At both Larchey and Mittlach each litter squad consisted of four men equipped with one litter, and, where the road was suitable, a two-wheeled litter cart. The detachment at Larchey also had a mule which was supposed to pull the litter cart, but usually the men pulled it rather than bother fetching the mule. Theoretically the battalion aid stations of the infantry should be well up toward the front line trench so that the wounded can receive prompt attention. The litter bearers of the Ambulance Company are supposed to take the wounded after first aid has been given, and carry them back to the ambulance dressing station, where an ambulance takes them on back to a field hospital. In practice this plan did not always work out while we were in the Vosges Mountains. The front line was so irregular and good locations for battalion aid stations so few that they were sometimes almost in the front line trench, and at other times quite far back. As a result it was frequently impossible to place relay posts so as to equalize the work of our litter squads.
In the Larchey sector there was one main road leading out toward the front. About two kilometres from Larchey, at a point called Brun, this road branched, the branches leading to points named Vialet, Sermet, Fokeday and Old Colette. We had litter squads stationed at each of the above named points. An ambulance could go from Larchey to Brun in daylight without being seen by the Germans so when a litter squad had carried their patient to Brun, they telephoned in to Larchey for the ambulance. A separate road led from Larchey to a point to the northeast called DeGalbert. Two litter squads were stationed there, and later a mule was sent down, to be used for pulling the litter cart. Two litter squads were also sent to Vialet and some men had to be kept in reserve at Larchey. By July 4th we had about thirty-two men in the Larchey sector.
At Mittlach our territory was divided into two distinct parts by a rather wide valley that ran straight east and west for about one kilometre below the town, and then joined the main valley running north and south. The German trenches were on the eastern slope of this main valley and ours were on the western slope and in the valley itself. The German artillery had a clear sweep at Mittlach and the side valley, which could not be crossed in the daytime. Nor was it practical for an ambulance to go east of Mittlach in daylight. Hence we had to establish two distinct routes of evacuation for litter cases. The northern route led from Mittlach out along the side of the mountain to Krantz, where a relay squad was stationed. Further on at Braunkopf we stationed another litter squad in the battalion aid station. About three kilometres beyond Braunkopf, at a point called Runtz, we had another squad. This station was at the extreme left of the sector held by the 35th Division Infantry, and was a good eight kilometres from Mittlach. Both Runtz and Braunkopf evacuated to Krantz, where the relay squad took the patients and either hauled them by litter carts or carried them to Mittlach. On the southern route the main road from Mittlach led to Camp Dubarle, where we stationed six men as a relay. Other squads were stationed beyond Dubarle at the ruined village of Metzeral, at D'Angeley, and at Camp Martin, the latter being about nine kilometres southeast of Mittlach. All patients collected on the southern route were evacuated through Dubarle. These numerous posts required many men, so that by July 4th there were forty from the company at Mittlach. The last detachments that left Ranspach were a disappointed lot. The company was preparing a big dinner for the next day, and some of these men had worked helping to prepare it—then they had to shoulder their packs late on the night of the 3rd of July and hike to Larchey and Mittlach.
During the month that this company had a detachment at Larchey there were two raids in that sector. About the sixth of July, Company "H" of the 138th Infantry made a raid. The artillery preparation began at 7:45 in the evening and at 8:30 the raiding party of one officer and 238 men went over the top. They were gone one-half hour, and at about the same time that they came back to our trenches the first wounded were brought in by the stretcher bearers from the line organizations. Meantime our litter squads had known of the contemplated raid, so they were ready to receive the wounded and litter them on back to Brun. The raid took place directly in front of Vialet. From there to Brun it was nearly five kilometres, and uphill. Litter bearing is strenuous work at best, but it is doubly so when performed in the dark, and over strange, up-hill trails. There were in all nineteen patients to carry that night. The first patient, carried by Joe Barnes, Vesper, Toohey and John Crowley, was a Boche. The job lasted nearly all night, and it was getting daylight when the last wounded man reached Larchey next morning. The work of the infantry had lasted not quite a half hour.
Nearly a week later the Germans attempted a raid early one morning, but it was easily repulsed. The work of our detachment during the remainder of the month consisted mostly of carrying occasional patients, and making the climbs back and forth to meals. In some cases this was no small task. Frequently a litter squad would have to go a quarter of a mile or more after rations, and the trails were steep and narrow. Then there were occasional bombardments by the Germans, and the first shell was enough to set everyone going for a dugout. During one bombardment a large shell exploded close to a dugout occupied by three of our men, and caved it in. Covington was one of the three men, and the event was more or less immortalized by his song, a parody on "When you wore a tulip, and I wore a big red rose":
"I was sleeping in a dugout right up close to the front line,
Now I was feeling fine, when those Dutch they issued mine;
They shot some high explosives right in my dugout door,
And since that time my dugout is no more.
I grabbed my full equipment then and started back to town,
For those dirty kraut eaters had torn my play house down.
Chorus.
When they blew up my dugout, my most substantial dugout,
Then I got right on my toes;
And when that shrapnel busted, I was thoroughly disgusted
And the speed I made, no one knows.
When I started running, my feet had a yearning
To go from where the shrapnel flows;
So when he blew up my dugout, I got my clothes and tore out,
The reason—the Lord only knows."
On another night, when Lt. Vardon and Sergeants Knight and Childs were racing for a dugout, Lt. Vardon ran past the entrance. The glare cast by a nearby shell explosion lighted up the dugout and, doubling back, Lt. Vardon beat Childs into it. A man casts dignity aside and sprints when shells begin dropping around him.
At Mittlach there were no raids in the proper sense of the term. No detachment of the infantry ever went over the top there. But there were numerous casualties among our troops, due to the activity of German snipers and to accidents. Then, too, the German artillery had such an open sweep at the town of Mittlach and the valley below it, that several Americans were either killed or wounded by shrapnel. In fact, the very evening that our main detachment arrived in Mittlach, a corporal of the 137th Infantry was killed by a shell as he stood in the street reading a letter. This was the first casualty in the regiment, so the chaplain decided to give the man a military funeral, firing squad and all. He made the funeral arrangements over the telephone and set the time for the funeral at 9 o'clock the next evening. The time for the funeral came and the procession was just leaving the Alpine Ambulance when the German artillery again began shelling the town. There were, by actual count, just twenty-two men in the street when the first three-inch shell came whining towards the town. It took one of those shells about six seconds to reach Mittlach after it could first be heard, and when the first one exploded nearby, half of those twenty-two men had already scrambled into the door of the nearest dugout. And it was only an average size door at that. This was the first real shelling most of the twenty-two men had experienced, yet they took to cover as if they were used to doing it. On another occasion a sudden bombardment caught Lt. Speck and Lt. Martin unawares. A three-inch shrapnel ushered them around a corner and into a dugout in record time—the one ahead trying to keep ahead, and the one behind, trying his best to get ahead.