore at them, and ordered them to bring up more machine guns and the Stokes Mortars, under Lieutenant O’Donohue and Sergeant Fitzsimmons. These were disposed in an advantageous position, which means a dangerous one, and the counter-attack was smothered in its inception.

By 11:00 o’clock Donovan had decided that the 1st Battalion had too many losses to make it possible for them to get through. He told Anderson, who was with him, to return and bring forward his battalion so that Kelly’s men and their wounded could pass through.

Kelly, whose fighting blood was up, at first refused to retire, demanding written orders from his chief before he would give up his claim on the post of danger and glory. Donovan gave the orders and then permitted himself to be carried in, leaving the situation in the very capable hands of Major Anderson.

This relief was begun about noon with the aid of a heavy barrage from our artillery, of which nobody in the line knew the exact reason. The reason was that Brigade had ordered another attack which was originally scheduled for 11:15. Merle-Smith had protested that we had only one battalion left and that it was unwise to use up our last effectives. The only result was that the barrage was extended until noon, on Colonel Mitchell’s report that it would be impossible to get the orders forward to the front by 11:15. He sent the order in three different directions, but none of his messages arrived until the barrage which was to cover the attack had passed over and the relief of the 1st battalion had already begun.

The situation was a stalemate. We had made an advance of three kilometers under desperate conditions, but in spite of our losses and sacrifices we had failed to take our final objective. Well, success is not always the reward of courage. There is no military organization, no matter how famous, that has not its record of failures. In this war every regiment and division in the older armies has known times when it was impossible for them to do all that it was hoped they might be able to accomplish, and most especially when they were called upon to capture well defended trench positions.

Indeed, since 1915, no commanders in the older armies would dream of opposing to strongly wired and entrenched positions the naked breasts of their infantry. They take care that the wire, or part of it at least, is knocked down by artillery or laid flat by tanks before they ask unprotected riflemen to try conclusions with its defenders. When the wire is deep, and still intact, and strongly defended, the infantry can do little but hang their heroic bodies on it.

But we shall not dwell on this. The most glorious day in the history of our regiment in the Civil War was Fredericksburg, where the Old 69th in the Irish Brigade failed to capture the impregnable position on Marye’s Heights, though their dead with the green sprigs in their caps lay in rows before it. Landres et St. Georges is our Fredericksburg and the Kriemhilde Stellung our Marye’s Heights.

Whatever the mature judgment of history may decide about it, the opinion of our Corps Commander, General Summerall, was the one that counted most. He had been in command of the 1st Division when it made its attack in this same area, and was promoted after the battle to the duty of commanding the corps into which we moved. On the evening of the 15th he came to our brigade and made a visit to our P. C. in Exermont to demand why our final objective had not been taken. He was not well handled, Colonel Mitchell is a good soldier, and one of the finest men in the world, but he is entirely too modest to say a strong word in his own defense. Everybody is familiar with the kind of man who, in spite of the merits of his case, makes a poor figure on the witness stand. Donovan, who is an able lawyer and likes the give and take of battle, verbal or otherwise, would have sized up the Corps Commander’s mood and would have been planning a new attack with him after the first ten minutes. Captain Merle-Smith stated the facts of the case—the enfilading fire from the Cote de Chatillon, the unbroken wire in our front, the inadequacy of artillery against it on account of lack of air service to register their fire, the failure of the tanks and the extent of our losses. General Summerall was in no mood for argument. He wanted results, no matter how many men were killed, and he went away more dissatisfied than he had come.

As a result, by his orders the Division Commander relieved General Lenihan, Colonel Mitchell and also Captain Merle-Smith and Lieutenant Betty. As a matter of fact, a few days later when the ill humor had cooled down, Merle-Smith was sent back to us in command of a battalion and Betty also returned. When General Lenihan submitted his statement of the actions of his brigade (supplemented by messages and maps) to the Army commander, General Liggett, the latter assured him that he would name him to fill the first vacancy in a combat Brigade on the fighting line. This happened to be in the 77th Division, and two weeks later I met him at St. Juvin, still in line and going strong.

I do not wish to adopt too critical a tone with regard to the action of the Corps Commander. He is the military superior, and his judgment must be accepted even if it is wrong. Moreover, the loss of rank or position by officers weighs nothing with me in comparison with the two big factors: the proper handling of the men under them; and victory. In the heat of action every commanding general has to make rapid decisions. General Summerall came to one of these decisions in our regard, and we must abide by it.

But speaking as an historian, I think that his decision was wrong. It was a question of whether our Colonel was a man to get out of his regiment all that it was capable of. No person who knows him could ever accuse Harry D. Mitchell of losing his nerve in a battle. He liked a fight. He would have been happier out on the line as Lieutenant Colonel than back in his P. C., but he knew that there was nobody who could handle an attack and put courage and dash into it better than Colonel Donovan, and that any body of troops, even less experienced and willing than our own, would fight to the last under such leadership. Colonel Mitchell’s spirit was equally resolute and his orders crisp and strong. The whole regiment was devoted to him, and anxious to do their very best under his command. Indeed, amongst the older men, there was never any doubt about our ultimate success. It had taken five days to reduce the German resistance at the Ourcq, but we did it. With more help from artillery and tanks, they said, we can make it yet. The worst blow to our morale that we ever received was inflicted by the order relieving our Colonel.

The days following were anxious and gloomy ones for us, and our spirits were kept up by the unchanged dry humor of the man we were sorry to lose. When he was going, I said, to relieve the tension: “Now you are leaving us just when I had you running fine and I’ll have the job of breaking in another new Commanding Officer.” “Father,” he said, “this continuous change of Commanders would break up any other regiment I ever knew, but this old regiment can keep itself going on, no matter who commands it. It would get along on spirit and unity if it never had a Commanding Officer.”

Our new commander was Lieutenant Colonel Charles H. Dravo, who had been Division Machine Gun Officer. A number of us have known him for a considerable time and like him already, all the more because his first action was a report on conditions in the regiment which was aimed at the restoration of Colonel Mitchell to his command.

We had 53 officers going in at the Argonne and of those five were killed and fifteen wounded. Of those killed, after Captain Michael Walsh, the greatest sense of loss was felt at the death of Lieutenant Andrew Ellett of Company E, a soldier of unlimited courage. We did not know until long afterwards that Lieutenant Henry Davis, an officer of the same type, who had been wounded by shell fire on October 12th, died in Hospital. Two young officers who were comparatively newcomers in the Regiment, but who had made many friends, Lieutenants William O’Connor and John P. Orr, were killed on the field.

Headquarters Company lost, beside Color Sergeant Sheahan, Sergeant Edward J. Hussey, with Gustave Cosgrove and Charles Schulmerick and James Gaunthier, died of wounds.

Company A lost Sergeants James P. Duff and Fred. Stenson; Corporals Sidney H. Clark, Bernard McOwen, John Nallin, and Peter Barbee, David Bignell, William Cook, Jeremiah Dineen, Silas Donegan, Raymond Fitzpatrick, Charles Freeman, Frank Gilday, Lester Hess, Oscar Iverson, Edward Kelly, Lafayette Sharp, A. B. Harrell, William Smith, William Bress, Leo Tully, Charles Hallberg and Earl Wilder.

Company B lost Sergeants James Donnelly and John J. Mahoney; Corporal Thomas F. Winters; and Philip Benoit, Joseph Cole, Thomas J. Cronin, David Dempsey, Thomas Doyle, Dewey Houck, Jesse Johnson, Benjamin Robert, Ed Zeiss, Robert Wallack.

Company C lost Sergeant Edward Kearin; Corporals James Farnan, Arthur Potter, Daniel J. Slattery; and Avery Bridges, James Cody, Lloyd Harris, Clinton Hart, Martin Haugse, W. P. Hensel, Harold J. Hogan, Samuel Key, Daniel Medler, James Murnane, J. P. Myers, Charles Nabors, George O’Neill, Anthony Palumbo, William Fountain, J. H. Reneker, Edward Sheridan, Francis Conway and Thomas D. Vegeau.

Company D lost Corporals John J. Haggerty, Harry Adkins, William Boetger, Walter Crisp, Lacy Castor, J. W. McPherson, S. Scardino, W. Schmelick; and C. R. Kerl, William Cundiff, Frank Fall, George Saladucha, R. Robbins, Lawrence P. Mahoney, Peter J. Wollner, James W. Hasting, Fred Smith, John McNamara, Gordon Wynne, Charles Evers, James Butler, Edward Clement, Frank F. De Muth and Richard Fincke.

Company E lost Corporals William Dougherty, William Bechtold, Matthew Colgan, and George Failing; and Joseph Carroll, Frederick Gluck, Kennedy Hardy, Fred Conway and John Naughton.

Company F lost Arthur Armes, William M. Binkley, Charles Park, Fred Riddles, Joseph Woodlief, Joseph Elzear, Charles Ash.

Company G lost Daniel McSherry, Clarence Leonard, Charles Jacobs, Marvin Black, John Hemmer, Archie Lilles, William McManus.

Company H lost Corporal Clifford Wiltshire, Arthur N. Frank, Roger Folson, Clinton Bushey, J. Moscolo, Patrick Connors and heroic Sergeant John J. Walker.

Company I lost Sergeants Patrick Collins and William Harrison; Corporals Allen Crowe and Charles Stone; and A. G. Brown, Robert Cousens, Harry Gill, Edward F. Healy, Earnest Keith, Albert Mortenson, James Nealon, Gilbert Neely, George A. Peterson, Warren Regan, Thomas Stokey, Earl Thayer, Elcanor Yow, James Brown, Kenneth Trickett.

Company K lost Sergeants John J. Gavaghan and John J. Butler; Corporals Henry D. Hawxhurst and Thomas Madden; and N. Farhout, John P. Quinlan, James C. Wright, Joseph Barzare, John L. Sullivan, Francis Gioio, Daniel Buckley, Leonard Giarusso, Andrew Goeres, Claude Best, George Pennington.

Company L lost Corporal Edward Bloom and Joseph Metcalf, Fred Parr, Homer C. Coin, John H. Jumper, E. Epperly, John P. Ryan.

Company M lost Sergeant Peter Cooney; Corporals Charles T. Elson, Charles J. Brennan and William H. Crunden; and John T. Byrnes, Emmett Davidson, Frank Manning, H. F. Brumley, Patrick J. O’Neill, Charles Blagg, Joseph McAndrews.

Machine Gun Company lost Harry A. Dearing, Fred Martin, John A. Claire, Thomas McCabe, Thomas Norton, Leonard Hansen and John McKay.

Supply Company lost Giuseppe Mastromarino.

Nobody wants to talk very much about the recent battle. It was a nightmare that one does not care to recall. Individual acts do not stand out in actions of this kind. It is a case of everybody going ahead and taking the punishment. Everybody who stood up under it and kept carrying on deserves the laurel crown. Some men, however, stand out in more striking way than their companions, either through natural coolness and willingness to take added risks or by their acceptance of a position of command that the chances of battle offered them. Prominent amongst these is Sergeant Michael Fitzpatrick of Company L, whose brother Cornelius was killed at the Ourcq, and who took charge of a platoon and kept it going with great spirit after First Sergeant Wittlinger was wounded. The veteran First Sergeant of Company K, Tim Sullivan, was also wounded in this fight, and another of the Sullivans, John L., was killed. Company K also lost a fine character in Sergeant Gavaghan, a stalwart, heroic, innocent-minded young Irishman.

When Colonel Donovan called for the Stokes Mortars to repel the threatened counter-attack on the morning of the 15th, the pieces were set up under the slight protection of the sloping ground, but from this point the gunners could not observe the accuracy of their own fire. So Sergeant Fitzsimmons ran forward to the top of the slope, making himself an easy cockshot for the German gunners while he signalled to his own men his corrections on their aim. He escaped himself by a miracle and had the satisfaction of seeing the shells dropping right amongst the Germans who were gathering for the attack, and doing dreadful execution.

The battalion runners received great praise from everybody, as they had to take untold risks in moving from place to place without shelter. Ammunition carriers also had a dangerous task, those from Company H suffering severe losses. Amongst those killed were Corporal Clifford Wiltshire, a nice quiet boy who was married to Sergeant Winthrop’s sister; and Clinton Bushey, who once before was reported dead when out on the digging detail during the bombardment of July 15th. The sergeants we lost were all good men. Hussey was a clean-cut young athlete; Duff and Stenson of Company A were both very dependable men, as were also Sidney Clark, who did great work at the Ourcq, and Bernard McOwen, who had the Croix de Guerre. Donnelly and Mahoney of B had worked their way up from being privates by character and merit; and Tom Winters was also a good man. Eddie Kearin of C was one of the best liked youths in the regiment and James Farnan, a solid Irishman; Dougherty, Colgan, Bechtold and John Naughton of E have figured before and in these annals; also Fred Gluck, heroic litter-bearer. Company I was hard hit in the loss of Patrick Collins and William Harrison. Charlie Stone’s mother was the last person I shook hands with before our train left Camp Mills for the transport. Robert Cousens was killed while looking after his brother who had been wounded. Sergeant Peter Cooney of M Company was out with the regiment in ’98 and the three corporals, Elson, Brennan, and Crunden, were fine types of soldiers. Harry Dearing, John Claire, John McKay and the others from the Machine Gun Company will be sorely missed by their fellows.

With Colonel Donovan on the slope on October 15th were Sergeants of Headquarters Company and the Machine Gun Company. The Colonel told me later that the shell which blew Sergeant Sheahan heavenward took the legs off another Irish soldier who was with him. This I knew was Patrick Connors. Another Irishman jumped from a neighboring shell-hole, picked up the wounded man and kissed him, saying: “Me poor fellow, me poor fellow.” He put tourniquets on the stumps and then, unaided, started down the dangerous slope carrying him to the rear. Gillespie and Doherty tell me that this deed was performed by Corporal John Patrick Furey of Company H, who was in charge of the ammunition carriers for the machine guns. Furey had been wounded already himself, and the sergeants wanted him to go to the rear, but he refused, as so much depended on keeping our machine guns fed. When he was carrying Connors back they shouted to him to get in an ambulance when he got there; but later in the morning Furey reappeared alongside them after his two-mile journey in each direction; and this in spite of the fact that the strain of carrying his burden had reopened another wound that he got at the Ourcq. It was an exhibition of tender-heartedness and sheer courage that honors humanity.

Liaison men have to take untold risks in action of this kind. Of Major Kelly’s group in the sunken road nearly all were killed or wounded. Young Eddie Kelly (killed), Cody (killed), White (a hero in every battle), Liebowitz (wounded), and Matty Rice (often mentioned in these annals) worked their way from Kelly to Bootz or from Kelly to Donovan. When they were gone Corporal Thomas O’Kelly offered to deliver messages, but the Major wished to keep him by his side as a valuable man in combat. “Send me, Major,” insisted Tom, “I’ll carry it through, and if I don’t come back, you’ll know I’m dead.” He got it through alright, though wounded. He wanted to go back with a message, but Colonel Donovan ordered him to go back to the Dressing-Station. Every last man amongst these men deserves a citation for bravery.

In this battle one of the tasks which required the greatest courage was that of getting back the wounded when the retirement from the wire of the first battalion was ordered. Their rescuers had to abandon their pits and advance in full view of the enemy in their work of succor. The men who stood out in accomplishing this dangerous duty were in Company A: First Sergeant Thomas Sweeney and Sergeant John H. Dennelly; In Company C, First Sergeant Thomas P. O’Hagan, Sergeant Joseph Burns and Corporal Archie Reilly. Also Mike Donaldson, of Company I, who volunteered for this service and carried in man after man under heavy fire. Two of the liaison men from A Company, Matthew J. Kane and Martin Gill, as also John Hammond and Fred Craven of Company C, are also highly recommended for the cheerful and efficient manner in which they performed their perilous job.

Company M is very proud of its youngest corporal, little Jimmy Winestock, the mildest looking and most unassuming youth in the regiment. When troops advance under fire, there are always some who get strayed from their command, especially when their platoon leaders have been hit. Jimmy picked up all these stragglers from their companies, formed them into a detachment, issued his commands as if he were a major at least, and led them forward into the thick of

## action.

Major Lawrence very early in the battle had established his regimental dressing station as near to the front line as an ambulance could possibly go. There was absolutely no protection where he was, and his group which included Chaplain Holmes and the “Y” Athletic Director, Mr. Jewett, were exposed to danger from shells at all times. Father Hanley stuck as usual to his beloved Third Battalion and was out further living in a hole in the side of a hill, with Doctors Kilcourse, Martin, Mitchell, Cowett and our dental officers Bamford and Landrigan, who always rendered good work in battle.

When they were carrying Donovan in I met him at Lawrence’s station. He looked up from the stretcher and said to me smilingly, “Father, you’re a disappointed man. You expected to have the pleasure of burying me over here.” “I certainly did, Bill, and you are a lucky dog to get off with nothing more than you’ve got.” He was in great pain after his five hours lying with that leg in the shell-hole, but it had not affected his high spirits and good humor. He was still of opinion that the regiment could get through the wire, with proper artillery preparation and co-ordination of infantry forces.

On October 12th I was in Jim Mangan’s little dugout at Exermont with his Lieutenants Joe McNamara, McCarthy and Flynn when in walked Dennis O’Shea, formerly our color sergeant, and now a Lieutenant in the 1st Division. Accompanying him was Father Terence King, a Jesuit Chaplain. They had been detailed for the task of burying their regimental dead. It was a joyous meeting, but they had one thing to tell that made me sad. Father Colman O’Flaherty had been killed by shell fire while attending to the wounded. I had never met him, but when we were alongside of the 1st after Saint Mihiel I met a large number of officers and men, all of whom spoke of him with affectionate admiration. An Irishman, well read, brilliant and witty in conversation, independent in the expression of his opinions; sometimes irritating at first encounter by reason of his sallies, but always sure in the long run to be admired for his robust and attractive personality.

I got this story with no names mentioned and was too discreet to ask for them. A patrol was out for the purpose of getting in touch with the enemy. As they were ascending the reverse slope of the hill a young officer who was with two or three men in advance came running back, stooping low and calling breathlessly to the Lieutenant in command, “The Germans! The Germans! The Germans are there.” Nobody thought him afraid but his tone of excitement was certainly bad for morale. There was a sudden halt and a bad moment, but the situation was saved when a New York voice in a gruff whisper was heard, “Well, what the hell does that guy think we are out here looking for?—Voilets?” If eloquence is the power to say things that will produce the desired effect on one’s hearers, neither Demosthenes nor Dan O’Connell himself ever made a better speech.

We were very short of officers during the Argonne fight and, since advancing under shell fire necessitates a deliberate scattering of men, a great deal depends upon the efficiency of our non-coms, especially the sergeants. The result of their activity was that an extraordinary number of them were wounded. I came on Sergeants Tom O’Malley and Jim O’Brien of Company D, both wounded severely and bound for the rear. “Tom,” I said, “what did you want to get yourself hit for? We’re short of officers as it is, and it’s only men like you that can put this thing through.” “Well, Father,” says Tom, smilingly apologetic, “you see it’s like this: a sergeant stands an awful fine chance of gettin’ hit as things are goin’ now. We got a lot of new min that he’s got to take care of to see that they don’t get kilt; and whin the line moves forward, there’s some of thim nades a bit of coaxin’.”

I have gathered from my record a list not only of officers, but also of non-coms wounded in this battle, because they deserve to be commemorated as men who have fought throughout the war, men who, if they have not been in every one of our battles, have a wound stripe to show the reason for their absence, and who have gained their stripes of office by good soldiering in camp and in the field.

Colonel William J. Donovan; Captains, Oscar L. Buck, Edmond J. Connelly, John J. Clifford, John F. Rowley; First Lieutenants, James Collier, Paul D. Surber, Roderick J. Hutchinson; Second Lieutenants, Joseph P. Katsch, Charles D. Huesler, Clarence Johnson, Samuel S. Swift, Lester M. Greff, Henry W. Davis (Deceased), Arthur N. Hallquist, John J. Williams.

Company A, Sergeants Purtell, Armstrong, Sweeney; Corporals Gladd, Roberts, Newton, Thynne, Rice, Wylie.

Company B, Sergeants Thornton, Mulholland, Meniccoci, Graham, Gilbert, Whalen, Coyne; Corporals Quigley, Brady, Geraghty, Van deWerken, Longo, Lofare, Hayes, Healey, Lehman, Neary.

Company C, Sergeants James Burns, Hillig, Hennessey, Knight, McNiff; Corporals, James Kelly, Hannigan, Lynott, Minogue, Munz, O’Kelly, Osberg, Quinn, Stratico, Blythe, Boyle.

Company D, Sergeants Crotty, O’Malley, Moran, Sheahan, McDonough, Tracey, Morton; Corporals Dale, Plant, Dalton Smith, Murray, O’Dowd, Lynch, O’Brien, DeVoe, Terry O’Connor, Bambrick, McAuliffe, Edward B. Smith, Reilly, Harkins, Tuers, Brady, Thompson, O’Connell.

Company E, Corporals Corbett, Maloney, Geary.

Company F, Corporal Patrick Frawley.

Company G, Sergeants McNamara, William Farrell, James Murray; Corporals, Framan, Allen, Christy.

Company H, Sergeant Walker; Corporals, McGorry, Ryan, McGlynn, Doran.

Company I, Sergeants Shanahan, Lyons, Dynan, Mullin, Joseph O’Brien; Corporals, Cousens, Dexter, Gaul, Horgan, Kennedy, Smiser, Welsh, Zarella, Beyer, Lenihan, New, Regan, Conway, Hettrick, Neary.

Company K, Sergeants Timothy Sullivan, Gleason, Hellrigel; Corporals Van Yorx, McKessy, Clinton, Ryan, Ostermeyer, Casey, Gallagher, LeGall, McMahon, Caraher, Wakely, Hoey.

Company L, Sergeants, Southworth, Kiernan, Wittlinger, Fitzpatrick, Mullins, Blood; Corporals Kennedy, Martin, O’Brien, Oakes, McCallum, George McCue, Murphy, John J. Murphy, Hearn.

Company M, Sergeants Major, Clark, May; Corporals Igo, Feely, Begley, Shear, Scott, Donovan, McGovern, Cook, Bailey, Kiernan, Berger, Harry Murray, Knowles.

Headquarters Co., Corporals Dick, Brochon, Albrecht.

Machine Gun Co., Sergeants Stevens, Spillane, Gillespie, Doherty; Corporals Erard, Cohen.

ESPERANCE FARM

_October_ 28th, 1918

Our rear Headquarters are in two buildings on the main road that parallels the river Aire. In one of them is the Supply Company and the band. Solicitude for the welfare of bandsmen is the sole tribute that the army pays to art. In a neighboring building is an Ambulance Company and our Company Clerks, who have been ordered to be left in the rear because records are never properly made out if the Company Clerk becomes a casualty. I often make use of a returning ambulance to come back to Captain Kinney’s Hotel for a decent sleep and a good breakfast. Across the road in the field a number of the men have made little dugouts for themselves, as the buildings are overcrowded.

Shell fire does not come back this far except occasionally, but the nights are often made hideous by enemy bombing planes. Aeroplanes carrying machine guns are futile things, but a plane at night dropping bombs is absolutely the most demoralizing thing in war. It is a matter of psychology. The man in front discharging his rifle has the hunter’s exhilaration. Even shells can be dodged if not too numerous, and after a man has dropped on his face or jumped into a doorway and has escaped, there is the satisfaction that a hare must have when it eludes the dogs and pants contentedly in its hole. But when one lies at night and hears the deep buzz of a plane overhead, and most especially when the buzz ceases and he knows that the plane is gliding and making ready to drop something, the one feeling that comes is that if that fellow overhead pulls the lever at the right spot, a very very wrong spot, it means sudden and absolute destruction. There is no way of getting away from it. One simply lies and cowers.

Last night we heard the crunching roar six times repeated in the field just across the road. Flannery and I got up and pulled on our shoes to go over and see what happened. Mules had been hit and two of our men slightly wounded. The bombs made holes in the soft earth, ten feet deep and nearly twelve in diameter, and one of them had fallen at the feet of two of our lads and had not exploded. I was particularly anxious about a lot of nice youngsters whom I had picked out after St. Mihiel for the Band—John Kyle, Robert Emmett Mitchell, Howard Casey, Pat Campion, Will Maroney, Will King, George Forms, John Killoran, Denis Glynn, Will Howard,—all lads that had volunteered before they were eighteen. I found them unharmed and rather enjoying the show.

Lieutenant Bernard Byrne, who is not long with us and whose experience in warfare has not been of great duration, was ordered from the Supply Company a couple of days ago to duty with Company G. His first night in line he took out a patrol which he handled admirably and came back with two prisoners. A very good start indeed.

Everybody has slept in his clothes for weeks. It would not be true to say that we never take them off, because that is part of the morning, though not of the evening ritual. Every morning officers and men, refined or roughneck, strip to the waist for the process of “Reading his shirt.” Not to put too fine a touch to it, we are all crawling with lice. Holmes has a boy who is at the interesting age of four, and his wife writes to him the usual domestic stories about his bright ways and sayings. “You ask her if that kid can read his shirt. Tell her I said that his old man can do it.” Mrs. Holmes sent word back to Father Duffy that while the youthful prodigy had not all the accomplishments of a soldier he could hike with any of us. I did not get the message for weeks afterwards, as my brother Chaplain was very much run down and Major Lawrence and I shipped him off, despite his protests, to the hospital. I do not need to worry about Father Hanley. As long as Ambrose Sutcliff’s Goulash Wagon can supply him with an occasional meal, he will keep going any place I put him—though that is not the right way to phrase it, for I always have to keep him pulled back from the places where he thinks he ought to be. I think I will take both my Chaplains home with me to the Bronx as curates. A Catholic church with a Methodist annex would be a novelty. Back in the peaceful days, a Jew friend of mine whom I was showing over my combination church and school said to me, with the quick business sense of his race, “You use this building for Church on Sunday and for school five days in the week. The only day it’s idle is Saturday. What you ought to do is to hire a good smart young Rabbi and run a synagogue on the Sabbath. I’ll bet you’ll make money at it.”

The two weeks that elapsed between October 16th and November 1st were the dreariest, draggiest days we spent in the war. The men lay out on the bare hillsides in little pits they had dug for themselves, the bottoms of which were turned into mud by frequent rains. They had one blanket apiece, and were without overcoats, underwear or socks, in the unpleasant climate of a French Autumn. They were dirty, lousy, thirsty, often hungry; and nearly every last man was sick.

Captain Bootz, an old-time regular army man and therefore not sympathetic with imaginary ills, made the following report on Anderson’s battalion as early as October 17th. “Checked up strength of battalion shows 405 men for active combat, including liaison detail. Of this number about 35% are suffering various illnesses, especially rheumatism, colds and fevers. The Company commanders state that these men are not receiving medical treatment, which should be given to them without fail or conditions will be worse in the next day or so. Some men are doubled up and should really be in the hospital. I cannot allow these men to leave, as it would set a precedent for many others to follow, and this would deplete our fighting strength so much more. First aid men attached to companies have no medical supplies other than bandages. A lack of proper clothing, such as overcoats, heavy underwear and socks, brings on a great many of these maladies. The majority of the men have summer underwear, if any, and no overcoat and only one blanket; and this is entirely inadequate to keep a soldier in fit physical condition for field service in the climate that is found this time of year in France. I deem it my duty that this be brought to the attention of higher authorities so that they may be rightly informed as to the actual conditions we are living in, and that means be found to have the defect remedied immediately.”

As the days went on, conditions got no better. Hundreds and hundreds of men had to be evacuated as too weak to be of any military value; and nothing but the need of man-power kept our doctors from sending half the regiment to the hospital. The only relief from monotony was an occasional night patrol, or the prospects which were held out to us of a fresh order to attack. In spite of the bloody nose we had already received, our men wished for the order to try again. Patrols and observation posts reported a lessening of the enemy’s strength, and our fellows felt certain that if the tanks would do their share they could get through. They had met their first repulse. If they had been in the war as long as the British or French, they would have learned to take it philosophically as part of the give and take of the game. But it was their first one, and they were burning with the desire to get back at the enemy.

On the 21st our brigade relieved the 84th, our 2nd Battalion taking over the front line on the north edge of the Cote de Chatillon. The next day orders were out for a new attack in which the 165th were to work around the eastern end of Landres et Saint George. Everybody was on the _qui vive_ for a new battle but the thing dragged from day to day until the 26th, when word came that we were to be taken out of the line and that the Second Division was to make the attack. Our men were sorely disappointed and grieved about it, but the decision was a proper one. With the artillery support that has been gathering in our rear I have no doubt that our fellows could have broken through, but we have become too weak in man power to exploit an initial victory in a way that should be done to make the most of it. Three weeks in line under such conditions do not fit men for the hardships of a sustained advance. During this period we lost killed, in Company H, William Murray and P. Nicholson; and in Company M, Davidson and Patrick Ames, a soldier who never knew fear.

_October_ 28th, 1918.

I went in to see General Menoher about my concerns as Division Chaplain. After my business was done he said that he had received orders to send me back to the States to make a speaking tour for the Welfare Funds. He kept talking about these orders long enough to get me worried, although as I watched his face closely I thought I could detect a humorous and reassuring twinkle in his pleasant eyes. Finally, after having been kept on the griddle for five minutes, I ventured the question, “May I ask, General, what reply you made to these orders?” Then he laughed in his genial way. “I told them that you had better work to do here than there and that I was not going to let you go.” I certainly do like that man.

Our land battles during these days are being conducted mainly at night as fights between patrols, the war in the day time being mainly in the air. On October 16th a German plane which had been separated from its escadrille came wabbling over the heads of Major Lawrence’s group and landed in a field alongside them, the occupants being made prisoners. Two days later I had the good luck to witness from the same spot a unique spectacle. There had been an air fight in which ours got the better of it. A German plane was evidently in a bad way. As we watched it we saw a dark object drop from it, and while we held our breath in sympathetic terror for a human being dropping to destruction, a parachute opened above him—the first instance of the kind we have seen in this war. Captain Bootz, who was under him at the time, said that he managed it by climbing out on the tail of his plane and dropping off it from the rear. The great difficulty about using a parachute for aviators has been that the on-moving plane hits the ropes before they can drop clear. Most of the air fights have been the result of the determination of the Germans to get our balloons. They brought down four of them one afternoon, much to our disgust.

There is a stock story about the rookie who is persuaded by his fellows that his tin hat is guaranteed by the government to turn the direct hit of a German 77. When Colonel Dravo and the rest of us start to tell how an inch of planking turned a German 77, we shall be greeted with smiles of incredulity, but the thing actually happened. Dravo has a pleasant little Chalet out on the hill 263, beautifully situated in the forest and affording an excellent place of repose for weary American officers if the Germans who were kind enough to build it would only leave their work alone. But the hill is shelled by day and shelled and bombed by night, in a picky sort of a way. A small portion of the shack is boarded off for a kitchen and in it sleep, or rather slept, for they don’t like the place any more, the force of our Headquarters mess: Sergeant Denis Donovan, Jimmy Dayton, Tex Blake, McWalter, and John McLaughlin in superimposed bunks, so that the lads above were only a couple of feet below the roof. A shell hit just above them, the explosion ruining the roof and pitching them all to the floor; but every particle of iron in it spread itself into the air outside of the building. Luckily for them it must have been one of those long-nosed devils that explode on contact and cause much greater destruction than those that plow out the ordinary shell hole. The first time I saw the roads barely scratched where they hit I thought the German powder was becoming inferior. I know better now.

HALLOWE’EN

We are out of the line tonight with the exception of Reilley’s 3rd Battalion, which is to lie out there in their shelter pits under our barrage and whatever the Germans may send back in reply until the 2nd Division goes through them tomorrow. Twelve months ago we had scarcely left our native shores, a wonderful year in the lives of all of us, and the last one for many a poor fellow now sleeping in the soil of France. A lot of the officers are crowded together in Kinney’s quarters at the Esperance Farm. The room is hot and close, as shelter-halves and blankets screen every nook through which light might pass to give information of human habitation to a passing bomber. Everybody feels tired, dirty and discouraged.

I said to them, “You are the glummest bunch of Irish that I ever saw on a Hallowe’en. Johnnie Fechheimer, you are the best Harp in this bunch; start them singing. Frank Smith, warm us up with some coffee, since there’s nothing better to be had.” So Pete Savarese soon had the coffee boiling and the two Ganymedes, Bob Dillon and Charlie Lowe, ministered to our needs. Pretty soon they were all singing—Major Anderson, Kinney, Mangan, Fechheimer, McDermott, Flynn, McCarthy, O’Donohue, Joe McNamara, Smith, John Schwinn, even Flannery, Scanlon, and myself. Joe McNamara, who is as good a youth as they make them, and who has done great service during the past three weeks with his signal men, sang a song that was just on the verge of being naughty, with his handsome blue eyes twinkling provokingly at me. Dan Flynn knows all the old songs that our mothers used to sing, “Ben Bolt,” “You’ll Remember Me,” and all that sort of thing. Fechheimer and McNamara supplied the modern element in the concert. But no matter what it was, everybody joined in, including the men in the loft upstairs and in the shelter tents outside, especially when it came to songs in praise of Good Little Old New York; and truck drivers and ambulance men and passing officers along the road got first-hand information that the New York Irish 69th had come through their three long weeks of fighting and hardship with their tails still erect.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE ARGONNE]

We had no doubt of the success of the 2nd Division. Artillery was lined up hub to hub on all the roads around Exermont, Fleville and Sommerance and the machine guns of both divisions were to give them a sustained preparatory barrage. I may add incidentally that the thorough preparations for their attack were the best justification for our failure to reach the last objective. We heard the artillery hammering away through the early morning and it was soon evident that the sturdy infantry and marines of the 2nd Division had carried the battle line well towards the north.

I started up with Sergeant Fitzsimmons on my own sad quest of looking for our dead in the enemy wires. Just ahead of us as we passed through Sommerance a German shell lit on the road right in a party of five German prisoners and four American soldiers. The nine men lay scattered in all directions. We ran up and I found one of ours with both legs blown completely off trying to pull himself up with the aid of a packing case. In spite of his wounds he gave not the slightest evidence of mental shock. While Fitzsimmons ran for an ambulance, he told me his name was Conover, and that he was a Catholic, and said the prayers while I gave him absolution. He had no idea his legs were gone until a soldier lifted him on a stretcher, when I could see in his eyes that he was aware that his body was lifting light. He started to look but I placed my hand on his chest and kept him from seeing. Three men were dead already and it did not seem to me as if any one of them could live. One of the Germans was an officer who cursed his fate that brought him to this death by the fire of his own guns after lasting through four years of war.

When we reached our old battleground I found that one man had gotten there before me on the same errand as myself. It was Father Davitt of Lenox, Mass., who had been detached from the 32nd Division as Corps Chaplain.

On both sides of the Sommerance road as it neared the wire we saw the bodies scattered, still well preserved and recognizable by reason of the cool weather. Right around the wire and in the sunken road that ran into it the Germans had buried them. It was a surprise to find that even now the wire was absolutely unbroken in any place. An occasional shell had landed in it, as was evidenced by the holes made, but the whole fabric was so well bound together that it simply jumped up and then dropped back into place again. The 2nd Division had evidently been wise enough to carry their attack around it as I found just one of their dead and he was lying in the _chicane_ or passage made by the highway as it passed through it.

I arranged with Father Davitt to have his detachment of Pioneers look after the sepulchre of our dead in case the Regiment got orders to move on, and returned to make my report to Colonel Dravo.

The 3rd Battalion got back to our place in the rear during the morning, having suffered some losses from shell fire, amongst them being Jimmy Fay, who had part of his foot blown off. Orders to take up the advance were received on November 2nd, our 3rd Battalion being out of the line less than 24 hours.

The first day’s route laid down for us showed us that we were going to take over in the region to the west of that in which we had been fighting. In the plans for the attack of the 2nd Division they had moved rapidly towards the NNE., leaving the Germans on their left to wake up and find themselves in a salient between our troops and the northern extension of the Argonne Forest. The 78th Division was engaged in expediting the evacuation of these Germans. Two days’ march, neither of them very long, brought us to Brieulles, just north of which we were to relieve the 78th. The only difficulty about the march was for the wagons. Every outfit had lost half of its animals, and those that were left were in miserable condition. The artillery felt this hardest, but it made trouble for the infantry, too, in getting up the supplies and the kitchens. The worn down roads were frightfully crowded with ambulances, trucks, kitchens, guns, caissons, ration and combat wagons, headquarters automobiles; and the M. Ps. were kept swearing till their voices gave out trying to keep traffic conditions tolerable. When we got to Brieulles we found that the Germans were blowing up bridges and roads in their retreat. Colonel Dravo, following tradition and his own generous instincts of being nice to an old fellow like me, had sent me on with his car; and Brown was carrying me rapidly out of Brieulles towards the front when Major Doyle, our Brigade Adjutant, stopped me and said that while it didn’t matter much what became of me, cars were getting scarce and he had decided objections to presenting what was once a perfectly good car to the Germans. I deduced from this that the enemy were in the next town and that I had better stay where I was. The regiment was stopped at Authé, to which place I returned.

The villages which the Germans had left had a number of civilians, and in accordance with the order of the German Commander, the Mayors put a white flag on the church steeple to warn us against shelling them. I have never seen a happier lot of old people in my life than the French civilians whom we were instrumental in saving after four years of captivity. At Authé our P. C. was in what had once been a village inn. The proprietress was old and little and lively and pious. She gave a warm reception to M. l’Aumonier when she heard that I belonged to the Old Church, and immediately proceeded to make plans for a High Mass next Sunday in spite of my telling her that we would not probably be there more than one night. “I have been doing most of the preaching to the people around here the last four years,” she said. “M. le Curé is old and quiet and he hasn’t much to say; but me, I talk, talk, talk all the time. I tell these people that God sent the German Devils amongst them because of their sins. I preach so much that they have given me a nickname. Do you know what they call me? They call me Madame Morale. And I preach to the Germans, too. I tell them they will all be in Hell if they do not mend their ways.” “What do they say to you?” “Most times they laugh and call me Grossmutter, but some of them swear and get mad. But I preach at them just the same. My sister she does not preach, she just prays.”

I went up to see the sister. They must have been both around eighty; and she sat in her chair looking absolutely like Whistler’s picture of his mother, except that the hands were not idle in her lap, but fingered unceasingly a worn rosary.

Madame Morale’s piety was not limited to preaching. It included hospitality. We have brought along some fresh supplies of food for our Headquarters Mess; and as soldiers from different outfits kept drifting in to the kitchen looking for water and incidentally anything else they could get, the old lady dipped into our scanty stock, saying, “Here, my poor boys, there is much food here”—until nothing was left.

In going into action in this last phase of the Argonne fight Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dravo was in command, with Major Anderson second in command, Captain Merle-Smith (vice Kelly, evacuated with fever) commanding the 1st Battalion, Captain Henry A. Bootz, in charge of Anderson’s Battalion, and Major Reilley with the 3rd. We relieved the 78th Division at the village of Artaise-le-Vivier. Here the Germans had left in such a hurry that large stores of flour and vegetables had been left behind. On asking the inhabitants the reason for this extraordinary occurrence we were answered by the word “_Avions_.” In this sector we have absolute mastery of the air and we see vast flights of planes spread out like wild ducks in V-shaped fashion advancing over the German lines. I almost sympathize with the poor Boches, for I certainly do not like aerial bombs.

The next three days was a foot-race, each battalion taking its turn in the lead as the others became exhausted. They swept from village to village, or rather from hill to hill, carefully closing around the villages, generally meeting with but little resistance, the last of the Germans, invariably a machine gun group, taking their flight fifteen minutes to a half hour before our men could get up. Colonel Dravo was out in the front with his wild Irish, while Anderson had the equally important task of trying to get the kitchens and supplies through. Lieutenants Schwinn, McDermott, Goodell, Henry and Bell and Sergeant Scanlan labored night and day to get the kitchens through, crossing muddy fields and fording small streams because the roads were everywhere destroyed. Lieutenant Seidelman and Corporal Malone were busy putting up signs at every corner to guide the rear elements in the right direction to reach our swiftly moving advance.

I missed Major Lawrence, who is generally very much in evidence when action is on, but I discovered that he had very wisely made up his mind that the main thing was to see that the ambulances found a way to follow up the Infantry. He had plenty of willing doctors under him to look after any wounded men in the field, but it was evident by the rate our Infantry was traveling that wounded men would not be evacuated for several days unless the ambulances got through. When finally they were needed, he had them there, both for the use of our men and those of other outfits which had not been so carefully provided for.

For two days the advance was an interesting race. The 6th Division was coming up the road behind ours, anxious to get a chance to relieve us and get into line before the war would come to an end. Each night they thought that surely by morning they would catch up; but our lads, moving freely across the open country, always kept well in advance of troops that had to move by column; and each day they were still further in the van. Our own Mess Sergeants and Cooks labored night and day to get the food forward, but for two days and more they, too, were left behind in the race. The men in front were not left entirely hungry, as in every village from which they drove the enemy the inhabitants drew out all of their scanty stores and served them with coffee, vegetables and a little bread, with unlimited supplies of bouquets and kisses. In spite of drawbacks it was a nice war.

At 10:30 on the evening of the 6th, there came a most extraordinary order from Corps through Division that it was imperative that Sedan should be captured before the end of the next day; that if troops were resting they should be immediately aroused and sent on their way; and that the city should be taken if the last officer and man should drop in his tracks. Luckily for the men it took some time to get that order forward to the line, as the horses of Jack Percy, Earl Pierce and young Underwood were fatigued by the incessant work, in which their riders shared, of carrying messages night and day. So the kitchens got through and the men were fed before they started out once more.

On November 7th, Bootz with the 2nd Battalion was in the van. On Hill 332 the Germans put up a stronger resistance than they had hitherto shown; and it came at a time when our fire was growing weak on account of the expenditure of ammunition, which there was little means of replacing. Bootz told Captain Stout, who was in command of G Company, that the hill must be taken, and Stout advanced with thirty-eight men of his own company and a detachment from Company H to capture the hill. As they kept crawling in on the Germans the latter began to waver, and the Captain called on his followers to advance upon them with fixed bayonets. With a great cheer our fellows swarmed up the crest and the daunted Germans, after a futile stand, grounded their guns, threw up their hands and surrendered. The men whose names stand high in the Company annals for this deed are, first of all, the dead: John Danker, George Spiegel, Onefrio Triggiano and Raymond Hawkins. Also the gallant captain and Lieutenant Otto; First Sergeant Meagher, Sergeants Martin Murphy, Martin Shalley, Irving Framan, Denis Corcoran, John Brogan and Francis Malloy, the two latter being wounded; James Regan, Thomas Gallagher, Hilbert and Henry, Remington, Youmans and Leavensworth, and, to complete the list, a bold Choctaw Indian with the martial name of McCoy. Sergeant Patrick Travers, of Company H, received high praise from everybody. While the German resistance was still determined, he went alone against a machine gun on the right and captured it single-handed, taking three German officers and four men.

The same day B Company lost Sergeant Ed. Kramer, and Martin Gilfoyle; C Company, Frank Casserly, Michael Golinski, and Joseph Peressine; Company E, Orliff Gilbert, Samuel Kelly and William Lambert; Machine Gun Company, William Gunnell; and the Sanitary Detachment, Michael Cavanaugh.

Meanwhile events were happening which made the order to advance without ceasing seem more extraordinary. Elements of the 1st Division appeared on our flank and rear. They, too, had received orders to the same effect from their Corps Commander, and had advanced to the left across the front of the 77th Division, and were taking possession of our line, which was the one leading straight towards Sedan. They had crept up around Bulson in the morning, only to find General MacArthur and 84th Brigade Headquarters in possession of the village. Elements of the 16th Infantry now came on Bootz’s hill and claimed it as theirs. “This is my hill, and my line of advance,” said Bootz. “If you say it’s yours, show your booty. I have twenty-five prisoners and twelve machine guns; what have you got to show for it?” And Bootz ordered his battalion to advance, leaving to the others to do what they would.

Nobody blamed the 1st Division for this mix-up, because they certainly had orders the same as ours to advance and capture Sedan. The whole thing is a mystery. A staff officer told me that neither of us had any right here, as Sedan lies in the sector of the French Division on our left, and considering what it means to the French, they are certainly the ones who have the best right to capture it.

In this sector we had a visit from Sergeant Alexander Woollcott, who is well known in New York as a dramatic critic, and who has been assigned by G. H. Q. to the duties of reporter for the _Stars and Stripes_. He is always on hand when there is trouble, and the field of war becomes a pleasant place for me whenever he is there. We have swapped stories and discussed men and books in the weirdest places. He is communicative rather than inquisitive and one never thinks of him as a reporter, but he gets all the information he wants and all the more effectively because there is no appearance of seeking it. He can even make Anderson talk.

During this period Anderson had been forging ahead with his Headquarters group, expecting to find Bootz in Chaumont. He entered that town with a couple of doctors, Lieutenant Rerat, and his liaison men, only to find that they were the first to get there, and the enemy had not yet completely evacuated it. They were under rifle fire as they came along the street, and had a merry little sniper’s battle before they got possession. Then Lieutenant McCarthy set up his one-pound cannon on the edge of the village, and soon had the German gunners putting for safety over the hill. So Anderson captured a town for himself, and for once did Colonel Dravo out of the bouquets and kisses. Though, even here, Rerat got the cream of it.

We kept going through that day, the 3rd Battalion relieving the 2nd during the night, and reaching on November 8th, the village of Wadelincourt on the heights of the Meuse, directly overlooking Sedan. A patrol from Company M with orders to go down to the Meuse and scout up to the suburbs of Sedan, got nearest of all American troops to that famous city. Eighteen men started out, of whom most were wounded, but Corporal John McLaughlin, with two men, carried out the mission and reported the results of the reconnaissance. Under shell fire that night Albert Bieber and Carl Maritz of Company I were killed and Lieutenant Behrendts, the Company Commander, and many others were wounded. James P. Smith of Company M was also killed and Sergeant Lester Lenhart of Company E was mortally wounded.

That night our Division was relieved by the 40th French Division, which from the beginning had the right of way. As a matter of courtesy the French Division Commander invited a company of the 165th and 166th to enter with his troops for the occupation of the suburbs of Sedan. Company D of our regiment was selected for the purpose and Lieutenant Cassidy had them all ready, but through some mix-up of orders they were not called upon to share in the little ceremony.

On November 8th we marched back to Artaise and the next day to Les Petites Armoises; on the 10th, to Vaux-en-Dieulet. The 11th found us at Sivry-les-Buzancy, where we spent two days.

On our way in I got a rumor that the Armistice was signed. I had always believed that the news of victory and peace would fill me with surging feelings of delight. But it was just the contrary; no doubt because the constraint I had put upon my natural feelings during the year were taken off by the announcement. I knew that in New York and in every city at home and throughout the world men were jubilant at the prospects of peace. But I could think of nothing except the fine lads who had come out with us to this war and who are not alive to enjoy the triumph. All day I had a lonely and an aching heart. It would be a lesser thing to have been killed myself than to go back to the mothers of the dead who would never more return. Luckily for me my dear friend Chaplain Nash came over to see me and walked me for hours through the desolate country, encouraging me to express my every feeling until fatigue and the relief of expression brought me back to a more normal mood.

The men had no certainty that the rumors were true, and discounted them. On November 13th we marched to Landres et Saint Georges which we had striven vainly to enter from the other side five weeks before. The village was almost completely demolished and our troops with others of the Division pitched their shelter tents on all the hills surrounding the town. That night official information was given of the Armistice. The men raided the Engineer and Signal Stores for rockets of all descriptions and the whole sky was filled with lights which in war would have demanded the expenditure of at least a million shells. Bonfires were blazing all over the hillside _Finie la Guerre_. The war was over.

My duties, like my feelings, still lay in the past. With men from all the companies I went round the battlefield to pay as far as I could my last duties to the dead, to record and in a rough way to beautify their lonely graves, for I knew that soon we would leave this place that their presence hallows, and never look upon it again.

On the 15th, in accordance with Division orders, a formal muster was held. Our strength was 55 officers and 1,637 men, with 8 officers and 43 men attached, 1,300 short of the number we had brought into the Argonne. Of the survivors, not many more than 600 were men who had left New York with the regiment a little over a year ago. And most of these belonged to the Adjutant’s Office, Battalion and Company Headquarters, Kitchens, Band and Supply Company. In the line companies, there are about twenty-five rifle men to each company who are old-timers and nearly all of these have wound stripes earned in earlier engagements. The great bulk of the old regiment is in hospitals, convalescent and casual camps; some of them promoted, some transferred, hundreds of them invalided home, a great many, alas! buried on battlefields or in hospital cemeteries.

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