THE GAS ATTACK
March 20th and 21st, 1918
But meanwhile there had been other happenings in the sector which quite overshadowed the 1st Battalion raid.
Company K went into the line in the Rouge Bouquet Sector on March 12th, 1918, relieving Company H. The Company Headquarters were at Chaussailles, and the two platoons in the front line were: on the right, at Changarnier (C. R. 1), one platoon; in the center at C. R. 2 a half platoon; and on the left at Chevert (C. R. 3) a half platoon.
There were no casualties for the first eight days except that John Ring received a bullet in the arm. Our patrols did not come into contact with the Boches (who apparently never left their lines) and except a few minenwerfer and some shelling with 77’s the sector was quiet, the weather was fine, and every one spoke of the tour at the front as a picnic.
About 5:30 on the evening of the 20th the Boches suddenly began to bombard the entire company sector, from a line not far from their own trenches to a line several hundred yards in the rear of Company Headquarters, with mustard gas shells and shrapnel, the heaviest bombardment being in the vicinity of C. R. 2, where Sergeant Frank Doughney was in command, of C. R. 3, where Lieutenant Bill Crane was in command, and at the first aid station, where Lieutenant Patten and his group were quartered, together with the fourth platoon under Lieutenant Levi. This bombardment lasted about three hours.
The groups stationed at the outposts were caught on their way in, the two groups under Corporals Caulfield and Joe Farrell being led by Corporal Farrell into an incomplete dugout about 300 yards in front of our lines, the other two going directly in.
The second platoon, under Lieutenant Dowling in Changarnier, were not so heavily shelled and being on higher ground, were not gassed so badly as the others.
In C. R. 2, Harry McCoun was struck by a shell which carried away his left hand. He held up the stump and shouted, “Well, boys, there goes my left wing.” Sergeant Jack Ross and Private Ted Van Yorx led him under heavy fire back to the first aid station, where Doctor Patten tore off his mask to operate on him (for which he earned the Croix de Guerre), but McCoun died the next morning.
In C. R. 3, Lieutenant Crane walked from one post to the other in the midst of the heaviest bombardment in order to encourage the men. In the midst of this bombardment, several of the runners, including particularly Privates Ed Rooney and Ray Staber, distinguished themselves by their courage and coolness in carrying messages between Company headquarters and the front line.
The men were prompt in putting on their masks as soon as the presence of gas was recognized, but it was found impossible to keep them on indefinitely and at the same time keep up the defense of the sector. Immediately after the bombardment, the entire company area reeked with the odor of mustard-gas and this condition lasted for several days. It had been raining heavily the night before, and there was no breeze whatever.
By about midnight some of the men were sick as a result of the gas, and as the night wore on, one after another they began to feel its effects on their eyes, to cry, and gradually to go blind, so that by dawn a considerable number from the front line had been led all the way back and were sitting by the Lunéville road, completely blinded, and waiting their turn at an ambulance, and the third platoon were unable to furnish enough men to man all their posts and were compelled to ask for replacements.
Meanwhile, about ten o’clock at night, the first and fourth platoons had been ordered to leave their reserve positions and march back to the Lunéville road and down the cross-road on the other side where they lay down in the mud and slept till morning. In the morning they filtered down to replace the casualties in the other two platoons.
About three o’clock in the morning Lieutenant (Doctor) Martin came down in the midst of the gas to relieve Lieutenant Patten, who had been blinded and taken to the hospital. Lieutenant Martin was himself affected by the gas and went blind on the following morning.
By dawn, the men were going blind one after another, and being ordered to the hospital. Often, by the time they got to the ambulance, the man leading was himself blind and both got into the ambulance together. Not a man lost his head or lay down on the job and not a man left for the hospital until he was stone blind, or ordered to go by an officer, and a number of men were blinded while on post, while others stuck it out for so long that it was finally necessary to carry them on stretchers to the dressing station; and this although all had been instructed that mustard gas was one of the most deadly gases and that it caused blindness which lasted for months and was in many cases permanent.
By ten o’clock in the morning fully two-thirds of the company had been blinded, and about this time Lieutenants Crane, Dowling and Levi, and Captain Hurley one after the other went blind and were led back, followed later by Lieutenant Burns.
Throughout the day the men continued to go blind, until by seven o’clock only about thirty were left, almost all of whom were in the front line, under command of Lieutenant Tom Martin, and they were so few that it was necessary for them to go on post for four hours at a stretch, with two hours off, and some of them, including Tom Hickey, Barney Furey, John McLoughlin, Pat McConnell and Jerry O’Connor were on post for as long as six hours at a time.
At seven o’clock Lieutenant Hunt Warner, with Lieutenant Zipp, appeared with reinforcements, consisting of forty men from Company M. Lieutenant Warner was put in command at Chevert with Sergeant Embrie of Company K, as second in command; Sergeant Von Glahn of Company M, was put in command at C. R. 2, where the gas was at that time especially heavy; and Lieutenant Zipp was put in command at Changarnier, with Corporal Joe Farrell, who knew the sector thoroughly and spent the night going from one post to another, as second in command, Lieutenant Tom Martin at Changarnier being in command of the whole company sector.
That evening about dusk the men in the front line heard an explosion in the rear and looked back in time to see the battalion ammunition dump go up in a blaze of glory, on seeing which all broke into applause and loud cheers. It was thought that the Boches might be so foolish as to think the evening propitious for a raid, and all posts were manned and all were ready to give him a warm reception, but he failed to show up.
At seven next morning the French appeared and the relief was completed by about nine o’clock, when the survivors set out for Lunéville, where they were taken in hand by Lieutenant Arnold, who ordered them all, much against their protest, to a hospital where they were surprised to find that they were casualties, their injuries consisting principally of burns on the body, which had just begun to show up, and which kept most of them in the hospital for at least a month.
On their arrival at the hospital they found there some of the French troops who had relieved them on that morning and who had already become casualties because of the gas which lingered in the area.
The men killed, besides McCoun, were Salvatore Moresea, whose body was found by the French in No Man’s Land the day after the Company was relieved, Carl Braun, of Headquarters Company, hit by bullet, with Robert Allen, Walter Bigger, and Lawrence Gavin, who died in the hospital within a day or two as a result of the effect of the gas on their lungs. About four hundred of our men were put out of action in this gas attack including practically all of K Company, many of M, and some from Headquarters, Supply and Medical.
The event had one consoling feature, and that was the superb conduct of the men. They had been told most awful stories of the effect of gas. When they found that their whole position was saturated with it, they felt that their chances to live through it were slender, and that they would surely be blind for a long time. And yet not a single man quit his post until ordered. There was no disorder or panic; the men of Company K were forced to quit their position, but they quit it one by one, and every man was a subject for a hospital long before he left. And the Company M men coming up to take over the position, and seeing the blinded and tortured soldiers going back, had courage in equal measure. Soldiers that will stand up to it as these had done under the terrors and sufferings of that night can be relied on for anything that men can be called on to do.