CHAPTER XVII.
NOVEMBER ELEVENTH AT LA COURTINE.
November 11th, 1918, was a memorable day to the populace of La Courtine, France, as was the case in every hamlet, village, town or city in the world, when the news was flashed that Germany had accepted the terms of an Allied armistice and that fighting was to cease at 11 a. m. that day. The armistice that ended the World War was signed at 5 a. m., Paris time, and hostilities ceased six hours later, which was 6 o'clock Washington time.
The American troops encamped at La Courtine this eventful time received the tidings with great joy. The roads leading from the camp to the village were crowded with soldiers who paraded up and down in hysterical good humor. The crowds thronged into the village where the one main street was ablaze with celebration. The French populace were out to celebrate with the Americans. The cafes did a land office business. Wine flowed freely. The French kissed the Americans in some instances as the celebrators swayed through the street. The band was out. The crowds shouted, yelled, sang and cut-up all kinds of antics.
The scene, however, was similar to that enacted everywhere throughout the Allied world. The end of the fighting was officially announced and everybody was glad. The same hysterical good humor swayed the crowds at La Courtine that prompted like celebrations throughout the United States.
Great as was the enthusiasm and celebration of November 11th, the big gusto of celebration had been spent at La Courtine, as was the case everywhere else, on Thursday evening, November 7th, when a premature and unofficial announcement of the armistice was made.
Battery D spent the afternoon of November 7th on the pistol range. About 5 o'clock the news quickly spread that a bulletin announcing the end of the fighting had been posted at the Y. M. C. A. The bulletin was up only a short time when it was removed, with the explanation that it was unofficial, also contradicted.
But the anxious hearers, as was the case everywhere, wanted no denials. The enthusiasm of the hour made people speak of the thing which they had been hoping for as though it had come true. Consequently the enthusiasm led to celebration.
It was a gala night in La Courtine. The days following brought sober realization that the end had not yet come. Stern realities of war loomed big in Battery D circles on Saturday, November 9th, when a front-line pack inspection was in order.
A quiet Sunday followed, then, at noon on Monday, November 11th, came the authentic news of the armistice signing. Joyous celebration started immediately and assumed its peak during the afternoon when special passes were issued to the soldiers to visit in the village. The celebration continued until late at night.
Official recognition of the news was thundered from the cannon at Camp La Courtine at retreat, when a royal salute of twenty-one guns was fired.
The following day was also an off day for Battery D. Passes to visit the town were issued to half the outfit from reveille to 3 p. m., while the other fifty per cent were given the privilege from 3 p. m. until 11 p. m.
Word was received that the regiment was to entrain at La Courtine on November 14th. Preparations were immediately made for a farewell banquet. After great preparation by the cooks and the K. P.'s, the banquet was staged at 6 o'clock on November 13th, with stewed chicken as the mainstay of the menu. A number of the Y. M. C. A. girls were guests at the banquet.
Thursday, November 14th, the regiment had the task of getting its matériel to the station at La Courtine for transportation by rail to a new billeting area of France. No one could guess where it was to be or what the future held in store for the troops in the way of service and training during the months that were sure to intervene before it was a question of homeward bound.
The regiment was well supplied with matériel, but had no horses. A number of motor trucks were sought out to haul the heavier of the supply wagons. It was necessary for the soldiers to furnish the power to drag the guns and caissons from the camp to the station, a distance of over a mile.
The matériel was loaded on flat cars at the station. Then the soldiers were ushered to side-door Pullmans once again. Bed ticks were not emptied of their straw before leaving camp. Thus the soldiers entered the box cars with their bed ticks as a mattress to recline on the floor of the car.
The first section of flat cars and box cars with Battery D left La Courtine at 2:30 o'clock. Another seeing France by box-car trip was on.
An improvement in mess enroute was experienced during this trip. A flat car was used for the rolling kitchen. Hot meals were prepared in transit. Back over the same route, through Feletin and Abusson, to the junction point at Busseau, the troop special proceeded, reaching the junction at 6:30 o'clock when mess call was sounded. Here the first section of the train waited until 8:27 for the arrival of the second section at the junction point.
It was dark when the trip was resumed. Deprived by the darkness from sight-seeing privileges, all that remained for the troops to do was to stretch out on the floor and try to sleep. The nights were long and dark while traveling in a French box car.
During the night the towns of Jarnages and Montlucon were passed. The train entered the Department of Allier, traveling Northeast, through Commentry, Villefranche, le Montel and Moulins.
Daylight was breaking by the time Moulins was sighted. Stop was made at Paray le Monial from 7:30 to 8 a. m., when breakfast was served from the flat truck dining car.
The next day, November 15th, was spent traveling through a beautiful stretch of country. The railroad ran almost parallel with the Boninoe river, a branch of the Loire. Through pasture lands and farming country, the road stretched along Palinges, Montceau, Changy, Beaune. A lay-over for lunch was made at Nuits St. Georges at 1 p. m.
In the afternoon stop was made at Dijon, where the troops got a chance to detrain and partake of refreshments that a corps of French Red Cross workers served at the station.
Soon after leaving Dijon darkness fell upon the troop special. The sun had not yet gone to rest. The famous tunnel between Sombernon and Blaizy-Bas had been penetrated. This tunnel, on the road to Paris, may be a note-worthy piece of engineering skill, but its designers evidently never dreamed of a troop special of thirty or forty old box cars, many with rust-corroded doors that could not be closed, whizzing through; leaving the passengers to eat up the exhaust from the smoke stacks of the locomotive.
At this time the troop train was headed Northwest, toward Paris, but hopes of getting near Gay Paree were soon shattered. When Nuits sous Ravieres was reached, switch over to another branch was made and the direction then was Northeast, toward Chaumont, the A. E. F. headquarters town.
Stop for night mess was made at Les Laumes, where orders were also issued for the troops to get their packs ready as the outfit would detrain in about three hours time.
A heavy frost developed that night and the troops almost froze in the boxcars. After delay in getting started from Les Laumes the journey continued over a considerable longer period than three hours. Laigne and St. Colombre were passed and La Tracey, the detraining point, was reached at 3 a. m., Saturday, November 16th, 1918.
Reveille was not sounded until 6 a. m. During the interim most of the troops left the boxcars and built fires in the railroad yards, around which they sought warmth during the early morning hours.
The hustle to get all the matériel from the flat trucks started at 6 o'clock. A section of a motor transportation corps was dispatched to La Tracey to convey the regiment to its new billeting district. The motor outfit was late in arriving, but finally start was made. Three and four guns and caissons were attached to each truck, the truck loaded with soldiers and packs, then for a thirty kilometer race through the Marne Department in motorized artillery form. The last detail did not leave La Tracey until 4 p. m.
The first details arrived at Ville sous La Ferte, a small village in the Department of Aube. This village was the billeting center for the 2nd Battalion of the regiment. Regimental headquarters was established at Clairvaux, four kilometers from Ville sous La Ferte. The 1st Battalion went to Juvancourt, about a kilometer distant.
Farm lands and vineyards surrounded these villages. The inhabitants were of the quiet peasant type. With nothing of interest and no form of amusement, Ville sous La Ferte was a quiet place for Battery D. The battery was divided among a score of barns, lofts, sheds and houses, covering considerable length of a village street. A grist mill with its water-wheel and mill-pond was situated near the building in which the battery office was established. All formations were assembled in the street in front of the battery office. Difficulty was experienced during the stay at this place in getting the battery out at all formations, especially those members who were billeted in the loft of a barn at the extreme end of the battery street. As a remedy the battery buglers were given the job of traversing the street each morning and routing out the fellows.
It was mid-November. The days and evenings were getting damp and chilly. Fires were comfortable things those days, but heating stoves were unknown to the peasant homes of Ville sous La Ferte. The houses were equipped with fire-places. The big question, however, was to procure fuel. It was all the battery could do to get a supply of wood from nearby woodlands to supply the needs of the battery kitchen. At first the fellows started to make raids on the wood pile that came in for the kitchen, but this soon had to be stopped under necessity of suspension of the commissary department.
For many of the squads billeted in the barns and sheds there was no chance for warmth as there were no fire-places. During the damp, cold nights the only choice the inhabitants of those billets had was to roll in and keep warm under the blankets.
To chop a tree down in the numbered forests of France was to commit a crime, so the fellows who were in billets that did have fire places faced a series of crimes to get wood. The inhabitants of such billets took it upon themselves to devise ways and means to obtain fuel. The occupants of one billet sent details out to root up old fence posts from adjacent farm-lands; while in another instance eighteen men housed in a billet borrowed several French wheel-barrows and at night made a raid on a large pile of newly cut tree trunks which was located a kilometer from the village.
The result of this night's work provided fuel and light for several days in the billet of the raiding party. Light was another essential feature. With candles selling as high as a franc apiece, letter writing home was sadly neglected in many cases. So the receipt of an extra letter written by the light of a log-blaze, kindled with wood secured through great difficulty, has had to act as savoring repentance for any misconduct employed in acquiring possession of the means of light and heat.
The battery had among its equipment dozens of new horse-blankets. With the exception of a few stray animals, no horses had been received by the battery in France thus far. Several were in care of the outfit at Ville sous La Ferte, where six horses caused as much stable detail work as a complete battery of mounts occasioned at Camp Meade. The main feature, moreover, was the distribution of the horse-blankets among the troops in an effort to keep warm at night.
There was no room in Ville sous La Ferte to do any maneuvering, so the guns and caissons were parked in a field and were not used during the stay. The time of the soldier was employed in hikes and various forms of athletics. Soccer developed as the leading sport and great rivalry resulted in games that were played on furrowed ground of a large wheat field.
War was over, so official orders again gave birth to Retreat formation, which was held with much disciplinary ado in front of the Hotel de Ville at 4:15 o'clock each afternoon. Guard mount was also decreed and last, but not least, regimental reviews came into their own with great official solemnity.
On Thursday, November 21st, a wild boar hunt that had been planned by the battery, had to be called off. A regimental review was to be held at Clairvaux that afternoon.
The 2nd Battalion formed at 1 p. m. and hiked to Clairvaux with colors flying for the big review. A mix-up in giving commands "flunked" the first attempt at passing in review. The entire ceremony of dignity had to be executed a second time. Close order drill then came into its own. The following day, November 22nd, the battalion again hiked to Clairvaux, where another review was staged and the regiment kept at battalion close-order drill until 4 o'clock.
Sunday, November 24th, reveille sounded at 6 o'clock. Orders were given to make rolls preparatory to moving. When the soldiers were ready to move the order was changed. It was discovered that the motor trucks would not arrive until the following day.
The motor transportation squad was expected to arrive early on Monday morning. It was 9 o'clock at night when they arrived. Departure was delayed until next morning, but this did not keep back an order that called the battery out in detail during a heavy rain at 9:30 Monday night to pull the guns and caissons through the mud, from the field where they had been parked to the road, so that they could be attached to the motor trucks. There was a great tendency to "duck detail" that night.
Ville sous La Ferte was finally left in the distance, Tuesday, November 26th, at 10 o'clock. The soldiers and their packs had to pile in the few motor trucks that were furnished. A few of the boys rode the matériel attached to the trucks and had a wild ride. The rolling kitchen of the battery, with ovens blazing away, covered the roads at a fine clip behind a motor truck, with George Musial having his hands full trying to manipulate the brake.
The trip continued through Maranville and Bricon. Chaumont was circled about 4 o'clock and stop was made about twenty-one kilometers from A. E. F. Headquarters, at a sleepy little hamlet of about fifty houses and barns, called Blancheville.
A Battery D Kitchen Crew
Photo Taken at Mess Tent at Camp La Courtine, France.
Group Of Battery D Sergeants
Capts. Clarke, Smith, and Hall in foreground.