My Colored Battalion

by Warner A. Ross

I kept looking at my watch, ready to give the signal that would be relayed along our line. It was six fifty-eight, then finally six fifty-eight and a half; at last it got to be six fifty-nine. If that enemy barrage lowered then, our casualties would be enormous and our chances for success almost gone. It was bad enough as it was. That was the longest minute I ever spent.

Promptly at seven, as scheduled, our barrage jumped and in a few seconds practically all of our shells were falling beyond the wire. This was our time to get through and quickly, if ever. All along the front our boys went for those entanglements. Talk about wire entanglements. They had recently been repaired and strengthened. Most of the wire was the heavy new German type, with barbs an inch and a half long and less than an inch apart. It required heavy two-handed cutters with handles two and a half feet long to cut it. Small cutters were useless for cutting here. The wide belts were not only criss-crossed back and forth in all directions on stakes and on chevaux-de-frise, but woven in every conceivable way as high as a man’s head back among the trees.

There were pits and trenches with wire thrown in loose and in coils covered with light limbs and leaves for men to fall into. We had no tanks. They set off mines, many of which blew holes sixty to seventy feet in diameter. Grenades and bombs were suspended from limbs and in the brush in such a way that stepping on or touching a certain stick or wire would explode them. Machine guns were placed at varying distances back in the wood, some on little camouflaged platforms in trees, some in trenches and some in cement “pill boxes” located so as to sweep and enfilade every section of the wire.

High ranking officers from the rear as well as low ranking ones who swarmed up to visit the place after the armistice were amazed at the strength of the position, and when they saw it at close range the predominant question was, “How did they ever get through?” And they only saw it from the outside edge, for no one was allowed into the wood. It was saturated with gas for days.

The entire Bois Frehaut, which means Frehaut Woods, was wired every few hundred yards in front of trench systems and enfilading machine guns. There were deep rocky ravines, steep hills, large patches of heavy undergrowth filled with wire, traps, mines and pitfalls of every description, also magnificent dugouts and a most complete system of ’phone and signal lines.

The platoons and half platoons went through in single file, strong men in front taking turns at cutting wire and those behind bending back or securing the loose ends as well as possible with the small cutters. There was from a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards interval between detachments. It was impossible for them to see each other after entering the wood, so that until their objectives were reached each outfit to all intents and purposes was an independent command.

Practically every one had penetrated the first or outer entanglements when the enemy laid his barrage right on us. The first men through were going after the machine guns and snipers that were bothering them most, crawling around behind or flanking them, using hand grenades and bayonets, firing with automatic rifles and taking pot shots at those in trees. Being through the first system of wire we could scatter somewhat and take advantage of shell holes, trenches, even hollows.

But how any one lived under that fire is still a mystery to me. Enemy artillery had gotten word by telephone or airplane, probably both, that we were into the wood, and had decided to end us right there. Stones, dirt, shrapnel, limbs and whole trees filled the air. The noise and concussion alone were enough to kill one. Talk about shell shock. The earth swayed and shook and fairly bounced with the awful impact. Flashes of fire, the metallic crack of high explosives, the awful explosions that dug holes fifteen and twenty feet in diameter, the utter and complete pandemonium and the stench of hell, your friends blown to bits, the pieces dropping near—even striking you. If anything can be more terrifying, more nerve-breaking in this world than a concentrated fire from heavies such as that, I am unable to conceive of it. It’s many times worse than the worst thing one can imagine. It can’t be described because there is nothing you have experienced, unless the thing itself, with which to compare it.

There were many guns defending Metz and this was a concentration of heavy caliber fire—we were the only ones advancing just then. After what seemed a lifetime he lowered it still more to the point where our barrage was dropping ahead of us, then it slowly crept back over us to the Belle Aire wire. Several times it passed over us, rather on us, in this combing process, before we reached our goal. Other batteries were shelling our back areas and still others were shelling us promiscuously.

But the boys kept on, taking advantage of any available cover at times, but resuming, silencing machine guns that still were active, bombing dugouts and bayoneting or shooting all the enemy that had lingered too long. Only by special effort did I secure three live Huns.