USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover, Massachusetts, in the world war > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18
Before the middle of September the sister regiment, the 101st F. A., had left for "an unknown destination." 1st Lt. Frank L. Smith and Herbert F. Cheever were in this regiment. On September 21st at 2 o'clock the bugle sounded, and like a whirlwind the big brown tents came down in the eight battery streets of the 102nd. That night the whole regiment was moving by train toward New York, with all car curtains drawn. This "secret" troop movement, however, attracted crowds of cheering friends to local stations. Sunday evening, the 23rd, the steamship "Finland" with the 102nd F. A. on board and in company with two other transports, left lower New York harbor convoyed by a cruiser and de- stroyers. Thirty-eight Andover men had the honor of being in this early shipload of American troops bound for France. Various infantrymen had already sailed or were in accompanying transports. Crowded quarters, inadequate ration ar- rangements, and the submarine peril, however, marred the pleasure of the ocean voyage. Daily practice calls to the life-boats were the rule, each man wearing a tight life-preserver that was like two pillows upon the chest and shoulders. But, thanks to the vigilance and skill of the chief naval officer, Commander Graham, the crossing was made without misfortune, and on October 7th the fifteen hun- dred officers and men were landed at St. Nazaire on the west coast of France.
Ten days in a Debarkation Camp near that city introduced the boys to French rain and mud, to the mysteries of the French language and coinage, and to the doubtful comforts of those long wooden sheds with cheese-cloth windows and dirt floors known as "Adrian" barracks. Another strange journey soon followed. It consisted of some eight hours of railway travel in French "side-door Pullmans," small freight cars marked for forty men or eight horses. Even benches were rare in those "carriages."
The real training of the regiment took place during the next three and a half months at Camp Coëtquidan on a plateau in the heart of Brittany, with extensive
THOMAS EDWARD CARTER 2nd Lieutenant, Infantry, U. S. Army Killed in action, November 4, 1918
[ 120 ]
121
THE LOWELL-ANDOVER BATTERY
reservations of open country and abandoned villages for fire-practice. The guns were in readiness, the famous French 75's, and instruction began at once in observ- ing, signalling, and firing by day and night. The men learned quickly. Soon the horses arrived in great number and variety. Part of the men found plenty of diffi- cult work in learning to ride and drive, and in the training and care of the animals. But the strenuous life at Coëtquidan was varied at times by soccer games, by trips to Guer or Rennes, by the occasional arrival of letters and papers, by the Thanks- giving feast and entertainment, and by the Christmas boxes from home. Though equipped with cots, the quarters were cold and damp, the temporary canteen of the Y. M. C.A. was inadequate, and, for most of the time, no entertainment center was available. Of course there was some sickness, and a quarantine against men- ingitis was in effect through the Christmas season and after; but the boys of Bat- tery F played the game cheerfully and made the most of their good fellowship.
At length the welcome day for leaving Coëtquidan and cold, dull Brittany ar- rived and each battery undertook the new task of getting guns, caissons, wagons, supplies, horses, and themselves upon a train of fifty little French box-cars and flat-cars. "Where do we go from here?" was the question of the moment, and only a few knew. Great was the excitement of the boys, therefore, when the crawling trainsmoved around to the north of Parisand came to a stop near Soissons, only a few miles from the Chemins des Dames front. Six weeks of combat training followed in association with French troops. Code telephoning, real observing and signalling, real firing, and real danger now became incidents of the day's work or the night's work. Vigilant precautions were necessary. Gas masks were carried, and at the positions "tin hats" were worn. The headquarters of Battery F were established in barracks near the ruined village of Crécy- au-Mont while the guns were taken forward into a roadside position near the famous fortified hill-town of Coucy-le-Chateau. The guns were under camouflage net- ing, and the gunners lived in adjoining planked dugouts. Night by night a small wagon train was driven from echelon to position along exposed roads, carrying supplies, the mail, and dispatches. The sound of German airplanes bound for Paris became familiar. Once four bombs were dropped in a line very close to the barracks of the battery. After a time the gun position was moved nearer to the others, and the drivers found quarters in a large quarry cave at Leury. It was in these first weeks at the front that the corresponding infantry regiments in the trenches ahead learned to appreciate the support of their artillery a mile or two in the rear.
The Division was relieved just before the Germandrive toward Soissons, which began the 21st of March, 1918. A train trip of twenty hours brought the regiment to the vicinity of Bar-sur-Aube, and a week of road-marching followed. Each night the batteries were billeted in villages, the men often sleeping in barns or sheds. A period of rest and field maneuvers was now expected, but another surprise came in an order to move on over the road to the sector north of Toul. In spite of the
.
122
ANDOVER IN THE WORLD WAR
poor condition of the horses, and the loss of a number of them through disease or exhaustion, the road march was accomplished, and by the close of another week the regiment had relieved the 6th F. A. of the 1st Division and were in positions to the southeast of Mont Sec and in range from that menacing hill. Battery F had two positions with two guns at each, one being near the famous "Dead Man's Curve." The horse lines with those of the other units of the regiment were at the village of Sanzey, five miles to the rear. In this sector the whole 26th Division was operating as a tactical unit in a French corps. Colonel Locke was in command of the regiment, and Major Herbert (of Worcester) was in charge of the 2nd Battalion which included Battery F. Captain Needham had been detailed as an instructor, and for the next three months Lieutenant Andrew W. Thompson (of Worcester) and Captain Wayland M. Minot (of Boston) were successively in charge of the battery. In the Seicheprey affair the battery fired for ten hours, each gun shooting 950 rounds of shells. American gunners be- came noted for quick firing. One of our Andover boys, Charles Bowman, was wounded in May and sent to the hospital. But during these three months in the Boucq-La Reine sector there were weeks of comparative quiet. Meanwhile the men at the echelon had been busy bringing up ammunition at night in columns of caissons, and caring for the horses and equipment, with such recreation and com- forts as were afforded at the Salvation Army Hut, the "Y" tent, and a small athletic field with boxing stand. At this period under fairly settled conditions the mail came regularly, bringing welcome letters and papers from the ever-thoughtful friends at home.
Yet these three months had been among the darkest of the war. The wide- spread rumor of going home to Devens was in striking contrast with the actual needs of the situation. At the end of June, therefore, the sixty troop trains of the 26th Division were moving not to the coast but to the river Marne, east of Paris, and shortly after the 4th of July, following a few days of comparative rest in pleasant villages, the batteries took defensive positions near La Ferté-sous- Jouarre, north of the Marne. A new commander had now taken over the bat- tery, Lee H. Cover of Colorado, who had been trained at Saumur. Greatly respected and beloved by the men, he remained their leader till the day of dis- charge. For the next month there was to be open warfare, with unprotected advanced positions and pup-tents or "rabbit-holes" for shelter, while the horse lines were at nearby farms or in the woods. The first move took the regiment to the vicinity of Villiers-sur-marne, where the famous château, "My Home on the Field of Honor," was located. Another ten days and the great advance known as "The Château Thierry Offensive" had begun. This meant a continuous strain by night and day of marching and firing for two weeks. The infantry was relieved on July 25th, but the artillery kept on till the river Vesle was reached on August 4th. Colonel Locke was still in command. Battery F had now lost two especially efficient men, Gerald Silk of Tewksbury, an expert electrician, and Mahlon Den-
123
THE LOWELL-ANDOVER BATTERY
nett of Winchester, who had served as Gas Corporal. Corporal Silk was killed July 18th and was buried in an American plot at Bezu-le-Guery, while Corporal Dennett was wounded on July 24th and died in a hospital August 10th. Dennett had been a student at the Lowell Textile School. Among those who had suffered from gas were Arthur Cole, Joseph Daley, Eldred Larkin, Edward Lawson, and George Symonds.
A good rest was now hoped for. The tide of war had turned and all were in high spirits. After a short stay south of the Marne, the regiment entrained at Château Thierry and went to villages near Châtillon-sur-Seine. Bright days were enjoyed there, far from the noise and stress of the front. But this period, too, was suddenly cut short just as both officers and men were making plans to take their first leaves. At the end of August a train and road movement brought the or- ganization into the line again between St. Mihiel and Verdun. In the early morn- ing of September 12th the guns, stationed on hills near the village of Mouilly, took part in the terrific barrage that ushered in the St. Mihiel drive, an operation that was completed within twodays and eliminated the salient in the German line that reached out to St. Mihiel. The guns then went forward into positions command- ing part of the great Woevre plan. Battery F men had the protection of good dugouts in these positions. In this region the regiment remained nearly a month, subject only to occasional harassing shell and gas fire. Offensive action was now and then called for in support of infantry raids, but no death casualties occurred in the battery during these actions. Joseph Daley of Andover had become First Sergeant. Lt. Colonel Herbert commanded the regiment during this period in the Rupt-Troyon sector.
The St. Mihiel drive had greatly increased the confidence in ultimate suc- cess which the Château Thierry Offensive had inspired, and now came the news of the collapse of Austria and Bulgaria, and Germany's first move for an armistice. Every scrap of news was eagerly discussed by the men. For one week the entire regiment was brought together at a camp in the woods a few miles west of Verdun. There was a desperate lack of horses in all the batteries. But after the middle of October the gun crews moved into very difficult and dangerous positions near Samogneux, eight miles north of Verdun, and east of the Meuse, to take their part in the last phase of the great Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The dugouts opened toward the enemy, the country was hilly and open, and the guns were un- protected. At this critical corner of the line the enemy showed great tenacity and the advance was slight. There was much firing by our artillery in connection with the operations of the infantry, and at times the regimental positions were sub- jected to severe shelling. There were a number of death casualties in nearby batteries and Battery F lost Corporal George R. Quessy of Lowell. The horse lines were near a pond by the river at Thierville not far from Verdun, the men having pitched their shelter tents in a damp field. Late one afternoon as the men were lined up for mess, a big shell was suddenly heard. It landed very near them at the
124
ANDOVER IN THE WORLD WAR
edge of the pond and sent a column of water into the air. "There goes Battery F," thought one who was watching from the other side of the river. But the lucky boys had escaped again for, while one horse was killed and another wounded, a slight scratch upon one man was the only injury inflicted. Still another miracle was the safe return of a detail which went outwith one "sniping" gun in charge of Lt. Wilbur Berry two days before the armistice. Two Andover boys were in this crew, George Collins being its chief. They were approached by enemy patrols and got back with difficulty just in time to join in the final shots from another battery position on the Armistice morning.
The Armistice celebration, on Nov. 11th, was followed by withdrawal toward Bar-le-Duc and a month in billets at Salmagne. Still another month was spent at Saulxures near Chaumont in eastern France. This period was darkened by much sickness and by the death from pneumonia of Winthrop Wright of Billerica and of the well-beloved John Baker of Andover. "Johnnie" Baker was the only An- dover boy in this regiment to give his life in the service. Indeed it was a remark- able fact that in the Battery as a whole there had been only five losses by death among the two hundred original members.
Toward the end of January the regiment was moved again, this time to the Le Mans embarkation area north of Tours. Colonel Herbert was again in command. Two months were spent in barn billets at farms near the village of Mayet. During the tedious four and a half months after the armistice the foremost question in every mind was "When do we go home?" There were routine duties, drilling, and an occasional review, including an official visit by General Pershing to the Divi- sion in February. In March came the final "battle with the cooties." But es- pecial attention was given to athletic sports during these months. Individuals and teams from Battery F acquitted themselves well in field and track contests, in soccer and Rugby football, and in boxing bouts. Back in the summer the bat- tery had figured in baseball. Andover boys, among them the Collins brothers, the Larkin brothers, Carl Lindsay, Edward Lawson and Warren Hart were prominent as battery athletes. Several members having musical or dramatic ability had from time to time entertained their comrades throughout the year and a half in France. Singing like that of Everett Collins, heard in the open air and sometimes in desolate places, did much to soothe or cheer the spirits of the boys.
At the beginning of this account, reference was made to the high personal quality of the Andover members of this battery. Their conduct in France both as men and as soldiers gave further proof of this. In point of efficiency and morale, both the battery and the regiment as a whole made a fine record; and not least important and commendable was the hearty spirit of comradeship that prevailed in the organization representing Lowell and Andover.
It was a happy and healthy regiment that marched briskly to the Mayet railway station with fluttering red guidons on March 28, 1919; and the boys were amazed to find themselves on the "Mongolia," homeward bound from Brest
1
Y
JOHN HOWARD BAKER Private, 102nd Field Artillery, U. S. Army Died, January 3, 1919
[ 126 ]
127
THE LOWELL-ANDOVER BATTERY
three days later. The voyage was a pleasant one. In ten days the ship dropped anchor in Boston Harbor. The personal greetings, the public welcome, the visits home from Camp Devens, and finally the parade in Boston-all these made memo- rable those last three weeks in the army. Who will forget the comparative luxuries of Camp Devens- heated and lighted barracks with cot-beds and mattresses, mess halls with actual tables, and best of all hot-water baths! Yet April 29th came none too soon, for on that day the formalities of discharge were completed. Most of the Andover boys were still with the regiment, and many of them came home from Ayer together in the trucks sent over by the considerate people of the old home town. It is fitting, therefore, to close this story of the fighting unit in which Andover was most largely represented with words of gratitude to the friends and organizations both in Lowell and Andover for all the generous things they had done for these boys during twenty-one months of active service in the American army.
ANDOVER INFANTRYMEN
The town was well represented also in the infantry regiments of the famous 26th Division, especially in Co. F of the 101st, and in Co. L, of the 103rd. Most of these men had enlisted in Lawrence companies. There were at least twenty-one Andover infantrymen in the Division as follows: John Campbell, Elmer E. Davis, Edward T. Eldred, Ernest Green, Amos Frotten, Wil- liam Holden, Francis C. Hughes, Joseph Levi, William Lowe, James Moore, John J. Murphy (killed in action near Verdun), John O'Neil, James J. Petty, John W. Ramsden, William P. Renny (wounded), John C. Ross (cited), John Shevlin (wounded), Courtney A. Smith, Walter E. Strout, James B. Valentine (wounded), and Charles A. Young (died of wounds).
After several weeks of training in the camps at Framingham and Westfield these regiments were transported to France during September, 1917. For a period of three months they were billeted in the region of Neufchateau in eastern France for intensive training. Early in February, 1918, the whole Division was brought together at the Chemin des Dames sector near Soissons. From that time on, the infantry and artillery units operated together. It is not possible here to record in detail the severe fighting in which Andover infantrymen took part in the Toul sector, the Château Thierry Offensive, the St. Mihiel drive, and the attacks north of Verdun. After the Armistice, the Infantry regiments were stationed in the Chaumont region and later in the Le Mans area. They all returned in the early spring of 1919, and following a divisional review at Camp Devens and a parade in Boston, they were disbanded April 29th. At least sixty-one Andover men had served in the 26th Division.
IX
THE BRITISH AND CANADIANS IN THE WORLD WAR
BY GEORGE A. CHRISTIE
"They were summoned from the Hillside, They were called in from the Glen."
F AR from the hillsides and the glens of their native land, the sons of the Empire, gone forth to other lands to try their fortunes, heard the call and responded nobly. Here in America, thousands of men of British birth heard the call and answered.
Andover,-"everywhere and always first,"-waited not long. In her midst were soldiers of the King, men who had served with honor and earned their re- lease from military duties. But they were still obligated to answer the call in the hour of danger to the Mother Country, and on August 2, 1914, the hour-"Der Tag"-came. Less than two weeks after the War Lord of the Huns had launched his legions and loosed his thunderbolts of death across the fertile plains and val- leys of fair Belgium, with "the White Chalk Cliffs of Dover" as his final goal, the sons of the Empire here in old Andover were on their way to assist their comrades to repel the onrush of the war-crazed Hun.
America had not yet entered the war. Washington awaited with patience the last word in the campaign of frightfulness on the high seas that would finally make it impossible to continue friendly relations with the Kaiser and his hordes.
The sons of the Empire, the sons of the Mother Land, rallied to the flag. These men bore the brunt of the fighting for more than two years before the boys of the Stars and Stripes received their first baptism of fire. They fought in Flanders and Northern France. They were the first to face the terrible gas attacks, which caught them unprepared, and they fell like grass before the reaper. Andover's men were there. They were at Ypres and Loos and the Somme. They were poorly equipped both as to guns and ammunition. One of Andover's men who was at Ypres, and who fought on a dozen battle fronts during his more than four years with the British, told of how at Ypres in the early stages of the war they saved the shells until the end of the week for a grand blow-out. They fired just enough during the week to let the Hun know that Tommy was still there. It was this spirit that enabled the British to hang on to Ypres all through the war, although at a terrible cost.
129
BRITISH AND CANADIANS IN THE WAR
There was no obligation on the part of these men to leave their homes here and cross the seas. They remembered, however, that they were Britons still, and that their country called, and that was enough for them. The first to go was James Cavan. He had served with the colors before coming to America. He re- joined his old regiment and answered the last call on "Flanders Fields, where poppies grow." Other men of British birth crossed the seas and enlisted to serve the King and Country. There were two who served through the war, David Waldie, a battle-scarred veteran of another war, and Norman K. MacLeish, a mere boy, who joined the famous Cameronians. William Rae and David Croall went back to the land of glens and hillsides and enlisted with the Black Watch, the most noted of all the Highland regiments. They were in the thick of the fight when the attack of the Hun was the fiercest and died a soldier's death.
Through the days of 1917, when America with feverish haste was training her young men for the final assault against the enemy, the British were hanging on with dogged determination. The Channel was the Kaiser's hope; his hope was never fulfilled. It meant more men to hold the Germans back, and Andover men again responded. Canada made the appeal, and, wearing the Maple Leaf of the Dominion, nearly half a hundred young men of Andover heeded the appeal. The pipes of the Black Watch and the recruiting officer of the MacLean Kilties got results, and they crossed the border with many a sturdy son of the Empire. The MacLean Kilties were recruited wholly in America, and Andover did her part.
The men who went with the Canadians knew theirs would be no easy task. From the beginning of the war the Dominion troops had faced all the most devilish engines of destruction the Hun could devise. They were chosen to lead a forlorn hope or left as a rear guard to cover a retreat, when a gas attack had done its work. They were in the danger zone at all times, and their casualties were heavy. It was with these troops that the Andover men elected to serve in 1917.
Then came the dark days of 1918 when the sons of the Empire had their backs to the wall. Casualties came thick and fast, and Andover did not escape. Patrick O'Neil paid the supreme sacrifice fighting with the Victoria Rifles, and his death, the fifth of the local men, occurred before the first Andover boy with the American Expeditionary Force gave his life upon the battlefield of France. Others were maimed for life and came back after spending many weary months in the hospitals of France or England. Some went to Siberia, and Robert Hutcheson was the last of the Sons of the Empire to return from that far off land.
Andover men did their part of a "far-flung battle line," under the Union Jack or the Maple Leaf of Canada. They wallowed in the mud of the rat-infested trenches of Flanders and France, bravely withstanding the gas, the liquid fire, and every other form of destruction of the enemy. They bore the heat of the noon- day sun on the desert sands of Egypt, under the shadow of the Pyramids, with "centuries looking down on them." At Gallipoli they shared in the heroic but badly planned attempt to capture the Golden Horn from the unspeakable Turk
130
ANDOVER IN THE WORLD WAR
and thus open a way to the back door of the Kaiser's domain. They braved that malaria and the enemy at Saloniki. To Siberia Andover men went, and thousands of miles inland, mid the pines, the frost, and the snow of the far Northeast they fought the Bolsheviki.
"What did the British do in the War?" was the question too often asked. The answer is found in the record of the Andover men who served under the Union Jack or wore the Maple Leaf of Canada. Fifty were in service. Five gold stars are on the Andover service flag for Pert, Cavan, Rae, Croall, O'Neil,-British and Canadians. Twelve gold crosses for wounds or gassed in action; the Dis- tinguished Conduct medal for extraordinary bravery under fire in the second bat- tle of the Somme, for an Andover man, a citizen of the United States, David Waldie. Fifty per cent of the men of Andover who fell in action were with the British or Canadians. That was what the British of Andover did in the World War. They had not been long enough in this land to become citizens. Had they been, they would have given the same kind of service for Old Glory and the cause.
They were the sons of the Empire and their country called. They left their homes, their wives, their children to answer that call. They fought till the end, and with the combined effort of the Allied nations victory came.
"It shall be their lifelong boast,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.