A History of Troop A Cavalry, Connecticut National Guard and Its Service in the Great War as Co. D, 102d Machine Gun Battalion

by Unknown

The Bois d'Ormont is a small elliptical-shaped woodland on the crest of one of the many hills in that region and the American and German lines were within a few yards of each other, near the center of the woods. Members of the Company with ability to converse with the Huns, made several trips to the German lines and tried to induce them to return as prisoners, but the minions of Prussianism were strong in their belief that the war was shortly coming to an early end and decided they could better afford to take the chance for the rest of the time than enter a prison camp for an indefinite period. They told of changes in the government of the Fatherland, the abdication of the Kaiser and other rumors afterward fulfilled.

October 20 a short American barrage brought an immediate response from the nervous Teutons and they laid a box barrage around the sector occupied by the Division, evidently believing an attack was coming. Until the 23d the lines were at a standstill. On several occasions it was rumored that an attack was to be made by the enemy or Allied troops, but all that broke the monotony of the days was the Hun practice of shelling ration parties.

With the infantry battalions, especially those of the 102d Regiment, depleted by the enormous losses they had incurred in previous action, the Division was holding a rather narrow sector. Officers were lacking in most of the companies and the men were holding on through sheer nerve, short of rations, clothing, blankets and all the creature comforts obtainable in parts of the line they had formerly occupied. It was in this condition they were ordered to take the aggressive October 23. On the left of the Company's positions parts of the 102d and 101st Infantry regiments succeeded in straightening out a section of the line which threatened to prove a favorable position for a flanking attack by the enemy. This manœuver was completed with the aid of the artillery and machine guns.

The following day after preparation to resist an attack in the morning, orders were issued in the afternoon to clear the woods of Germans, and this task was attempted by L and M Companies of the 102d Infantry with D Company furnishing the machine guns. Without artillery preparation the men went forward, fighting through the tangled woods against an enemy entrenched, armed with innumerable machine guns and numerically superior, but lack of leaders and proper liaison with the units on their flanks forced them to return after they had almost gained their objective. Again on the morning of October 25 orders were issued to attempt the advance, but it again proved too much for the men.

With entire battalions formed into units, but slightly greater in size than a full infantry company and the men suffering from the exertion of the past few days and lack of sleep, a final attempt was made Sunday, October 27, to force the enemy from his positions in the woods which had a certain strategical importance in the military situation. As the barrage was scheduled to start at 10 o'clock that morning, all men were withdrawn from the front lines and held in readiness to attack when the curtain of fire thrown over by the artillery should lift enough at 11 o'clock to allow them to go forward.

Summoned to Battalion Headquarters, Lieutenant Paton left his post of command after the barrage was well under way and started down a communicating trench accompanied by Nutting. German artillery had started its reply and was doing all it could to prevent the attack which the Huns knew to be in preparation, and a life which had seemed charmed was taken as toll when Lieutenant Paton was killed by a fragment from a bursting shell. Wilfore and Lieutenant Pickett of the Infantry were mortal victims of the same messenger of death and Nutting suffered dozens of wounds from the small bits of steel which fill the air close to an exploding projectile.

Time after time under the leadership of non-commissioned officers from their own companies and several of the D Company sergeants the infantry went out onto that short stretch of ground separating them from the coveted German trenches, but each time they fell back, hundreds of casualties resulting from the perfect hail of machine gun bullets which the Germans sprayed across that section of "No Man's Land." In the command of a second lieutenant the third battalion of the 102d Infantry mustered one hundred and eighty men that night, practically one fifth of its authorized strength, while D Company had lost seventeen during the day from its already depleted personnel. A reorganization of the defenses of the sector was effected the next day, and three surplus guns were sent to the rear, the strength of the Company being too low to provide crews for them.

A little to the rear of the lines the bodies of Lieutenant Paton, Wilfore and Rosenkind were buried by the men and services at the graves were conducted at three o'clock on the afternoon of October 29 by Chaplain Creighton of the 101st Field Signal Battalion. Disheartened, as the men were, by the loss of their comrades and officer, this sorrow came at a time when their spirits were at a very low ebb. All about them in the line were the bodies of French, American and German dead, rude cemeteries were filled on every side and the fever of battle against overwhelming odds had begun to dull their senses to the finer emotions they would have experienced under different conditions.

Where such a large proportion of the men have the qualities of heroes a life is risked or given as a matter of completing the task in hand, so it is not strange that in spite of all the Company went through during this unequalled campaign but two were especially rewarded. George Eddy received the Croix de Guerre for work in destroying a machine gun crew which threatened the flank of the advancing infantry, and Mike Yuczszik was awarded both the Belgian and French war crosses for presence of mind in dropping the tripod he carried onto a Hun "potato-masher" grenade thrown into a shell hole occupied by his squad during an attack.

While carrying messages from Battalion Headquarters Bill Meickle was reported missing during the action of October 25. His name was added to the list of honored dead when it was found later that he had died in the hospital from wounds received in the performance of his duty.