The hatless soldier obeyed very willingly because the street led towards the rear. An hour later Captain Mike breezed into the square and came over to the officer with the demand,
“Who was that bird you sent me?”
“What did you do with him, Mike?”
“What did I do with him. I salvaged him a nice new rifle, strapped two bandoliers around him, led him gently out into the street, faced him north and said, ‘Keep right on going in that direction until you see a Dutchman and when you see him shoot him for me.’ And I gave him a good start with my boot and by the way he made his getaway I’ll bet he’s going yet.”
The Commander of our Sanitary Detachment was Captain Wm. B. Hudson, who had been assigned to us from the 117th Sanitary Train when Major Lawrence was called to Division Headquarters. On July 28th, Captain Hudson had taken his post at the Chateau de Foret, General Lenihan’s Headquarters, most of which the General had given over for the accommodation of the wounded who had managed to get back that far. Here, too, the wounded men met with fresh disaster. A German aeroplane dropped bombs in the courtyard and killed seven men, including Sergeant Brogan of Company B, one of the best men we had.
On the next day Captain Hudson started to look for a better place for the wounded in Villers sur Fere, accompanied by the ever-faithful Jewett, the “Y” athletic instructor. He was standing in the door of the place he had selected when an enemy gas shell came over and a fragment of it hit him full in the chest, killing him instantly.
We buried him sadly by the cemetery wall where already too many of our men were lying in their last long sleep.
In the town also we buried many who were killed by shell fire as they advanced to go into action during the night of the 27th-28th. In this our Machine gunners were the greatest sufferers; almost a whole platoon was wiped out. A shell landed in the midst of them, creating havoc. The uninjured rushed boldly to succor their comrades, when another shell and still another, fell in the same spot, scattering death afresh. Sergeant Phil Brooks here gave up his life and Ray Nulty, J. R. Keller, H. Van Diezelski, Frank Carlin, G. Foster and C. G. Sahlquist.
Accompanying Lieutenant Connelly on his mission of the morning of the 28th was the Second Platoon of our Machine Gun Company under Lieutenant Carter, who was wounded during the action.[4] The Platoon was kept together by Sergeants Bruhn and Kerrigan, and Doherty, and afterwards went through the whole battle with our First Battalion.
While the first battalion was lying under the hill during the afternoon of the 28th they were very much harassed by enemy planes which came across flying low and shooting from their machine guns at the men on the hill and under the bank. Here Harry Martenson was killed and Hugh Heaney badly wounded and carried back by Sergeant Devine. Sergeant Frank Gardella thought it was time to try reprisals, so he set up his machine gun as an anti-aircraft weapon and began blazing away at fourteen planes which were above his head and flying low. He got a line on two planes which were flying one above the other, and by a lucky shot hit the pilot of the upper plane which crashed into the lower one and both came tumbling to earth not far from the river, their crews being killed.