During the regiment’s advance it shot down three German aeroplanes which were flying low and directing the firing. This was a unique record. Ninety prisoners were taken, and of a total strength of 2384 the losses of the regiment in the Champagne offensive were as follows: Officers, killed 4, died of wounds 4, wounded 41, total 49; Enlisted men, killed 101, died of wounds 6, wounded 866, total 973; Missing 30; Total 1052.
Such figures are cold. Let us note some of the concrete deeds that were afterwards cited for honors. Near Champagne, on September 28, Corporal Sandy E. Jones was engaged as company clerk and was left behind to care for the company records. “When he learned that all the company officers had become casualties, he immediately went forward, and, collecting the scattered elements of the company, reorganized them under most trying and difficult conditions.” Private Reuben Burrell, “although painfully wounded in the knee, refused to be evacuated, stating that if he went to the rear there would not be enough left for his group to function.” Privates Ellison Moses and Junius Diggs, after their companies had been forced to withdraw from advanced positions, “went forward and rescued wounded soldiers, working persistently until all of them had been carried to shelter.” Four other men, among them Bruce Stoney, Charlie Butler, and Willie Boston, “crawled 200 yards ahead of our lines under violent machine-gun fire and rescued an officer who was lying mortally wounded in a shell hole.” These are only a few of the individual acts of heroism.
After the Champagne offensive the regiment was withdrawn and sent to a quiet sector in the Vosges Mountains, the Bonhomme sub-sector in Alsace. It remained there from October 16 until after the Armistice, with the assistance of one battalion of Chasseurs holding over eight kilometers of front. There were no important operations here and for the first time the reserve battalions were given intensive training.
During the service with the French there were always the most cordial relations. General Goybet had sincere affection for these Negro troops and took personal pride in what they did. Other generals and the French soldiers also learned to respect and admire them for their soldierly qualities and their bravery; and so did the Moroccan division. General Garnier Duplessis, commander of the 9th Army Corps of France, after watching the deeds of the 371st and 372nd in the Champagne offensive, said, “I salute the brave American regiments who have equalled in intrepidity their French comrades.” Colonel Quillet, who commanded the regiment in the decisive battle that brought victory, said: “In sectors they have shown endurance, a vigilance, a spirit of devotion, and a remarkable discipline. In battle they have taken by storm with a magnificent animation very strong positions doggedly defended by the enemy.” On October 11, when the regiment came out of battle, the commander of the 157th Division wrote Colonel Miles, saying, “Your troops have been admirable in their attack”; and when the famous 157th “Red Hand Division” was broken up, General Goybet commended the American Negro soldiers for the part they had taken in the great struggle as follows: “During seven months we have lived as brothers in arms, sharing the same works, the same fatigues, the same dangers; side by side we have participated in the great Champagne battle, which was crowned with a prodigious victory. The 157th Division will never forget the irresistible dash, the heroic push of the colored American troops.... The most formidable defenses, the best organized machine-gun nests, the most smashing artillery barrage could not stop them. These élite regiments crossed all of it with a superb disdain of death and, thanks to their courageous devotion, the Red Hand Division during nine days of hard struggle always held the lead in the historic advance of the Fourth Army.”
For its splendid fighting in the Champagne battles the regiment was commended by the French high command and the regimental colors were decorated by Vice-Admiral Moreau in Brest January 27, 1919. The citation reads as follows:
The 371st R. I. U. S. has shown, during its first engagement, the very best qualities of bravery and audacity which are characteristic of shock troops.
Under the command of Colonel Miles, it launched itself with a superb spirit and admirable disregard of danger at the assault of a position stubbornly defended by the enemy. It took it by terrible fighting, under an exceptionally violent machine-gun fire. It then continued its progression in spite of the fire of enemy artillery and its cruel losses, making numerous prisoners, securing cannon, machine-guns and important material.
PETAIN,
Marshal of France.
Thirty-four individual Croix de Guerre for officers and sixty-nine for enlisted men, one Legion of Honor, and twenty-one Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded to members of the regiment. The 371st sailed from Brest February 3, 1919, and arrived at Camp Upton February 11th. Thence the men were sent to the camps nearest their homes, and most of them naturally went to Camp Jackson. Amid the plaudits of the city of Columbia they returned the flag that had been given them, and South Carolina, that had hesitated to receive and train these black sons of hers, had the magnanimity to admit that no other organization that represented the state in the World War had shed as much luster upon it or brought as much glory to it as the 371st Regiment of Negro soldiers.