Battery E in France: 149th Field Artillery, Rainbow (42nd) Division

by Frederic Richard Kilner

At any rate they commenced their greatest and last offensive against the Allies that night, a night the 149th can never forget. Shortly before midnight the order came to make up our rolls and packs, so that if events required, we could move out quickly. The information came over the wire that two prisoners captured about nine o’clock had revealed the entire plans of the attack to the minute. At midnight the preliminary bombardment was to commence, which was to last four hours. At 4:15 a. m., the enemy’s infantry was to start over the top. And so it occurred.

At twelve o’clock broke loose a thunderous roar, which sounded like a gigantic hailstorm, so many and so rapid were the cannons’ reports. Over five thousand cannon, it is estimated, were in action. Our orders were to stand by the guns ready to fire the instant command came. So we stood listening to the tremendous cannonading, the whistle and screech of shells overhead from the long-range guns behind us, and watched the red glow of cannon’s belch and shells’ burst. Now and then a great red glare filled the sky, when some ammunition dump was set afire. Off to the right appeared a lurid eruption of rockets and signal lights of all kinds, the varied pyrotechnics lasting for ten or fifteen minutes; the infantry’s stores of rockets had been hit. Along the crest ahead, where ran the road on which we heard so much traffic at night, shells from the enemy’s heavy guns were dropping. In addition to the heavy bombardment of the front lines, there was constant fire on all trenches, roads and other ways of communication.

At 4 a. m., the blackness was lightening to grey. The guns were laid, ready to drop a barrier of bursting shells when the enemy’s first wave neared our front line. The ’phone rang. There was checking of data and minute directions. At 4:15 came the command, “Fire,” and the guns along the trench began to blaze and bang unceasingly. The men worked like demons, deaf now to all the thunder and roar about them, no eye to the crimson glare that lit up the horizon in front beneath the black piles of smoke like thunder clouds over the front lines, unconscious of the occasional shrapnel that fell near or the fragments from the big shells that burst along the crest and sometimes over towards them. Hour after hour they fed the guns at the same rate of speed. They could see no signs of the enemy themselves, none but the shells from his guns. But they knew that on the other side of the crest their fire was thinning the successive grey waves of Germans that hurled themselves on our infantry. The strength, the lives of our infantry depended on these 75’s, and we could not fail them for a second. Fatigue, hunger, thirst were unminded. Coffee was brought to the gun crews at noon. The first food was some beans and hard-tack at midnight, more than thirty hours after mess of the evening before.

At 11 a. m. came a lull. The enemy’s first mighty effort was broken. General Gouraud’s plan had succeeded. By drawing back all his forces from the front lines to the intermediate defences, he had caused the bombardment of hundreds of the enemy’s guns to fall harmlessly, and exposed the German infantry waves to the more deadly fire of our cannon and machine-guns while they crossed the vacated trenches. In addition to the three German divisions holding the sector opposite the 21st French Corps—comprising three French divisions and the 42d Division—six first-class divisions of the enemy were hurled against our lines. Yet, says the division’s official Summary of Events of July 15, 1918, “In spite of the most vigorous attempt of the enemy, he was able to set foot on the intermediate position only at one point. A counter-attack by two companies of French infantry and two companies of the 167th Infantry drove him from this position in a bloody hand-to-hand combat.” Five successive attacks that morning were one after another thrown back with heavy losses.

Not only in our immediate front, but all the way along the line from Chateau Thierry to the Argonne, the Allied line had held. The program by which the enemy expected to reach Suippes at noon July 15, and Chalons at 4 p. m. July 16, was irretrievably defeated. The Second Battle of the Marne, involving greater numbers of men than any previous battle in history, and more cannon than were engaged in our entire Civil War, was a decisive triumph for the Allies and a fatal crisis for the enemy.

Late in the afternoon, the enemy undertook a second great effort, and our firing, which had slowed down during the afternoon, recommenced at its rapid rate. Again there was a lull, and again the attack recommenced. All night long we fired, but since the rate was slower, three men could handle the work. Half the crew slept half the night, and then relieved the others. So tired they were that the frequent report of the gun ten feet away disturbed their slumbers not the slightest.

Next day the firing continued, but slowly, as during the night. During the 15th the battery fired nearly one thousand rounds per gun. On the 16th about half that number of rounds were fired.

The reserve ammunition stored in the trench had been expended, and the caissons were bringing up more. This necessitated hard, long and dangerous trips by the drivers. On the night before the attack they had packed up, harnessed and hitched, and stood till morning waiting for possible orders to pull out the guns. In the four big offensives before this one, in 1918, the Germans had swept through the lines the first day; so preparations had been made for any contingencies. In the morning, caissons were sent out for more ammunition. One dump was blown up while they were alongside. This and other difficulties compelled them to search about the countryside for available stores of shells. It was midnight before they brought them up, along shelled roads, to the position. Those who had not gone out in the first hitches, were out next day on another search. When they were on their way to the battery position, a great rainstorm burst. A high wind swept from the woods where the enemy had been dropping gas shells during the day. Alarms came so frequently that the order was given to put on masks. To follow a road in utter darkness amid beating rain with gas masks on was next to impossible. And that the caissons reached the position without accident seemed a miracle, for which the drivers can not be given too much credit. The gas alerte passed. But the rain was still pouring down so heavily and the sky was so black that the caissons had to be unloaded by lightning flashes. A few stray steps might pitch one headlong in the deep trench. With this intermittent illumination, unloading four caissons was a slow job. When it had been finished, everyone was, in spite of slickers and gas suits, so drenched that water could be wrung out of every garment. The storm passed across the front lines towards the enemy. As it cleared on our side, the silence, interrupted only by peals of thunder before, was broken by a heavy cannonading from the Allies’ guns.

A hot sun next day dried out clothes and blankets. The quiet of the days before the battle returned. Exciting aeroplane battles, or an occasional balloon sent down in flames, were all the evidence of warfare. Captain Robbins read the communiques of the preceding days, and told of the mighty repulse the enemy had suffered.

A projectile with an I. A. L. fuse, the most delicate of those we used, had stuck in the bore of the Third Section piece on the evening of the 17th. Since all efforts of the battery mechanics were unavailing, the piece was taken to the divisional repair shop at about dawn on the 19th and another gun sent from the shop to replace it.