My Colored Battalion

by Warner A. Ross

This was a key position. Through it, varying from two to five hundred yards from the bank of the river, ran what was known as the Great Metz Road. We held a front of about a mile and a half. I wish I had a big map or a blackboard and time to show you. I can see it all now as plainly as if I were there. Across the Moselle adjoining us on our left at that time was a white division. About two weeks before the armistice the C. R. next to us and adjoining the river, was taken over and occupied by a battalion of the Three Hundred and Sixty-seventh Infantry of our Division. The C. R. on our right was taken over the night following our arrival by the First Battalion of our Regiment. The First and Third Battalions took turns holding that C. R. The Three hundred and Sixty-sixth Infantry kept one battalion in line on their right. Adjoining it were the French. Our own division artillery got into position behind us only a few days before the end. At first our Division had three battalions, and during the last two weeks, four battalions in the front line. We held a front line section several times as long as did any other battalion of the Division, in the Marbache sector. Thirty-one straight days was a long, hard stretch for a battalion in an important and far from quiet front or first line position.

Finally, on the night of November 6th-7th we were at last moved back about five miles to the second line of defense. The officers and men were almost completely worn out, many of them bordering on nervous collapse. But even now the Battalion was to get no rest. On the 7th, in compliance with orders from the Commanding General, we put over an operation in which “H” Company and half of “E” went over the top, and on the 8th I was up in front again on very short notice in command of a daylight contact patrol in which I used all of “F” Company, half of “G” and part of the regimental machine gun company.

So during those two days in the second line, instead of resting, almost the entire Battalion had been all the way back up to the front, over the top, and back again. These were small but extremely trying—tired as we were—and also rather costly operations. I say small—I mean comparatively small as to the numbers of officers and men engaged, but to the individual engaged they were large, quite large. A number were killed and many wounded, including two captains, Mills, commanding “F” Company, and Cranson, commander of “G.”

This Battalion had caught most of the hell in the St. Die sector, had done its full share in the Argonne, though, due to the fortunes of war, I suppose, little if any mention is made of it, and in the Marbache sector had held the most important C. R. continuously up to the night of the 6th and 7th, and after the operations of the 7th and 8th just mentioned, you can judge what condition my outfit was in on the morning of November 9th.

Nevertheless, on the morning of November 9th, I received word that the Commanding General had just arrived at Regimental Headquarters in Loisey and wished to see me at once. So, dog-tired, aching all over and dead for sleep, I got into a sidecar and went back. Just as I expected, he handed me an order, Brigade order, that had been sanctioned by Division Headquarters, G. H. Q., and the High Allied Command covering our Brigade’s part in the inauguration or preliminary to the Metz drive. It started something like this: “Major Warner A. Ross, commanding the Second Battalion, Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry, will at five o’clock on the morning of November 10th, attack enemy positions—named them—to the east of the Moselle River, will advance to the northern edge of Bois Frehaut and to such and such a point on the river bank and hold until further orders,” etc. That evening I received a similar order, changed somewhat from the first one, but what it all meant was that it was up to us—the Battalion—to capture and above all to hold this strong key position just up the river from Metz.

In so far as we were concerned it was a frontal attack on the general position of Metz. How far the Allies intended or expected to drive straight on toward Metz I do not know. The long advance was to be southeast of us with the idea of eventually isolating Metz. Judging by what happened to us and to the attackers on our flanks during the tenth and eleventh, it would have been foolish, if not impossible, to advance further along the Moselle. That is why the capturing and holding of Bois Frehaut was especially glorious.

The generals commanding our Division and Brigade seemed very anxious that this operation prove a success. Up to this time the Division had not accomplished anything very startling in the way of capturing German strongholds, but here, before the expected armistice went into effect, was an opportunity to prove the Division’s ability and worth and refute any whisperings that might be in the air. In other words, to quote one of my high ranking superiors, full and real success here would forever give the division a leg to stand on.

Mine, then, was the honor of being in direct command of the main operation which started the long discussed Allied move to capture Metz, said to be the most impregnable German stronghold. Mine, too, was the opportunity to give a colored battalion a chance to prove its worth beyond all peradventure, to help them disprove the widely circulated report that colored troops could not advance and hold under real and prolonged heavy fire, to help them dispel the impression so many had that colored officers—platoon leaders and company commanders—could not successfully handle colored soldiers. In short, to give them a chance to win a victory that will stand out more clearly as the years go by, a victory requiring all the virtues that soldiers, individually and collectively should possess—a victory clear cut, unaided, complete and unquestionable, where others had failed and against a stronghold, a part of and guarding a strategic position that at all hazards the enemy meant to hold.

The Second Battalion of the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry was chosen, despite its long and continuous work in the front lines, its greatly depleted ranks and shortness of officers. Reinforced by other units, other men and other officers of the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry, the Second Battalion at last met its supreme test—its golden opportunity. I shall try briefly to tell you what it did, for “Bois Frehaut,” under the guns of Metz, will remain a memorial to the discipline, the efficiency, the bravery, and devotion to duty of an American colored battalion.

The Three Hundred and Sixty-seventh Infantry, as previously mentioned, had recently taken over one battalion sector or C. R. just across the river. They, too, had orders to advance. A battalion of the white division on their left also was to advance. On our right a small part of a battalion (to be exact, two platoons—about half of one company) of the Three Hundred and Sixty-sixth Infantry was to advance through our Third Battalion, then occupying that C. R.