MESSAGES FROM COMMANDERS
4. On July 22, 1932, you are Colonel Algernon M. Potts, commanding the 48th Infantry which is acting as Advance Guard for the 20th Division. You have at a quarter to one just pushed two battalions of the enemy’s infantry toward Woodside School House. Your adjutant counts on the ground over which they have fled forty-eight of their dead and wounded. When you have taken up and reorganized your line from Plainview through the cross-roads at 666 to, and including, the farm house one mile and a quarter directly east of A. Logan, Lieutenant Shelley, adjutant of the first battalion, reports to you that Major Jones’ command has captured twenty-two prisoners. While you are talking, suddenly a heavy fire of artillery comes from somewhere in the vicinity of 603 west of Hunterstown. At the same time a message reaches you from Sergeant Stearns, who has been out with a combat patrol to the south, that a regiment of the enemy’s cavalry was between Table Rock and Herman at half past two, and that a civilian had telephoned that an infantry regiment of the enemy was seen marching west through Hunterstown at twenty minutes to twelve that morning. You have no reenforcements at hand, but send your reserve of one battalion to prolong the right of your line to the bridge at Fidler, B-7. Your artillery seems to be superior to the enemy’s and is holding down his fire which is growing heavier. The adjutants of the 2d and 3d battalions report that their commands have lost 12 dead, 17 wounded, and 24 missing during the previous engagement. You feel that you will scarcely be able to hold out more than an hour under the present circumstances, but decide to make strenuous efforts to do more. You start to write your message to the Division Commander at four o’clock in the afternoon.
5. You are Major Mark Montclair in command of the battalion which constituted the reserves in the preceding problem. When you arrive in your designated position at a quarter to five you are immediately charged by two troops of cavalry which you drive off to the south by superior fire. You send in pursuit one company and a machine gun. By the number of loose horses you see galloping about and by the haste with which the troopers took to their heels, you infer that the casualties must have been large. Your adjutant arrives at this time reporting that sixteen prisoners in sound condition have been taken, that twelve dead and twenty-two wounded of the enemy have been counted, and that your own losses are 3 missing, 4 dead, and 8 wounded. Just before you start to write your message at a quarter to six, word reaches you from A Company which is still pursuing the enemy, that they have captured 18 prisoners and have killed and wounded twelve. You finish your message at five minutes to six, and then go over your lines in order to make them stronger for defense.
6. On June 12, 1925, you are Captain James A. Marion in command of Company I, 203d Infantry. Your company, which constitutes a detached post from your regiment acting as outpost at Granite Hill, is at 601, five hundred yards west of Hunterstown Cross-roads. At twenty-five minutes to five in the morning you are charged by a squadron of cavalry from the J. Bell farm. They strike you from the front, and you are holding them by your fire when a troop hits your right flank riding at a full gallop out of the woods from the direction of the Henderson Meeting House. You are in a very awkward position and are prepared to do or die, when, without warning of any kind, a squadron of your own 29th Cavalry which has been on a raiding expedition in the direction of New Oxford, deploys at a gallop from Hunterstown. The enemy, who is now in turn struck in flank, is in serious straits. He breaks and runs in the direction of Table Rock, the friendly squadron pursuing. You count 45 dead and 62 wounded of the enemy. Of your own troops 12 infantrymen are missing, 3 cavalrymen and 9 infantrymen dead, and 5 cavalrymen and 18 infantrymen wounded. You start to write your message at twenty minutes to six. You straighten out your former position and send strong connecting and reconnoitering patrols to north and west.
7. On May 13, 1922, you are Major Gerald Pendelton of the 1st Battalion, 43d Infantry. You have been ordered by your regimental commander to establish by a line of your own troops a defensive position facing east from the 4 (exclusive) in 664 east of Hamilton, D-8, to the southeast corner of the orchard (inclusive), five hundred yards northwest of Stock Farm. At five minutes to ten at night you have formed your line as ordered and are beginning to entrench. You are proceeding with your work when a messenger from B Company on the left flank tells you that G Company of the 2d Battalion has arrived at the 4 in 664, and that at ten minutes to ten the right flank of that company was beginning to dig. Seven minutes later another messenger from A Company arrives with similar information concerning Company E, 2d Battalion, 47th Infantry; he states that the left flank of that company at thirteen minutes to ten started to dig twenty yards south of the corner of the orchard. You go over your lines correcting positions here and there and start to send a message at twenty-five minutes to eleven. The order of your interior companies is, left to right, C, D.