And it was fierce! No other word describes it. They fought, and fought, and fought again, onward, ever onward. For they must not stop. The American army did not know that word.
And then, after nearly two weeks of steady fighting, with only such rest for the exhausted troops as was absolutely necessary, came the final stage. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, staggering from weariness, took their places in line one gray morning.
Suddenly about them thundered great salvos of firing. It shook the very ground. The chums looked at one another in wonder.
“This must be another big show,” shouted Jerry. He had to shout to be heard above the noise. 224
“It is,” said Ned.
And it was. It was the final assault against the last of the German defenses in St. Mihiel.
“Forward!” came the cry, given after four hours of the greatest artillery barrage ever laid down. At five o’clock, on the morning of September 12th, seven American divisions in the front line advanced. They were assisted by tanks, manned by Americans and French, and there were groups of wire-cutters and other groups armed with bangalore torpedoes. “These,” says General Pershing, in his report, “went through the successive bands of barbed wire that protected the enemy’s front line and support trenches, in irresistable waves on schedule time, breaking down all defenses of an enemy demoralized by the great volume of our artillery fire, and our sudden approach out of the fog.”
And forward, in their own modest and humble way, with this great army of liberation went Ned, Bob, and Jerry. Shooting and being shot at they went forward until the iron strength of the foe was broken, and the cry sounded:
“They’re running away! We’ve got ’em beat!”
And thus it was. German troops were giving way in a rout. Let General Pershing tell it in his own simple way: