USA > Kansas > Shawnee County > Honor roll : Shawnee County, Kansas > Part 3
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The offensive started by American troops in the Argonne September 26 was a part of the great battle plan of General Foch. It was perhaps the most es- sential piece of the whole battle line of similar length. At the conference of Allied leaders, when the great general attack was planned, the French com- mander-in-chief asked:
"Where will the American Army fight in this battle?" "Wherever you wish it to fight," Pershing re- plied.
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MENACED GERMAN COMMUNICATIONS.
Foch then indicated the line between the Meuse and the Argonne, and asked if they would take a part of the line. Pershing assented. It was the part of the line where the heaviest fighting undoubtedly would be if the battle plans worked out, and if the judgment of the military men proved true.
HOW THE 35TH WAS PLACED.
The battle order was considered a model of con- ciseness, but it was a voluminous thing at that. The advance was to be made by nine divisions on a sixtcen- mile front at the same moment, 5:30 a. m., after ar- tillery preparation of varying duration and density at various parts of the line. The 1st Army (American), which was under command of Gencral Pershing in person, had three corps in the line, each composed of three divisions. The 1st Corps, to which the 35th was attached, was on the left. The 35th was the right hand of the corps. It had about two miles of front. On the 35th's left was its corps-mate, the 28th Divi- sion. On the 35th's right was the 91st Division of the 5th Corps.
The country lying in front of the 35th, and through which it was to advance, was as difficult as any on the American front, and in some ways the task was the most desperate of all. Two kilometers out from the stepping off place was the Hindenburg line most heavily wired and prepared for defense in every way the four years of war had taught the Germans. I am writing now of what was known before the battle.
Just in front of the Hindenburg line, the de- fensive works mingling with and making it part of the line, was Vauquois Hill, a place of sad and sanguinary memory. The French had never been able to retake it at the price they were willing to pay, and many troops had been lost in fruitless attempts. A high French officer told me their losses there probably totaled forty thousand. It was known to be thoroughly mined, to have excavations and tunnels of great length for quick communication and transferral of troops from one point to another. It had once been covered with trees for the most part, but these were now merely shattered stumps, so much artillery fire had been addressed to it.
The Ouvrage d'Aden was known to be a strong point alongside the secondary road, but the defenses before Cheppy do not seem to have been mapped.
Students of French history will remember that when the French revolution was brewing and occa- sionally becoming threatening, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette endeavored to escape from France, and that they got as far as Varennes, where the postmaster's son, consulting the monarch's plume on a coin, recog- nized the royal fugitives and stopped the carriage at the bridge, turning them back to Paris and, eventually, to the executioner. The 35th Division's left flank was to go through Varennes and by the eastern end of the bridge. The 28th had the other side of the river.
The other towns we were to take, Cheppy, Very, Charpentry, Baulhy and Exermont, Fleville, etc., were typical French villages.
The course laid out for the 35th was in the valley of the Aire with occasional hills, and suf- ficient clumps of trees and brush to afford excellent cover for machine gun nests. As a rule, it was open country. The main road from Neuvilly to Varennes, and thence through Baulny to Exermont had been an excellent one, a national highway, before the war.
CHANGES IN OFFICERS.
Shortly before the battle radical changes were made in the officer personnel. Brig. Gen. Nathaniel F. McClure, who had commanded the division for more than a month in the Vosges, and who commanded the 69th Brigade up to September 21, was relieved on that date, and Brig. Gen. (then colonel) Louis M. Nuttman put in command Brig. Gen. Charles I. Page 47
Martin, who had commanded the Kansas National Guard on the border and who had commanded the 70th Brigade since its formation, was relieved, alsc September 21, and he was replaced by Col. Kirby Walker. Lieut. Col. Channing E. Delaplane took command of the 140th Infantry September 22. Col. Frank Rumbold was relieved of his command of the 128th Field Artillery on September 24, two days before the fight; other changes were made.
The infantry was to advance in columns of bri- gades, with the 69th Brigade leading. The regiments were to advance abreast within the brigades, cach with one battalion in the front line, one in support and one in reserve. From each of the two rear battalions two companies were sent forward and attached to the front battalions. Two of these were to mop up Vau- quois Hill, and the other two were to perform a similar service for the Rosignol Wood.
MACHINE GUN UNITS PLACED.
The machine gun companies were scattered about in advantageous positions. One battalion and one company were in position on Hill 253, Mamelon Blanc and La Maize, a similar number were in position at Buzemont, two companies werc in the rear of the support line ready to take position on Hill 239, while four companies were attached to the front line battal- ions ready for the advance.
A company of engineers was to go with the leading brigade to cut wire, two platoons were to accompany the moppers up, and one company, less one platoon, was to accompany the tanks. The 344th Tank Bat- talion was distributed along the front ready for the advance.
The First Aero Squadron was attached to the 35th Division for the action, and it was provided that at least one plane was to be constantly over the division sector. The 2nd Balloon Company also was attached to the division.
One squadron of cavalry was assembled south of Aubreville, with scouts assigned to accompany the rear elements of the infantry.
The 60th Field Artillery was re-enforced by the .219th R. A. C. and the 282nd, 317th and 451st R. A. L. and one battery of light artillery was to go with the advance to be used as forward guns. These are French artillery regiments, the first one light, the last three heavy.
Two days' "iron" (emergency) rations were served to all men, and the night of September 25 found everybody on his toes.
THE 35TH INTO BATTLE.
Nine American divisions were in the line ready to attack the night of September 25. They were divided into three corps. Each corps had, besides the nine in the line, a division in support and a division in reserve, so that we were fifteen divisions strong going into battle. Four hundred thousand American fighting men heard the artillery prelude to the attack. It was the greatest army America ever has sent onto the field.
The battle line extended from the Meuse River at a point a few kilometers above Verdun, westward to a point in the Argonne Forest, where it connected with the French 4th Army which was attacking on our left.
At 11:30 p. m., September 25, our artillery opened a deceptive diversion fire to the cast of the Meuse and to the west of the Argonne Forest. Be- tween these two active spots all the defenses against which the American were to move.
THE EVE OF BATTLE.
The 35th Division had been in the vicinity of Hesse the most of four days and nights. On the after- noon of the twenty-fifth, a large hot meal was served to the men. Afterward, all packs were *** ned and
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placed in a pile. Lieutenants commanding platoons ealled their sergeants and corporals together and ex- plained the nature of the action which they were to fight the next day. Detail maps of the country were shown, and the noncoms instructed to fix as much of it in their memory as possible, but maps were not given to the noncoms.
The days and nights of waiting in the forest were under almost constant shell firc, and there had not been a great deal of sleeping done. After dark, the infantry moved forward through the woods in approxi- mately the formation they were to employ the following day. The men lay down among the big guns and tried to sleep. Each one, according to orders, first loaded and locked his rifle.
EACH MAN HAD 250 ROUNDS.
Each infantryman carricd his rifle, bayonet, steel helmet and gas mask. He had 250 rounds of rifle am- munition carried in a belt, and two bandoliers, each one swung over one shoulder and under the other arm. On his back was his combat pack, in his paek carrier. This contained his raincoat, if he was not wearing it, his mess kit and two days' "iron rations," which usually were two cans of corned beef and six boxes of hard bread. This is the improved form of the famed hardtack of the Civil War, and as issued now is a thick, hard cracker, palatable and full of nutrition. A few men had a loaf or half a loaf of the excellent white army bread, fresh from the bakery. This usually was carried on the fixed bayonet. All carried a full canteen of water, about a quart. Occasional details carried Stokes mortar ammunition, four shells to a man, each weighing 10 pounds and 11 ounces. In- fantry also carried ordinary explosive grenadse, gas grenades, rifle grenades and incendiary grenadse, but the most of these were thrown away.
The cannonading, which commenced before mid- night, was intended to deceive the enemy as to the place at which the attack was to come. It was hoped that he would assume it was to be east of Verdun or west of the Argonne, and that he would begin at once the work of shifting there some of the good divisions he was known to have baek of the 16-mile front on, which the Americans were to attack, and which lay between these two points.
FIRING 2,600 GUNS.
At 2:30 a. m. all the other artillery concentrated between the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest went into action.
All adjectives fail to give even a fair impression of the awful grandeur of such artillerying. No com- bination of words is effective. It seemed that for a while the lid of hell had been pushed back a little space. The long line on either hand leaped into flame, the horizon was lit by the bursting shells, and from the trenches where the enemy had lain so long there rose the many colored rockets with which he appealed to his guns for suceor. What each signal meant I do not know, but they plentifully told the tale of his distress.
Twenty-six hundred guns were firing at 3 a. m., every one with a carefully laid out mission, and with the rest, the 60th Brigade of Field Artillery, 35th Di- vision, delivered its quota of hardware as promptly as the seconds clicked off.
The men of the 35th got little sleep, and they had a hard day's work ahead. It was their first very big artillery action, and they were lying, figuratively, between the wheels of the guns. For three mortal hours the artillery pounded away. High explosives riddled the wire and destroyed dugout.
35TH FIRED 40,000 SHELLS IN ONE DAY.
The guns of the 35th Division fired more than forty thousand shells that day, nearly all of them in the three hours between 2:30 and 5:30.
At 5:30 a. m. the infantry went over all along the line. There was no breakfast and little ceremony about it. The sergeant or lieutenant who was leading the platoon, when his watch told him the zero hour was but a few minutes off, would give the order: "Prepare to advance."
The men would crawl out of their fox holes, pick up their raincoats, look to the rifles and wait. At the "H" hour the platoon leader would say: "All right, let's go," and leading the way, he would set his face to the north and move out, his men following.
BEHIND A ROLLING BARRAGE.
In front of the 35th Division, as in most other places, a rolling barrage from the 75s preceded the men one hundred meters which for all practical pur- poses, is one hundred yards. The men were to advance at the rate of one hundred meters in four minutes. This barrage kept up to 7:40 a. m., when it ceascd.
The advance of the 35th was in column of bri- gades with regiments abreast within the brigades. Within the regiments the formation was column of battalions. The 69th Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General (then colonel) Louis M. Nuttman, was to lead the way. His brigade front was to be as wide as the divisional front. The brigade consisted of the 137th and the 138th Infantry. The 138th was to have the right or eastern half of the divisional area, while the 137th was to cover the left half.
KANSAS CITY INFANTRY IN SUPPORT.
The 70th Brigade was in support of the 69th Brigade, the 140th Infantry Regiment supporting the 138th on the division's right flank, and the 139th supporting the 137th on the division's left flank.
The artillery, which had taken so big a part in pounding the linc in the early morning, laid a rolling barrage ahead of the advancing troops, and kept it up until 7:40. By that time the range had increased to a point where it was not practical to throw a barrage because sufficient accuracy could not be assured to make it valuable.
So the artillery was ordered forward with all speed to place itself in a position to help out the infantry. At 8:30 a. m. the 129th Field Artillery Regiment was ordered forward toward Cheppy. At 8:50 one bat- talion of the 130th Field Artillery was ordered to Varennes, and at 10:15 the other two battalions were ordered to follow. At 9 o'clock the whole regiment of the 128th moved out to take position to the east of Varennes.
The main road from Neuvilly was not available, because the bridge near Baureilles had been blown up by the Germans and an immense mine crater bloeked the way in another place. About the only way for our artillery to go forward was along the road which the map gave as our "axis of liaison," as the division's main artery of supply is called. This was a poor road and the artillery horses were very tired. Indeed, the hard work of the days preceding had almost worn them out.
ARTILLERY HELD BACK BY ROADS.
The ground over which the guns had to move had been virtually a No Man's Land for years and was soggy and full of rank weeds. At every little creek or ditch, the wheels sank in the mud and stuck. Officers' mounts and all the horses of mounted details were put into harness to move the guns, but there was not much progress made. Only one battery, which was of the 129th Regiment, got into position again that day. It took position in the north edge of the Rossignol Wood. So that virtually after 8 a. m. that day the infantry had no artillery support. The German fire never slackened.
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OVER THE TOP AT 5:30.
When the hour for the infantry advance arrived at 5:30 o'clock, the advance elements went over the top at the tick of the watch.
Once fairly in the field, it became apparent that the going was to be very bad. The autumn frequently brings into that part of France a thick, clinging fog which only a bright sun or a strong wind can disperse. The heaviest fog of the season had descended on the valley of the Aire that morning. At first thought it appeared that this might be of assistance to the 35th, for it would conceal the advaneing troops from the waiting machine gunners, but very soon it became apparent that the maintaining of liaison would be most difficult.
For the purpose of keeping the headquarters in the rear informed of conditions at the front, the usual methods had been provided before the attack, but they all broke down from one cause or another. The fog was too much for them.
Signal flags were, of course, useless where one could not see a hundred yards, as were also flash lamps and heliographs, or any other method which relied upon visibility for its success. Wires were carried forward, but, according to regimental signal officers, divisional headquarters failed to connect up with them, so that regimental headquarters were left up in the air telephonically, with nobody on the other end of the wire.
PIGEONS REFUSED TO FLY.
Carrier pigeons refused to fly true, either be- wildered by the dense fog and smoke, or benumbed by the din of artillery and smaller gun fire.
Runners were the only means left and they had almost no landmarks to guide them through the fog and smoke.
We will first watch the 138th Infantry. Orders were not to attack Vauquois Hill frontally, but to proceed around it, one party to the right and one to the left, and to attack it from its flanks, which would be the eastern and western ends of the hill.
The 138th went to the right of the hill, which is less than 1,000 feet long and 100 feet high. Not knowing, of course, that a fog of such density was to descend upon the land, orders had been given to the artillery to throw smoke shells at the foot of the hill to conceal our troops, which made the gloom worse. It was found that no landmarks were visible, and that it was necessary to travel altogether by compass. To the right was the little wood, all except the near edge invisible in the fog, but it seemed a secthing mass of enemy machine guns. On the left was the unknown little valley of the creek, and the rattle of machine guns there told how it was protected, but nothing could be seen. Dead ahead was Cheppy, also invisible, but presumed to be the stronghold.
By the time they had worked themselves into the German line the sun had eaten up the fog. The whole field was filled with the din of erashing artillery and shells, near and far. On all sides, in the short view allowed them by the lay of the country, were clumps of bushes or trees, which doubtless held enemy machine gun nests or riflemen waiting for their prey.
ORDERED TANKS AWAY.
Two small French tanks came bowling over the hill. The tanks tried hard, but they could not eross the creek, and their light fire was not enough to clear the hill of the enemy. Artillery, doubtless promptly advised that the tanks were there, began dropping shells around. Colonel Howland, fearing that the artillery fire drawn by the tanks would do more damage to his forces than the work of the tanks would benefit them, ordered the tanks to the rear.
The French lieutenant in charge of the tanks told Colonel Howland there were eight big tanks some distance to the southwest. Howland ordered him to hurry off and bring them at once.
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Finally, after what seemed an age of waiting, eight tanks appeared on the left. Maneuvered per- fectly, they swung out of column and into line, crossed the open between the two roads and took position about ten paces apart. All effectives of the 138th formed in squads behind the tanks. While the infantry with rifle and machine guns fired on suspected places in the brush and woods on the hillside, the tanks, with all their armament, pounded the nests and pill boxes to pieces. The 1-pounders fired high explosives into the defenses and the machine guns eut down the evi ted gunners. It was a work of minutes for these eight- wheeled forts and the front was clear of an enemy which had delayed the advance for hours.
BIG TANKS DID THE WORK.
The tanks then turned to the right flank, and when they had pounded it awhile Captain Reinholdt took his command forward in combat groups, and mopped up the whole flank. Thus the road into Cheppy was cleared.
There the regiment lay during the night, the officers trying to assist their men to find lost or strayed soldiers and platoons and to count the cost.
There is no way to calculate the losses of the 138th in the first day's fighting, but they had been heavy enough to stun. The doctors worked all night in Cheppy and in the advanced dressing posts, for the enemy fire was constant and there was a steady grist of wounded and dead. How many effectives had been removed from the ranks by death and wounds one can but estimate, for there was no chance for a muster on the field, and some of the scattered squads did not find their companions until the fight was over.
STARTED SHORT OF OFFICERS.
The most serious loss, from the cold military viewpoint, was in officers. There were plenty of men left to do the work, but the division had started in woefully short of lieutenants, captains and majors, and every loss of that kind hurt.
THE 140TH "MOPPED UP."
Behind the 138th Regiment on the right was the 140th, commanded by Lieut. Col. C. E. Delaplane, who had been divisional ordnanee officer. The regi- ment had trouble with the fog and smoke, as every other regiment did, but after passing through the wire in the path taken by the 138th it straightened itself out pretty well and set about its work.
Part of this was mopping up the eastern slope of Vauquois Hill, where there was a little space of stiff fighting. Advancing, they caught some fire from the edge of the Bois de Cheppy, three kilometers to the south of the town of Cheppy. They moved on, bombing dugouts, beating elumps of woods and otherwise making the neighborhood safe for democracy as they went, and dug in for the night behind the 138th on the high ground south of Very.
We now take up the 137th Regiment, which at- taeked to the west of Vauquois Hill, and their left was along the River Aire, a stream which usually could be forded or waded. It was fairly clear water, but the inen were forbidden to drink it, an injunction frequently disobeyed in the next few days.
The dense fog, abetted by the smoke screen thrown by the artillery around Vauquois Hill, caused confusion and intermingling of units from the first, but they pushed through to the ruins which once had been the town of Bouruielles. To this point the regiment's left boundary was the national highway which runs irom Neuvilly to Varennes and on north- ward. This had been a fine road, but across it was the first defense of the Hindenburg line. It was a powerful barricade of concrete interlaced with heavy steel railroad rails, and over the whole the inevitable tangle of barbed wire. Over this the men went, cutting the
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wire where the artillery had failed to do so and into Bourouielles, where two well-built concrete machine gun emplacements were captured.
The leading battalion pressed forward, cleaned out the Aden strong point, and in the hopeless fog. and with artillery fire which they had met from the first, were stopped before the well constructed defenses of Varennes. Many machine guns opened, there was no chance to look ahead into the gloom. There had been much mixing of units, and it was a well shuffled outfit which took cover before the Varennes defenses and searched the fog with rifle fire while waiting for the day to clear and the rest of the regiment to come up.
139TH SUPPORTED 137TH.
Behind the 137th was its supporting regiment, the 139th of the 70th Brigade. Lieut. Col. Carl L. Ristine commanded this outfit. He had kept his com- mand fairly clear of intermixture in the advance from the jumping off place to Varennes. It was in column of battalions, with companies and platoons in "staggered" formation. That is, they nowhere made straight lines through which machine guns or artillery might plow a path with great loss.
At about 9:45 the support battalion of the 137th Regiment came up behind the 139th. The other two battalions were in front of the 139th. This seemed strange to Ristine, who was sure that he had swept the country between the jumping off place and his present location, and he had not passed a stray battalion anywhere. Still the 137th had started before him and here was one of its battalions behind him. He doubtless had passed them in the maze of wire and the darkness of the fog and smoke.
Ristine sent by runner to the brigade commander, Col. Kirby Walker, a message telling of conditions. After a while he sent another message asking permission of the brigade commander to take his regiment through the 137th and continue the action. He received no reply to any of his messages to brigade headquarters that day.
Ristine decided that the case needed action on his part, so he ordered his men out of their foxholes, put them in formation, went right through the lines of the 137th and proceeded northward.
They had proceeded no great distance, probably less than a kilometer, when the scouts and skirmish line began to slow up, and Ristine, always with the thought of keeping his regiment at the highest pitch, feared the morale might suffer from another stop. So, after instructing Maj. William D. Stepp to take charge of the regiment, he went forward and took command of his own skirmish line.
Ristine then plunged forward with his strong skirmish line, destroying everything which opposed him to a point about a kilometer and a half south of Charpentry. A heavy enfilading fire of artillery and machine guns on his left caught him here and he ordered his men to dig in and wait for the regiment to come up. It did not come, so Ristine started back to find out the reason. He discovered that it had had heavy fighting and a serious bombardment just after he had left it; that Major Stepp had been killed and that the regiment was where he had left it.
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