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

by Frederic Richard Kilner

At night the battalion camped in the woods above Epieds. Early next morning the carriages were pushed under the shelter of the trees to hide the signs of troops from enemy aeroplanes scouting overhead. So close to the lines were we now that no movement could be made in the open by day. At 9 p. m., the guns moved out to go forward into position, leaving the wagon train here. The battery had not gone far when a heavy rain began to fall. The road, through the dense woods of the Foret de Fere, was narrow, muddy, and full of ruts. “Cannoneers to the wheels,” was the constant cry. Splashing through water and mud to their knees, the dismounted men tugged at wheels sunk far down in the deep ruts and holes. “Horse down!” came the cry from a Fifth Section caisson. The animal was on its back over the edge of the road, so that it could not regain a footing on the road, and if it rolled the other way the horse would be lost in the ravine below. With prolongs around its body, the men pulled the horse almost back on the road where it could get a footing, after three-quarters of an hour of hard effort directed by Captain Robbins. Then a caisson, catching up to the column, went over the horse’s hoof, and the animal had to be shot.

By this time the rain had ceased. In the silence that succeeded the sound of the falling drops, could be heard the venomous pop and spit of gas shells bursting in the woods. Rifle shots rang out occasionally. Uneasy in the midst of unknown danger, the men greeted the sudden order to turn back with surprise. But they made haste to execute it. Most of the battery had debouched from the narrow road into an open grassy space. The last three caissons, however, were unlimbered and turned around. Tveter gave an exhibition of skillful driving that brought cheers from the men, turning the big chariot du parc with its three-horse hitch without assistance or accident. The other carriages returned through this stretch of woods by another road, little, if any, better than the one by which they came. The drivers lashed their horses to a gallop and took the guns and caissons through with scarcely a stop, giving them no time to sink in ruts or holes. The wooden boxes roped on top the caissons swayed and tossed, spilling gas equipment and liaison instruments, to be picked up by the dismounted men following, who cheered on the drivers to greater speed.

Not until long after was the explanation of the sudden countermarch revealed. When the orders were given to move up our artillery, it was with the belief that the infantry would make a certain objective that day. The stiff resistance in these woods delayed the infantry advance, however, and the doughboys were still occupied in clearing these of the enemy when our battalion pulled through them. The courier sent to apprise Major Redden of the circumstances and consequent change of orders caught up with us when we were, therefore, beyond our own lines and up with our advance infantry. This was the first time the battalion was in so unusual a place for artillery. Just a week later, we occupied a position ahead of the infantry over night. But so fast was the enemy retreating that any thrills over our exposed condition lay in imagination rather than actual circumstances.

By the next night the woods had been cleared, and we went forward again. The long steady climb up hill through the Bois de la Tournelle made hard pulling. The halts to rest the horses were frequent, and, near the top, teams from one carriage had to be added to another hitch and then the assistance returned in order to get up the steep grade. Our division was on the extreme left of the American forces, and we were constantly alongside the French troops who adjoined us on our left. How strenuous had been the fighting was evidenced by the bodies of dead still lying where they had fallen the afternoon before. Haggard Frenchmen were just then beginning to seek their missing comrades.

The battalion took position in an open field in front of the woods, at the top of the hill, under flat-tops. The horse-lines were at the edge of the woods behind. On our left was a small woods, at the edge of which were several French batteries of 75’s. They pitched no flat-tops, but camouflaged their guns with green boughs, staying in the woods, where were their shelters and kitchen, except when actual work on the guns required their presence. Our telephone men, mechanics and Captain Robbins also had their quarters in these woods. Elaborate abris, benches and tables woven of boughs about a cleared “Appelplatz,” and rifles, overcoats and other equipment spoke of the occupation of the same woods by the Germans not long before. Every section of the battery had one or two German rifles and a stock of “boche” ammunition beneath its flat-top, with which ambitious marksmen sought to emulate the example of the automatic riflemen of the Alabama and New York regiments, who had each brought down an aeroplane at Champagne.

This position is called by the men the “tower position,” from the high observation platform built of wooden scaffolding by the Germans half-way between the position and the edge of the woods. Being in the open field our batteries escaped the fire of the enemy, which was directed several times on the French batteries at the edge of the woods and in the depths of the woods also. Sometimes the bursts and fragments came dangerously close to the gun-pits, but they were not many enough to seem directed at our position.

Berney came close to providing the battery with fresh beef while it was here. But “close” was all! A lone cow was seen wandering in a field near by. A volunteer raiding party composed of Corporal Pond, of the engineers, and Acting-Corporal Berney of the machine-gunners, set out in pursuit. They had no difficulty in surrounding and capturing the cow, which continued to graze placidly when they forcibly seized the rope that hung from its neck. Then the members of the foraging party remembered they had no authority from their officer in command to conduct such operations. So half the detail, namely Corporal Pond, returned to outline the situation and report the success of their movement to Lieutenant Waters. Not averse to acquiring fresh beef free himself, he granted the necessary authority. But in the meantime, a new force had appeared on the scene demanding possession of the cow, to judge from his gesticulations, for his torrent of words were meaningless to the two foragers. This was a young French soldier, breathless from a run across the fields, cap askew and hair disheveled. So Pond went back to the position again, this time for some one to act as interpreter. Through this medium the volunteer raiding party learned that the cow was the property of the major commanding the neighboring French batteries, that the cow’s guardian had fallen asleep and the cow had wandered off, and that the major would do dire things to the poilu if he did not recover the cow before the major learned of his loss. So the battery got no fresh beef, but ate “goldfish” instead.

Two days later the machine gunners achieved real distinction, when Donahue and Bowly brought a German aeroplane to earth a few hundred feet from the position. The plane was riddled with bullets and both pilot and observer were badly wounded. In descending the plane crashed into a tree at the edge of the woods, wrecking the machine. This first actual contact with the enemy and visual token of damage done him was not without its thrills. Needless to say, “beaucoup souvenirs” were secured.

During the day of July 29, the battery fired on machine gun nests that obstructed the infantry’s advance. Next afternoon it gave heavy response to a German barrage, and continued with a concentration fire all evening. Both nights the battery was called on to fire at one o’clock for an hour or two. On the night of the 31st the men were at the guns almost till morning, firing intermittently all the while.

This constant firing was accompanying our infantry in their advance. The names of Sergy, Seringes, Hill 212, Meurcy Farm and the River Ourcq represent terrible hours to the infantry of the Rainbow division—hours whose awfulness we realized when the battery moved forward at noon August 2. Skirting the town of Fere-en-Tardenois, which still drew occasional shots from the enemy’s long-range guns, we crossed the small stream whose line had been so strongly defended by the Germans until our doughboys had forced them from it. The Ourcq was not more than fifteen or twenty feet wide at the place where our guns and caissons forded it. But there was a steep incline on the far-side leading up to a high road. Taking this road into Fere-en-Tardenois, we turned at a sharp angle at the outskirts and took the road to Seringes. In the shelled fields along which we passed, litter-carriers were still at work bringing back wounded. Some boys came limping back alone, or supported by others with an arm in a sling or bandaged about the head. Conversation with one of these turned always to the question of relief: When will relief be up? Have you heard of troops coming up to relieve us? Some battalions of infantry were pushing on after having lost fifty per cent of their men.