Dear Dad:
All well. Received your letter of May 30, 1915. We were there all right. Will write later. Love to all.
Russell.
The First Regiment was cited in the official Order of the Day, as follows:
“The First Foreign Regiment of the Second régiment de Marche, ordered May 9th under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Cot to make a bayonet charge on a strong German position, went into the attack, the officers leading in front of the men, with a superb gallantry, gaining, with only brief stops, several kilometres of ground, in spite of an extremely strong resistance of the enemy and a violent fire from his machine guns.”
Le Figaro of Paris, May 18th, 1915, contains an article from which the following translation is an extract, under the heading, “Nos succés du 9 mai dans le secteur, Carency-Neuville.”
“The attack on La Targette, led by a division of the army corps from the neighborhood, mentioned in the army order, was conducted with a remarkable boldness and was a complete success.
“The artillery had, by its fire, demolished a large part of the barb-wire and other accessories of the defence. A certain number of mitrailleuses had escaped destruction, and the enemy continued to hold them.
“At the first assault our infantry reached the border of the woods, but it was stopped there by fire on the flank. The infantry resumed the attack immediately and took a part of the trenches at ten o’clock; which it held, and at a quarter past eleven took all of La Targette and three hundred and fifty prisoners, many pieces of seventy-seven and a large number of mitrailleuses.