Average Americans Part 9

Never from this moment to the end of the war did it change.

This Highland division showed its appreciation of the American division by the following order that was sent to our higher command:

Headquarters 1st Division, AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES,

FRANCE, August 4th, 1918.

General Order No. 42.

The following is published for the information of all concerned as evidence of the appreciation of the 15th Scottish Division of such a.s.sistance as this Division may have rendered them upon their taking over the sector from us in the recent operation south of Soissons:

15th Scottish Division No. G-705 24-7-18

To General Officers Commanding, FIRST AMERICAN DIVISION.

I would like on behalf of all ranks of the 15th Division to express to you personally, and to your staff, and to all our comrades in your splendid Division, our most sincere thanks for all that has been done to help us in a difficult situation.

During many instances of taking over which we have experienced in the war we have never received such a.s.sistance, and that rendered on a most generous scale. In spite of its magnificent success in the recent fighting, your Division must have been feeling the strain of operations, accentuated by very heavy casualties, yet we could discern no symptom of fatigue when it came to a question of adding to it by making our task easier.

To your artillery commander (Col. Holbrook) and his Staff, and to the units under his command, our special thanks are due. Without hesitation when he saw our awkward predicament as to artillery support the guns of your Division denied themselves relief in order to a.s.sist us in an attack. This attack was only partly successful, but the artillery support was entirely so.

Without the help of Colonel Mabee and his establishment of ambulance cars, I have no hesitation in saying that at least four hundred of our wounded would still be on our hands in this area.

The 15th Scottish Division desires me to say that our hope is that we may have opportunity of rendering some slight return to the First American Division for all the latter has done for us, and further that we may yet find ourselves shoulder to shoulder defeating the enemy in what we hope is the final stage of this war.

Signed: H. L. REED, _Major General_ _Comdg. 15th Scottish Div._

By Command of Major General Summerall: H. K. LOUGHRY, _Major, F. A. N. A._, _Div. Adjt._

The Highlanders cheered as the wounded Americans pa.s.sed by them. One lieutenant called out to me, "How far have you gone?" I answered, "About six kilometers." "Good," he said. "We'll go another six."

After the battle the division was withdrawn to near Paris. Many of the officers came to see me, where I was laid up with a bullet through the leg. Major A. W. Kenner, the regimental surgeon, who had again distinguished himself by his gallantry, and Captain Legge were both in, looking little the worse for the wear.

CHAPTER IX

ST. MIHIEL AND THE ARGONNE

"'Millions of ages have come and gone,'

The sergeant said as we held his hand; 'They have pa.s.sed like the mist of the early dawn Since I left my home in that far-off land.'"

IRONQUILL.

During the next couple of months, while I was laid up with my wound, the regiment first went to a rest sector near Pont-a-Mousson. There replacements reached them, wounded men returned, and they gradually worked up to their full strength again.

They enjoyed themselves fully. It was one of those sectors so common on the east of the Western Front where by tacit agreement little action took place. The nature of the country and its distance from the great centers of France made many parts of the front impracticable for an offensive either by the Hun or ourselves. In these sectors a division such as ours, worn by hard fighting, or a division of green or old men, held the line, a handful of men on each side occupying long stretches. A few sh.e.l.ls would come whistling over during the day and that was all.

Everybody used to look back on their pleasant times in this sector. They got fresh fish by the thoroughly illegal method of throwing hand grenades in some near-by ponds, while fresh berries were plentiful even in the front line. It was midsummer and the weather was pleasantly warm.

Altogether, if you had to be at war, it was about as comfortable as possible.

An odd incident of this period occurred to a recruit who was sent out the first night to a listening post. In the listening post was a box on which the guard sat. At some time during the previous night the Germans had crept up and put a bomb under this box. After looking around a little the recruit felt tired and sat down on the box. A violent explosion followed. Right away a patrol worked out from our lines to see what had happened. When they got there they looked carefully through every ditch or clump of bushes in the vicinity, but they could not find a trace of the man. He was reported as dead, blown to bits. On the march up into Germany that missing recruit reported back to the regiment on his return from a German prison camp. Instead of being blown to pieces he had simply been blown into the German lines. When he came to, he was being carried to the rear on a stretcher, and he spent the rest of the war as a prisoner, little the worse for wear, except for a few scars.

Shortly after this the St. Mihiel operation took place. The plan was to nip off the salient by a simultaneous attack on both sides. Our division was the left flank unit of the forces attacking on the right of the salient, being charged with the mission of making a juncture with the Twenty-sixth Division, which was the right unit of the forces attacking on the left of the salient. The resistance was so slight that the operation partook of the nature of a maneuver rather than a battle. Our losses were practically nil. A large number of prisoners were captured and a considerable amount of materiel. The reason for this was that the Germans had determined to abandon the position and were in full retreat when we attacked. They had been misinformed by their spies, however, and started their movement about twenty-four hours too late.

The men had a fine time in this attack. While they had been in the Toul sector a high hill, called Mount Sec, behind the German lines, had given them a lot of trouble. From it the Germans had been virtually able to look into our trenches. In the attack they not only took this hill, but left it far in the rear. Our unit captured a German officers' mess, including the cook and a fine pig. They promptly made the cook kill the pig and prepare him for their dinner, which they thoroughly enjoyed.

At another time a German company kitchen came up in the night to one of our outposts to ask him directions. When they found out their mistake it was too late, and they were promptly conducted to one of our very hungry companies.

The value of the St. Mihiel operation to our army was considerable. It gave our staffs an opportunity to make mistakes which were not too terribly costly. We fell down particularly on the question of handling our road traffic. The artillery and the trains in many instances became hopelessly jammed on the largely destroyed road. Each unit commander with laudable desire to get forward would do anything to accomplish that purpose--double back or cut across country. The result was, of course, a hopeless tangle. This alone would have prevented us carrying on a further attack, as no army can run away from its echelons of supply.

Immediately on the completion of the attacks the First Division, in company with a number of others, was withdrawn from the line and moved west by marching to a position of readiness for the Argonne offensive, which was to take place in a couple of weeks. The march was made mainly by night, as every endeavor was being used to make a surprise attack.

The troops bivouacked in the woods, keeping under cover during the day.

The battle was a fierce one. During the first day the Americans made a clean break through, but the lack of training showed and they were unable to exploit their success properly. The various units became dislocated and orders could not be transmitted. The men were gallant, but gallantry is no use when you do not get orders and when supplies do not come up. As a result the Germans were able to gather themselves, and what might have been a rout became a fierce rear-guard action which lasted for more than a month.

The First Division was held in army reserve and thrown in to take a particularly hard bit of territory. They were in eleven days in all and took all their objectives. As a result they were cited individually by General Pers.h.i.+ng in General Orders No. 201. This order--I believe the only one of its kind issued during the war--follows:

G. H. Q.

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES,

FRANCE, Nov. 10, 1918.

General Orders No. 201.

1. The Commander in Chief desires to make of record in the General Orders of the American Expeditionary Forces his extreme satisfaction with the conduct of the officers and soldiers of the First Division in its advance west of the Meuse between October 4th and 11th, 1918. During this period the division gained a distance of seven kilometers over a country which presented not only remarkable facilities for enemy defense but also great difficulties of terrain for the operation of our troops.

2. The division met with resistance from elements of eight hostile divisions, most of which were first-cla.s.s troops and some of which were completely rested. The enemy chose to defend its position to the death, and the fighting was always of the most desperate kind.

Throughout the operations the officers and men of the division displayed the highest type of courage, fort.i.tude, and self-sacrificing devotion to duty. In addition to many enemy killed, the division captured one thousand four hundred and seven of the enemy, thirteen 77-mm. field guns, ten trench mortars, and numerous machine guns and stores.

3. The success of the division in driving a deep advance into the enemy's territory enabled an a.s.sault to be made on the left by the neighboring division against the northeastern portion of the Forest of Argonne, and enabled the First Division to advance to the right and outflank the enemy's position in front of the division on that flank.

4. The Commander in Chief has noted in this division a special pride of service and a high state of morale, never broken by hards.h.i.+p nor battle.

5. This order will be read to all organizations at the first a.s.sembly formation after its receipt. (14790-A-306.)

By Command of General Pers.h.i.+ng:

JAMES W. MCANDREW, _Chief of Staff_.

Official:

ROBERT C. DAVIS, _Adjutant General_.

The losses again were very heavy, nearly as heavy as at Soissons. It was in this battle Lieutenant T. D. Amory was killed while making a daring patrol. Amory was a gallant young fellow, not more than twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. He had originally been intelligence officer for my battalion and had been quite badly wounded by a sh.e.l.l fragment in the Montdidier sector. As soon as he was cured he reported back to the regiment and took up his old work as scout officer. When the division took over, contact had been lost with the enemy. A patrol was accordingly sent out at once, for it was possible that an attack would be ordered in the morning. Lieutenant Amory was given forty men and went out. Signal-corps men were put with him to carry a telephone. It turned out that the Germans were holding strong points rather than a continuous line of front. On account of this and the darkness he filtered through without finding them and un.o.bserved by them. The first word his battalion commander received was a telephone message from the signal-sergeant, saying: "We have advanced about one and one half kilometers and there is no sign of the enemy. The Germans have opened on us from the right flank." Then: "They are firing on us from three sides.

I believe we are surrounded." And, last: "Lieutenant Amory has just been shot through the head and killed."

Captain Foster and Captain Wortley also were killed at this time, besides many other gallant officers and men. Foster when he died was but twenty-two years old. When he came over with the division, he was nothing but a curly-headed boy. In the year and a half that he spent in France he turned from a boy into a man. He was afraid of nothing and had a rarer virtue in that he was always in good spirits. He had been hit once before at Soissons. He had been platoon leader and adjutant. Later, on the death of the company commander, Captain Frey, he had taken command of a company. He, like Lieutenant Amory, was shot through the head by a machine gun.