FOOTNOTES:
[5] Final figures.
| Killed | Wounded | Missing | ||
| Officers | 14 | 45 | 0 | |
| Enlisted Men | 224 | 1,135 | 153 | |
| Total Losses | 238 | 1,180 | 153 | |
| Grand Total | 1,571 |
Practically all of those marked “missing” were wounded men of whom no record was sent back to us from the hospitals.
In the Lunéville Sector our battle losses had been 1 officer and 29 enlisted men killed; 19 officers and 408 enlisted men wounded.
In the Baccarat Sector, 3 men killed and 8 wounded.
In Champagne 1 officer and 43 men killed; 7 officers and 245 men wounded. Our missing on all three of these fronts was 9 men.
Between March 1st and August 1st the Regiment lost 315 killed, 1,867 wounded, 162 missing, making a grand total of 2,344.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ST. MIHIEL OFFENSIVE
The field orders for the attack on the St. Mihiel salient were received on September 10th, the date not being specified. Our division was to attack as part of the 4th U. S. Army Corps of the 1st U. S. Army; and we were given the honor of being made the point of the arrow which was to pierce through the center of the salient along the base of the triangle that was to be cut off. The 89th Division was on our right and the 1st Division on our left, with the 3rd in Army reserve.
Our Division was to be formed with both brigades abreast, the 83rd being on the left of the 84th. The relative places of regiments with regard to each other was to be in the same order in which they fought at the Ourcq—from left to right: Ohios, New Yorks, Alabamas and Iowas. Each regiment was to have one battalion in the first line and one in the second, the remaining battalions acting as brigade or division reserves. Battery F, 149th F. A. was to follow up with the infantry of our brigade after their capture of the first position. The brigade had also the co-operation of a battalion of our Engineers for road and bridge work, one platoon of the first gas regiment and two groups of French Schneider Tanks.
On the night of September 10th we moved forward to the vicinity of Mandres, where we relieved elements of the 89th Division which were transferred further to the right. Our headquarters on September 11th were at Hamonville, not far from Seicheprey where the 26th Division had played a savage game of give and take with the Germans when they held the trenches last Spring.
Copies were issued of the very elaborate plans which had been prepared by Army Chiefs of Staff outlining with great definiteness the part that each element of our Army had to play in the work that lay ahead of them.
The men were encamped in a forest of low trees, a most miserable spot. It had been showering and wet all the week and we were living like paleozoic monsters, in a world of muck and slime. The forest roads were all plowed by the wagon wheels and when one stepped off them conditions were no better, for the whole place was really a swamp. I made my rounds during the afternoon and got the men together for what I call a silent prayer meeting. I told them how easy it was to set themselves right with God, suggesting an extra prayer for a serene mind and a stout heart in time of danger; and then they stood around me in a rough semi-circle, caps in hand and heads bowed, each man saying his prayers in his own way. I find this simple ceremony much more effective than formal preaching.
When I got back to headquarters I found my own staff very considerably increased. Father Hanley had come back a couple of days before. The rumors of approaching action were all over France, so, sniffing the battle from afar, he got the hospital authorities to let him out and rejoin his regiment for the coming fight. I kept Father Carpentier attached to the regiment for the time being until I could get the Protestant chaplain that I had been petitioning for so long. Father Hanley still had a perceptible limp and was moving around with the aid of a stick so I told him that he would have to look after the hospital center (Triage) while the fight was on, a commission that he took with no good grace. To Father Carpentier I gave a roving commission to look after Catholics in the Ohio and Alabama regiments, a task for which his zeal and endurance especially qualified him.
Now I found two more Chaplains on my hands—one from the Knights of Columbus, Father Moran, an Irish Priest, and one assigned to the regiment, Chaplain Merrill J. Holmes of the M. E. Church. I liked him on sight and we were not long in getting on a basis of cordiality which will make our work together very pleasant. It was too late to send the extra chaplains to other regiments as we were even then getting ready to move forward into line, so I decided to keep them all under my wing. I told the lieutenants of the Headquarters Company that it would not be my fault if they did not all get to Heaven because we had five chaplains along. “Five Chaplains,” said Lieutenant Charles Parker. “Great Heavens! there won’t be a thing left for any of the rest of us to eat.”
The terrain which was to be the object of the attack of our three divisions was completely dominated on the left by the frowning heights of Mont Sec; and if they had been held in force by the enemy artillery it would have exposed our whole army corps to a flanking fire which would soon make progress impossible. It fell to the 1st Division to make their advance along the mountain side.
The ground over which we were to pass was for the most part fairly level up as far as the twin towns of Maizerais and Essey, to the left of which the Rupt de Mad made its way through swamps at the base of the hill which was crowned by these two villages. A number of woods dotted the surface; one of them, the Bois de Remières, stood directly in front of our advance. No Man’s Land at this point was seven or eight hundred yards wide; and the German trenches, as we afterwards found, were not in very good condition, though there was plenty of wire standing both here and at other points that were prepared for defence. We were to jump off at the east of Seicheprey, and regimental headquarters and dressing station were established by Colonel Mitchell and Major Lawrence in the Bois de Jury, not far to the rear.
We moved up to our jump-off point on the night of September 11th. The rain was falling in torrents. The roads were like a swamp and the night was so dark that a man could not see the one in front of him. And of course no lights could be lit. The road could not be left free for the foot soldiers, but was crowded with ammunition wagons, combat wagons, signal outfits and all the impedimenta of war. Time and again men had the narrowest escapes from being run down in the dark, and scarcely anybody escaped the misfortune of tripping and falling full length in the mud. It is a miracle of fate or of organization that the units were able to find their positions on such a night, but they all got where they belonged and found the lines neatly taped by Colonel Johnson’s excellent body of engineers. The 1st Battalion was in the front line commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Donovan, who was not willing to let his newly conferred rank deprive him of the opportunity of leading his battalion in another fight. The 2nd battalion under Major Anderson was in the second line, and picked men from each of its companies were given the task of following close behind the 1st, as moppers up, i. e., to overcome points of resistance which might be passed over, take charge of prisoners, etc.
The men shivered through the night in the muddy trenches waiting in patient misery for morning and the orders to attack. At 1:00 A. M. September 12th, our artillery opened fire on the enemy. We had expected a night of terrific noise like that which preceded the German offensive on July 15th, but the present one was not nearly so fierce, though it would have seemed a wonderful show if we had not heard the other one. In July the guns on both sides were shooting everything they had without cessation. But, here, there was no enemy counter preparation fire and our own fire was more deliberate.
Dawn broke on a cold, windy day and a cloud darkened sky. Donovan had been moving up and down his line with a happy smile on his face (unless he detected anything out of order) telling the men: “There’s nothing to it. It will be a regular walkover. It will not be as bad as some of the cross-country runs I gave you in your training period.” And when H hour arrived at 5:00 A. M., the feeling of the men was one of gladness at the prospect of getting into action.
Their way was prepared by a screen of smoke and a rolling barrage delivered by our artillery. Tanks advanced with our infantry crawling like iron-clad hippopotomi over the wire in front to make a passage-way. Some of them came to grief on account of the rain-softened ground, the edges of a trench giving way under the weight of a tank and standing it on its nose in the bottom. During the two days of advance we were well supplied with aeroplane service and possessed undoubted superiority in the air.
The four-inch Stokes Mortars had been put in position to lay down a smoke barrage and the barrage began to pound the enemy front line at the zero hour. The shells whistled overhead much closer than they had done during the artillery preparation and broke on the enemy trenches kicking up red fire and black clouds where they hit. It was raining slightly, there was a mist, and dawn was not yet breaking when the machine gun barrage which took the men over began to fire. The men began to whisper among themselves “That’s our stuff; no it’s not, yes it is.” All the sounds of battle were heard; the artillery, the small guns, and then, a little too soon, the Stokes Mortars in front of the Alabamas starting their fire-works which illuminated the entire front when the thermite shells exploded.
Then everybody jumped and started forward. The Bois de Remières lay in front of the right flank of our first battalion and as they moved forward, the flank units gave way to the left to pass around instead of through the woods. For a moment they lost direction. The support companies seemed to hesitate at the first belt of wire and began picking their way rather too fastidiously through it. Lieutenant Harold L. Allen was with the headquarters group which consisted of a mélange of runners, pioneers, liaison men, snipers, etc. He tells about Donovan running back from the front line shouting to the men “Get forward, there, what the hell do you think this is, a wake?” These words seemed to inspire Captain Siebert and as the lines moved forward he shouted loud and profane encouragement to the machine gun carriers burdened with boxes of ammunition and struggling forward through the tangle of trenches and broken wire.
Machine gun resistance was met on the enemy’s second line. The assault waves deployed and began firing. Automatic teams and snipers crawled forward to advantageous positions. Donovan, with his usual disregard of danger (never thinking of it in fact, but only occupied with getting through), moved back and forth along the line giving directions, and the enemy resistance did not last long, most of their men surrendering. Donovan led his men at heart-breaking speed over the hills, smashing all resistance before them and sending in small groups of prisoners. St. Baussant was taken at the point of the bayonet and the line swept on. On the hill overlooking Maizerais the battalion was halted once more by machine gun fire, and a battery of artillery behind the village less than five hundred yards away. The Germans had evidently decided to make some sort of a stand, taking advantage of the hill and the protection of the Rupt de Mad. But Donovan with about thirty men jumped into the river, made his way across it under fire, and when the Germans saw this determined assault from their flank they threw up their hands and cried “Kamerad.”
They attempted further resistance near Essey where they had machine gun pits in front of the village, but the resistance was quickly reduced by the aid of a tank and the village was cleared of the enemy. Donovan kept the battalion in the stone walled gardens on the outskirts of the town. Our own barrage was still pounding the village, for Essey represented the objective of the “First Phase, First Day,” and some of our men who wandered into town were hit by flying stone from the walls of houses.
Prisoners began to come in and a prisoner park was established near a big tree on the road leading into the village. French civilians were still living in this village, having spent the period of bombardment in a big dugout—the first civilians that we had the pleasure of actually liberating. They laughed and wept and kissed everybody in sight and drew on their slender stock of provisions to feed the hungry men. The soldiers began wandering everywhere looking for souvenirs. Corporal Kearin was in charge of the prison park. All the captives were from the regiments of the 10th Division, except a few from an attached Minenwerfer company and an artillery regiment. They were eager for fraternization and chatted and laughed with their captors. The men of the support battalions and from the units on our right and left, attracted by the town, began to straggle over. It resembled a County Fair, the prisoner park being the popular attraction of the day. Americans literally swarmed around the prisoners in idle curiosity while others rummaged through the German billets and headquarters looking for pistols, maps, German post-cards and letters—anything that would do for a souvenir.
However, this did not last long, Donovan had his battalion out and going for the objective which was marked as “Second Phase, First Day,” which lay beyond the next town of Pannes; and Anderson, coming in with the bulk of the 2nd Battalion, imposed his rigorous discipline on those whose business it was to be in town. He certainly was not loved for knocking in the head of a barrel of beer which some of the fellows had found (and, by the way, there can be no better proof of the rapidity with which the Germans evacuated the town than the fact that they had left it behind).
Donovan met with further resistance when he arrived before Pannes about one o’clock in the afternoon. He called for artillery and tanks and filtered up his men along the trees on the edge of the road while the Ohios advanced on the left and the Alabamas make a flanking movement against the town from its right. They soon had the opposition broken and by 1:45 P. M. our advanced elements, widely extended, were proceeding from Pannes towards the Bois de Thiaucourt, and at 1:55 the objective “Second Phase, First Day” was occupied by the 165th Infantry.
AT QUENTIN ROOSEVELT’S GRAVE THE CENTRAL FIGURE IS COLONEL McCOY
The whole day it had been a wild gallop with occasional breathing spells when the Germans put up some resistance. From the rising ground around Essey men looked back, and towards the west and east where the 1st and the 89th were also moving forward. It was like a moving picture battle. Tanks were crawling up along the muddy roads and khaki colored figures could be seen moving about in ones and twos and fours along the edges of the woods and across the grassy plains. Toward the rear were passing ever larger groups of prisoners in their blue gray uniforms, carrying their personal belongings and in many cases their own wounded as well as ours on improvised litters. Overhead the shells were still screaming from our heavy artillery with a good deal of answering fire from the German batteries, which caused most of our losses.
The prisoners were mainly Austrians and Austrian Slavs. They had not been very keen about the war at any time and were made less so on finding that they had been left behind after the bulk of the army had withdrawn. Many of them had been in the United States, and the first question that one of them asked was “Can I go back now to Sharon, Pa?” One of them was found seated in a dugout with a bottle of Schnapps and a glass. He immediately offered a drink to his captor saying “I don’t drink it myself, but I thought it would be a good thing to offer to an American who would find me.”
During the afternoon of the 12th the brigade P. C. was moved to Essey, regimental P. C. to Pannes. The 1st battalion organized their position just south of the Bois de Thiaucourt which was held by patrols who took more prisoners; the 2nd battalion about 1,000 yards further back on the reverse slope of a hill; and the 3rd battalion just outside the town.
The next day’s task was still easier. Donovan’s men jumped off at 6:10 A. M. with Companies B and C in the lead and A and D in support. Their patrols to the front at the time reported no contact with the enemy. Major Reilley with the 3rd Battalion was sent as Division Reserve for the 1st Division but was later ordered back. The 1st Battalion, followed by the 2nd, pushed through the Bois de Thiaucourt and the Bois de Beney capturing a couple of prisoners and meeting with no resistance. At the Sebastopol Farm a woman told them that the Germans were just ahead and retreating. The advance of our men was somewhat delayed by a gun in our supporting artillery which kept firing short and endangering the men, as one of the greatest difficulties in a rapid advance such as was made at St. Mihiel is that of maintaining liaison with the rear. By half past nine they had captured the enemy’s supply depot along the railway track, with the neighboring village of St. Benoit and the Chateau St. Benoit. It was a foot race all the way between the four infantry regiments and our fellows claim they won it by a good half hour, but I haven’t heard yet what the others have to say. I only know that if I ever have to follow up our infantry again in such an attack I am going to wait for an express train.
One thing that stands out most impressively in the memories of the 165th regarding this action is the devotion and courage of one of our former commanding officers. The dugout where Lieutenant Colonel Donovan established his temporary headquarters on the night of September 11-12th, was very small and very crowded. Every officer commanding a unit of the auxiliary arms crowded into it to avoid the nasty drizzle and darkness outside. The room was full of smoke, some of which managed to get outside as officer after officer came in to report the position of his unit. It was like the headquarters of an army corps. Parker of the one-pound cannons was perched on the upper deck of a bunk flanked by Siebert of the machine guns and a French Lieutenant who had come in to report that the accompanying tanks were ready. Lieutenants Allen and Betty were trying to carry out Donovan’s numerous orders. Captain Stone of the 149th Field Artillery pushed his way into the crowded room and reported to Donovan that his battery had been detailed to roll forward with the assaulting infantry. There was some conversation between them as to the conditions of the roads near Seicheprey and the possibility of having the battery follow close behind the assault, the number of available rounds of ammunition with the guns and the chance of delay in getting them forward over No Man’s Land. The conversation continued for a few minutes and was ended by Donovan saying, “Well, we have not done it before but we’ll give it a whirl this time.”
Just then Major Lawrence opened the door and called “Colonel, here’s an old friend of yours.” It was Colonel Hine. Wet and muddy and tired but evidently delighted to be back with the old regiment. Donovan gave him an enthusiastic welcome as did all the rest, although Betty whispered to Allen in a humorous grouch “I’ll bet Donovan will want us to get a room and bath for him”—referring to the Colonel’s practice of inviting everyone in to dinner or to share quarters no matter where he was or what he might have, and then putting it up to the staff to provide. Everybody naturally thought that Colonel Hine had come to view the battle from the regimental observation post on the hill near the Bois de Jury but later in the night when they moved down to the parallel of departure Colonel Hine was still along, sharing the experiences of the rest of them, stumbling into shell holes and tripping over barbed wire in the darkness. When they went over in the morning he was still there, and with the first wave; and all through that day’s fight and the next, he fought along by the side of his old men, who conceived an admiration for him in their loyal souls that nothing will ever efface.
Colonel Hine had obtained leave from his duties in order to satisfy his desire of going through a big battle with his beloved 69th. It was a unique compliment to the regiment itself. The regiment appreciates it as such, but it dwells more on the soldierly ardor and high courage of its first Colonel, who, though he had been transferred to less dangerous duties, found his way back to us and fought as a volunteer private in the regiment he had commanded. Such deeds as this are set forth in the story-books of history as an inspiration to the youth of the land.
In picking up stories of the fight I got one from Lieutenant Allen which I have jotted down as he gave it to me. “We came in front of Essey. Here there was a hill marked on the aeroplane photographs and maps which were issued before the attack as ‘Dangerous, go to the right and left.’ As we came over the top of this hill and advanced on its forward slope the battalion drew machine gun fire from the enemy guns disposed in pits in front of the village. I was out in front in a shell-hole with two snipers. One of them I sent back to Donovan with a message; the other began firing on the enemy who now began to run back into the village. In an adjoining shell-hole a few feet away, a soldier from our battalion sold a German Luger Pistol to an officer from some other regiment who had wandered from his sector, for thirty-five francs. A French tank caught up to us at this stage of the fight and moved down the hill until it was in front of the shell-hole where I was. I rapped on the side of his turret and called to the pilot, who reversed the turret and while the bullets slapped the side of his tank, opened the window. He was a dapper little Frenchman with the ends of his moustache waxed in points, and was clean and smiling. I gave him a target in front of the town and he fired several round at a mass of retreating Boches hurrying over the next hill. Opening the window again, he smiled and said ‘How’s that?’ then he went lumbering on.”
As the first battalion was making its advance during the second day it was held up in front of Sebastopol Farm by our own barrage which had not yet lifted. While waiting there they saw a French peasant woman with a small boy grasping her hand running through the shell fire from the direction of the farm. When questioned, she was in a great rage against the Boches and reported that a battalion of their troops had evacuated St. Benoit during the night. She also gave the welcome information that there were supplies of food in the farm and was very grateful to the Americans for releasing her from four years of captivity. She was the only woman that we saw actually on the battlefield during the war.
When our fellows reached St. Benoit they found that the Germans had started a fire in the Chateau, but it was quickly extinguished. The church too, had been set on fire and was beyond saving. When Jim Barry of C. Company saw it blazing he shouted “Glory be to God, those devils have burnt the church. Let’s see what we can save out of it.” With Tierney and Boyle and others following after he ran into the burning building and carried out statues and candelabra which they deposited carefully outside. Having finished their pious work they began to remember that they were hungry. Barry took from his musette bag some German potatoes which he had stored there in place of grenades that had been used up in action, and said, “Well we have done what we could, and now we’ve got a good fire here, and we might as well use it.” They stuck the potatoes on the ends of their bayonets and roasted them in the embers. Just then another party came along with some bottled beer that they had salvaged from the German supplies in Pannes, so they picnicked merrily in the square in front of the blazing temple.
It was well for all of us that the Germans had departed so suddenly that they left supplies behind, because it was an almost impossible task to get the kitchens and ration wagons through, on account not only of the poor condition of the roads but of the congestion of traffic. We never saw a worse jam in the whole war than on the main road from Seicheprey to Pannes—tanks, guns and caissons, ammunition wagons, trucks, infantry trains, all trying to get forward along one narrow road, and the whole line held up if a single vehicle got stuck; mounted men and foot soldiers trailed along the edge of this procession often having to flounder through the swamps of the Rupt de Mad.
The situation became dangerous towards evening of the second day when a large squadron of enemy battle planes swooped down on our own, and after the fiercest contest I have ever seen in the air drove two of ours to earth and regained the mastery. They did not, however, resort to bombing, satisfying themselves with reporting conditions to their own artillery. Our wagon train had a most uncomfortable half hour as it passed along the road between Beney and St. Benoit. Shell after shell came hissing towards them, but luckily the German guns were firing just a trifle short. If the shells had carried another fifty yards the train would have been wiped out; but the drivers sat steady on their boxes and kept the mules going at even pace until they reached their destination.
Pannes had still a number of civilians, about thirty in all, and all of them very old people or children, the able-bodied ones having been carried off by the enemy. Those remaining received their deliverers with open arms, and all the old ladies insisted on kissing Lieutenant Rerat, very handsome and blushing in his neat uniform of horizon-bleu. They had been rationed by the Germans during the four years of occupation; none too well, but with enough to keep them fit to work. They gave us all they had, and we had an opportunity to get an idea of what German soldiers got to eat. The bread was an indigestible looking mass on the order of pumpernickel. The coffee was far from being Mocha, but sugar seemed to be more plentiful than in France. The Fall vegetables were not yet ripe but the fields had been sown with potatoes, turnips, kohlrabi, and acres and acres of cabbage. The French authorities gave orders to have all civilians evacuated to the rear whether they wanted it or not; and Lieutenant Rerat and I assembled them with their pitiful little collection of belongings and sent them back in ambulances.
Sketch
To Illustrate The Offensive
of
The St. Mihiel Salient.
T. C. Ranscht
Sgt. H.Q. 165 Inf.
It was a great place for souvenir hunting—pistols, spurs, German post-cards, musical instruments—all sorts of loot. I saw Bill Schmidt with a long steel Uhlan’s lance; while Tom Donohue, true to his instincts, came by with no less than four violins. Most of the men, of a more normal type of soldier, passed up the musical instruments in search for German sausages and beer. There were also vast amounts of military stores and ammunition, as well as the field pieces and machine guns which had been captured in the battle.
Major Lawrence thinks that five or six of his men deserve a citation, for going out voluntarily under the leadership of Sergeant Eichorn and James Mason to rescue a wounded officer in another regiment. The Sanitary Detachment is very happy because they not only have the Major back but also three popular sergeants—Grady, Hayes and Maher who for a time have been attached to the Ohios.
Lieutenant Clifford is enthusiastic about the courage of Sergeant Gilgar of Company B who went ahead with five men against an enemy position, manœuvred his party into a position where he threatened the German rear, and then, by putting on a bold front as if he had a whole company behind him, frightened them into surrender and returned to our line with thirty-two prisoners. Sergeant John Mohr’s life was saved by the quickness of John Moran who was just in time in killing a German who was trying to get our veteran Sergeant.
Chaplain Holmes, who had walked into fight his very first day at the front, was anxious to do his full share, and volunteered while we were at Pannes to scour the battlefield in order to bury the dead. Lieutenant Flynn and a detachment from Headquarters Company went with him and carried out this mournful task. At the time we had no way of knowing for certain just how many of ours had fallen on the field. The battlefield was in our hands from the first and anyone who had a spark of life in him was carried quickly to the rear. Later estimates placed the number of our dead, up to the present, as about thirty-five. The highest in rank was Thomas J. Curtin, 1st Sergeant of Company D, who was hit by a rifle bullet advancing at the head of a platoon. In Company A we lost another good Sergeant, William Walsh; and in the same company Corporals Patrick Doolan, Patrick McDermott and John McDonald with Privates Joseph Biskey and William Williams; in Company B, Mechanic Henry Schumacher and Private N. W. Blackman, Douglas Cummings, Humberto Florio, William Poole and Dominic Zollo; in Company C, Privates John Nanarto, Felix Curtis, Manfred Emanuelson, Thomas F. Petty and Augustus Altheide; in Company D, Corporal Philip Greeler, Privates Ferdinand Urban, Ernest E. Martin, Horace Musumeck, William Mitchell, Walter Long, Clarence Gabbert, with Corporal James MacDonald and Daniel Harkins (died of wounds); Company E lost Corporals Michael Rooney and William Bechtold; Company F, James Wynne, Rex Strait, Eugene Rogers, Angelo Kanevas and Jesse Scott; Company G, William Perkins; Company H, James Spiker and Joseph Deese; Company K, Privates Joseph Dearmon, G. C. Kenly and W. H. Leach, Company M; O. O. Dykes and Edward Kiethley, while the Machine Gun Company suffered the loss of John F. McMillan, Edward Hantschke and Charles Brown. Lieutenant Boag was wounded.
The Chateau St. Benoit is a fine roomy building—a perfect palace of dreams after the outlandish places that had constituted our abodes. But every body in it has an uneasy feeling that it makes a splendid target for enemy artillery. Charles Carman said to me: “Any gunner that couldn’t hit this building at night with his eyes shut ought to be sent back to whatever the Heinies call their S. O. S.” They have missed it however, and more than a few times; but perhaps that is because they have still hopes of occupying it. Three big 150’s came over last night and just missed knocking off the corner of the building where General MacArthur was sleeping. They landed in the stable and killed some of our horses.
We are in for a considerable amount of shelling periodically. A high trajectory shell, like our American rattlesnake, has at least the rudimentary instincts of a gentlemen. It gives fair warning before it strikes, and a man can make an attempt to dodge it; but the Austrian 88’s are mean all the way through. It sounds Irish to say that you hear it coming after it explodes, but that is literally true if it falls short of you.
The whole sector has been pinched off by the operation and we are now in touch with the French on our left, the 1st Division being crowded out by the operation, and the 89th Division still occupying the positions to our right. We are faced now in the general direction of Metz, and the Germans occupy the Hindenburg line as their line of defense. Our main business has been to organize our newly acquired positions and to throw out frequent patrols to test out the enemy.
Colonel Donovan established his battalion headquarters in the Forester’s House on the road to Haumont which was the nearest village held by the enemy. Here Sergeant Moore of B Company brought him a German prisoner whom he had just captured. On interrogation he said that he was a sentinel of a machine gun cossack post and that in the post there was an officer and eight men including one non-com. All of these he thought would be willing to surrender except the officer and perhaps the N. C. O. Colonel Donovan suggested that a rope be tied to the prisoner and that he be compelled to guide a patrol to the outpost, but the German protested that it was entirely unnecessary, as he was willing to betray his comrades. A patrol was sent out which captured the outpost and killed the officer, who, as predicted, put up the only resistance encountered. Our patrol was delighted at making the capture, but if a chance shot had ended the career of the man who had betrayed his own officer, no one amongst ours would have shed any tears.
Patrols from the 1st and 2nd battalions were sent out frequently both by day and by night until September 17th. Some prisoners were captured, and we had our own losses. In the first battalion a patrol of Company F came back without Bernard Cafferty and Lawrence Whalen who put for shelter with the rest, under withering German fire, and are probably killed.
I have picked up a couple of stories which relieve a little this sombre side of war. Lieutenant Ogle took out a patrol one dark night and found in his party one soldier without a rifle, for which he rebuked him in a savage whisper. Later on he discovered that it was Father Carpentier who had accompanied the patrol—he says to render spiritual first aid if anyone was wounded. “Yes,” I said, “that’s what the priest told the bishop: that he went to the horse races so as to be handy if one of the jockeys were thrown.”
Allen likes to tell stories on Donovan, for whom he has great admiration. One afternoon he came in from patrol very hungry after being away since early morning, and he dropped into Captain Buck’s shack near Hassavant Farm, which was also occupied by Colonel Donovan. “Captain Buck’s orderly promised me a roast beef sandwich and left the room to prepare it. I repeat I was very hungry and was anticipating with great pleasure the coming roast beef sandwich. In a few minutes the orderly returned with the food. It was a large sandwich with a luscious rare slice of roast beef protruding from the slices of bread, and with it the orderly brought a cup of coffee which he placed with the sandwich on the table. Precisely at this moment a soldier entered with two prisoners; one a small Roumanian about sixteen years of age, and the other a tall, gaunt, dirty looking soldier, both members of a labor battalion. They had been lost in the retreat and had wandered several days in the woods, until encountering one of our patrols they had surrendered. Donovan grabs the sandwich with one hand and the cup of coffee with the other. The small boy got the sandwich and the old man the cup of coffee. I immediately protested ‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘it is against regulations to feed prisoners before they have been questioned at Division. You should not feed these men.’ ‘Allen,’ he said, ‘you ought to be ashamed of yourself. This poor little boy has been, wandering around in the woods for two days with nothing to eat.’ ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘that was my sandwich.’ ‘And you,’ he continued, ‘a great big healthy man, would take his meal away from him.’”