The 151st Field Artillery Brigade

by Richard M. Russell

I. CAMP DEVENS

In April, 1917, the United States declared war against Germany. It was no surprise, but what did it mean? For it is one thing to declare war and another to wage it. We had no army and no ships and three thousand miles of ocean lay between the Yankee and the Hun. We would of course lend money to our allies. Would we give them our men? The answer, thank God, was the draft law which put into being the greatest democratic institution of our country,—the National Army.

Early in the fall of 1917, men from every walk of life, from every corner of every state, thronged to the huge, ugly, but business-like cantonments which had grown up, like the mushroom over night. These men, scientifically chosen, for their physique, mentality, character and patriotism, were as diversified in their civil life and occupations as men can be, but they had one thing in common: ignorance of the military. This and the single purpose that brought them there, welded them together. If Germany scorned our declaration of war, she must have sung another tune as she watched us prepare to wage it.

Camp Devens, Massachusetts, was the rendez-vous for New England’s Yankees. They were the personnel of the first of the National Army Divisions, the Seventy-Sixth.

The Divisional Artillery was to consist of the 301st, the 302nd, and 303rd regiments, Colonels Brooke, Craig and Conklin respectively commanding. Thus it was that the 151st Field Artillery Brigade was born, and with what promise! Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts furnished the quota, with many a generation of fighting ancestors behind them and traditions of battles won, not only in war but in every field of human endeavor.

Was it strange then that Major-General William S. McNair, then Brigadier-General, shortly after he took command in December of that year said that he felt as proud as the young mother when she sees her first born take its first four steps?

Those early months found us awkward and nearly as helpless as the infant to which the General referred, but men and officers alike were using this time to advantage; both had to adapt themselves to new ways of thinking and living, and even the language of the army was as strange to us then as was French when we finally got to France.

It was perhaps at this time more than any other, that we had cause to be thankful to the General, Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels for their able and generous assistance in getting the younger officers over those first hurdles. Let us here extend our utmost appreciation to Lieutenant Colonels Rehkopf, Danforth and Stopford whose loss to the Brigade we have had many an occasion to regret. But they like many others of our best were called upon to take bigger jobs where they could be of even greater value to the country all were now serving.

In many respects those days were the hardest of all; everything was strange. For a time, standing in line hour after hour was an interesting novelty and gave the ever-present jester an opportunity to exercise his wit; so with the drills. But human beings, particularly the Yankee variety, adapt themselves quickly to their surroundings. Standing in line a couple of hours for a pair of shoes or a cup of soup ceases eventually to be an interesting novelty. And when the soup so acquired is knocked from your hand by an over zealous companion and soils the uniform you must keep clean, you may perhaps forgive him and laugh; but all that is funny therein is almost sure to occur to your fertile mind and keen sense of humor the first time it happens. Repetition is superfluous.

Being herded together, seeing the same man on either side of you every day and all day, having to do what you are told day and night, has but limited charms for the independent citizen of America. Thoughts were turned, first backward, to the days when we had been individuals instead of a mite of a cog in a great machine, and then forward, with the inevitable question: how long was it all to last? We would have been homesick, desperately so, but there was no time. A bugle broke our sleep when it was still dark. Another summoned us to a formation before it was physically possible to get dressed, from which we were marched to breakfast. A whistle, followed by the First Sergeant’s “Fall Out”, arrested the first mouthful and told us we would not have time to wash mess kits before policing. Policing was followed by inspection, where the Captain would bawl us out for the condition of those same wretched mess kits. Inspection was followed by physical exercises; physical exercises by foot drill, foot drill by a hike, the hike by mess. In the afternoon we rehearsed the events of the morning. Supper was followed by school, then taps, then bed, then reveille. To-day is a repetition of yesterday, to-morrow will be a repetition of to-day. But to-day we are not going to be bawled out for dirty mess kits, we wash them and are late for policing; the First Sergeant puts us in the kitchen for a week and we learn the meaning of K. P.[A] We are soon repentant and resolve to be on time to formation. This is the school of the Rookie and this is how he learns the impossible. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”