Chapter VI: The Battle of the Ourcq (2)

The Battalion was lined up in the following order. Right of the brook, Company A, with Lieutenant Baldwin in the lead, and Company B in support, under Captain Reilley, their mission being to debouch from the scattered trees which concealed them, and advance up the gentle slope forward and right to Meurcy Farm. On the left, Company C, under Captain Bootz, had the van, with Company D, under Lieutenant Connelly, in support. Their work was to push on to the left of the brook and clean up Bois Colas, a thickly wooded clump of trees about as big as three city blocks, which lay two hundred yards west of the farm.

Company A had only one officer with them in the attack as Lieutenant D’Aguerro, with Sergeants Duff and Schmidt, had charge of a platoon whose duty it was to carry ammunition. Lieutenant Baldwin, an earnest, courageous man, was in command, with Sergeant Thomas J. Sweeney as First Sergeant. They advanced at eight o’clock in the morning and were immediately made to feel that they were in for a hard time. There were German machine guns now in Meurcy Farm and on both sides of it. The shelling, too, was vigorous, as all their motions could be seen and reported. Sergeants Fred Garretson and Don Matthews led a detachment with great prudence and dexterity, capturing one of the machine gun nests and seven prisoners. The direct attack against the farm, however, was not to be successful that day. Sergeant Scully, who had been badly wounded in the Lunéville raid, was wounded again early in the fight. Acting Sergeant Willie Mehl, whose father used to bring him to our encampment as a lad, was also hit; and many another good man was put out of action forever. Corporal Petersilze was killed and Corporal Michael O’Sullivan, a big, bright, good-natured giant, whom I had held in my arms as a baby, and another of the Campbells of Company A, Louis, this time, slender Harry Kane and sturdy Dan O’Connell, Stephen Curtin, who did good work with his automatic; James Ronan, Leroy Hanover, Joseph P. Myers, James Robinson, John Gray, John Williams, Clyde Evans, John Boneslawski, William Barton, John Gilluly, John Rice, William Thompson, W. V. Kelley, John Fisher, Dennis Donovan, Fred Floar, William Mallin, were killed on the field. Fred Finger was killed going back with the wounded. Tom Fleming and Charles Mack died in the dressing station, and Anthony Michaels, Albert Poole, James Tiffany, Patrick Carlisle and Edward Blanchard died of wounds in the hospital.

Lieutenant Baldwin was in the van waving his pistol, when a machine gun bullet struck him in the chest. His last words were: “Sergeant (to Sweeney), carry out the orders!” His spirit animated the brave men who followed. Moreover, they had still a fine leader in Tom Sweeney, and they kept pushing ahead, some of them meeting their fate under the very walls of the farm. It was all that they could do. One officer and twenty-five men of the diminished company were killed that morning. Multiply the deaths by six to get the total casualties and one can see that few indeed were left. Sergeant Sweeney ordered his men to dig in and wait. They were still full of spirit and vigor. Major Donovan tells of the impression made on him by a New York High School boy who carried his messages under fire with a cigarette nonchalantly drooping from his lip, coming and going as if he were an A. D. T. messenger on Broadway. It was Harold Henderson. Ed. Chamberlain, whom I had always admired, also did credit to the good opinion of his friends. He was hit across the stomach and as he rose to go back, holding the ripped edges together to keep his bowels from falling out, he said to Sweeney: “Have you any messages for the rear?”

It was some hours after Lieutenant Baldwin’s death that Lieutenant Henry Kelley arrived with Major Donovan’s orders to assume command. “Hec” Kelley, a young lawyer who enlisted as a private in B Company when we went to the Border, was never one to take good care of himself in a fight. He lasted just half an hour and was carried back with a bad wound which robbed us of his hearty, courageous presence for the rest of the war. Sweeney and the rest stuck it out till morning. Corporal John F. Dennelly, who had left his country newspaper in Long Island to join the 69th, spent the night with an outpost which was busy discouraging the nocturnal efforts of the Germans to erect barbed wire defenses in front of the farm.

In the morning the remnants of Company A withdrew a slight distance down the valley to merge with Company B. This Company, too, had had its losses. One platoon, under Lieutenant Wheatley, was in line with Company A, and the rest of them were close behind. Lieutenant Wheatley met the usual fate of officers in this battle by being wounded. Timothy McCarthy, Denis Bagley and Albert Lambert were killed and Phil Schron died at the dressing-station. It was a pleasant surprise to everybody in the Company that their gigantic captain, Tom Reilley, was not hit again, as he walked around using a rifle for a crutch and exposing his massive frame to the enemy. But he escaped with no further wounds.

Company A failed to get the farm that day, but their dogged persistence helped to make the task of Company C an easier one. This Company was led by Captain Bootz with Lieutenants Irving, Allen, Betty, Stone and Friedlander. They advanced with their right near to the brook and their left on the slope of the hill towards Seringes. A machine gun on the south edge of Bois Colas hampered them, but they got up one of our guns with Lieutenant Davis and Sergeant John O’Leary and soon put it out of action. When they got to the woods they beat their way through them cautiously, expecting every moment to find resistance, but they met only one frightened German who was glad when they made him prisoner. From the other side they could see a disconcerted enemy dotting the slopes in front of the forest of Nesles. The riflemen immediately got busy and when Lieutenants Davis and Bell came up with the machine guns, commanded by Captain Seibert, the field gray uniforms disappeared under their fire.

The first platoon, under Lieutenant Allen, had harder going. Its task was to cover the left flank as the line advanced, which brought the men along the top of the hill, where they suffered severely. Sergeant Crittenden was killed and Louis Torrey, a pious lad, Charles Geary also, and Carlton Ellis and R. J. Schwartz. Sergeant Dan Garvey and Frank Daley, John J. Murphy, Patrick Cronin and one of the Gordon brothers were fatally wounded and carried off the field. Harry McAllister was badly wounded. Big, impulsive Mike Cooney carried him down through a rain of fire to the bottom and then went back through it to get his rifle. James Allen lay out on the hill moaning. Harry Horgan started up to get him but was killed before reaching him. Thomas O’Connor crept up cautiously and coolly. He was stooping to pick him up when a bullet struck him and he fell on the body of his comrade. Nothing daunted, Michael Ruane and William McCarthy made their way up that hill of death and carried down their wounded comrade. Both Allen and McAllister afterwards died of their wounds.

The biggest price paid for the capture of Bois Colas was when the courageous soldier and trusted leader, Captain Henry Bootz, was put out of action by a bullet which passed through his chest from side to side. He had a wound which would have killed an ordinary man, but he merely grinned, took his pipe which he used in action to signal to his men and threw it to Lieutenant Betty, saying: “Here, son, I won’t need this for a while.” He started back, followed by his faithful orderly, Michael Sypoula, better known as “Zip,” who had gotten a wound himself and was happy that he had a reason for sticking to his beloved Captain. First Sergeant Gene Halpin and Maguire assisted Captain Bootz to the rear. Lieutenant Friedlander had also received a dangerous face wound and had been carried off the field by Austin McSweeney of the Headquarters Company.

Major Donovan, never happy unless in the middle of things, had gone up the bed of the brook so as to keep ahead of the advance of C on the left and A on the right. Lieutenant Ames, his Adjutant, was with him, led by devotion as well as duty, for the Major was his ideal leader. They lay half in the brook, resting on the bank, when a sniper’s bullet from the farm yard whizzed past Donovan’s ear and struck Ames in the head, liberating for larger purposes a singularly attractive and chivalrous soul.

Lieutenant Connelly tells of coming up with Sergeant Tom O’Malley and Corporal Gribbon to receive orders from the Major about taking over the line from Company C. He did not know just where to find him until he met Bootz going down the brook bed with his faithful attendants. Following up the stream he found Donovan still in the water with Ames’s body by his side. The Major also had received a bullet wound in the hand. Nearby, Pete Gillespie, whose machine gun was out of order, was absorbed in the game of getting the sniper who had killed the Lieutenant. All stopped to watch him and his rifle. Pete settled down, intent on a dead horse near the farm. Suddenly he saw something had moved behind it. He cuddled his rifle, waited and fired. They could see the sniper behind the horse half rise, then drop. The beloved Lieutenant was avenged.

The day’s work had improved the situation immensely. Control of Bois Colas gave a better command of the terrain northwards to the edge of the forest, although Bois Brulé, a narrow strip of woods which lay between, was still alive with machine guns. Meurcy Farm was not yet occupied, but its capacity for being troublesome was reduced by its being outflanked by our left. Anderson’s battalion held the lower slopes of the hill that had been taken by the third battalion the first day, and kept the Germans from reoccupying it permanently. Anderson was in touch with the 84th Brigade which was on the same line with himself. The Iowas and part of the Alabamas had taken the town of Sergy. It was a tough nut to crack, and took all the dash of the Southerners and the stubborn persistence of the Westerners to conquer and hold it. The elements of the regiment on our immediate right delayed their advance until the whole brigade was in a position to move forward.

The other regiment in our Brigade made a fine advance on our left. The 2nd Battalion passed through the first, and after our regiment had taken Bois Colas, the Ohios could be seen pushing up to the road running from Fere en Tardenois to Meurcy Farm. To co-operate with them Major Donovan sent Lieutenant Betty with what was left of Company C (sixty-five men) to move with their flank, Company D holding Bois Colas with forty-two men. The Ohios kept advancing and by nightfall had captured the southern half of Seringes et Nesles. The upper portion which curved over to the top of our valley was not occupied until the German retreat had begun.

The situation was set for a further advance. Headquarters at regiment, brigade, and division were busy preparing for it and the Artillery were ready to co-operate. They had been shelling Bois Brulé just in front of us, and the upper edge of Seringes et Nesles and the edge of the forest all day. Telephone lines had been stretched to the front by the 117th Signal Battalion and our own signal section of Headquarters Company.

These were exceedingly busy days at Colonel McCoy’s P. C., for at last there was a spot that one could dignify with the title of Post of Command. The first day of the battle there had been three or four posts in succession. On Saturday evening Colonel McCoy was in the Chateau de Fere, but when he got orders for his regiment to make the attack he went forward with them himself to join McKenna near the river. When the battalion went over he set up his headquarters right there in a shallow trench on the exposed river slope. It seemed no place for a commanding officer on whom so much had to depend, but he made up his mind that it was his place to be where he could view the battle himself, as there was no speedy way for him to get information, and the immediate decision concerning the actions and fate of his men would rest largely on his own judgment. These were his reasons; but there is always a good deal of the element of personality back of anybody’s reasons. And Frank R. McCoy, soldier of five campaigns, would naturally see the force of reasons which brought him as close as possible to the firing line. The Germans began to argue the point in their usual violent way, but the Colonel remained unconvinced.

Lieutenant Rerat was wounded slightly in that hole, and many men hurt around it. Finally Captain Hurley was badly wounded while reporting to his Chief, and the Staff united with the Germans in arguing that it was not the best place to do regimental business. So Colonel McCoy brought them back a ways to a sunken road that ran across the town. Here the shelling pursued them and Lieutenant B. B. Kane, a fine, manly fellow, received a mortal wound from a shell that exploded a few feet from where he was standing in a group around the Colonel.

Meanwhile the reliable Captain Michael J. Walsh had been scouring the town for a suitable place, and had found one in the cellar of a house still nearer the lines, but accessible to messengers from the orchards on the east, thus obviating the trip through Dead Man’s Curve.

On the morning of the 29th Colonel McCoy with Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell went up to look over the whole situation and consult with Donovan and Anderson. The decks were now cleared for a battle. The telephone was in to the front line, to the Brigade Post of Command, and to the Artillery. There was a chance for a commanding officer to be of real service to the Battalion Commanders. With the telephone to the front and rear at his elbow, he had the strings in his hands, and he certainly kept pulling those strings day and night. A message would come in from an O. P. (Observation Post) where Captain Elmer and Corporal Bob Lee were on the watch: “Shells needed on machine gun nests at crest of hill 195.45-274.05 to 196.1-274.5.” Or one from Donovan: “Important to shell Bois Brulé, where forty machine gun emplacements are reported.” And Lieutenant Weaver, a smart youngster from the 151st Field Artillery, would be put on the job in a second. Or it might be a message of the Colonel to General Lenihan in response to a call from Donovan: “Cut out fire on neck of woods south of Bois Brulé. It is endangering our Infantry in Bois Colas.” Night and day that telephone was working, receiving news from the front, effecting co-operation with neighboring regiments or sending back requests for barrages, counter-battery work, food supplies, ammunition, ambulances, air service. Soldiers in the line never fully realize how much their lives, and victory, which is more to them than their lives, depend on the alertness and intelligence of those in command.

It was an interesting group at the regimental P. C., McCoy with his spare soldierly figure and his keen soldierly face, radiant with the joy of action and the prospects of victory, always a stimulus to those who might be downhearted. For the first day, as operations officer, he had George McAdie, patient, painstaking and enduring, until the order came, less endurable to him than an enemy bullet, that he should proceed forthwith for duty at a home station. A hard sentence for a born soldier in the middle of a battle. And succeeding him Merle-Smith, just come out of the carnage, with an untidy bandage around his wounded arm, but with his mind set only on his job. Alert youngsters, Lieutenants Rerat, Seidelman, Jim Mangan, Heinel (afterwards wounded) and Preston, with Captain Jack Mangan drifting in occasionally to see if his supplies were coming up satisfactorily.

And next to the Colonel was one big personality dominating all; the rugged personality of Captain Michael J. Walsh, old soldier and solid man. He was disgusted with his part in the conflict. “I came out here to be a soldier and I am nothing but a damn room orderly,” he growled. But who fed the hungry fighting men? Captain Michael Walsh. Who scoured the yards of houses for utensils to send up the food to them? Captain Michael Walsh. Who saw that the ammunition was delivered on time to the front line. Once more, Captain Walsh. And the Colonel, when there was a task of real importance to perform, never delegated it to the bright young men; he always said: “Captain Walsh will attend to that.”

The principal task for July 30th was assigned to the 84th Brigade. They were to try to get forward and even up the line on our right. The Ohios were to hold fast, but Donovan requested to take advantage of the forward movement on the right to improve our position with reference to Bois Brulé. Company C was still in line west of Bois Colas maintaining our connection with the Ohios. Company D was at the upper edge of this woods with the machine gunners under Captain Seibert, Lieutenants Doris, Davis and Bell. Companies B and A were dug in around the approaches to the farm. Food came up on the night of the 29th for the first time. The men were all hungry, as their reserve rations had been consumed long before. Lieutenant Springer had been sent to take command of Company A, succeeding Lieutenant D’Aguerro, who had been wounded in his turn. He and his First Sergeant, Tom Sweeney, were sitting on the edge of a hole preparing to enjoy a can of corn when one bullet got both of them. They were helped back to the dressing station and Sergeant Higginson took command. The affair had its compensations. Higginson and young Henderson got the corn.

Major Donovan’s Post of Command was a hole at the southern edge of Bois Colas. Lieutenant Ames’ body had been brought in during the night and buried nearby. Ames’ place as battalion adjutant was filled by Sergeant Joyce Kilmer, whose position as Sergeant of the Intelligence Section would naturally have entitled him to a place nearer regimental headquarters. But he had preferred to be with a battalion in the field and had chosen Donovan’s. The Major placed great reliance on his coolness and intelligence and kept him by his side. That suited Joyce, for to be at Major Donovan’s side in a battle is to be in the center of activity and in the post of danger. To be in a battle, a battle for a cause that had his full devotion, with the regiment he loved, under a leader he admired, that was living at the top of his being. On the morning of the 30th Major Donovan went forward through the woods to look over the position. Kilmer followed, unbidden. He lay at the north edge of the woods looking out towards the enemy. The Major went ahead, but Kilmer did not follow. Donovan returned and found him dead. A bullet had pierced his brain. His body was carried in and buried by the side of Ames. God rest his dear and gallant soul.

At 3:30 that afternoon the 84th Brigade had made progress, though it was slow and difficult going. The artillery was doing good work but all their efforts could not keep down the fire of the German Machine Gunners. The gratifying surprise of the day was when two escadrilles of friendly planes came over. Our companies in the line had not been pushed very hard. They repelled a couple of counter attacks on their position, and the machine gunners were on the alert to fire whenever our artillery work on Bois Bruleé started the Germans running.

Donovan was to move forward when the progress of the 84th Brigade brought them abreast of him. But regiments, brigades, and it was said, divisions, sloped away to the right like steps of stairs, and each was hanging back for the others to come up. So Major Donovan insisted on making a try for Bois Brulé without waiting for any help except what our Brigade would give. Colonel Hough was perfectly willing to back him up. So Lieutenant Connelly with Company D moved out to the attack.

It was the pitiful remnant of a company, one officer and forty-two men instead of the six officers and two hundred and fifty men who formerly swung along like an old time battalion in the parades on the Hempstead Plains. But the few who were left were inured to danger by patrols and raids and battles, and they were ready for anything. The ground in front was rough and hummocky for two hundred yards, and then a double row of trees led up to the Bois Brulé. At the right it sloped off to the brook where it ran past Meurcy Farm. Sergeant Dick O’Neill was to cover the ground in front with fifteen men, including Masterson, Peterson, Bedient, Gugliere, McGee, McAree, Stoddard, Lord, and Edward Moran.

Lieutenant Cook led a smaller number of picked men to work to the right and up the bed of the brook, cooperating with Companies A and B working around the farm. In his command were John Gribbon, his red head an oriflamme of war; Colton Bingham, the fighting nephew of the gentle Bishop of Buffalo, John Curtin, a tall young Irishman who afterwards became regimental standard bearer, Tommy Blake, later Lieutenant Blake, and the steadiest of riflemen, Pat McDonough. Lieutenant Connelly came in the rear of his skirmish line where he could control their movements. With him were his First Sergeants Edward Geaney, Sergeant Hubert Murray, Corporal John F. Moran and others. Tom O’Malley had already been wounded.

Some distance out there was a deep, irregular sand pit. O’Neill, carefully rounding the corner of it, suddenly saw right under his eyes a body of about 25 Germans. He uttered a shout of warning and jumped into the midst of them with his pistol cracking. He had shot down three Germans before they realized what was happening, and produced great confusion amongst them. Some rushed to the other side of the pit while others began firing at O’Neill, who kept firing after he was hit, and when finally carried back to the dressing station had seven bullets in him. The Germans who had run across the sand pit found themselves face to face with Lieutenant Connelly and his little group. What followed was as sudden, as confused in plan, and as resolute in spirit as the action around the log house in Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The Company D men came running from all sides to take part in the fighting. On our side Connelly was hit; also Geaney, Gribbon and McDonough. And James J. Gugliere, Paul McGee, Louis Peterson and Rollie Bedient were killed. This all happened in an instant. The Germans paid a fearful price for it. Those that were left scrambled out of the pit to flee in the direction of their own forces. There they saw the advance elements of O’Neill’s section running back toward them, and they turned toward Bois Colas at a headlong gait. The cry went up that a counter attack was coming. Colonel Hough saw it and telephoned to our headquarters. Anderson heard back in the woods and stormed up from the support with reinforcements. Our machine guns were turned on the advancing Germans; and the advent of a few bedraggled prisoners in dirty field gray uniforms let the rear line see that the counter-attack was a myth. The whole business was over in a few minutes.

But the Germans in Bois Brulé were again at work sweeping the ground with their bullets and it was under fierce fire that John Burke, Joe Lynch, McAuliffe, Bingham and Blake carried in Lieutenant Connelly and the other wounded. Sergeant Murray took command and kept the survivors going forward until they had outposts established in the approaches to Bois Brulé.

Besides those already mentioned, Company D lost, killed in these three days, Corporal Frank Fall, Privates George Johnson, Terance McAree, John McCormick, Michael Romanuk, Harvey J. Venneman, Robert Luff, Frank J. Lackner, Attilio Manfredi, Edward G. Coxe, John Dolan and the senior of the two Michael J. Sheas, who died of his wounds.

July 31st was a day of comparative quiet. The longer the struggle lasted the more it was borne in upon the Lords of High Decision that the ousting of the enemy from their position was a matter for artillery. It was the first time we had the opportunity to observe with reluctant admiration the German development of the use of the machine gun in defensive warfare. To send infantry in under the intense fire of their numerous guns was like feeding paper to a flame. Our artillery, however, was good,—none better in the whole war, we confidently assert, and we waited with assurance for them to reduce the resistance. If our air service were sufficiently developed to give them good photographs of positions, and to register their fire, we felt sure that the Infantry would soon be in a position to make short work of enemy opposition.

That day we had our first experience of another auxiliary arm. The day before there landed at the regimental P. C. a section of our 30th Engineers, our Gas and Flame regiment. With them there was an Australian officer with a name that would qualify him for the 69th, and a young lieutenant who, we discovered after he was killed, was a son of the famous baseball manager, Ned Hanlan of Baltimore. They came out with their men on the 31st and threw over thermite and smoke bombs on Bois Brulé and Meurcy Farm. Under their protection Company D occupied the woods.

Company A, under Lieutenant Stone, finally took possession of the Farm. The first attempt failed. A patrol led by Corporal Sidney Clark started up but four men were hit in the first three minutes, Michaels dying of his wounds. Another attempt was made in the evening and the farm was occupied by a patrol under Corporals John Dennelly and Van Arsdale.

It was evident that the enemy’s resistance was weakening and that it would be a matter of a very short period before he would retreat to his next line of defence. On August 1st the 3rd Battalion relieved the 1st in line. Company M had had serious losses after being drawn out from the line on July 28th, as the battalion had been bombed in its reserve position at the sunken road, and the Company had suffered other losses in a ration detail which was caught out under a heavy fire. Of its officers, Lieutenant Hunt Warner was badly wounded; Lieutenant Collier was wounded but stuck to his post. Edward Brennan, Hugh Kaiser, Alfred Schneider and Johnnie Madden were killed and Sergeant Nicholson wounded. Captain Meaney and Lieutenants McIntyre and Bunnell escaped uninjured. Lieutenant McIntyre was blown into the Ourcq by the concussion of a shell, but he stuck to his task till he finished it.

Company K also suffered further disaster while in reserve, and Sergeants Peter Crotty and Bernard McElroy, who had done prodigious deeds in action, received mortal wounds; and also William Bergen, who did more work as a stretcher bearer than any other man I have ever seen in a battle. Louis Gilbert and Everett Seymour of Company L were killed in the same bombardment and Sam Klosenberg fatally wounded.

In fact, the town of Villers sur Fere was throughout the action a part of the battlefield. Its church square at the northern end was not more than a thousand yards from the place of actual conflict. The front line forces were at times too near each other to allow artillery fire from either side, as each side had to avoid the danger of shelling its own infantry—an event which is always most disastrous to the morale of troops. But the approaches to Villers sur Fere lay under the eyes of the enemy, and they could see a constant stream of liaison men, litter bearers, hobbling wounded, and food and ammunition carriers going in by the entrance to its one street. They knew it to be the center of our web so they very wisely concentrated most of their fire upon it and especially on the square which opened out after the short narrow northern entrance of Dead Man’s Curve. Even before dawn they had been raking its streets as a natural mode of approach of an oncoming enemy, killing and wounding a large number of men. Indeed nearly one-third of those who lost their lives in this action received their death wounds from shell fire in and around Villers sur Fere.

Early in the morning of July 28th, Lieutenant Joseph J. Kilcourse, Medical Officer attached to the Third Battalion, had opened his aid post in the schoolhouse facing on the square, and the development of the battle soon made it the regimental dressing station. The schoolhouse quickly filled up with wounded. A constant stream of limping men, of men with bandages around their heads or with arms carried in rough slings, of men borne on rude litters, were coming into town along the narrow entrance. No ambulances had gotten through and there were no directions as to where a _triage_ could be found. The courtyard in front of the hospital was filled with “walking cases,” discussing the battle with that cheerfulness which is always characteristic of soldiers who are not fatally wounded. A menacing whiz came through the air and a shell fell amongst them, followed by two others, one of which struck the wall and spattered the litter cases with plaster and broken bricks. The survivors in the yard scattered in all directions but nine of them lay quivering or motionless. Lieutenant Kilcourse ran out sobbing and swearing and working like mad to save his patients from further harm. Those who could walk were started down the road towards the Château de Foret in the hope of being picked up by an ambulance or truck. Inside the hospital nobody was seriously hurt, but the men of the Sanitary Detachment labored energetically to get them into places of comparative safety. These were Sergeant 1st Class William Helgers, James Mason, James McCormack, Ferraro, Planeta, Larsen and Daly.

Before long, Lieutenants Lyttle, Martin, Mitchell and Lawrence had arrived, and the wounded received all the attention they could be given with the facilities at hand. But the worst cases lay there till the next morning before they could be evacuated. They bore their sufferings with cheerful fortitude, their thoughts being for others. Father Hanley was sore because he had been put out so soon. Sergeant John Donahue’s thoughts were with his beloved Company L; Tommy Delaney, an innocent lovable boy, talked of his mother and what a good son to her he had planned to be if he had lived, and Tom Mansfield, with his leg shattered, was full of Irish pride that he had been given a chance to be in a big battle with the “Ould Rigiment.”

Headquarters Company was located in town in the shattered houses and stables but most of its sections had to take a frequent part in field operations. The signal section, under Lieutenant James Mangan, labored at great risk in putting down the wires for connection with the front line on the night of July 28th. Sergeant Beall, Corporal Brochen and Privates J. McCabe, Kirwin and Olson kept the lines intact, while the remainder of the platoon did great service as ammunition bearers. The intelligence section under Captain Elmer had an observation post 100 yards northwest of Villers sur Fere which did excellent work in reporting machine gun nests and the direction of fire of enemy artillery. Dick Larned acted as Chief of Scouts with the Third Battalion and Joyce Kilmer and Levinson with the First Battalion. In the headquarters section little Corporal Malone was on the job day and night with his runners. Edward Mulligan of this section was killed.

Coming to what we might call the Infantry Artillery, the Stokes mortar platoon rendered excellent service throughout the battle. Two sections of this platoon under Sergeants Jaeger and Fitzsimmons took up the advance with the Infantry on July 27th. Early Sunday morning, July 28th, an infantry patrol drew fire from enemy machine guns located on the banks of the Ourcq river. Major McKenna called for one trench mortar, and a gun crew in charge of Sergeant Fitzsimmons and Corporal Harvey reported and shelled the enemy position in front of the Ourcq. At three in the morning Colonel McCoy ordered a barrage to be fired by the four guns on a machine gun nest. This was done and then the men waited for the advance of the Infantry at 4:30. When the first wave started to cross the Ourcq a barrage was laid down until the troops had crossed the river and were ascending the height beyond it. The men then followed the advance as far as the river when they were ordered back to their position of reserve in the village. It was during this advance that John Perry, a fine youth, received the wound which later caused his death.

On July 29th, one section under Lieutenant Frank McNamara and Sergeant Cudmore, entered the lines to support the first battalion. This section fired an effective barrage when the enemy attempted a counter-attack. During this action Private Malcolm Robertson was killed by an enemy shell and Sergeant Cudmore and F. Garvey were wounded. On August 1st at two in the afternoon one gun was set up in front of the woods facing Meurcy Farm. Despite the fact that enemy aeroplanes constantly harassed them, machine gun nests in and about Meurcy Farm were shelled with good results. After two hours work the men were driven to cover by enemy machine guns, Corporal Clark and Private Casey receiving severe wounds. The platoon was relieved on August 2nd and lent their aid to the burying of the dead.

The 37 mm. guns, commonly known as the one-pounders did excellent work, the small platoon paying a heavy price in losses. On July 28th, three members of the crew were killed with one shell in the village square as they were advancing with their gun—Cornelius Grauer, Joseph Becker, Frank Guida—Grauer, a youngster of seventeen, being a particular favorite with everybody that knew him. On July 30th the platoon took part in the attack on Meurcy Farm. During the operations the crew were caught in a box barrage by the enemy artillery and serious wounds were sustained by Sergeant Willemin, who was in command, and Privates Monohan, B. J. McLaughlin, John Seifried and John Kelly. Although the crew was almost entirely wiped out, the gun was kept in action by Corporal Charlie Lester and Private Berry. Another gun crew under command of Lieutenant Joseph O’Donohue was kept going all morning and did great execution. Of this crew John C. McLaughlin was killed while firing his gun.

The members of the Company whose duties detained them in the village worked for the interest of the whole regiment in positions almost equally exposed with those in the front line. Captain Walsh, a soldier of many campaigns, knew what the men in line needed was not encouragement (he took it for granted that every man had courage) nor sympathy (his own feeling was one of envy of them), but ammunition and food. His own company kitchen worked night and day to feed everybody who came into town on any business. Mess Sergeant Louis Goldstein and Cooks John Wilker and Leo Maher, moved by his example, set up their kitchen under an arch just off the square and fed 800 men a day while the engagement lasted.

That square was an interesting sight throughout the battle. Men drifted in, singly or in twos or in parties, fresh from scenes of death. Liaison men, ammunition details, litter bearers carrying stretchers dripping blood. They were fresh from the field where bullets were flying. They had been forced to drop on their faces as they crossed the valley under fire. They had scurried around Dead Man’s Curve and they were still only about 1,000 yards from the fighting, with shells still screaming in the air above their heads and enemy planes forcing them to scuttle out of sight, but they were not breathless or anxious or excited. They borrowed the “makings,” or got a cup of coffee from John Wilker and stole a few minutes to gossip about the fight or to relate something that struck them as interesting. A year ago if one lone maniac had been lying in Central Park taking pot shots at passers-by going along Fifth Avenue they would have run down a side street calling for the Police, would have gotten home excited and out of breath, and would have stood outside of the church the next Sunday after ten o’clock Mass to tell all their friends what an adventure they had had.

It was magnificent, but it was not war. Especially with the aeroplanes overhead. Those German aeroplanes—they circled over our troops in line, over our men in the rear. Colonel McCoy sent word to inquire about the aeroplanes that were promised us. General Lenihan wanted to know. General Menoher sent orders; entreated. But the only ones we could see had the black Maltese cross—the same old story.

There was but one thing to do if we would prevent a recurrence of the catastrophe which had already occurred at the hospital in that same square. And that was to prevent the men from gathering there. The kitchen was moved to a less exposed spot. This was done to draw the men away from the square and not from any sense of timidity on the part of its operatives. On the contrary they had made a bold attempt to get that kitchen up to the front line. On the night of July 29th the bold Jim Collintine had hitched his trusty mules to the beloved goulash wagon and driven it right up to the Ourcq. When they found they could not cross, the Mess Sergeant and cooks unloaded its contents for the men in line. Mooney of Company A tried the same thing, and, when the river stopped him, sent the food up on litters.

One of the officers whose duties kept him near the hospital appointed himself as Police Officer in addition to his other duties, to keep the men under cover. On the second day of the fight he saw a tousled looking soldier without hat or rifle coming from a barn.

“What outfit do you belong to?”

“I belong to the 165th Infantry, sir.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came in last night with an ammunition detail and we got scattered under shell fire and I crawled into the barn.”

“Yes, you slept there all night and let the other fellows do your work. You must be a new man. But I see you have a service stripe.”

“Well, I am new in the regiment and I don’t belong in this game. I was in the S. O. S. and they sent me up here as a replacement after I got into the hospital.”

“Where is your rifle.”

“I lost it and it ain’t no good to me anyway cause I don’t know anything about it, and I can’t see good anyway.”

The situation was too much for the officer and, like everyone else in emergency, his mind turned to Captain Walsh.

“Go down that road about forty yards and you will see a farm yard with soldiers in it and ask for Captain Walsh. Tell him I sent you and tell him the story you gave me.”

The hatless soldier obeyed very willingly because the street led towards the rear. An hour later Captain Mike breezed into the square and came over to the officer with the demand,

“Who was that bird you sent me?”

“What did you do with him, Mike?”

“What did I do with him. I salvaged him a nice new rifle, strapped two bandoliers around him, led him gently out into the street, faced him north and said, ‘Keep right on going in that direction until you see a Dutchman and when you see him shoot him for me.’ And I gave him a good start with my boot and by the way he made his getaway I’ll bet he’s going yet.”

The Commander of our Sanitary Detachment was Captain Wm. B. Hudson, who had been assigned to us from the 117th Sanitary Train when Major Lawrence was called to Division Headquarters. On July 28th, Captain Hudson had taken his post at the Chateau de Foret, General Lenihan’s Headquarters, most of which the General had given over for the accommodation of the wounded who had managed to get back that far. Here, too, the wounded men met with fresh disaster. A German aeroplane dropped bombs in the courtyard and killed seven men, including Sergeant Brogan of Company B, one of the best men we had.

On the next day Captain Hudson started to look for a better place for the wounded in Villers sur Fere, accompanied by the ever-faithful Jewett, the “Y” athletic instructor. He was standing in the door of the place he had selected when an enemy gas shell came over and a fragment of it hit him full in the chest, killing him instantly.

We buried him sadly by the cemetery wall where already too many of our men were lying in their last long sleep.

In the town also we buried many who were killed by shell fire as they advanced to go into action during the night of the 27th-28th. In this our Machine gunners were the greatest sufferers; almost a whole platoon was wiped out. A shell landed in the midst of them, creating havoc. The uninjured rushed boldly to succor their comrades, when another shell and still another, fell in the same spot, scattering death afresh. Sergeant Phil Brooks here gave up his life and Ray Nulty, J. R. Keller, H. Van Diezelski, Frank Carlin, G. Foster and C. G. Sahlquist.

Accompanying Lieutenant Connelly on his mission of the morning of the 28th was the Second Platoon of our Machine Gun Company under Lieutenant Carter, who was wounded during the action.[4] The Platoon was kept together by Sergeants Bruhn and Kerrigan, and Doherty, and afterwards went through the whole battle with our First Battalion.

While the first battalion was lying under the hill during the afternoon of the 28th they were very much harassed by enemy planes which came across flying low and shooting from their machine guns at the men on the hill and under the bank. Here Harry Martenson was killed and Hugh Heaney badly wounded and carried back by Sergeant Devine. Sergeant Frank Gardella thought it was time to try reprisals, so he set up his machine gun as an anti-aircraft weapon and began blazing away at fourteen planes which were above his head and flying low. He got a line on two planes which were flying one above the other, and by a lucky shot hit the pilot of the upper plane which crashed into the lower one and both came tumbling to earth not far from the river, their crews being killed.

When Company C was advancing towards Bois Colas they met opposition from enemy light machine guns some of which were operating from the tree tops. Lieutenant Bell’s platoon, Sergeants Stephens and Gardella, Corporals J. McBride, Paul Fay and Williams were given the task of dislodging them. They carried up their heavy guns on their backs, and without taking time to set them up, they made use of them as if they were automatic rifles, with great effect, killing or capturing the enemy.

From the time that Company C took possession of Bois Colas the Machine Gunners kept their pieces busy from their positions on the north edge of the woods, keeping down German fire from Seringes and around Meurcy Farm. Of their twelve guns, five were put out of action. In the later encounters Lieutenants Davis and Bell were wounded and Jack O’Leary, a famous fighting man, received a wound which afterwards caused his death.

In the front line, on August 1st, there was a comparative lull in the activity. Our artillery was still going strong, but the Germans held command of the air and used it to the full. They flew down to the rear of us and hovered over the tree-tops of the woods where our artillery was emplaced, dropping bombs on them and shooting at them from levels so low that the artillery men answered with fire from their pistols.

It was the sudden leap of the cat at the dog’s nose before she turns to flee. At four A. M., August 2nd, our patrols reported no resistance. Word was sent to the Ohios, but they found the enemy still in their path. However, under orders from General Menoher, the whole Division started forward and found that the main body of the enemy had gone. Our Infantry hastened on through the Foret de Nesles, keeping in touch with neighboring regiments left and right. Finally they encountered resistance near Moreuil en Dole, north of the forest. The 4th Division was coming up to relieve us but Colonel MacArthur wanted a last effort made by his Division. He called on one regiment, then on another, for a further advance. Their commanders said truthfully that the men were utterly fatigued and unable to go forward another step. “It’s up to you, McCoy,” said the Chief of Staff. Our Colonel called Captain Martin Meaney, now in command of what was left of the third battalion. “Captain Meaney, a battalion is wanted to go ahead and gain contact with the enemy; you may report on the condition of your men.” “My men are few and they are tired, sir, but they are willing to go anywhere they are ordered, and they will consider an order to advance as a compliment,” was the manly response. As the brave and gallant few swung jauntily to their position at the head of the Division, Colonel MacArthur ejaculated, “By God, McCoy, it takes the Irish when you want a hard thing done.” The battalion located the enemy and took up the fight with them, but already the 4th Division was coming up and the orders for relief were issued.

In that bloody week the Rainbow Division had met the 4th Prussian Guard Division, commanded by the Kaiser’s son, Prince Eitel Friedrich, the 201st German and 10th Landwehr and the 6th Bavarian Division, had driven them back 18 kilometers to the last ridge south of the Vesle at a cost in killed and wounded of 184 officers and 5,459 men.

Back came our decimated battalions along the way they had already traveled. They marched in wearied silence until they came to the slopes around Meurcy Farm. Then from end to end of the line came the sound of dry, suppressed sobs. They were marching among the bodies of their unburied dead. In the stress of battle there had been but little time to think of them—all minds had been turned on victory. But the men who lay there were dearer to them than kindred, dearer than life; and these strong warriors paid their bashful involuntary tribute to the ties of love and long regret that bind brave men to the memory of their departed comrades.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Wounded here were Harris, Fleckner, Lang, McDonald and later during the battle Sergeant Kerrigan, Hal Sang, Jack Corrigan, Bart Cox, William Patterson, James O’Connor, Maurice O’Keefe, H. McCallum, Frank S. Erard, Bob Holmes, J. J. Spillane and Tom Doherty.