My Colored Battalion

by Warner A. Ross

And still the bombardment continued without a pause. It seemed to me that almost all the big guns that side of Metz were firing on Bois Frehaut and the old no-man’s land just behind it. And I learned afterward that they were, for we were the only ones that had taken and were holding any special territory. They had been expecting a drive on Metz for some time and their artillery especially was well prepared. Shrapnel and high explosive contact shells of all sizes fell on all parts of the area. They knew more about the armistice than we did and his artillery seemed to want to do all the damage it could while the war lasted. Just before dark on the tenth he began throwing over great quantities of gas and continued to mix it in all night long. They seemed determined to run us out or exterminate us.

For twenty-eight long hours we advanced and held under a bombardment that in my opinion had not been surpassed if equalled on a similar area held by American troops during a similar length of time. The enemy had allowed the Allies some time before to get as close to Metz as he intended they should get—that was the outside wire of Bois Frehaut. We were not attacking in great force after hours of artillery preparation with almost innumerable big guns supporting us, though what artillery was in action behind us did excellent work. Neither was the enemy fighting a rear guard action while his main forces beat a hasty retreat.

At ten o’clock the night of the tenth I received a copy of orders indicating that a battalion was to enter the western part of the wood during the night and advance on the enemy through my left front company, “G,” at five o’clock next morning. I smiled in my gas mask, for I had watched the efforts of a certain battalion backed by another battalion, to come up into the woods during the afternoon. They got as far as Ferme de Belle Aire—part of them—and at dark withdrew. Very early the morning of the eleventh the “attacking” battalion got within the outer wire of Bois Frehaut. By five A. M. two officers and a handful of men had worked their way as far as the headquarters of a certain “G” Company platoon. Our barrage started on the dot. The two officers, followed by the handful of men, advanced beyond our front line and looked about. One of the officers was promptly wounded, and—well there was no attack.

During that entire twenty-eight hours Signal Outfits from Division Headquarters were trying to get a telephone line up to my P. C. But the wire was always either shot in two or the men were and I had no ’phone until after the armistice. It was almost impossible for runners to get between me and our old front lines behind us, and still more difficult for my runners to get between me and my own Company and Platoon leaders in the woods. But they did it.

All day, all night and up to eleven o’clock next morning it lasted. By midnight the entire wood fairly reeked with gas. No one dared eat or drink because of it. Despite all our precautions and efforts, we were rapidly being wiped out. I have heard of officers and of men and of units—large ones and small ones, white and also colored, that became panic stricken and useless under fire that was feeble and light both in intensity and duration compared to this, but I am ready at any time to testify that twelve hundred and fifty officers and men (colored) did advance and that the command did hold without showing the faintest symptoms of panic or retreat.

All of you who were with the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry prior to September twenty-third, 1918, know Colonel Vernon A. Caldwell of West Point and the Regular Army. He organized and commanded the Regiment until he was made a Brigadier General and left us on the date named. To him I attribute much of the credit for our success in taking and holding Bois Frehaut. He had taught us “simple and direct means and methods” and had taught us to “think tactics” in a way that proved of inestimable value under the supreme test. For Colonel Caldwell was one of our professional officers who did not have to pose as a “disciplinarian” to get by.

You might like to know about that action from the standpoint of tactics and how it was that many of us survived without permanent injury. It is very interesting. I wish I might explain it in detail. To me it is more interesting from the standpoint of courage, efficiency and unswerving devotion to duty displayed by both officers and men. It was a fitting climax to an enviable battalion record of front line service, and an accomplishment most creditable to the American Army and to its colored soldiers.

I wish I had time to tell you of the many especially glorious deeds of heroism performed by officers and men. I use the word glorious, for to me, even that is a weak word to use in describing the heroic actions of a man utterly and deliberately, premeditatedly indifferent to his personal safety and bent solely on duty plus a desire to help and save others. And to me, too, that is the only thing about war, unless it is the fortitude of those left at home in suspense and unselfishly doing all in their power to help, that comes any way near being glorious.

If they’d only kill them outright instead of leaving them to suffer and die in agony perhaps hours (even months) later. To see them suffering and be powerless to help them, and to know that many might be saved if it were possible to stop the slaughter long enough to give them proper medical attention. Many men died in Bois Frehaut or afterward who might have been saved, could they have been promptly and properly attended. What a hell of a game for Christian nations to be playing and getting ready to play again, in the Twentieth Century A. D.

One little scene has bobbed up in my memory—the death of an “E” Company Runner. Late on the afternoon of the tenth I left my P. C. to get a view of a certain position. I had gone but a short distance when I stepped on something that attracted by attention. It was a human hand! Near it was a large spot of blood and a trail as though something had been dragged in the general direction of where our First Aid Dressing Station had been before it was blown up. My course lay a little to the right, but I followed the gruesome marks for about fifty yards and there huddled up in a little gulley laid the “E” Company Runner I had sent out with a message for Captain Sanders about two hours before.