Father Duffy's story

by Francis Patrick Duffy

The men were encamped in a forest of low trees, a most miserable spot. It had been showering and wet all the week and we were living like paleozoic monsters, in a world of muck and slime. The forest roads were all plowed by the wagon wheels and when one stepped off them conditions were no better, for the whole place was really a swamp. I made my rounds during the afternoon and got the men together for what I call a silent prayer meeting. I told them how easy it was to set themselves right with God, suggesting an extra prayer for a serene mind and a stout heart in time of danger; and then they stood around me in a rough semi-circle, caps in hand and heads bowed, each man saying his prayers in his own way. I find this simple ceremony much more effective than formal preaching.

When I got back to headquarters I found my own staff very considerably increased. Father Hanley had come back a couple of days before. The rumors of approaching action were all over France, so, sniffing the battle from afar, he got the hospital authorities to let him out and rejoin his regiment for the coming fight. I kept Father Carpentier attached to the regiment for the time being until I could get the Protestant chaplain that I had been petitioning for so long. Father Hanley still had a perceptible limp and was moving around with the aid of a stick so I told him that he would have to look after the hospital center (Triage) while the fight was on, a commission that he took with no good grace. To Father Carpentier I gave a roving commission to look after Catholics in the Ohio and Alabama regiments, a task for which his zeal and endurance especially qualified him.

Now I found two more Chaplains on my hands—one from the Knights of Columbus, Father Moran, an Irish Priest, and one assigned to the regiment, Chaplain Merrill J. Holmes of the M. E. Church. I liked him on sight and we were not long in getting on a basis of cordiality which will make our work together very pleasant. It was too late to send the extra chaplains to other regiments as we were even then getting ready to move forward into line, so I decided to keep them all under my wing. I told the lieutenants of the Headquarters Company that it would not be my fault if they did not all get to Heaven because we had five chaplains along. “Five Chaplains,” said Lieutenant Charles Parker. “Great Heavens! there won’t be a thing left for any of the rest of us to eat.”

The terrain which was to be the object of the attack of our three divisions was completely dominated on the left by the frowning heights of Mont Sec; and if they had been held in force by the enemy artillery it would have exposed our whole army corps to a flanking fire which would soon make progress impossible. It fell to the 1st Division to make their advance along the mountain side.

The ground over which we were to pass was for the most part fairly level up as far as the twin towns of Maizerais and Essey, to the left of which the Rupt de Mad made its way through swamps at the base of the hill which was crowned by these two villages. A number of woods dotted the surface; one of them, the Bois de Remières, stood directly in front of our advance. No Man’s Land at this point was seven or eight hundred yards wide; and the German trenches, as we afterwards found, were not in very good condition, though there was plenty of wire standing both here and at other points that were prepared for defence. We were to jump off at the east of Seicheprey, and regimental headquarters and dressing station were established by Colonel Mitchell and Major Lawrence in the Bois de Jury, not far to the rear.

We moved up to our jump-off point on the night of September 11th. The rain was falling in torrents. The roads were like a swamp and the night was so dark that a man could not see the one in front of him. And of course no lights could be lit. The road could not be left free for the foot soldiers, but was crowded with ammunition wagons, combat wagons, signal outfits and all the impedimenta of war. Time and again men had the narrowest escapes from being run down in the dark, and scarcely anybody escaped the misfortune of tripping and falling full length in the mud. It is a miracle of fate or of organization that the units were able to find their positions on such a night, but they all got where they belonged and found the lines neatly taped by Colonel Johnson’s excellent body of engineers. The 1st Battalion was in the front line commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Donovan, who was not willing to let his newly conferred rank deprive him of the opportunity of leading his battalion in another fight. The 2nd battalion under Major Anderson was in the second line, and picked men from each of its companies were given the task of following close behind the 1st, as moppers up, i. e., to overcome points of resistance which might be passed over, take charge of prisoners, etc.

The men shivered through the night in the muddy trenches waiting in patient misery for morning and the orders to attack. At 1:00 A. M. September 12th, our artillery opened fire on the enemy. We had expected a night of terrific noise like that which preceded the German offensive on July 15th, but the present one was not nearly so fierce, though it would have seemed a wonderful show if we had not heard the other one. In July the guns on both sides were shooting everything they had without cessation. But, here, there was no enemy counter preparation fire and our own fire was more deliberate.

Dawn broke on a cold, windy day and a cloud darkened sky. Donovan had been moving up and down his line with a happy smile on his face (unless he detected anything out of order) telling the men: “There’s nothing to it. It will be a regular walkover. It will not be as bad as some of the cross-country runs I gave you in your training period.” And when H hour arrived at 5:00 A. M., the feeling of the men was one of gladness at the prospect of getting into action.

Their way was prepared by a screen of smoke and a rolling barrage delivered by our artillery. Tanks advanced with our infantry crawling like iron-clad hippopotomi over the wire in front to make a passage-way. Some of them came to grief on account of the rain-softened ground, the edges of a trench giving way under the weight of a tank and standing it on its nose in the bottom. During the two days of advance we were well supplied with aeroplane service and possessed undoubted superiority in the air.

The four-inch Stokes Mortars had been put in position to lay down a smoke barrage and the barrage began to pound the enemy front line at the zero hour. The shells whistled overhead much closer than they had done during the artillery preparation and broke on the enemy trenches kicking up red fire and black clouds where they hit. It was raining slightly, there was a mist, and dawn was not yet breaking when the machine gun barrage which took the men over began to fire. The men began to whisper among themselves “That’s our stuff; no it’s not, yes it is.” All the sounds of battle were heard; the artillery, the small guns, and then, a little too soon, the Stokes Mortars in front of the Alabamas starting their fire-works which illuminated the entire front when the thermite shells exploded.