Father Duffy's story

by Francis Patrick Duffy

In former days men massed together for battle; today they scatter. It is interesting to watch the deliberate disintegration of a Division as it approaches the front line. It breaks into brigades and into regiments for convenience in using the roads. Then the regiments are broken into battalions, usually, according to the stock phrase “echeloned in depth” that is, one on the line, one in support and one in reserve. The battalion breaks up into companies as it gets nearer the front; and the companies, when they reach the point where they are likely to be under shell fire, separate into platoons with considerable distance between them. In action men advance with generous intervals between.

When they get close to the enemy the advance is made by frequent rushes, about a fourth of the men in a platoon running forward, taking advantage of the ground, while their comrades keep the enemy’s heads down by their fire, until all of them can get close. In its last stages the warfare of these small groups is more like the Indian fighting in which the first General of our Republic learned the profession of arms, than anything which the imagination of civilians pictures it. To take machine gun nests—I am not speaking of regularly wired and entrenched positions which it is the business of artillery to reduce before the infantry essays them—it is often a matter of individual courage and strategy. Sometimes the fire of a platoon can reduce the number of the gunners or make the less hardy of them keep their heads down so that the pieces cannot be properly handled; but often the resistance is overcome by a single sharp-shooter firing from the elbow of a tree, or by some daring fellow who works his way across hollows which are barely deep enough to protect him from fire, or up a gully or watercourse, until he is near enough to throw hand grenades. Then it is all over.

Our supply company and band were stationed at the Ferme de l’Esperance on the Aire River. Going north along the river road as far as Fleville one finds a road going to the right through a deep defile which leads to the village of Exermont about a mile and a half away. On the north and on the south the view is bounded by steep hills which have been captured by the 1st Division. To the north a muddy trail winds around the base of hill 247 leading to a wide, rough, partly wooded plain. This was covered with the bodies of the brave soldiers of the 1st Division, more thickly than I have seen anywhere else with the exception of the hill where lay our 3rd Battalion north of the Ourcq. There were many German wooden shelters at the base of the hill to the right, with bodies of dead Germans, many of them killed in hand to hand conflict.

Our 3rd Battalion took over the front line on the Cote de Maldah, a maze of woods and ravines. Companies M and I were on the twin knolls of the Cote, K and L in the woods behind. To their left were the Ohios at Sommerance, while the Alabamas and Iowas held positions similar to our own on hills 263 and 269. Our 2nd Battalion was in a shrubby woods to the rear, and the 1st Battalion was originally held under protection of the hill just outside of Exermont, in which town were the headquarters of the 165th and 166th and the Regimental Dressing Stations of the 165th and 167th. Our artillery, which had been in support of the 32nd Division, rejoined us on October 13th, making a hard, forced march with animals that had been reduced in strength and numbers by our continuous warfare. Colonel Henry Reilly, a West Point graduate, and a man of great intelligence and force of character, was appointed to direct the operations of the artillery brigade, leaving Lieutenant Colonel Redden to take charge of his own regiment, the 149th Field Artillery. The artillery of the 1st division also remained to assist in the sector.

The German main line of defense—the Kriemhilde Stellung, was about three kilometers in front of our brigade but less than two in front of the 84th Brigade. It was a well prepared and strongly wired position consisting of three lines of wires and trenches. The first rows of wire were breast high and as much as twenty feet wide, all bound together in small squares by iron supports so that it was almost impossible for artillery to destroy it unless the whole ground were beaten flat. Back of this were good trenches about four feet deep with machine gun shelters carefully prepared. Behind this front line at thirty yards intervals they had two other lines with lower wire and shallower trenches. Starting from our left these trenches ran from west to east on our side of two small villages called St. Georges and Landres et St. Georges. From in front of the latter village the wire turned in a southeasterly direction towards us, following the lowest slope of the Cote de Chatillon and embracing LaMusarde Ferme, thence swinging east again to take in the Tuilerie Ferme. The Cote de Chatillon was a high wooded knoll which commanded the terrain to west and south.

The task of the 84th Brigade was to work their way through the Bois de Romagne and capture the two farms and the Cote de Chatillon. Our brigade front was of a different character, and with its own particular kind of difficulty. The terrain was the most nearly level section we had seen in this country, and was mostly open, though with irregular patches of woods. From the Cote de Maldah it sloped off towards the north to a small brook that ran in a general east to west direction through ground that was a bit swampier than the rest; and from there, rising gradually, up to the German wire. A good road with a bridge over the brook ran northeast and southwest between Sommerance and Landres et St. Georges. At the beginning it lay entirely in the Ohio sector but our advance to the north would bring us astride of it.

Our attack had to be made over open ground with the purpose of carrying by direct assault wired entrenchments. It was the warfare of 1916 and 1917 over again, and everybody knows from the numerous British and French accounts of such action that it can be accomplished only by tremendous artillery preparation, and that even then gains must be made at a great loss of Infantry. But a glance at the maps, in which blue dotted lines represented the enemy wire, showed us that we had greater danger to fear than the resistance which would come from our direct front. The blue dots ran straight across the right of the Ohio front and all of ours, and then swung in a southerly direction for a kilometer or more. They prophesied eloquently to anyone who had the slightest knowledge of war that our main danger was to come from our right flank unless that hill could be taken first. Donovan’s desire was to advance until we would be on a level with the wire to our right, hold that line with a sufficient number of troops to guard against counter attack, and throw in our main strength on the left of the 84th Brigade, they striking from the south and we from the west until the Cote de Chatillon should be taken. Continuing the advance from there, we could take Landres et St. Georges from the east. The orders however were to attack, head on, with four regiments abreast. The 84th Brigade was given three hours start to fight their way through the southernmost German defences. It was calculated that they could get far enough forward during this time so that both brigades could keep advancing in even line.

Preparations for the assault were made difficult by weather conditions. The sun never shone and a large part of the time it rained steadily. It was difficult to observe the enemy lines or their troop movements from balloons, and the advantage of aeroplanes was theirs—not ours. The abominable condition of the roads made it impossible to get sufficient ammunition forward and our artillery was working under a great handicap. Facilities for communication with the front line were poor throughout the whole action. The wire, strung along the wet ground, was all the time getting out of order; horses were few and runners had to make their way back through seas of mud, which also caused untold difficulty in getting forward food and ammunition.

However, everything was planned as well as possible under the conditions. It was arranged to have tanks to help our men get through the wire. The gas and flame Engineers were also to render assistance, and Colonel Johnson sent detachments of his Engineers (for whom I have supplied a motto from an old song: “Aisy wid the Shovel and Handy with the Gun”) to go with the Infantry as wire-cutters, and to follow up to repair roads.

During the two days in which these plans were being made the battle activity on both sides was conducted mainly by the artillery. Company G had barely occupied its position in the woods on the evening of October 11th, when it was subjected to a heavy shelling, with the loss of M. Black killed and Sergeant Edward McNamara, Corporal Framan, Kessler, Dan McSherry and William McManus wounded. Young Jim Gordon of Company E was running for a litter to carry off the wounded when a fragment from a gas shell struck him in the chest and killed him instantly. Arthur Brown of Company I was killed on the Cote de Maldah. Early on the morning of the 12th the men of Company C who were lying along the southern bases of the hill not far from a battery of artillery which the enemy were trying to get, had some shells dropped amongst them and H. Harbison, L. Jones and Frank Foley were killed and Gorman and others wounded.