CHAPTER XVII
Million Dollar Barrage
At eleven o'clock that night, September 25th, a signal gun barked far down the line. The gunners of every battery were at their posts, lanyards in hand, and on the instant they pulled.
That has become known in the army as "the million dollar barrage," because enlisted men figured it must have cost at least that much. Whatever it cost, no man in that great army ever had heard the like. It ranged from the smaller field pieces up to great naval guns firing shells sixteen inches in diameter, with every variety and size of big gun in the American army in between. There had been talk in the war of a bombardment "reaching the intensity of drum fire." No drums the world ever has heard could have provided a name for that bombardment. It was overwhelming in the immensity of its sound, as well as in its effect. There were 3,000 guns on the whole front.
Toward morning, the twelve ugly, snub-nosed weapons of the 103d Trench Mortar Battery, under Captain Ralph W. Knowles, of Philadelphia, added their heavy coughing to the monstrous serenade which rent the night. They were in position well up to the front, and their great bombs were designed to cut paths through the enemy barbed wire and other barriers so the infantry could go forward with as little trouble as possible.
Zero hour for the infantry was 5.30 o'clock on that morning of September 26th. Watches of officers and non-commissioned officers had been carefully adjusted to the second the night before and when the moment arrived, the long lines went over the top without further notice.
The former National Guard of Pennsylvania was but one division among a great many in that attack, which covered a front of fifty-four miles from the Meuse clear over into the Champagne and which linked up there with the rest of the whole flaming western front. The American army alone covered twenty miles of attacking front, and beyond them extended General Gourard's French army to the west.
The full effect and result of the artillery preparation was realized only when the infantry went over the top. The early stages of the advance were described by observers as being more like a football game than a battle. The route was virtually clear of prepared obstructions, although there was hardly a stretch of six feet of level ground, and the German opposition was almost paralyzed.