The men did not stop. Led only by their non-commissioned officers, they plunged straight into and over the machine gun nest directly in the face of its murderous fire which had torn gaps in their ranks, but could not stop them. They stamped out the German occupants with as little compunction as one steps on a spider. The men came out of the woods breathing hard and trembling from the reaction to their fury and exertions, but they turned over no prisoners.
The machine gun crews were dead to a man.
Goward and Fales had been especially popular with the men of the company, and their loss was felt keenly. Goward was distinctly of the student type, quiet, thoughtful, scholarly, doing his own thinking at all times. He had been noted for this characteristic when a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Fales, on the other hand, was of the dashing, athletic type, and the two, with their directly opposed natures, had worked together perfectly and quite captured the hearts of their men.
Both Goward and Fales are buried on the side of a little hill near Courmont, in the Commune of Cierges, Department of the Aisne, their graves marked by the customary wooden crosses, to which are attached their identification disks.
From then on, the rest of the day was a continuous, forward-moving battle for the regiment. Every mile was contested hotly by Hun rear-guard machine gunners, left behind to harass the advancing Americans and make their pursuit as costly as possible.
Lieutenant Herbert P. Hunt, of Philadelphia, son of a former lieutenant-colonel of the old First, leading Company A of the 109th in a charge, was struck in the left shoulder by a piece of shell and still was in hospital when the armistice ended hostilities.
The 109th reached Courmont and found it well organized by a small force of Germans, with snipers and machine guns in what remained of the houses, firing from windows and doors and housetops. They cleaned up the town in a workmanlike manner, and only a handful of prisoners went back to the cages in the rear.
It was in this fighting that Sergeant John H. Winthrop, of Bryn Mawr, performed the service for which he was cited officially by General Pershing, winning the Distinguished Service Cross. The sergeant was killed in action a few weeks later.
He was a member of Company G, 109th Infantry. All its officers became incapacitated when the company was in action. Sergeant Winthrop took command. The official citation in his case read:
"For extraordinary heroism in action near the River Ourcq, northeast of Château-Thierry, France, July 30, 1918. Sergeant Winthrop took command of his company when all his officers were killed or wounded, and handled it with extreme courage, coolness and skill, under an intense artillery bombardment and machine gun fire, during an exceptionally difficult attack."