We shall first tell the story of our left, where the 78th Division not only drew the arrows to its breast but charged them in their flight, after, as we have seen in Chapter XVIII, the 77th, on the 14th and 15th, had accompanied the general attack in fighting to master the northern bank of the Aire. Sacrifice is the only word for the 78th's action. Without expecting that the division could gain ground, the Army command set it the thankless task of repeated attacks to consume the enemy's strength, which it carried out with superb ardor and fortitude.
The 78th, originally drawn from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and parts of New York State, took its name of the "Lightning" Division from an obvious local source. Under Major-General James H. McRae, a skillful and modest commander, both in its training at the British front and in its occupation of the Limey sector north of Toul, where it made remarkably successful raids, it had shown that although it was not one of the best advertised of National Army divisions it was one of the most promising. Where other new divisions had had their first experience in the intoxicating drive for three and four miles in the first stage of the battle, the 78th was to have no open field for its bolts of lightning, but must use them as hammer-heads against granite, when it took over from the 77th after the latter had made its lodgment in Grandpré.
Though we had the Aire trough, we were not yet through with the westward bend of the Aire river, where the bottoms are broad and swampy. A wedge-like escarpment projects down to the town of Grandpré from the heights of the Bourgogne Wood. This escarpment afforded machine-guns cover for firing east and west and into the town. Eastward, high ground sloping up from the river bottoms continues to the Loges Wood, which averages about three-quarters of a mile in breadth and depth, covering an eminence. In this sector, about two miles in length, the 78th on the river bottom faced commanding positions at every point on its front. To the Germans the Bourgogne Wood was a bastion against the right flank of the French Fourth Army in its movement toward Sedan, a barrier between our flank and the French, and the flanking outpost of the Loges Wood, as I have indicated, in holding us back from swinging northward toward Buzancy and cutting into the flank of the whale-back.
Conditions in the relief of the 77th in the intense darkness on the night of the 15th were very mixed. Saint-Juvin on the north side of the river, to the right or east, was securely held. In Chevières on the south side of the river the Lightnings of the 78th report that they still had mopping up to do before they crossed. East of Grandpré the Aire has two beds, which made the crossing of the river bottom under shell- and machine-gun fire the more trying. In Grandpré the 78th found itself in possession of only a section of the town near the river bank on the morning of the 16th, and with only small detachments of troops across the river,—which it must cross in force under plunging fire before it reached the foot of the slopes.
It simplifies the action which followed to divide it into two parts: the left brigade, operating against the Grandpré positions, and the right against the Loges Wood positions. I shall describe that of Grandpré first. A principal street of the town runs up the hill against the western slopes of the escarpment. Machine-gunners and snipers could go and come from the heights into the back doors of the houses, and pass upstairs to the front windows, whence they could sweep the street with their fire. The division knew the escarpment as the "citadel"; for this tongue of high ground on its eastward side was surmounted by the ruins of ancient buildings, with old stone walls which must be scaled, while the Saint-Juvin road, which runs past it, is on the edge of a swamp. The only way to attack the citadel from the town, which it absolutely commanded, was over a narrow causeway where a squad of men could not properly be deployed. My Lord's castle of olden times had an ideal position for holding the villagers on the river bank in meek subjection.
A vertical warfare ensued in Grandpré, the Germans firing downward from upper-story windows and the citadel, and the Americans firing upward. It took two days of house-to-house fighting, in and out of doorways, hugging the house walls, and taking house by house, before this town of a thousand inhabitants was cleared of Germans, whose tenacity in holding the town itself, when they had the citadel at their backs, was indicative enough of the store they set by their right flank. On the 19th, the town having been mopped up, and sufficient troops across the fords for the purpose, an attack was made on the citadel and upon the western slopes of the escarpment. Beyond the citadel a park extends for a distance of a quarter of a mile. Beyond that Talma Hill, and Hills 204 and 180, and Bellejoyeuse farm formed a rampart of heights at the edge of the wood. The 78th, wrestling with machine-guns in this small area, was to use enough tactical resource for a great battle.
At 2 A.M. the Lightnings began the assault. The hour was chosen because darkness favored the plan, which must be that of scaling the walls of an ancient fortress. Two separate parties made the attempt on the walls. The enemy machine-guns from the Bourgogne Wood instantly concentrated on one party, a target despite the darkness, while a shower of bombs was thrown down upon their heads. The other party reached the top, only to be met by irresistible fire from machine-guns, which the artillery had not been able, for a good reason, to silence. The guns were dropped into deep dugouts during the bombardment, and hoisted by cables to turn on the advancing infantry, immediately the bombardment was over. This care in preparation was another indication of the value the Germans placed on the citadel and the hills at the edge of the wood. Under scourging machine-gun fire, the attack everywhere had to fall back, after severe casualties, except that the right regiment of this brigade took the Loges farm, between the Loges Wood and the Bourgogne Wood, which it managed to hold by skillful digging under cross-fire.