At ten minutes past five, the mounted men ride west with an advance guard of about a troop. Your patrol was well concealed so that it was able to time the main body as it trotted past the road fork 578 in column of twos. It took two minutes and a half to pass. The group near 545 that appeared to be a patrol has disappeared. While the larger body was passing road fork 578 you heard firing about a mile to the south by less than a dozen rifles. You begin to send a message at a quarter after five and start to return to your command. (100 cavalrymen in column of twos will trot past a given point in one minute.)
CHAPTER IV
MORE PROBLEMS ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE FIELD MESSAGE
1. (Three messages.) On July 18, 1930, you are Corporal Flint in charge of a reconnoitering patrol sent out from the 61st Infantry which is acting as Rear Guard to the 19th Brigade, and which is withdrawing from Goldenville through Table Rock. As you proceed south along the stream which flows past Herman, 500 yds. south of C-7, you stumble upon one of your own regiment seriously wounded and lying at the “V” in Varney, in the open field. He tells you that a regiment of Cavalry of the enemy passed by the nearest farm house going northeast on the dirt road when the sun was overhead. You ask the people of the farm house, who are manifestly in sympathy with the enemy, what they know about the occurrence, but they refuse to answer. On the road are many fresh hoof-marks. You begin to write your message at the Varney farm house at half past three in the afternoon. When you have finished you proceed southwest along the same road and along the creek bed toward the race-track. At the bottom part of the “S” in Stock Farm, you leave your men in the field under cover and go south along the edge of the main road toward Boyd School House. You see several patrols of the enemy but you press on. You have not gone far, however, before you spy a low heavy cloud of dust ahead which seems to be moving toward you. At the Boyd School House Cross Roads it turns west at twenty-five minutes to six. It takes the column, which you now make out to be infantry in column of squads, three minutes and forty seconds to pass the cross-roads (175 Infantry in column of squads can pass a given point in one minute). Since the patrols of the enemy are becoming rather thick, you decide to make your way back to the “K” in Stock Farm. There you finish writing another message at a quarter after seven. You have scarcely sent it off when there is a noise among the corn-stalks near you. You lie low and have your men, whom you have now collected about you, do the same. A friendly uniform appears through one of the corn-rows; it is just light enough for you to make it out. You give a low whistle and signal at which the wearer of the uniform approaches. He turns out to be Sergeant Black of your regiment who is leading a combat patrol. He tells you that he counted twenty passenger coaches hitched together on the railroad to the southwest. The engine was pointed toward the north and opposite the “r” in C. Topper at four o’clock. The enemy’s soldiers were crowding around trying to hurry into the coaches. After the Sergeant leaves you, you try to make your way back to your company. At a quarter to twelve you have arrived under cover of the fields and woods near the road-fork 646 just south of Hamilton when you hear the rumble of wheels close behind you to the south. One of your men counted twelve pieces of light artillery which turned off the road and unlimbered just south of 664. You begin to write another message at the “n” in Hamilton at 5 minutes after twelve.
2. On September 1, 1927, you are a first lieutenant of Infantry in charge of an expeditionary patrol from the 26th Infantry, which is acting as outpost to the 18th Division. The outpost is covering the general sector from Stiner, 1,000 yards north of Texas, to Bender’s Church, B-7. The Division is encamped between Biglerville and Guernsey. Your patrol leaves the outermost picket near Table Rock at three o’clock in the afternoon. Its mission is to capture a strong officer’s patrol of the enemy which is supposed to be proceeding north along the railroad from Hamilton. You conceal yourself and your patrol in the shrubbery near the railroad bridge south of Table Rock Station. At five minutes after four you hear footsteps and subdued talking to the south. You allow the first two men to pass you, and when the main body of the patrol is near the bridge you spring out upon them with bayonets. The mêlée lasts for about three minutes. Four men finally survive—the leader of their patrol, two of your men, and yourself. Because of the wound of the foreign officer, whom you make out by his insignia to be a staff officer of their 132d Regiment of Engineers and a Captain, you decide that you will be unable to risk bringing in your prisoner at once. You question him as to what he has been doing and he tells you that he has been all day on the road and that his regiment has marched for three days from the south without stopping to pitch camp. He will answer no other questions. You bind and gag him, after you have taken him into the field to the bottom of the “S” in Table Rock Station. There you start to write your message twelve minutes after the end of the fight. After you have sent off the communication you and the one remaining man keep guard over your prisoner.
3. (Six messages.) On October 29, 1945, you are Sergeant Murray sent out in charge of a strong reconnoitering patrol from the 82d Infantry which is acting as Advance Guard to the 34th Brigade. You send a message from Mt. Olivet School House (7-top) that the country is clear of the enemy from there back to Center Mills from which you have come. You finish your message at half past one in the afternoon. At ten minutes after two, from the main cross-roads of Guernsey, you start another message in which you let your Commanding Officer know that you have seen nothing of the enemy, and that the roads have been patrolled to a distance of eight hundred yards on each side. You keep on going south along the railroad. As the first two men of your patrol enter the railroad cut five hundred yards south of the main cross-roads of Guernsey, they receive a volley from the top and west side of the embankment. They back out while you with the remainder of your patrol skirt the top of the cut to the west. Three men run to the west into the fields and woods. Your fire does not reach them. You continue to scour the country as far as the stream. At five minutes to three you begin to write a message from the farm house near the southern exit of the cut. You then proceed south along the railroad as before. As you approach Biglerville you try to see through your field glasses any signs of the enemy’s men or wagons which might be in the town. Seeing none, you go carefully and completely around the village back to your starting point. Two of your men then enter the main street from the east. After investigating the first eight or ten houses, they signal you to approach. You then with your patrol go along every street of the town, go into the main stores and houses, but you can find no trace of the enemy. At 20 minutes to five you finish your message at the cross-roads five hundred yards southwest of the “B” in Biglerville. You then take the main Carlisle road and proceed south on it. As you go you inspect all bridges, railroad tracks, streams, and ground in general for eight hundred yards on either side of the road, but find no enemy. At twenty-five minutes to six you begin your message at the Stiner House. Before you now go south, you investigate for eight hundred yards the roads leading to the east and west from the main cross-roads south of Stiner. After your men return you proceed along the side of the road south toward the stream. As you come up to the bridge, although it is getting dusk you see a sentinel on the bridge, and you collect your men in some bushes near the north abutment. You tell them that when you give the word they are to charge with you across the bridge at a run with bayonets fixed. There is no sentry at the north end of the bridge, and the one at the south end seems to be lazily looking into the field. You give the signal and your patrol leaps out, but in the middle of the bridge your whole party is caught by fire from machine guns located near the wooden fence half way between the word Texas and the bridge. All but two of your men fall. You are hit in the leg, but are dragged back off the bridge to a copse at the edge of the stream. Waiting for further developments, but hearing nothing more of the enemy except laughter at the other end of the bridge, you have your men carry you further eastward along the stream to a place of comparative safety in the woods. You start writing your message twenty yards south of the railroad crossing east of Stiner at seven o’clock. You find that you will be unable to travel for some time. After sending the message, you remain with one man where you are, both of you concealing yourselves as well as possible.
MESSAGES FROM COMMANDERS
4. On July 22, 1932, you are Colonel Algernon M. Potts, commanding the 48th Infantry which is acting as Advance Guard for the 20th Division. You have at a quarter to one just pushed two battalions of the enemy’s infantry toward Woodside School House. Your adjutant counts on the ground over which they have fled forty-eight of their dead and wounded. When you have taken up and reorganized your line from Plainview through the cross-roads at 666 to, and including, the farm house one mile and a quarter directly east of A. Logan, Lieutenant Shelley, adjutant of the first battalion, reports to you that Major Jones’ command has captured twenty-two prisoners. While you are talking, suddenly a heavy fire of artillery comes from somewhere in the vicinity of 603 west of Hunterstown. At the same time a message reaches you from Sergeant Stearns, who has been out with a combat patrol to the south, that a regiment of the enemy’s cavalry was between Table Rock and Herman at half past two, and that a civilian had telephoned that an infantry regiment of the enemy was seen marching west through Hunterstown at twenty minutes to twelve that morning. You have no reenforcements at hand, but send your reserve of one battalion to prolong the right of your line to the bridge at Fidler, B-7. Your artillery seems to be superior to the enemy’s and is holding down his fire which is growing heavier. The adjutants of the 2d and 3d battalions report that their commands have lost 12 dead, 17 wounded, and 24 missing during the previous engagement. You feel that you will scarcely be able to hold out more than an hour under the present circumstances, but decide to make strenuous efforts to do more. You start to write your message to the Division Commander at four o’clock in the afternoon.
5. You are Major Mark Montclair in command of the battalion which constituted the reserves in the preceding problem. When you arrive in your designated position at a quarter to five you are immediately charged by two troops of cavalry which you drive off to the south by superior fire. You send in pursuit one company and a machine gun. By the number of loose horses you see galloping about and by the haste with which the troopers took to their heels, you infer that the casualties must have been large. Your adjutant arrives at this time reporting that sixteen prisoners in sound condition have been taken, that twelve dead and twenty-two wounded of the enemy have been counted, and that your own losses are 3 missing, 4 dead, and 8 wounded. Just before you start to write your message at a quarter to six, word reaches you from A Company which is still pursuing the enemy, that they have captured 18 prisoners and have killed and wounded twelve. You finish your message at five minutes to six, and then go over your lines in order to make them stronger for defense.
6. On June 12, 1925, you are Captain James A. Marion in command of Company I, 203d Infantry. Your company, which constitutes a detached post from your regiment acting as outpost at Granite Hill, is at 601, five hundred yards west of Hunterstown Cross-roads. At twenty-five minutes to five in the morning you are charged by a squadron of cavalry from the J. Bell farm. They strike you from the front, and you are holding them by your fire when a troop hits your right flank riding at a full gallop out of the woods from the direction of the Henderson Meeting House. You are in a very awkward position and are prepared to do or die, when, without warning of any kind, a squadron of your own 29th Cavalry which has been on a raiding expedition in the direction of New Oxford, deploys at a gallop from Hunterstown. The enemy, who is now in turn struck in flank, is in serious straits. He breaks and runs in the direction of Table Rock, the friendly squadron pursuing. You count 45 dead and 62 wounded of the enemy. Of your own troops 12 infantrymen are missing, 3 cavalrymen and 9 infantrymen dead, and 5 cavalrymen and 18 infantrymen wounded. You start to write your message at twenty minutes to six. You straighten out your former position and send strong connecting and reconnoitering patrols to north and west.