Meuse-Argonne offensive, France, October 7 to November 1.
Meuse-Argonne offensive, France, November 5-9.
Two days later we bade Ringen goodbye, marching out at 8 with full packs. The regiment assembled at Oeverich and paraded to the music of the band through each town en route, arriving at Remagen early in the afternoon. There the battery was billeted in the Hotel Fürstenberg, one of several big hostelries that overlook the Rhine, its broad verandah scarcely a hundred feet from the river’s edge. On Tuesday the battery made a short hike up the river to Oberwinter, where we boarded the train for Brest. The big American box cars, hot meals served when the train stopped, abundant candy and cigarettes from the welfare organizations, doughnuts and coffee and oranges at various stops made the ride far different from those we had taken months before from one front to another. The run, 72 hours, equalled that of through passenger trains.
At Brest there were three days of sanitary processes and equipment inspections, with a night of stevedore work at the docks sandwiched in. On the morning of April 15, the regiment marched from Camp Pontamezen to the docks, but the high sea prevented loading that day. So the regiment slept in cots in the dock sheds and embarked next day on the “Leviathan.”
Friday, April 18, eighteen months to a day since the regiment had sailed out of New York harbor on the “President Lincoln,” the 149th left Brest harbor, at 5 p. m., on the “Leviathan” with a load of over 12,000 Rainbow men, homeward bound.
In comparison with the voyage on the “President Lincoln,” this was a pleasure trip. The greater deck space, the freedom of movement, the sense of security from the dangers that threatened our passage over, the clear weather and the quiet sea, and, above all, the elation at the prospect of seeing home soon, made the week pass in swift happiness. Battery E minded not the two-meals-a-day plan, for we were on commissary detail, working where food was plentiful, and our badges gave us the run of the cooks’ galleys, where we could cook impromptu meals for ourselves.
About noon, Friday, April 25, land came in sight. In an hour or two, welcome boats appeared to greet us, and played about our ship like terriers around a great Dane. Then the Statue of Liberty brought a cheer from the crowded deck, and the “Leviathan” entered the Hudson River with bands playing fore and aft, drowned by the whistles that hailed us from boats and from shore. The office buildings of lower Manhattan blossomed with waving handkerchiefs, and passing ferryboats seemed a mass of fluttering humanity. But their welcome was not more heartfelt than the intense, though quiet, satisfaction and joy of the boys at being home once more.
As they transferred from the ship to the ferry boat at the adjoining dock, the boys received apples, candy, chocolate and other food, none of which was so welcome as a quarter of a juicy American apple pie, truly a token of home. After a short ride up the river, we boarded a train of American passenger cars, a great change from our previous mode of railway transportation. A driving snow and a chilly wind reminded us that we were in a new climate, much different from the mild weather of the winter we had just passed. It was nearly midnight, after a hike of several miles to Camp Merritt with full packs, when we at last found our barracks, but the place buzzed in sleepless excitement long afterward.
After going through the required sanitary processes next day and moving to new barracks, there followed several days of basking in the warmth of the New Jersey spring sun, trips to New York quite without regard to the limited number of passes allowed the battery, and details that bothered no one save perhaps some conscientious corporal.
But everyone awaited impatiently to entrain for Chicago. May 6 was a joyful day. Indeed, no days were otherwise for the rest of the week. Leaving, at Dumont, at 3 Tuesday afternoon, the Second Battalion train reached the outskirts of Chicago early Thursday morning. The bedlam of engine blasts as we passed the train yards was deafening. From then on, there was a continuous accompaniment of whistles and bells. All along the I. C. tracks, flags and pennants and handkerchiefs waved welcome. Nobody seemed to notice the light rain that fell. The way out of the Park Row station was so blocked by relatives and friends that it took over an hour to cover the three blocks to the Coliseum. As each soldier emerged, a joyful cry marked his discovery by those who hastened to fling themselves upon him. There is doubt whether there was a girl in Lagrange who failed to kiss Dick Barron. Nobody much cared about the formation of the columns; before long there wasn’t any. Just happy soldiers walking along, each in the midst of his own joyous group. At the Coliseum were more relatives and friends, who made the next hour pass like a fraction of a minute.