USA > New York > The first hundred years : records and reminiscences of a century of Company I, Seventh Regiment, N.G.N.Y., 1838-1938 > Part 34
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390
THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
kicking the feet of one poor chap and trying to waken him. In the forward bank was quite an elaborate dugout of English make, only recently vacated by the Hun. We managed in the dark to get the place cleaned up and estab- lished Company headquarters. Along toward morning we were all dug in and under cover, such as it was.
Company L went through us further north in the lane toward Sart Farm, where 3rd Battalion Headquarters were located. Company K went down the Guillemont Road to Duncan Post, and Company M put out combat patrols toward Doleful Post on the hill in front of Sart Farm.
September 28, 1918. The sight presented by the field in our immediate front the next morning was not a pretty one. Daylight showed it strewn with British dead, while the road to our right was full of dead horses, broken limbers, and other wreckage of battle. A light drizzle set in, which continued off and on all day. The day was spent in trying to improve the shelters of the men and giving them as much rest as the usual details and working parties permitted. Lieutenant Hall, whose cold had grown worse, kept to his bunk as much as possible. He had a high fever, and I tried to get him to go out and let the doctors fix him up. He knew that the order transferring him to the Aviation Corps was probably at Regimental Headquarters, but he would have been the last man in the Army to take advantage of that fact. He laughed in his usual manner at my proposal to try and get him out; and although his spirit must have been severely tried by the prospect of going into action in such wretched physical condition, there was no indication of it.
Guillemont Farm, 1933
The buildings mark the enemy strong point. Over this ground the 3rd Battalion advanced on the morning of September 29 and on the slope to the left of the Farm, Company I lost 84% of the men who went into the fight
391
OVERSEAS
We posted a guard and let the men 'sleep, although the call for all sorts of details never let up for a minute. Lieutenant Hall insisted on dividing the time with me. Late in the afternoon Captain Egan visited us and told us what had been going on. A reconnoitering patrol from Company K had filtered out toward the Knoll, trying to feel out the enemy's line. They ran into machine gun fire from several directions and lost several splendid men, among them James Page, Corporal Bob Raven, Dick's brother, killed, and Sergeant Vos- burg, badly wounded in helping a wounded officer to get cover after one man had been killed in the attempt.
Soon after this the Boche began shelling our support line. At first the shells all struck short of our trench and then twenty-five to fifty yards back of it. The fumes of this bombardment rolled over us and started a gas alarm, which brought everybody out of the big dugout.
We learned late in the afternoon that some units of the 53rd Brigade were supposed to be holding on to shell holes out toward Guillemont Farm, and for this reason the rolling barrage which was to precede our assault in the morning would have to start 1,200 yards ahead of us. A strong force of tanks, however, was to accompany us and break the wire and clean up the nests. As scheduled, the 1st Battalion was to attack the Knoll on the left, the 3rd Bat- talion was to attack Guillemont Farm with the 2nd Battalion as support in our right rear, and the 108th Infantry were to take the Quennemont position further to the right.
THE HINDENBURG FIGHT
"When first under fire, an' you're wishful to duck, Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck; Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck, An' march to your front like a soldier."
Orders were given to each platoon leader to form on the tape in two waves about twenty yards apart as skirmishers at five paces, Companies I and L in the first line, and Companies K and M in the second line at fifty yards, making four lines of skirmishers covering a front of about four hundred yards. The direction to be maintained was a little north of east (about 70°). All this was gone over again with the non-commissioned officers that night, and they were duly impressed with the fact that it was going to be a squad leaders' fight and that the success of the assault depended upon them. "Keep on going, and don't let the men bunch!" were the last instructions given them.
Everyone tried to get a little rest before the show began, but of course there was no rest for anyone. We sent out details to gather picks and shovels for the men to carry with them, and details to bring up rations, grenades, and small arms ammunition. And we even gathered ammunition from some dump down the road for the dear old tanks!
In spite of all the activity, the last hours in the Company headquarters in Kent Lane dragged some. Lieutenant Hall and I were trying to rest on the
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THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
10th Inf.
Out post Line Hindenburg, System
Vendhuile
Tombors For
Knoll
recquin court > Valley
Macquincourt Fm.
5
Sant A
Entrance
<- St Emilie
L'empire
5
Theknob
414. Le Catelet
Sector . Battalion sector
3 rd Australian Division
Durban Post
-
Clay mo
.
Valley
chi Bony
2715 DIV.
Quennet
Dirk Volley
iAur shaft
27
fobse
1
Qvenne mont
me
ain
Farm
*
Hindenburg
-
LIKE -AM
#Betreaurl -
10
Battle for the Hindenburg Line Sept 29. Oct 3 1918
*
Tunnel Entrance
Battle map showing 27th Division sector, September 27-30, 1918
top tier of wire bunks. The Australian sergeants assigned to us were answer- ing many questions and giving heaps of good advice. First Sergeant Werley and the Company Clerk, William Dunlap, were trying to get the records straightened out by the light of our one tallow dip. There was much cheerful "kidding" to conceal a lot of perfectly natural nervousness, and many grue- some prophecies. The rations came up about midnight, and there was stew and bread for all who were not on detail.
The unfortunates in the working parties went in to the fight hungry as well as tired, which is the traditional condition of a soldier at such a time. Some Australian artillery officers came into our dugout late that night and disturbed the slumbers of the sergeants and runners at one end of the place by taking possession. At last the ammunition and tools were brought up and distributed. Each man in Company I started in that fight with a full belt, about four
Brigade sector
108th Próimental Sector
-----
St Quentin Canal Tunnel ?.
11
# GOOD
107# Regimental
[ Tunnel
Coz
Konut Lane
Post
Tuillemont
Bn 11
ArShaft
...
fir shaft
Bollicourt Road
5th Australian Division -
30the Division
Tombois Valley
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OVERSEAS
grenades, a light pack, and two men in each squad had long-handled shovels or heavy picks strapped to their backs when they started !
September 29, 1918. Orders to move out came about 4:30 and we formed the Company in the lane. This was not as easy as it sounds, for the road was jammed full of carrying parties, ammunition boxes, ration bags, and petrol tins. Even limbers tried to drive through while the Battalion was moving out. Company L finally crowded past through our road and turned down Guille- mont Road and we followed. Lieutenant Hall told me to lead off with the left half of the Company and he would look after the right half. The scene was brilliantly lighted from time to time with Very lights and other fireworks, and the Boche was shelling the road with accuracy and speed-so much so that we were forced to move into the field to the left of the road, where we ran into the 2nd Battalion, also moving into position.
We managed to filter through, a platoon at a time, without confusion, and halted in the field back of Duncan Post. Here the 3rd Battalion assembled. Captain Egan came out of the dark somewhere, and, calling for Company I, ordered me to follow Lieutenant Hill, the Australian Intelligence Officer, across the fields to the tape, urging us to speed it up, as the time for stepping off was near. We moved north across the dip some four hundred yards, following the Australian officer and stopping now and then for him to find the pieces of paper he had been forced to use when his tape gave out. He halted at last saying, "This is the left of the battalion line. Look out for troops on your left!" and vanished. The Company was in file. I ordered my half company to form as skirmishers in two waves, "automatic flanks." Company K was forming in the field in back of us. We put the 2nd and 4th Platoons in the first wave, and the 1st and 3rd in the second, to save time. The men were still taking full five-pace intervals to the right when-all the great guns on earth and all the shrieking little ones broke into a perfect inferno of a barrage. "We're off ! Pass the word to keep interval!" was the last word that could be heard above the din.
The long lines of men in khaki automatically faced to the front and started up the hill just as the first streaks of light began to show in the east. The field was immediately lighted by Boche flares, especially his "green over green over green" SOS, and by the red flashes of his guns. We were well over the first rise before the counter-barrage came down. A few shells struck near enough to cause casualties. I was on the extreme left of the Company with Corporal Calkins' squad, and Sergeant Clayton was near me when we started. I could see no troops of any kind on my left-there must have been some there-but to the right I could see the four long waves of the old battalion moving as steadily and beautifully to its death as it ever marched up the Avenue on parade. On they went over the first hill and down into the valley, with no tanks ahead of them and no barrage to prepare the way.
Shells now begin to break around the line, but still no one is hit. It's grow- ing lighter. We keep going from one shell hole to another. The wire catches our coats and leggings, but we tear ourselves loose and keep on. My old walk-
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THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
ing stick saves me from several nasty falls. The fire is hotter from the left as we go up the slope into the farm. Captain Bradish is with me for a while. He says something about tanks which I can't hear. I lose sight of him. The lines of Companies I and K are mingled now. Suddenly one of my Sergeants goes down, then another. The Lewis gun squad is all gone except Tuthill and Van Peer. Tuthill staggers along with a gun on his shoulder and a bucket of ammunition. A perfect deluge of fire now from the left front. The air is full of sizzling red-hot things-millions of bees are buzzing in our ears. Why, in God's name, does anyone live? Tuthill and I crawl along from one hole to another. A trench full of Huns is right ahead of us. Some of them begin to get out and run. "Can you shoot that gun from the hip?" I yelled to Tuthill. "I haven't any strap, but I'll try it, Lieutenant." He stood up and sprayed the trench and I used my automatic. To our right the line crawled up and gave the Boche a dose of grenades and then scrambled over into the trenches. Tossing a few Mills grenades into the dugouts, the line climbed out and went on.
While we were going up the hill an Allied plane swooped down on the enemy trench ahead and shot it up. We cheered him. "Good boy!" A second time he came down, this time too close. They got him and the poor chap fell with an awful crash about fifty yards to our left.
There were plenty of dead machine gunners in the trench we passed over. One who was sitting on a stool at his gun had been hit on the head by a grenade.
There were only a few left on our end of the line now, Companies K and I mixed, and they were about winded, but they did not stop-they kept on from shell hole to shell hole, until midway between Willow and Lone Tree Trenches, where the enemy was still holding and sweeping the ground with a merciless machine gun fire, it suddenly began to get misty, the sun went out, and we were swallowed up in a dense cloud of smoke. "Gas!" someone yelled. "Put on your masks!" and stopping long enough to adjust respirators, we tried to keep going, but lost touch with everything. It seemed hours before the smoke drifted off so that the hedge immediately in our front could be distinguished. I found myself in a shell hole with two men from Company A-Corporal Roberts and Ser- geant Donahue. I took a compass reading and found we were pointed in the right direction. But where was the Company? The last man of the Company I remember seeing was Joe Minarek, my orderly, coming along through the smoke and probably looking for me.
When the smoke finally lifted, our barrage had stopped and the Boche gun- ners in the hedge paid us a lot of attention. Donahue and Roberts tried to shoot them out with their rifles, but could get no target. We could hear them, but we couldn't see them. "We'll wait here," I announced, "until the line comes up. They must be crawling along, unless they're lost in the smoke or have drifted off to the right." And so we waited for a long time, and they didn't come up, and I grew more anxious every minute. There were lulls in the firing now, after which it would burst out again in full fury. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps there was no line to come up. I decided to crawl back to the first trench and find the Company.
395
OVERSEAS
By keeping close to the ground, Roberts and I managed to get back to Willow Trench, which was then held by all that was left of Company A. Leaving them, I went off to the right down a boyau leading to the front, ran into two different parties of the Boche, got away from them, and finally brought up on the Guille- mont-Bony road a little before the German aviator was brought down. He fell fifty or sixty yards to my rear and showed me where our line was. I worked back and met the Australians. Lieutenant Graham-Rogers and I formed a provisional company of men from the 107th and several other regiments and went over again at 3 p.m. with the Australians (40th Battalion, 10th Brigade).
We advanced to the left of Guillemont Farm and in the first trench I picked up Sergeants Garey and Brinckerhoff, Corporal Cutler and Privates Tuthill and Liston of Company I. These were all that was left of the Company in that part of the field. The Australian aid post was full of wounded. I saw Corporal Russel Miller of my platoon dying in a shell hole. He was unconscious, shot through the stomach. We went over the same ground we had crossed in the morning until we came to Lone Tree Trench.
The Australians worked around the left and bombed out the trench while we held on to the hedge, but their advance was held up right there where we had been stopped that morning. The Australian Captain said that things looked bad and he thought we would have to stay there all night. The shell fire grew hotter and a cold drizzle added to our discomfort. We dug in and waited.
From Sergeant Garey I learned what happened to the center of our line in the morning. After taking the first trench and leaving half their number dead or wounded on the slope and in the wire, the line of Companies I and K had pressed on across the field to the next enemy trench, from shell hole to shell hole, using their rifles and grenades on the nests as they came to them. Sergeant Fred Brown, leading the remnant of his platoon, crossed the second trench and fell dead beyond it. At the second trench the fighting was fierce and hand to hand. A German officer led a counter-attack out of their trench against our thin and shattered line. As they came on the boys mowed them down with grenade and rifle. Sergeants Garey, Dee, and Brinckerhoff, and the men around them fought like demons. Dee was hit twice and disabled com- pletely before being dragged out. Sergeant Rowe went down, severely wounded, but got up and kept on. Corporal Alexander Kin fell dead, crying, "Come on, let's go!" as he rushed a Boche machine gunner. Further to the right, First Sergeant Werley fell in the enemy trench, wounded by a grenade, and lay there for several hours before he regained consciousness and could drag himself out. Little Barker, of Corporal Calkins' Lewis gun squad, after all were down but Charlie Walsh and Volkert, crouched on the edge of a shell hole and in- sisted on offering his back as a rest for the gun so that Walsh could get a better field of fire. Barker was killed, Walsh and Blanchette both were twice wounded. Volkert took the gun from Walsh and went on to his death. Seymour Anderson and Jesse Merriott both died on their guns, with dead Boches around them, and their magazines empty.
Corporal "Jimmy" Fotrell was badly wounded and John Holmes fell dead fighting around Lieutenant Hall. He was hit early in the fight and died in a
396
THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
shell hole after giving his overcoat to one of his wounded comrades. Sergeant Major Kunst, Fred Schmitt, and all of the headquarters men were in the thick- est of it. After Captain Egan was wounded, Lieutenant Floyd, his adjutant, continued on leading the line across the second trench and fell wounded beyond it. The counter-attack was promptly driven back, but the line was enfiladed by the terrible fire from the left. Companies L and M on our right were caught by the same fire. All their officers were killed or wounded.
Not a man hesitated. They went on until they were killed or wounded, fighting to the last. Clerks, orderlies, runners-some who might have been non- combatants-all were there, all did their full duty, and some who had been thought poor soldiers in camp stood up to it just as steadily as the snappiest sergeant.
While we were digging in that evening Corporal Merritt Cutler went out for the second time that day between the lines and helped bring in George Blanchette who lay desperately wounded. One of his party was killed, but the wounded were brought in.
After our preparations had been made to stay in this position for the night, Lieutenant Graham-Rogers, after consulting with the Australian Captain, and on his advice, ordered us to report back to Regimental Headquarters on Sart Farm and find our units. Just about dusk we got the outfit together and started to file back toward Kent Lane. It was a terrible trip.
The Australian aid post on the slope was now full of our wounded. Here I found Charlie Walsh shot through the stomach and the arm. He had been there since morning with no attention because his case was considered hopeless. Sergeant Holt of Company K lay beside him, and that night their comrades, so exhausted that they could move but a few feet at a time, brought them both in. And all that night the tired stretcher-bearers worked, bringing back the shattered and mangled evidences of the price we had paid that day.
In the Colonel's dugout I met Captain Bradish and Lieutenant Daniell. We were the only officers of the 3rd Battalion-who went into the fight-on our feet that night. Our minds were too numbed to realize the terrible losses we had undergone since daylight. It was unbelievable. Of the 140 rifles which Percy Hall had taken into the fight, I found during the afternoon, Garey, Brinckerhoff, Tuthill, Liston, Richmond, Wakeman, and Schecter. Cutler had been wounded coming out. Twenty were all we ever got together. I reported as best I could to Colonel Debevois. Physically, I was finished. I crawled into a wire bunk and passed into a troubled sleep. And so ended what will always be to the survivors of its events the most momentous and the saddest but the most glorious day of their lives.
On September 30 and October 1 what was left of Company I, under Lieu- tenant Leland, with part of the Headquarters Company and a section of Aus- tralian machine gunners, held Doleful Post, now a strong point in the sup- port line, and were subjected to a gas and H.E. bombardment. Patrols, under Sergeants Garey and Brinckerhoff, at this time found the bodies of Lieutenant Hall and the brave men who died with him lying in windrows on the slope, in the wire and between Lone Tree and Willow Trenches. Joe Sweeney of
397
OVERSEAS
Company I, attached to the Battalion Intelligence Section, while in an ad- vanced position making a sketch, was badly gassed with mustard and nearly lost his sight. The Company was relieved at noon on the 1st of October and filed back to a field beside the road at St. Emilie, where our field kitchen, under acting Mess Sergeant Meade Wicks and his efficient cooks-Jerry Stanton hav- ing gone to Regimental Headquarters to boss all the kitchens-met us and gave us our first square meal since the 27th. It was a sad meeting. Later we moved on to Saulcourt for the night.
Here, the following morning, Colonel Debevois ordered out the band to brace the men's spirits. The colors were unfurled, and, as they were carried through the camp, throats were too choked to cheer. The red in that flag meant some- thing now to every man-it meant the blood of our dead comrades, whose like we shall never see again.
At Doingt, just north of Peronne, the Regiment reorganized. Company I was encamped in a collection of corrugated iron huts recently vacated by Huns. Here Company I received a few men from hospital and organized three skele- ton squads. Sergeant Garey was appointed First Sergeant. Tuthill, Usher, and Moore were made Corporals. Supply Sergeant Johnson was kept busy trying to find clothes and equipment enough for our depleted numbers, and some of our men had to go back and help bury their dead comrades. That was the toughest job of the war.
In four days we were off again for the front. This time, of course, consider- ing our losses, we were going up merely as spectators-division reserve, etc., -so rumor went.
As Company I left Doingt on the 7th of October and started for Tincourt beside the road, we met Lieutenant Colonel Wade H. Hayes from G.H.Q .- our old skipper, who had last seen us 250 strong. Now our three pitiful little squads came to attention as we marched by him.
That night we pitched tents in the Bois de Tincourt, a large grove north of the town. The following day we were reviewed by the Brigade Commander, General Pierce, and after dark started off for a night march. We went along with a column of walking wounded from the 30th Division for a while, who told us the Boche were on the run. That march was a heart-breaker, but, like everything else in this world, it finally ended and we tumbled into a field be- side the road, kitchen and all, and flopped down exhausted. In the morning we woke up in the middle of the old Hindenburg Line, just outside of Belli- court, and within fifty feet of several concrete dugouts and shelters with chicken-wire beds! (Business of kicking ourselves.) We were on the ground now that the 30th Division had fought over on the 29th of September and near the southern end of the famous underground portion of the St. Quentin Canal. The whole landscape for the most part, was dotted with machine gun emplace- ments, pillboxes, strong points, a mass of defensive works you could have sworn it was impossible for human beings to overcome.
After a march of eight kilos through Joncourt and Ramicourt in the wake of the 30th Division, the Regiment camped on the night of October 9 on the battlefield just outside Montbrehain, amid many ghastly reminders of the fight
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THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
for that town. At this time a consignment of Second Lieutenants ("expend- able") reached the 107th and Company I drew two young officers fresh from training school but with line experience and of excellent calibre, namely, Lieu- tenant Joseph Murphy and Lieutenant Luther M. McBee.
We now had a fair supply of officers but were still shy on "troops."
After this stop we began to watch the observation balloons with great inter- est. Gradually we had been drawing nearer to them. If they appeared at a
The cottage
Another view of the cottage
The sunken road Company I was dug in along the bank to the right
The sunken road looking toward the town
The school house
Imberfayt Farm
Vaux-Andigny, October 1918
399
OVERSEAS
distance in the morning, we knew the front had been pushed along so much further toward Germany.
Just outside of Prémont, where we camped on the night of the 10th of October, the balloons were uncomfortably near at hand. The next day we even passed them and knew that we were close to trouble again.
We had a very comfortable pup-tent camp in the Bois de Sabliere, near Busigny, the night before the 3rd Battalion went in, although the nights were getting colder now and the days were rainy and gray.
The night of the 11th, Company I led the procession through the outskirts of Busigny, through gas and shell fire, to a strange village where in the dark the 3rd Battalion of the 107th relieved a company of the 119th (30th Division).
This was Lieutenant McBee's old company, in which he had served as a sergeant. On the edge of this village we took over a sunken road ending in an expanse of open field. The direction of the enemy was soon made apparent, but that night none of our patrols found any friendly troops on our left. We dug in but we didn't have to wait. The Boche artillery, especially the "min- nies" (Minnenwerfers), had the number of that road and its exact location to a quarter of an inch.
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