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 36
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Percy must have been to some extent a fatalist. He had a definite premoni- tion that he would never come back from France. He was not morbid about this, and probably very few people knew of it. However, the idea was firmly fixed in his mind.
Some one else must write about Percy in the War. How he looked after his men with that high sense of obligation to his job; how his transfer to aviation came through just before the big push and how he, with characteristic decision, stayed with the Company and gallantly led his men into action.
That was when we lost the body of Percy Hall. His soul, thank God, we shall never lose. We who knew him and what he stood for, must see that our "younger brothers" in the Ninth Company keep his example in their hearts and minds and reverence him as one of Company I's immortals.
Tall, graceful, handsome, with a smile that won men and women alike. A keen mind, a quick wit; unassuming but with great poise; unselfish in thought and action; loyal with a loyalty that nothing could swerve; a leader who led men with his heart, and who was followed by his men, partly because they trusted his judgment, but more because they worshipped him and would have followed him through Hell without giving a damn whether he was right or wrong-that was Percy Hall.
-FRANCIS L. GOULD
THE 2ND PLATOON, COMPANY I 107TH INFANTRY-SEPTEMBER 29, 1918
This platoon formed the left of the 3rd Battalion line, first wave, and ad- vanced against the enemy trenches north of the ruins of the Guillemont Farm buildings. There were few casualties until the platoon started up the eastern slope of the Farm, where as our barrage was a thousand yards ahead of us the machine gun fire from the direction of the Vendhuile took deadly toll.
Thirty-three men and one officer started in the assault. Thirteen were killed on the field or died of wounds shortly after, fifteen were wounded, one was captured, four men and the Lieutenant came out of the fight unhurt. All the non-commissioned officers, four Sergeants and five Corporals, were casualties. All the Corporals were killed and one Sergeant, making a loss of 85.8%.
Private William Miller was thrown into the air by a shell which half buried him when he struck the earth. He lay unconscious for some time, came to, tried to
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THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
follow the Company and in a dazed condition, wandered into the German lines and spent the rest of the war in prison camp. He was carried as dead until one day after the Armistice he walked into the orderly room, a sick man but very much alive.
Mess Sergeant Shearer, attached to the platoon a few minutes before it left the tape, came from the Division Bakery and practically had never made a formation or shot a rifle. He disappeared completely and was carried as miss- ing until, months after the fight, we learned that he had lost a leg on the 29th and been picked up by the Australian stretcher men and sent to England.
The organization of the platoon on the morning of September 29 was as follows :
Platoon Sergeant W.
Irving Clayton
Wounded; Belgian Croix de Guerre Killed; D.S.C., Croix de Guerre
Mess Sergeant Shearer
Wounded
First Squad, Rifle :
Private W. Dunlap
Killed
Corporal John
Private Liston
Palmer
Killed
Private Sanchez
Wounded
Private Elsworthy
Killed
Private Zapata
Killed
Second Squad, Rifle : Corporal Doolittle
Killed
Private Rodriguez
Private Mazucca
Wounded
Private Wintler
Wounded
Third Squad, Lewis Gun : Corporal Ar-
Private C. H. Walsh
Wounded; D.S.C.
Private Blanchette
Wounded
thur Calkins
Died of wounds
Private Capabianco
Died of wounds
Private Barker
Killed
Private Volkert
Killed
Fourth Squad, Lewis
Private Tuthill
Gun: Corporal
Private Wm. Miller
Captured
Harold Kunkle
Killed
Private Van Peer
Wounded
Private Albrecht
Wounded
Private Wood
Wounded
Fifth Squad, Rifle :
Private Cuccia
Wounded
Corporal Russell
Private Fassullo
Miller
Killed
Private Passone
Wounded
Private Bilharz
Wounded
-C. G. L.
COLONEL HAYES' LETTER TO MR. GEORGE CHAUNCEY
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS (G-3), AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
France, October 28, 1918
This is to be an effort to tell you about something that I believe will be of special interest to you, the General, H.C.D., and a few others among the in- comparable souls who are the personification of the splendid spirit and ideals of the old 7th Regiment. The "Grey Jacket" has justified himself. He had his
Sergeant George
Rowe
Wounded; D.S.C., Military Medal
Sergeant William Dausch
Private Minarik
Killed
Private Connell
Wounded
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OVERSEAS
opportunity and rushed forward to clasp it with open arms and an avidity that proved for all time and to the utter confusion of the most carping critic that more than a century of tradition and never relinquished ideals do have their influence and make it possible for a man to go forward to certain death per- haps, through a hellish hailstorm of machine-gun bullets, and with a smile on his face and determination in his heart accomplish the seemingly impossible.
In attempting to tell this story I am conscious of my inability to do it full justice yet I cannot be accused of self-accredited glory because I was not with the Regiment at the time and have no share in the fame with which they have so splendidly adorned one of the most brilliant pages of American history.
The few stray facts about the recent battle in which they were engaged that reached these headquarters indicated that something unusual, even for this war, had happened. The General, John J. Pershing, decided that he wished more complete information on the subject so I was called in from the Argonne- Meuse front where I happened to be at the time and sent up north for the special purpose of making a detailed report on the entire operation. This ex- plains how I happen to know something more than the casual and official facts of the case. Of course my investigations related to the entire Division but the part in which you will be most interested relates primarily to the old Regiment so I will confine myself in general to its participation in the fight. I spent a week up there gathering my facts and impressions and some day when restrictions are removed you may, if you wish, read the complete report I sub- mitted. This, of course, can be only a brief summary of one phase of it.
The Fateful September 29
At dawn on the morning of September 29 the division as a part of the British Army operating south of Cambrai, launched an attack against what is now known to have been one of the strongest and most difficult parts of the famous Hindenburg Line. The Regiment was on the left of the Divisional front, the English division on its left was charged with maintaining the necessary liaison with it. The 3rd Battalion was the leading unit of the attack. I will avoid attempting further description of the tactical dispositions because without a map they would only be confusing. The attack was to follow a heavy artillery preparation and be made under barrage. Prior to taking over its section of the line it had been hoped and expected that the British unit which the Division was to relieve would have fought its way up to the point which had been de- termined upon as the jumping off line for the main attack. Though heavily en- gaged for several days this British division did not succeed in holding its ob- jective. They captured and lost it several times and when finally relieved by our division they were at a distance averaging from one thousand to twelve hun- dred yards in rear of the predetermined jump-off line. Not to be able to jump off from this predetermined line was of serious tactical disadvantage so the day after taking over the position one of the regiments of the Division fought continuously for twenty-four hours trying to gain it. Three times they reached the objective but on each occasion were driven out by overwhelming counter- attacks.
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THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
A Twenty Mile "Front"
The scope of the plans of the main attack covered a front of about twenty miles, thus naturally requiring strict adherence to the schedule of the general scheme that had required days to formulate and prepare. Therefore, the situation existing on the front of only one division could be considered only as a local condition that under the circumstances had to be accepted and overcome by sheer brute force. The preliminary operation of trying to gain the hoped for jump-off line, however, had clearly indicated to the Boche the nature of the attack at that point, the only obscurity in his mind being the exact time when the attack would be made. In consequence he made his greatest concentration there and as was subsequently proved, made that the pivot of his main defense on that front.
The barrage table for such an attack is a highly complicated and involved bit of firing data that has to be figured well in advance and can not be easily or quickly changed with safety. Expecting to have attained the proposed jump- off position for the entire front of the attack the barrage naturally was cal- culated to conform to that line but, as before indicated, the front occupied by the attacking brigade of the division was not nearer than one thousand yards to where the barrage was to fall. It was considered impracticable to attempt any change in the plan and in consequence at zero hour the brigade went over without any assistance from the barrage because they were so far behind it that the machine gun nests between it and the attacking waves were at no time under shell fire and the Boche gun crews could operate their guns with ex- ceptional freedom and accuracy.
Examines Enemy "Nests"
The ground on that front was literally seething with machine gun nests and a perfect maze of wire entanglements. There was not an area ten feet square that was not perfectly enfiladed by their fire at deadly close range. I spent two days making a most careful reconnaissance of the position; personally got down into at least one hundred gun emplacements in order to sight their field of fire and I can assure you with utmost confidence and without a vestige of exag- geration that no position in the entire Hindenburg system had been devised and organized with such uncanny cunning and expert knowledge. It repre- sented the Boche military genius in its highest development. Since July 15 of this year I have travelled over ten thousand miles by motor along the western front, have seen and carefully studied the ground over which the Allies have been fighting from Ypres to the Moselle.
Toughest Spot in Europe
To do this and write reports regarding it has been a part of my job so I consider I have a right to claim familiarity with the battlefields of France that is more comprehensive than that obtained from just casual observation. And it is with these experiences and opportunities in mind that I make the assertion that nowhere in France or Belgium could one find a position that could
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OVERSEAS
with greater reason be considered more impregnable than that strip of ground over which those wonderful men swept like an avalanche. Of course I would be prejudiced in favor of these fellows; who could have been associated with them as long as I have and know them as well as I do and not be, yet what I am saying to you I said in my official report where exaggeration would not be tolerated, and no statement I have ever made on any subject has been more completely justified by the facts.
Death by the Bayonet
In addition to the natural strength and scientific development of the position it had been connected by underground galleries in great number with the famous Cambrai-St. Quentin canal tunnel. This tunnel is exactly five and seven-tenths kilometers long and during its four years of possession by the Boche they had developed it into an elaborate underground shelter, perfectly safe from all shell fire, capable of housing the equivalent of two of their divisions. At the time of this attack the tunnel was filled to capacity with their reserves and from it they fed men into their advance positions with perfect safety and ease yet our fellows swept over them and bayoneted their machine gunners while still in the act of operating their guns. I have seen dead Boche by the thousands but I saw on that two mile front more Boche who had been killed with the bayonet than I had hitherto seen during my entire experience in France.
Even now it is difficult for me to believe that those men got across that ground and through that wire, but by God they did and they kept on going until what was left of them got to their final objective, incredible though it may seem.
Guts and Bayonets
As they were to advance without the protection or assistance of the barrage a number of large tanks were assigned to destroy the wire, smash the machine gun nests and generally help them in getting forward. All but three of these tanks were destroyed by mines before they had advanced one hundred meters and the remaining three were put out of action by direct hits from Boche artil- lery and anti-tank guns almost immediately thereafter, so it became a case of just guts and bayonets. Well, they had the guts and the gruesome smear they made of that field proved that they knew how and were willing to use the bayonet.
The British division on their left was checked and lost contact with them thus leaving their left flank in the air but they protected themselves as best they could and kept on going. By that time they were being fired upon from their left and rear as well as from the front. After passing over the machine gun nests and killing every Boche in them they naturally expected that the troops detailed to do the necessary mopping up in their rear would follow and protect them from that direction. Owing to the elaborate system of underground galleries con- necting with the tunnel, however, the Boche fairly oozed out of the ground and in such great numbers that they were able to stop all of the supporting ele- ments. As a result the men who got through in the first rush found themselves
416
THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
practically surrounded and cut off from their supports and for the next forty- eight hours they put up a free for all scrap with the fighting completely sur- rounding them, that will go down in history as one of the most desperately contested fights in the annals of the war.
"Only Playing Leap Frog"
After reaching their objective they were to stop and an Australian division was to "leap-frog" them and continue the advance. Well ! it took that Australian division and the supporting brigade of our division two days to fight their way up to the line where this leap-frogging was to take place and that is in no sense a criticism of the Australians or anyone else. The Boche just kept pouring out of the holes in the ground in such numbers that it took two days to kill them off and capture their guns. How those fellows who got through held on as long as they did is beyond my comprehension. Of course it was suspected that all of them had been killed or captured so you can imagine the surprise and de- light of the "Aussies" and the rest of our division when they got up to them and found everybody fighting like Hell without ever having thought of quit- ting. During their advance they picked up one hundred and forty-four prisoners and as they could not send them to the rear they took 'em along with them and finally brought back all but two. The missing two either got fresh or tried to escape or did something to get themselves killed, nobody cared a damn which, so long as they didn't get away.
At first it was thought that the impulsive advance of those leading elements, while courageous to a high degree, had succeeded in doing nothing but causing undue casualties; it has since been proved, however, that by going ahead and hanging on as they did, they kept the Boche so engaged on that part of his front that he not only was mystified but could not use his remaining reserves to check the advance at other places in the line.
Non-Coms Take the Lead
The Regiment went into the fight exceptionally short of officers owing to many of them being away at schools and on various details. Of those remain- ing, eleven were killed and fourteen wounded; this resulted in some of the units coming under the command of non-coms and it would delight your soul fully to know how those boys rose to the occasion and handled the situation with coolness and skill. As soon as one man would go down there would be another to take his place and carry on and at no time was there any suggestion of a lack of leadership. By Jove! that makes me thrill with pride and satis- faction for in a sanguinary fight like that the loss of officers and leaders often breeds panic. Not so in this case, however, for as long as there was a man left there would have been a leader who knew his job.
Happy Meeting
The whole Regiment conducted itself so gallantly it would be absurd to at- tempt discrimination in giving credit to any individual unit. It so happened that
417
OVERSEAS
the 3rd Battalion met with perhaps the greatest resistance owing to the posi- tion that chance gave it to capture and in consequence the casualties in that Battalion were the heaviest. A few days after the fight I stood on the roadside and watched the Regiment march past in column of squads when it was passing from one area to another, and it was a military spectacle I shall never forget. Their spirit was as proud as ever and justly so. They carried their heads a bit higher and I am sure I detected a bit more elasticity in their step as they came swinging down the road with characteristic touch of elbow and arm swinging across the front of their bodies just as we have so often seen when they were on parade. Of course I thought of General Dan and longed for him to see his beloved Grey Jackets as I saw them for I am sure it would have been the su- preme moment of his life. There was a bit sterner expression on their faces than I had ever seen for they had been through Hell just a few days before and while conscious of the seriousness of their "day's work" over here there was not a suggestion of depression for their morale had not been shaken to the extent of even a tremor. But when Company K came along with three squads, fol- lowed by Company I with only two I nearly made a spectacle of myself. I simply had to march along with that old Toujours Pret crowd until I had shaken hands with every mothers' son of them and when they had passed out of sight I hated myself for not having given way to my impulse to hug each and every one as well. Oh! I know too well how easy it is to kill the men who may for the time being constitute the personnel of such an organization for I have actually seen that result in all its grimness, but thank God no human agency has been or, in my opinion, ever will be found that can kill the glorified spirit of Ameri- canism and devotion to duty upon which the 7th Regiment is founded. And though its ranks may be depleted at present the remaining cadres are so com- pletely imbued with its proud traditions it will be only a matter of days when the replacement sent to fill the gaps will be inspired with the same feeling of Pro Patria et Gloria that has been its guiding spirit for more than a century.
As I feared at the beginning I have failed completely in my effort to give you even a remote idea of this thing. I simply have to confess my inability to do the subject justice because it was such a splendid thing those men did that it is beyond my powers even to tell about it. The copy of a clipping from the London Times which I enclose will give you some idea of how the British thought about it and again, when after the war and restrictions are removed, you will be interested to read the letters given to me by the Commanding Gen- erals of the British Army and the Australian Corps with which the Regiment and Division were serving. These letters were made a part of my report and I have kept copies of them.
Heroes' Graves
The sad part of the story is the casualty list but I mustn't dwell upon that for it tears my heart. I actually found the bodies of some of the men in my old Company and they were so far forward that when I arrived a few days after the fight the place where I found them was still too close to the actual front line to be considered safe for burial parties to work there for fear of drawing hostile
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THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF COMPANY I
fire. War in the abstract and its results is depressing enough, Heaven knows, and seeing men killed is something one has to get accustomed to over here. But I shall never as long as I live forget that bleak October morning when under leaden skies I found on a hillside in northern France the final resting place of some of the best friends I ever had in my life. In one cemetery, lying side by side, were ten officers of the old Regiment and among them Percy Hall. I loved that boy as a brother for he was one of the sweetest natured men I have ever known. He had been my First Sergeant in Texas and afterwards my First Lieutenant and you know what that relationship meant in old Company I. He was hit by a machine gun bullet early in the fight and though mortally hurt and unable to speak he did not forget to express with his charming smile his appreciation of the attention of one of the men who handed him a canteen of water just before he died. By God! sir, that is characteristic of those men, they all died with a smile and with a glorified face toward their enemy. When I found Percy's grave I was torn between the pride and honor of having been his friend and comrade and my deep sorrow in his loss and I freely gave way to my emotion and knelt there while I anointed that hallowed spot with my tears of which I am not ashamed.
We were not supposed to write about casualties, furthermore you have prob- ably heard before this the details regarding them, but you will be glad to know that I received a note from George Nichols today written from a hospital in London and as usual he is quite cheerful and happy and says he will soon be on the job again, his wound in the neck not being serious. Of course you people at home will be saddened by the casualties for they were exceptionally heavy in the old Regiment, quite the heaviest in the whole Division because chance gave them the most difficult part of the job to do but if you could but fully under- stand what they really did you would be filled with pride and admiration and wonder how any of them escaped unhurt.
Good Bayonet Work
I wish you could have shared in my good fortune of seeing the toll they exacted from the Boche. In every gun emplacement I saw at least one and in many three or four dead Boche and in nearly every instance they had been killed with the bayonet. Some of them still had the bayonets in them because our fellows had gone at the job so viciously that they perhaps sent their bayonets too far home but rather than waste time trying to get the blade out they simply detached it from the rifle and left it as a memento of their having passed that way. One Boche I saw was actually pinned to the bottom of a trench. He was lying on his back with only the hilt of the bayonet showing, the blade having gone entirely through his chest and been buried for several inches into a heavy timber that formed the floor plate of the U frame, used for rivetting, upon which he was lying. My first impulse was to try and remove that bayonet and keep it as a souvenir but I decided to leave it so someone else could get the same delight- ful thrill of satisfaction upon seeing it that I did. I really felt under obligation to that bird for having afforded me so much pleasure and I went back and looked at him several times without once being impressed by the merest sug-
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OVERSEAS
gestion of the gruesomeness of the thing. Really it was a marvellous fight those men put up and some day I hope to have the pleasure of telling you more about it; somehow I just can't seem to get it across in a letter no matter how much of the detail I should attempt to describe so imperfectly, so I will simply have to stop trying and switch to another subject.
I have exhausted every argument and subterfuge I could devise in my efforts to be returned to the old crowd but they persist in keeping me on my present job though I am still carried as Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment. Several times they have tried to make me a General Staff officer, thereby automatically relieving me of assignment to the 107th but I have managed to block that thus far in the hope that I may eventually get back with them; I fear, however, that my hope is becoming a bit forlorn. Of course I am appreciative of the oppor- tunities offered me by my present work for thereby I have been enabled to see nearly every square foot of the Western front and altogether a great deal more of the war than I ever thought it possible for one man to see, yet nothing quite compensates for being dissociated with the finest outfit that ever wore a uniform and it will be the happiest moment I have had since my arrival in France when, if ever, I get back with them. -WADE H. HAYES
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