FORET DE FERE
August, 1918
This is a dirty, dank, unwholesome spot and the daily rains make it daily more intolerable. But they are keeping us here in reserve till some division—they say our old townies of the 77th—has time to come up. The forest has been occupied by the Germans and its sanitary conditions are no credit to their boasted efficiency. Sixty per cent of our men are sick with diarrhœa and everybody is crawling with cooties. The men are sleeping in shelter tents or in holes in the ground in the woods and they are a sorry looking lot.
A number of them have been busy with me in the heart-breaking task of burying the dead, which is hard for everybody, but particularly I think, for myself, because I knew these men so well and loved them as if they were my younger brothers. It has been the saddest day in my life. Well, it is the last act of love I can do for them and for the folks at home. God comfort them in their sorrow. I must not think of the tragedy of it too much; the main thing is to keep up the spirits of the living, for battles must still be fought and the awful price paid if the war is to be won. Many of us who have come through this will be dead after the next battle; and if the war lasts another year or so there will be few, very few left of the infantry in our First Hundred Thousand. It is a soldier’s fate and we must be ready for it.
In this one battle nearly half our strength is gone. We have lost fifty-nine officers and thirteen hundred men and of these thirteen officers and about two hundred men have been killed outright. Many of our wounded have been badly hurt and we shall have other details to grieve over.[5] But in spite of losses and sorrow and sickness I find the men surprisingly cheerful and willing to carry on. They have what soldiers most wish for, Victory. And they know now that the men who opposed their path and had to give way to their persistence were the famous Prussian Guards, of the very flower of the German Military Machine. The old 69th had again lived up to its reputation of the past; there were no German troops, no troops in the world that could withstand its stubborn bravery.
I went amongst the survivors to gather items for my chronicle of the war. I may say here as I rewrite these chapters that I have had to obtain many of the incidents months afterwards from men that have been wounded, for many of those who could best tell the story were then lying suffering from agonizing wounds on hospital cots, and still burning with the courage and devotion of their race for the day when they could once more return to the post of danger with their beloved regiment. These are the real heroes of the war. It is easy under the stress of emotional enthusiasm to volunteer for service, but the true test of a man comes when, after he has faced the danger of sudden death and has passed through days of racking pain, he once more insists, in spite of offers of easier service from kindly officers, on taking his place again in the battle line with his old comrades. And now that the war is over, there is nothing that stirs my blood like the petty arrogance of some officials in hospitals and casual camps who rebuke the requests of men (many of whom have been wounded and gone back into line and got wounded again) to rejoin their former outfits. My malison on their tribe.
I shall present first the lists of names mentioned for good work (a soldier’s meed) and afterwards incidents of more general interest. Company A gives credit to three snipers for working out to the front ahead of them and making the Fritzies keep their heads down during the attack on July 29th: Corporal Charles Hallberg, Edwin Stubbs, and John McDonald. They also spoke highly of their Sergeants or Acting Sergeants on whom leadership devolved during the fight: Joseph Higginson, Joseph Pettit, John R. Scully, Hugh McFadden, Harry Blaustein, Will Mehl, Don Matthews, Michael Walsh, Frederick Garretson, Sidney Clark, and John Dennelly. With Dennelly in the occupation of Meurcy Farm were John Sheehy, Maurice Cotter, Pilger, Newton, Thorn, Iverson and Frechales. Besides Henderson, those who distinguished themselves by liaison work were Corporal Lester Hanley, Joseph M. McKinney, Michael Polychrom, Louis Tiffany, John Gannon and Edwin Dean. Litter Bearers: Matt Kane, Howard Hamm and in a volunteer capacity Cook Edward Mooney, Albert Cooper, August Trussi. Others mentioned with high praise are Patrick Thynne, Patrick J. Doolin, Fred Stenson, John J. Morrissey, James Partridge, Paul Smith, John Barrett, Richard Campion, Louis Cornibert, Brady and Buckley.
If Company B ever loses its big Captain they have already a candidate of their own to succeed him in his senior lieutenant, John J. Clifford, a cool and capable officer, as all his men say. The greatest loss the Company has suffered is from the death of the First Sergeant, John O’Neill, a remarkable old soldier with regular army experience, who was frightfully wounded by shell fire while getting up supplies, and died in hospital. Al Dunn, a game youth, was hit by the same shell, but refused to allow anybody to touch him until O’Neill was looked after. Among other good men who received wounds were John Mooney, William Judge, Al Whalen, Harry Guenther, Dan Finnegan, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Vincent Farrell, Francis X. Goodwin, and William O’Sullivan. The platoon under Lieutenant Wheatley that joined the attack with Company A, had for its non-coms Edward Kelly, Langan, Cullinan, Travis, Patrick Kelly, Foster, Tinker, McClymont and Mearns. Lieutenant Clifford had high praise for Sergeant Thomas, who had gone out on the night of July 28th to repulse a counter-attack of the Germans and, of those in the detachment, Connie Reuss, Corporal Michael Tierney, a Clare man, who was killed; and also amongst the killed Charles Chambers, a patriotic volunteer who leaves a wife to mourn him in the city of Dublin. James Dwyer, Joseph McCarthy, Joseph Maher and John A. Lane were also badly wounded. As John A. Lane was lying out in a very exposed position his namesake, John B. Lane, a lad of eighteen, and the pride of the Company as a clever little boxer, declared that he was going out to carry the other in. He did so without scath, but was killed three days later in front of Meurcy Farm. Private Frank McGovern received praise for a similar action on the 29th; also Harold Kyte, Thomas Walsh, John O’Connor, James Lannon, James Austin and John Matthews, litter bearers. John Mahoney especially distinguished himself in this line, carrying the wounded to the rear and then lugging up food for the surviving fighters. Good liaison work was done by Charles Weick, James Murray, James Brennan, Ed. Powers, Jim Brundage, Arthur LaSalle, and John Kane, a youngster of seventeen. Thomas Herlihy and Charles Kavanagh were also commended.
Inquiry at Company C gave me the name of John Teevan, who on the 31st left cover to save a wounded comrade and was himself wounded while doing it; Sergeant Herman Hillig, always a good man, who led the advance patrol on the 29th; Corporal Frank Drivdahl, who took charge of a half platoon when his seniors were wounded and led it into handgrips with the enemy. All of the non-coms distinguished themselves. First Sergeant Gene Halpin, always a steady leader; Tom O’Hagan, the beau ideal of an Irish soldier; Sergeants Joe Hennessey, John Knight, John McAuliffe, Peter Keller, Frank Colyer, Corporals Frank Duffy, James Barry, Charles Quinn, Edward Gordon, Edward Brown, and amongst those wounded Arthur Totten, Arthur Slicklen, Peter Gammel, the Peisel brothers, and Denis Cahill, sturdiest of old-timers. This Company claims that it has the most heroic and devoted lot of litter bearers that ever deliberately took their lives in their hands. By the stories I hear it is hard to choose between them. They are Thomas P. McPherson, Edmond McCarthy, James and Joseph Burns (twins in birth and twins in courage) and Edward F. Brown. They were always at the front, day and night, and they should all have the Distinguished Service Cross. Liaison men mentioned are Clarence Smith and Vivian Commons. Others that received praise were Frederick Craven, Corporal Childress, who came over on the torpedoed Tuscania and joined us at Baccarat; Corporal Pat Moran, Thomas Leddy, James Heaney; and Mess Sergeant Grace with cooks Duffy and Wilson, who won the eternal gratitude of the Company by carrying food to them in line.
William Hisle was one of the first names I got from Company D, a man who did extraordinarily fine work as a litter bearer. John J. Kolodgy also, and Edward Coxe (wounded at the same task and sticking on the job until killed) are in the same class. Liaison men: Louis Murphy, William P. White, John Conway, John Dale, Frank DeMuth; while others mentioned are Mess Sergeant Edward McIntee, Pat Crowley, “the wild Irishman,” Pat Grogan (wounded again), John L. Burke, Peter Carberry, Charles Edgerton, Richard Dwyer (who said “Tend to me last” when wounded), Thomas Keyes, Sergeant Denis Murphy, badly wounded; Denis O’Connor, Charles Lynch, Everett Smith, John Cahill, Andrew O’Rourke, Peter O’Sullivan, Martin Hurst, Arthur Comer, John L. Thompson, John Cox, Joseph P. Tracy and Patrick Finn (both ’98 men) and Fred Urban, a new man and a great shot with the rifle, with Chief Powless and Tony Zaliski.
Company E told me of Michael Breen, who received his death wound, covering the advance of his Company by the use of smoke grenades; William Foley and James Fitzpatrick, going out under fire to rescue two companions; George M. Failing, who did noble work as a litter bearer; John Costello, Thomas Cullen (both killed), with Bechtold and William Goldenburg, four privates who saved their Company by putting a machine gun out of action. Sergeant Augustus T. Morgan, also Sergeant Frank Johnston and Corporal John Cronin did heroic work.
Company F, Bernard Corcoran got a bullet across both his eyeballs which will render him blind for life. John Fitzgibbon, Michael Douglas, Frank Dunn, Charles Dougherty, William Garry, Leo Hanifin, Owen Carney, George D. Lannon, Frank Kelly, Gottfried Kern, Edward Chabot, James McCormack, John McAuliffe, Daniel McGrath, Peter McGuiness, William McQuade, John P. Mahon, Herbert Doyle, Peter Malloy, shot through the lung, William Mulligan, Charles O’Leary and William Moran, Sergeant Pat Wynne, John Smith, Peter Rogers, Frank Sweeney and William Walsh are on the honor roll.
Company G had the greatest praise for Edmund Reardon and Charles McGeary, who did remarkable work saving others until finally death came to themselves. Others mentioned with praise are Corporal Edward Fitzgerald and Sergeant Edward McNamara, who had to be ordered out of the line when wounded. Also Corporal David Fitzgibbons, Thomas Meade, Michael Shea, Michael O’Brien, Patrick Donohue, Frank Cahill, Thomas Bohan, First Sergeant John Meaney, Corporal Frank Garland, Thomas McGowan, James Brennan, Sergeant James Coffey; Robert Monohan and Patrick McNamara, liaison men; and Maurice Dwyer, mechanic, who always dropped his tools and picked up a rifle when a battle was on.
Company H thinks that it is about time that Sergeant Dudley Winthrop got a citation. His latest feat was to go wandering out in the open where everybody that went had been hit, searching out his wounded comrades. Martin Higgins has also been recommended for citation for the same kind of heroic activity. Patrick Reynolds went out alone and, by expert sniping at close range, put out of action a machine gun that was holding up the advance. Later on, he was killed. Sergeant John J. Walker kept his platoon going when his seniors were wounded. Callahan, Dunseith, Ernst, Conway, Bealin, McDonald, O’Brien, McKenna, Sweeney, White, Frieburger, Crose and Bushey are also recommended for excellent work.
I have already gone through the list of Company I, so I shall just add an additional list of non-coms who were wounded: Sergeants Harold J. Murphy and William Lyle, Corporals Wilton Wharton, Charles Beckwith, L. Vessell, James Brady, William Burke, William Crossin, Patrick Farrell, Alfred Georgi, Hugh Kelly, Michael Learnahan, John Maddock, H. R. Morton, Patrick O’Brien, Francis O’Neill, Edward Powers, William Reutlinger, and James Sullivan.
The men from Company I whose names were selected at the time for a Regimental Citation were First Sergeant Patrick McMeniman, who was really in command of the Company during most of the trying time on the hill; Dexter, Dynan, Howard, Coen, Farley, Coppinger, Battersby, and Lesser as stretcher bearers; Cook Michael J. O’Brien, who carried food to the front line no matter how dangerous it was, and carried wounded on the return trip; and Thomas A. Boyle, who seeing an abandoned automatic rifle ran forward under vicious fire, loaded it and started it working against the enemy; and finally, William B. Lyons, prominent as liaison man and stretcher bearer.
Company K recommends Nicholas E. Grant, a liaison man, along with its heroic Captain, Sergeant Joe Farrell, Victor Van Yorx, John Doyle, stretcher bearer, and the self-sacrificing William Bergen, Francis I. Kelly, also a martyr to loyalty, as he was killed while rendering first aid to Lieutenant Stott. Burr Finkle and John J. McLaughlin are recommended for a display of extraordinary heroism.
In Company L the valiant Captain and Lieutenant Spencer have been recommended for the D. S. C. For rescue work, Thomas Deignan, Joseph Coogan, John Ahern, Joseph Grace, Charles Oakes, William Hughes, Michael Fallon (twice wounded) and James Santori, the latter being killed while placing a wounded man on a stretcher. Lieutenant Wellbourne, with the Sergeants already mentioned, and also Corporals Edward McDonough, Harry McDermott, Eugene McCue, and Wild Bill Ryan distinguished themselves by their work in the line. So, too, did James Judge, Thomas Boyle, Eddie Bloom, Arthur Campbell, John Burke, Will Coleman, John Murphy, Matt Devlin, Hugh Fagan, Fred Meyers, Leslie Quackenbush, John Mulvey, Peter O’Connor, Maurice Powers, Val Roesel, John B. McHugh, Sam Ross, Peter Deary, James Streffler, Harry Baldwin, expert sniper, and Eddie Morrissey, liaison man.
Captain Meaney of Company M gave the highest recommendation to Lieutenant Collier and also to Corporals Thomas J. Courtney and Patrick Ames, both of them soldiers of remarkable coolness and resolution. The men of this Company were kept busy throughout the week as food and ammunition carriers and stretcher bearers. Amongst those who distinguished themselves in these tasks were Corporals James Duffy and Jack Manson, with Edward Mendes, Daniel Leahy, William Lynch, John Feeley, Thomas Ferrier, William O’Neill, Frank Sisco, James Shanahan, Edward Flanagan, Patrick Bryne, Frank Cullum, James Igo, James A. Watts, the Rodriguez brothers and Herbert Dunlay.
Captain Walsh of Headquarters Company recommended Sergeant Arthur Jaeger, Sergeant John J. Ryan, Corporal Charles Leister of the one-pounders, with Corporal Leslie Reynolds and Privates Robert Callaghan, Clarence Cumpston, Maurice Small, Charles Goecking, Spencer Sully, John C. McLaughlin and William Hearn (who also did heroic work rescuing the wounded), Corporal A. A. Brochon and Privates James P. McCabe and Arthur Olsen and Kirwin of the Signal Platoon. In the Stokes Mortars Sergeant Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jeremiah J. Casey, Thomas J. Kelly and Malcolm Robertson, Thomas J. Taylor, Herbert Clarke with Moore, Wisner, Hayes, Nugent, Robb, Levins, Orr, Shannon, Dugdale, and my old friend, John Mahon, who always has some special reason why he should be selected as a member of every gun crew sent to the front line; George Utermehle, Stable Sergeant; Jerome Goldstein, Mess Sergeant; with Cooks John A. Wilker, Maher McAvoy and Wagoner James Collintine; and Jim Turner, wounded while doing courageous work as a liaison man.
The Machine Gun Company cites their runners, John L. B. Sullivan, William Murphy, Hantschke, Charles Smith, and James Ledwith. Also Lieutenant Billings, who had the dangerous task of keeping up the supply of ammunition, which he accomplished with the aid of two excellent non-coms, Sid Ryan and Joe McCourt (one of the most efficient men in the whole regiment). Every man in the company sang the praises of Bill Sheppard, Paul Fay and Pete Gillespie; also of Leon Baily and Frank Gardella, who spent their leisure moments carrying in Company C’s wounded.
The Supply Company wagoners Peter J. Seagriff, Albert Richford, A. Brown, Philip Smith and Thomas J. Ferris, won praise for difficult and dangerous tasks courageously performed by night and day.
The Sanitary Detachment, in addition to those mentioned, gave me Milledge Whitlock, Louis Bidwell, John McKeough, John P. Murphy, Patrick Fawcett, Thomas V. Boland, Walter Clark and Sergeant Arthur Firman. Whitlock, Wright and Walker were at an advance aid-post under the river bank all week long.
The most striking incident I heard described took place in Company D as they were waiting in the street of Villers sur Fere about three o’clock in the morning of the 28th. The Germans were raking the streets with high explosives and shrapnel, and men were falling, hit by the flying pieces. The most trying moment in battle is going into action under shell fire, especially at night. The shells come wh-e-e-e-zing over. One goes Whannng! up the road—another in a field to the right! Then one falls on a house and the tiles, plaster, fragments of stone are scattered over the men who are lying in the lee of it. Then another comes, more menacing in its approaching whistle. Men run, drop on the ground, stand petrified. And it lands in the midst of them. There are cries, ceasing suddenly as if cut off with a knife, curses, sobs of “Oh, God!” “They got me!” “For God’s sake, pick me up, Jim.” The survivors rush back, ripping open their First Aid packages, the non-coms bawling orders, everybody working in a frenzy to save the wounded. And then perhaps another shell landing in the same place will send them all away from the troubles of this awful world.
Company D was going through all this, and for the time being, without officers. Buck was gassed the day before; Connelly and Daly had gone off to execute their difficult operation to the right, First Sergeant Geaney being with them; Burke was away on his mission of danger and glory. The remaining Lieutenant had been called to receive orders. Two corporals, Patrick McDonough and John Gribbon, had been working hard, giving first aid to the wounded, and they began to worry about the possible effect of the shelling on the men. So they went up the line to look for some person in higher authority.
They found no officer but they did find Sergeant Tom O’Malley sitting against a stone wall, sucking philosophically at his pipe, as if the wall were the side of a stone fence in his native Connemara. Now the sight of Tom O’Malley breeds confidence in the heart of every soldier in Company D.
“Where’s the officers, Tom?”
“Oi don’t know where th’ hell they are,” says Tom, between puffs of his pipe, and in the slow, soft speech of the West Coast Irish, “If ye were in camp and ye didn’t want to see thim, ye’d be thrippin’ over thim. But now whin ye want t’ know what ye got to do in a foight ye can’t find wan of thim.”
“Well, Tom, we’ll elect you Captain and you take charge of the men until some of the officers get back, or they may be getting out of hand.”
“No, lads, Oi don’t fancy meself in a Sam Brown belt. Dick O’Neill here is a noice young fellah, so we’ll elect Dick Captain, and O’ll make ye fellahs do what he tells ye.” So Sergeant O’Neill, a youth of twenty-one, took charge of the situation, got the men together in small groups under their non-coms, and in places of comparative safety, and had them all ready when Lieutenant Cook came back from the conference to issue their orders to cross the Ourcq.
It is something that we call typically American that a number of men under a stress and in an emergency like this, should get together, choose their own leaders and obey them implicitly for the common good. These four men are Americans of the type we are proudest of. Yet it is worth noting that three out of the four were born in an island whose inhabitants, we are often told, are unfit for self-government. As for Dick O’Neill, he is one hundred per cent American, but it would take a braver man than I can claim to be to tell Dick O’Neill that he is not Irish, too.
One of the members of D Company who was wounded in this spot was Matt Sullivan, an old-timer, and a kindly pleasant man who always took an interest in the younger lads, so that he was known as “Pop.” His two special protégés were Barney Friedman and George Johnson. When he was hit he was ordered to the rear, but he said, “I’ll not stir out o’ this till I see if the children are safe, God bless them.” He hobbled around in the gray dawn until he found the boys and then started for the rear.
Company I had a number of little battle pictures to give me besides those I have already written. One was of Barney Farley, who was busy all morning dressing wounds, and after he had stopped the flow of blood, before picking up his man, he would roll a cigarette, stick it in the wounded man’s mouth with a cheery “Here, take a pull out of this, avic. It’ll do ye good.”
Mike Lenihan, wounded while on the hill and told to go back, said, “No, I’ve waited so long to get at them I won’t lave this hill.” Another shot got him, and he was carried off.
Tom Shannon, being carried in, got off his stretcher and wanted to give his place to another man who, he said, was worse wounded than himself. An officer ordered him back on the stretcher and he was carried in, and since then I have heard he has died of his wounds.
William Cleary, wounded in the shoulder, refused to leave without orders, so they led him to where Captain Ryan was lying in a shell hole, himself wounded. The Captain looked up at him. “You’ve got a bad wound. No use around here. You’re young—got good color in your face—live long. Got good legs yet—run like hell.”
The Captain saw a German near the top of the hill who was using an automatic, and he wanted to try a shot at him, so he borrowed Pat Flynn’s rifle, fired and missed, the pain of the recoil disconcerting his aim. He tried again; then he said: “I’m going to pull the last bit of Irish in me together and get that fellow.” With the last shot in the clip he got him.
Two men from Company L had a laugh about Fortgang, who, one of them said, is the champion moocher of the Company, and can always get something to eat no matter how short the rations are. They were lying out on that shot-swept hill on the morning of the 28th when Fortgang produced from somewhere a can of solidified alcohol and three strips of bacon. He calmly proceeded to start his little fire, and fried his bacon, which he shared with the men on each side of him; and thus fortified, picked up his rifle once more and began to blaze away at the Germans.
While the topic is food I may add that the whole company is devoted to Mess Sergeant McDonald and Cook Connelly, whose kitchen was hit but who swore they would “stick to it while there’s a spoke left in it.” Hugh Fagan was one of the men who had to be driven off the hill after being badly wounded.
I saw several men who were hit through the helmet, the bullet entering in front and going out at the back without inflicting a wound. One of them was Edward McDonough, who seemed to consider it a great joke, though another man who had the same thing happen to him, a man whom I did not know, was walking in wide circles, unable to pursue a steady course unless he had a wall or a fence to guide on.
Captain Hurley of Company K got four or five wounds at once in leg, arm and back, but refused to allow himself to be carried, saying impatiently, “Now, don’t be bothering with me. I’d like to see myself on a litter while there’s men much worse off than myself still lying on the ground.”
I was in the dressing station one evening when a sturdy young lieutenant walked in with one hand almost blown away. He announced himself to be Lieutenant Wolf of the 150th Machine Gun Battalion, and settled down on the table for his operation with more coolness than most people display when getting their photograph taken. He had just one thing on his mind, and that did not concern himself. He had come in with an ammunition detail, which was ready to start back when a shell got him just outside the hospital door. That detail had to go back. He was much relieved, one would say perfectly contented, when I assured him that I would convey his orders to the sergeant in charge. Through such men battles are won, and nations made famous for bravery.
On one of the days of the battle I was coming up the street of Villers sur Fere with Jack Percy when an enemy gun began to land shells just across the narrow street from us. We dropped alongside a wall when the shriek of the first one told us it was coming across the home plate, and as we lay there I saw a ration wagon coming down the road with George Utermehle, Sergeant of mounted section, H. Q. Company, on the box. George had no whip and was urging his team by throwing cherries at their heads. I shouted at him, “This is a bad corner just now, they’re shelling it.” “Oh, this old team of mine can beat out any shell,” said George, as he hit the ear of his off animal with a cherry; and he went tearing by in time to miss the next, and, I was happy to find out, the last one that came over.
I overheard a conversation in the woods which gave me a good story on Major Donovan. The majority of his battalion have always looked on him as the greatest man in the world. But a certain number were resentful and complaining on account of the hard physical drilling he has continually given them to keep them in condition for just the sort of thing they had to go through last week. As a result of watching him through six days of battle—his coolness, cheerfulness, resourcefulness—there is now no limit to their admiration for him. What I overheard was the partial conversion of the last dissenter. He still had a grouch about what he had been put through during the past year, and three other fellows were pounding him with arguments to prove Donovan’s greatness. Finally he said grudgingly, “Well, I’ll say this: Wild Bill is a son of a ——, but he’s a game one.” When I told it to Donovan, he laughed and said, “Well, Father, when I’m gone write that as my epitaph.”
I shall always think that the finest compliment paid to Major Donovan was the devotion of John Patrick Kayes, an Irishman, very tall, very thin, somewhat stoop-shouldered, not at all young, and a servant of the rich in civil life. The Irish in him had made him a volunteer. He was put in charge of the Battalion H. Q. mess, and I used to tell Donovan that I came to visit him, not on account of his own attractions, but because of what John Kayes had to offer me. He refused to remain behind in action. He wanted to be where the Major was, though he knew that anybody who kept near Donovan stood an excellent chance of being killed. On July 31st he went forward with him on his restless rounds, which led them out of the shelter of Bois Colas into the open country. A German machine gun began firing at them and Kayes was struck in the ankle. He fell forward into the path of the bullets and as different portions of his long body neared the ground he was hit successively in the thigh, arm and face. He still had strength enough to protest that the Major should not risk himself by carrying him in. He died in hospital weeks later, his last thoughts being that Major Donovan would be neglected with him gone. The terms “hero” and “butler” are not generally associated in fiction, but they met in the person of John Patrick Kayes.
Major Lawrence tells me that he met Captain P. P. Rafferty, a doctor in our Divisional Sanitary Train, who told him,
“We had an original character from your outfit through here last week—a Lieutenant Connelly. He was lying on a cot and in a good deal of pain, I knew, when I was surprised to hear him laugh a hearty laugh. I thought he was going out of his head and I went over to him and said, ‘What’s happened to you that’s funny, Lieutenant?’”
“‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I was just thinking about something.’
“‘Let me in on it,’ I said. ‘There is not much to amuse a man happening around here.’
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘it’s just an incident of battle. I was in command of a Company that had just about forty men left, and Major Donovan gave me orders to send some of them one way and some another and take the rest and capture a woods and Meurcy Farm. Just after I started I got into a mix-up and was put out of action and my first thought was ‘Thank God! Now I don’t have to take that damn farm.’”
One of my own prayers of Thanksgiving is “Praise be! Major Lawrence is back.” When I told him so he thanked me for the compliment, but I said, “George, don’t take it as coming from me. It is only for my own peace of mind. Since the day you left I have been pestered by everybody, officers and men, who have the right to wear your red cross armlet, with the plaintive petition, ‘Father Duffy, can’t you do something to get our Major back?’”
We joke Rerat about the size of the French rivers. I told him that one of our soldiers lay badly wounded near the river, and I offered him a pull at my canteen. Raising himself on one elbow and throwing out his arm in a Sir Philip Sydney fashion, he exclaimed, “Give it to the Ourcq, it needs it more than I do.”
The Germans nearly had a grim joke on me during the action. We picked up our dead in the town, and I had the Pioneers dig me a long trench on the south side of the cemetery wall, which screened them from observation while their own trench would give protection. I said “This spot is the safest place in France.” We finished our sad task and went away. A few hours later I passed that way again and found that the wall against which I was sitting was smashed to the ground; a tree eight inches in diameter which had shaded me was blown in two, and two other missiles had exploded five feet from the line of graves. Evidently a German aviator, seeing the freshly turned earth, thought that it was a gun emplacement and dropped three of his nasty eggs. I smiled grimly as my words came back, “The safest place in France.”
Going through the woods I heard John McMorrow discussing a date with Monzert of Headquarters Company, and he was saying, “It happened the first day we went over. I tell you it was. It was on the mornin’ that we crossed the O’Rourke River and captured Murphy’s Farm.”
Colonel McCoy felt deeply grieved at the news of Quentin Roosevelt’s heroic death in an air battle some time before, as he knew him from boyhood, having been military aide at the White House during part of President Roosevelt’s term of office. We knew that Lieutenant Roosevelt had met his death in this sector, and our Colonel had instituted inquiries to find if any person had discovered his grave. Word was brought to him that the grave had been found in the sector to our right, which was occupied by the 32nd Division, and Colonel McCoy determined to have it suitably marked. I had a cross made and inscribed by Julius Horvath, and the Colonel with Lieutenant Preston and myself went by automobile to the place to erect it over the grave. We found the roughly made cross formed from pieces of his broken plane that the Germans had set to mark the place where they buried him. The plot had already been ornamented with a rustic fence by the soldiers of the 32nd Division. We erected our own little monument without molesting the one that had been left by the Germans. It is fitting that enemy and friend alike should pay tribute to heroism.
The Germans had not retreated ten miles before the advance guard of the French civilian population began coming in to take possession of their shattered homes. I was coming down today from the battlefield whither I had gone with Emmet Watson and Bill Fernie to make a map of the graves when I met the incoming civilians in Villers sur Fere. Most of them were men who had been sent ahead by the family to see what was left. But occasionally we met a stout old peasant woman pulling a small cart behind her on which rested all her earthly substance, or a hay-cart drawn by oxen with the family possessions in it and two or three chubby youngsters with their mother perched on top. I followed a middle aged farmer and his son into one of the houses near the church and we made our inspection together. All the plaster had been knocked off the walls and the glass from the windows, and there was a big hole in the roof, and altogether it looked anything but a home, but after looking it all over the young man said to his father, with a satisfied grunt, “Pas trop demoli” (not too badly banged up). I certainly admired the optimism and courage of people who could take up their lives once more with cheerfulness under such desperate conditions.
The Germans had made their most of the time in which they had possession of this salient. They had harvested a great deal of the grain and anything else that was already ripe and in some places they had ransacked the houses of any goods that were worth while. There were many evidences, though, that they had no idea that they were so soon to be dislodged. At Seringes they had installed an electric light plant, and the French road signs had been supplemented with the large legible German signs. Their sense of security was the cause of their largest losses in material, as they had made of the Forest of Fere a great ammunition dump, and the large shells, gas, shrapnel, high explosives, were left behind by thousands.
I got back to Château Thierry looking for hospitals which might contain our wounded but found none of them, as they had all been transferred to other places, no one knew exactly where. In the burying ground I hit upon the graves of Sergeant John O’Neill of B and Sergeants Peter Crotty and Bernard McElroy of K and Walter Wandless of H. The city already presented a lively appearance with a great deal of traffic, not all of it military, over the bridge of boats which replaced the bridge that had been destroyed during the German drive.
Our men are getting more and more restless in these dirty woods and the first question that anybody asks is, “When do we get relieved.” I stepped into the woods on the other side of the road to visit my Alabama friends and one of their fine lads voiced the common mind by asking whether the govament hadn’t othah soldiehs than the Fohty-Second Division. I answered, “Well, if they’re using you so much, it is your own fault.” “How is it ouah fault?” demanded my friend, and twenty pairs of eyes asked the same question. “It’s your fault all right; the trouble with you fellows is that you’re too blamed good.”
I have become a specialist on what they call the morale of troops and as I go around I find that the morale of the men in this division is still very high. They have had a tough week of it and nearly half the infantry are gone while of those remaining more than half are sick. But they know that they have whipped the enemy on his chosen ground and they feel confident that if they only get rested up a little bit they can do it again and do it cheerfully.
The Quartermaster’s Department has helped considerably by fitting us all out with new clothes, underwear, shoes, everything we need, and the food supply is steady. And Miss Elsie Janis has done her part, too, as a joy producer by coming up to us in our mud and desolation and giving a Broadway performance for an audience which was more wildly appreciative than ever acclaimed her on the street of a million lights.
The long desired orders for relief finally arrived. We marched out on Sunday morning, August 11th. I had planned with Colonel McCoy to have my Sunday Service a memorial one for the brave lads we were leaving behind. He had me set up my altar in an open field just south of the forest on our line of march to the rear. The men, fully equipped for the march, came down the road, turned into the field, stripped their packs and formed a hollow square around the altar. After Mass I preached on the text, “Greater love than this no man hath than that he lay down his life for his friends.” When the service was over the regiment took the road again and began its march, with the band in advance and the regimental wagon train in the rear.
As we passed through Beuvardes General Menoher and officers of his staff were in front of Division Headquarters. Colonel McCoy passed the order down the ranks, the band struck up the regimental air of “Garry Owen” and the regiment passed in review, heads up and chests out and stepping out with a martial gait as if they were parading at Camp Mills and not returning from a battlefield where half their numbers had been lost.
Two days later they marched through Château Thierry in similar fashion. Colonel McCoy came to mess with a smile of pride on his face telling us he had encountered an old friend, a regular army officer who had said to him, “What is that outfit that passed here a little while ago? It’s the finest looking lot of infantry I have seen in France.” “That is the 165th Infantry, more widely known to fame as the 69th New York, and I am proud to say that I command it.”
I have been playing truant for a few days. I had been suffering with a great sense of fatigue. Nothing particular the matter, but I felt as if I were running on four flat tires and one cylinder. Two of the War Correspondents, Herbert Corey and Lincoln Eyre, came along and insisted on bringing me down to their place in Château Thierry; and General Lenihan brought me in in his car. Corey cooked supper—a regular cordon bleu affair—and Lincoln Eyre gave me a hot bath and, like Kipling’s soldier, “God, I needed it so.” Then they bundled me into Tom Johnson’s bed, and as I dropped asleep I thought, and will continue to think, that they are the finest fellows in the world. They were ordered out next morning and I went with them for a couple of days to Bossuet’s old episcopal city of Meaux, where I had a fine time gossiping with Major Morgan, Bozeman Bulger and Arthur Delaney of the Censor’s Bureau and Ray Callahan, Arthur Ruhl and Herbert Bailey, a delightful young Englishman who writes for the Daily Mail.
I rejoined the regiment at Saulchery—somebody says that sounds like a name for a decadent cocktail—and found myself housed in a large and pleasant villa, the garden of which looked out upon vineyards and fields down to the banks of the Marne. It was one of the pleasantest places we had been in in France. The weather was perfect, and the men enjoyed the camping out in their shelter tents, especially since the river was handy for a swim. The whole thing made us feel more like campers than soldiers. And by the time we had gotten well rested up and most of the cooties washed off, we had forgotten the hard days that were past and saw only the bright side of life once more.
We were there from August 12th to 17th, on which latter date we entrained at Château Thierry to go to our new training area. This was down in the Neufchateau district, and to get to it by the railroad we were using we went south until we got to the vicinity of Langres, where we had spent our last two months before going into the trench sector. Regimental headquarters was at Goncourt and the regiment was accommodated in barracks and billets in that and two close lying villages. The towns had been used for some time by American troops and had unusual facilities for bathing, etc. The warm reception given to us by the townspeople was a tribute to the good conduct of the 23rd Infantry which had been billetted there for a considerable period before occupying the front lines.
After a couple of days’ rest the men were started on a schedule of training which was laid out for four weeks. Target ranges were prepared by the engineers and everything looked like a long stay. The training was necessary not so much for the old-timers as for the replacements who had been sent in to take the places of the men we had lost. We received five hundred from the 81st Division. We had known cases where our replacements had to go into line without anything like proper training. The night we left Epieds to advance into action at the Ourcq we received new men, some of whom knew very little about a rifle and had never once put on a gas mask; and the Captains took them out by night and drilled them for an hour with the gas masks in order to give the poor fellows some sort of a chance for their lives if exposed to danger of gas.
The second day that I was in Goncourt Colonel McCoy came to see me with Major Lawrence and Major Donovan to lay down the law. They had decided that I was to go to the hospital at Vittel, where Major Donovan’s brother was one of the doctors, “for alterations and repairs.” General Menoher, with his usual kindness, sent over his car to take me there, and Father George Carpentier was brought over from the Sanitary Train to fill my place. I told him “Your name is French but it has the advantage of being the one French name that is best known and most admired by our bunch of pugilists.”
I have had a nice lazy week of it at Vittel, which was a French watering place before the war, the hotels and parks now being given over to American soldiers. I hear a great deal of talk about a coming offensive in which the American Army is to take the leading part. I had gotten an inkling of it before from a French source, with strictest injunctions to secrecy. But here in Vittel I find it discussed by private soldiers on the park benches and by the old lady who sells newspapers. If it is a secret, all the world seems to know it. We have taken every step to make the Germans aware of it except that of putting paid advertisements in the Berlin newspapers. The fact is, these things cannot be kept secret. Here in Vittel they are cleaning out all the hospitals of wounded and that means that a big battle is expected somewhere in this vicinity within a short time. Then up along the line ammunition and supply trains are busy establishing dumps, and the drivers are naturally talking about it in the cafés, so that everybody knows that the Americans are planning something big and the place where it is going to happen.