Father Duffy's story

by Francis Patrick Duffy

There were several changes in the personnel of the Regiment’s administrative staff. Lieutenant Colonel Reed had been selected for Staff College, and the Regiment never got him back. Captain William Doyle, who had served as Regimental Adjutant in Camp Mills, had been relieved while the regiment was in Naives-en-Blois, and his place taken by Captain Alexander E. Anderson, long in command of Company E. Now Captain Anderson was relieved as Adjutant and placed in command of Headquarters Company. Its former commander, Captain Walter E. Powers, for several years Adjutant of the Regiment, went to the Headquarters of the 42nd Division, leaving an enviable record for absolute efficiency in company and regimental administration. His abilities were soon recognized by his commission as Major and appointment as Divisional Adjutant. Captain Doyle was attached to Brigade Headquarters. Captain Anderson’s work was taken over by Lieutenant William F. McKenna, who was appointed Acting Adjutant, an office which he had filled during part of the Border campaign.

The training of officers and men never flagged while the Regiment was stationed in Longeau. Battalion and company commanders, Lieutenants and enlisted men were sent for brief periods to the special schools instituted by General Headquarters for their benefit, and on their return imparted to others the knowledge they had gained. There were lectures and quizzes every evening in the barracks, supplementary to the instruction received every morning and afternoon in the drill field and on the range. A number of American officers who had seen service at the front were now attached to the Regiment, and their first hand information gave new actuality to the daily work.

The training of the Regiment for the action in which they were soon to take part received new and strong impetus during the month of February by the arrival in camp of the 32nd Battalion of Chasseurs. These famous French soldiers, who had been in violent action ever since 1914, proved to be the most useful instructors for the men of the 69th. On the range and during the long hours of grenade throwing and open and trench warfare practice, their instruction, example and companionship was a constant incentive to the American soldiers. And it was a proud day for the 69th Regiment when its soldiers perceived that in rifle marksmanship and in grenade throwing they had succeeded in proving their superiority to their veteran instructors.

From February 7th to February 13th the Regiment took part in manoeuvres in which it was opposed by the 166th Infantry. These manoeuvres took place in the hilly country around Longeau and had as their ultimate objective the seizure and holding of the town of Brennes. This difficult strategic task was eventually accomplished.

Now the desire of the men for immediate participation in the action, the lure of which had drawn them across the ocean, was so strong as to amount to an obsession. It was evident to any competent observer that the whole Division was ready to render valuable service, as thoroughly trained as any unit in the American contingent. This was evidently the opinion of those who directed the movement of American troops, for on February 16th, 17th and 18th the Regiment marched to Langres, under orders to entrain for the city of Lunéville, in the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, for training with French troops in the line—that is, for actual duty in the trenches.

Lunéville was the largest town in which the Regiment had been stationed since its arrival in France. Some of the companies were put in billets, and some in the Stanislas Barracks, a magnificent stone building in the center of the town. Regimental Headquarters was established in the Stanislas Palace, a building which had previously housed the Administrative staffs of some of the French regiments who since 1914 had done brilliant work in retarding the German advance.

Now the Regiment was placed under the tactical orders of the General commanding the 164th Division of the French Army, the Division then occupying what was known as the Lunéville Sector. On February 21st, the 1st and 2nd Battalions, Headquarters Company and Machine Gun Company paraded in the central square of Lunéville and were reviewed by Major General Bassilière, then commander of the 17th French Army Corps. A few days later, the Regiment was made happy by learning that orders to go to the front had been received. On February 27th and 28th respectively, Companies D and B marched to their posts in the front line trenches, relieving companies of the 15th Group of Chasseurs of the French Army.

And now came a chapter in the history of the 69th Regiment which blotted out from the minds of officers and men all the hard work of the Camp Mills training period, all the privations and discomforts of the ocean trip and the journey across blizzard-beleagured France. The 69th was actually in the fighting—it was called “a period of training in the trenches,” but it was no time of sham-battles and manoeuvres. It was, in fact, an initiation into battle, by way of what was (up to the time of the 42nd Division’s entry into it) a quiet sector.

A “quiet sector” is one in which the German and French lines are separated from each other by a considerable distance—sometimes as much as five kilometers—in which there is no immediate objective for which the troops on either side are striving, in which, finally, shots are seldom fired, the opposing forces being content merely to hold their trenches almost undisturbed. These are also termed “rest sectors,” and the task of holding them is given either to troops wearied by participation in great battles or to troops fresh from the drill field and lacking in experience in actual warfare.

Nothing could have been more idyllic than the Rouge-Bouquet-Chaussailles Subsector of the Lunéville Sector when Company D marched to its strong point before dawn on the morning of February 27th. The subsector is heavily wooded and almost clear of underbrush. As the company marched up the hill through groves of birch, pine, spruce, and fir, and saw to right and left little summer houses, benches, tables and dugout entrances elaborately decorated with rustic woodwork they were rather shocked by the idyllic beauty of what they saw. Not for service in such a recreation park had they crossed the seas. Where were the bursting shells, where was the liquid fire, where were the bayonets of the charging Boches? This series of outposts joined by little ditches seemed at first too much like Central Park to satisfy the battle-hungry soldiers of the 69th.