REHERREY
May 5th, 1918
Headquarters, both American and French, have been very anxious for somebody to take prisoners, and we were all very much pleased this morning to hear that a patrol from Company D had gone out and bagged four of them. Out across No Man’s Land from Ancervillers there is, or used to be, a few houses which went by the name of Hameau d’Ancervillers. There was some reason to believe that a German outpost might be found there; so at midnight last night a patrol of two officers and twenty-four men, mainly from Company D, went on a little hunting expedition. They crossed No Man’s Land to the old German trenches, which they found to be battered flat.
Lieutenant Edmond J. Connelly remained with a few men in No Man’s Land to guard against surprise, and Lieutenant Henry K. Cassidy took the rest of them, including Sergeant John J. O’Leary of Company A, Sergeant Thomas O’Malley of Company D and Sergeant John T. Kerrigan of the Intelligence Section to examine the ruins of the hamlet. Part of the wall of one house was left standing. O’Leary led three men to one side of it, and O’Malley three others to the other side, while Lieutenant Cassidy approached it from the front. They were challenged by a German sentry and the two Sergeants with their followers rushed at once to close quarters and found themselves engaged with six Germans, two of whom were killed, and one wounded, the survivors dashing headlong into a dugout.
Lieutenant Cassidy, pistol in hand, ran to the opening of the dugout and called on them to surrender. If any one of them had any fight left in him we would have had to mourn the loss of a brave young officer, but they surrendered at discretion, and our whole party, with no casualties, started back as fast as they could, carrying the wounded prisoner and dragging the others with them. It was an excellent job, done with neatness and dispatch. Valuable papers were found on the wounded man and other information was obtained at Division by questioning. The only thing to spoil it was that two of our men, Corporal Joseph Brown and Charles Knowlton got lost in the dark coming in, and have not yet reported.[1]