CROIX-MARE
March 10th, 1918
We have had our first big blow, and we are still reeling under the pain and sorrow of it. Our 1st Battalion left the trenches with few casualties to pay for their ten days of continuous work at trench and wire mending and night patrols. Arthur Trayer and John Lyons of Company D were the first to gain their wound chevrons. On March 5th the 2nd Battalion began to move company by company from Camp New York. I spent the afternoon before with each unit attending to their spiritual needs, and ending the day with a satisfactory feeling of having left nothing undone. I was with Company E on March 6th and will always retain a recollection of certain youngsters who stayed for a little friendly personal chat after confession, like Arthur Hegney, Eddie Kelly, Steve Navin, Arthur Christfully, George Adkins, Phil Finn; while Steve Derrig and Michael Ahearn with Bailey, Halligan and McKiernan were rounding up the bunch to keep me going.
The Company went out in the early morning of March 7th to relieve Company A, and soon had the position taken over. About 4 P. M. the enemy began a terrific shelling with heavy minenwerfers on the position at Rocroi. The big awkward wabbling aerial torpedoes began coming over, each making a tremendous hole where it hit and sending up clouds of earth and showers of stone. Lieutenant Norman, an old Regular Army man, was in charge of the platoon, and after seeing that his guards and outposts were in position, ordered the rest of the men into the dugouts. While he was in the smaller one a torpedo struck it fair and destroyed it, burying the two signal men from Headquarters Company, Arthur Hegney and Edward Kearney. The Lieutenant barely managed to extricate himself from the debris and set himself to look after the rest of his men. He was inspecting the larger dugout alongside when another huge shell came over, buried itself in the very top of the cave and exploded, rending the earth from the supporting beams and filling the whole living space and entrance with rocks and clay, burying the Lieutenant and twenty-four men.
Major Donovan of the 1st Battalion was at the Battalion P. C. with Major Stacom when the bombardment began. As there were six positions to defend and the shelling might mean an attack anywhere along the whole line, the Battalion Commander’s duty was to remain at the middle of the web with his reserves at hand to control the whole situation. So Major Donovan requested that as he had no general responsibilities for the situation he might be permitted to go down to Rocroi and see what he could do there. Stacom was unwilling to have anybody else run a risk that he was not permitted to share himself, but he gave his consent.
Major Donovan found the men in line contending with a desperate condition. The trenches were in places levelled by the bombardment and though the enemy were no longer hurling their big torpedoes they kept up a violent artillery attack on the position. The only answer that we could make to this was from the trench mortars which were kept going steadily by Lieutenants Walsh and F. McNamara, Corporal Cudmore, William Murphy, Wisner, Young, Harvey, P. Garvey, Herbert Shannon, F. Garvey, DeNair, Robertson and the one pounders under Lieutenant Cunningham, Sergeants J. J. Ryan and Willermin. One of their guns was blown clean out of its position.
Corporal Helmer with Privates Raymond, McKenzie, Cohen, McCormack, O’Meara and Smeltzer were saved from the dugout and immediately began to work for the rescue of the others, aided by 1st Sergeant Bailey, Sergeants William Kelly and Andrew Callahan, Corporals Bernard Kelly and William Halligan with John Cronin, Thomas Murray, James Joyce and John Cowie. They knew that many of their comrades were dead already but the voices could still be heard as the yet standing timbers kept the earth from filling the whole grade. The rescuers were aided by Lieutenant Buck and three sergeants of Company A, who had remained until the newly arrived company had learned its way about the sector. These were Sergeants William Moore, Daniel O’Connell and Spencer Rossel. Sergeant Abram Blaustein also hastened up with the pioneer section, Mackay, Taggart, Schwartz, Adair, Heins, Quinn, LaClair, Dunn, Gillman and the rest.
Major Donovan found them working like mad in an entirely exposed position to liberate the men underneath. A real soldier’s first thought will always be the holding of his position, so the Major quickly saw to it that the defense was properly organized. Little Eddie Kelly, a seventeen-year-old boy, was one of the coolest men in sight, and he flushed with pleasure when told that he was to have a place of honor and danger on guard. The work of rescue was kept going with desperate energy, although there was but little hope that any more could be saved, as the softened earth kept slipping down, and it was impossible to make a firm passage-way. The Engineers were also sent for and worked through the night to get out bodies for burial but with only partial success. Meanwhile the defenders of the trench had to stand a continuous shelling in which little Kelly was killed, Stephen Navin and Stephen Derrig were seriously wounded, and Sergeant Kahn, Corporal Smeltzer and Privates Bowler and Dougherty slightly.
The French military authorities conferred a number of Croix de Guerre, giving a Corps citation to Corporal Helmer for working to save his comrades after having been buried himself, “giving a very fine example of conscience, devotion and courage.” Division citations went to Major Donovan, “superior officer who has shown brilliant military qualities notably on the 7th and 8th of March, 1918, by giving during the course of a violent bombardment an example of bravery, activity and remarkable presence of mind”; and to Private James Quigley, who “carried two wounded men to first aid station under a violent bombardment and worked all night trying to remove his comrades buried under a destroyed dugout.” Regimental citations were given to Lieutenant John Norman, Lieutenants Oscar Buck and W. Arthur Cunningham, Sergeant William Bailey and Carl Kahn of Company E, Sergeants William J. Moore, Daniel O’Connell and Spencer T. Rossell of Company A, Sergeants Blaustein and Private Charles Jones of H. Q. Company.
The bodies of Eddie Kelly and Oscar Ammon of Company F, who was also killed during that night, with those that could be gotten from the dugout were buried in Croix-Mare in a plot selected for the purpose near a roadside Calvary which, from the trees surrounding it, was called the “Croix de L’Arbre Vert” or “Green Tree Cross.” The others we left where they fell. Over the ruined dugout we erected a marble tablet with the inscription, “Here on the field of honor rest”—and their names.
Company E held those broken trenches with their dead lying there all of that week and Company L during the week following. Following is a full list of the dead: Lieutenant John Norman, Corporal Edward Sullivan, George Adkins, Michael Ahearn, Patrick Britt, Arthur Christfully, William Drain, William Ellinger, Philip S. Finn, Michael Galvin, John J. Haspel, Edward J. Kelly, James B. Kennedy, Peter Laffey, John J. Le Gall, Charles T. Luginsland, Frank Meagher, William A. Moylan, William H. Sage and Robert Snyder of Company E; Arthur V. Hegney and Edward J. Kearney of Headquarters Company and Oscar Ammon of Company F.