The Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania, in the World War Part 14

At last, at four o'clock in the afternoon, there came a lull in the enemy fire and two more of the ambulances began their perilous race across the river, the engineers having just completed the rebuilding of the bridge. For the second time they just cheated a big sh.e.l.l, which landed on the bridge immediately after the second car had crossed, and the structure was put out of service beyond hope of quick repair.

Thereupon the ambulanciers remaining in the Fismette cellar calmly proceeded to carry the remaining wounded on litters down the hill through the German fire, under protection of a well-organized defense by our fighting men. They forded the river, holding the litters above their heads, while sh.e.l.ls threw up waterspouts and bullets pattered like hail all about them.

On the southern bank, ambulances stood out in the open, backed almost to the water's edge, their drivers smoking cigarettes and watching and calling advice to the men in the water. Thus the last of the wounded were taken from under the noses of the enemy.

Captain McGinnis and most of the enlisted men whose names have been mentioned were awarded Distinguished Service Crosses. Most of them had worked seventy-two hours and many had absolutely no rest for forty-eight hours. Ten of their thirteen ambulances were demolished.

In organizing a protective offense to cover the evacuation of the wounded, First Sergeant Thomas J. Cavanaugh, of Pittsburgh, a member of Company D, 111th Infantry, distinguished himself in such a manner as to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

With a small force of men, he captured a building in the outskirts of the village and organized it as a strong point. He then took a position himself at a street intersection where, by stepping around the corner of the buildings one way, he was protected from enemy snipers and machine gunners, and by turning the corner, he was open to the fire sweeping in gusts down the road the ambulance men had to cover. Cavanaugh, when an ambulance was ready to move, stepped into the open, like Ajax defying the lightning. If the Germans were not firing heavily for the moment, he whistled a signal to the ambulance men that it was safe to go ahead.

He was wounded by shrapnel, but refused to leave his post until he collapsed, an hour and a half after being struck. The next day, having had his wound treated, he insisted on resuming his position as a human target for the benefit of the ambulance men and their wounded.

Captain Edmund W. Lynch, of Chester, commanding Company B, 111th Infantry, who was killed a short time later, and Lieutenant Edward S.

Fitzgerald, of New York City, exposed themselves in the same manner and for the same self-sacrificing purpose at other important corners.

And the fight for possession of Fismette went forward ceaselessly. A daring and clever bit of work by a party of Pennsylvania machine gunners under Lieutenant Milford W. Fredenburg, of Ridgway, Pa., an officer of Company D, 112th Infantry, had a considerable influence on the final driving of the enemy from the town. The lieutenant led his gunners filtering through the German lines at night, like Indians, a man or two here, another there. They a.s.sembled beyond the town, took shelter in a wood and when the fighting was most furious the next day they were able to pour in a disconcerting fire on the rear of the German forces.

Lieutenant Rippey L. Shearer, of Harrisburg, with men of Company G, 112th Infantry, crossed the river in water up to their necks, in which the shorter men had either to swim or be supported by the larger ones.

They had the center of the advance and captured a building which had been used as a tannery and had been a German stronghold. It was a desperately brave, although costly, bit of work for which the Pennsylvanians were highly praised.

Captain Fred L. McCoy, Grove City, Pa., commanding Company M, 112th Infantry, held the left flank. He and his men fought their way down the river bank to where an old stone mansion, known as the Chateau Diable, had been a thorn in the side of the American attack. They stormed and captured the building, taking thirty machine guns, a large quant.i.ty of ammunition and many prisoners.

Captain Lucius M. Phelps, of Erie, Pa., commanding Company G, 112th, and Captain Harry F. Miller, of Meadville, Pa., commanding Company B, of the same regiment, led their companies in an advance east of the tannery until they were ensconced behind stout stone walls, from where they were able to turn their guns on the enemy stubbornly clinging to the northern fringe of the village.

The 103d Trench Mortar Battery, made up very largely of members of the old First City Troop of Philadelphia and representative of many of the socially prominent families of that city, entered its first general action. Under command of Captain Ralph W. Knowles, of Philadelphia, the battery advanced with the infantry, lugging their Stokes mortars across the river and up the hill. They set up their squat weapons and soon the deep-throated roars of the mortars hurling their immense bombs joined in the chorus that was beginning to sound the knell of German hopes of hanging onto any part of Fismette.

West of Fismette, the broad Rheims-Rouen highway became, in the course of these operations north of the Vesle, an objective of commanding importance to the Americans for the purpose of breaking up lateral communications along the German line. Captain Arthur L. Schlosser, of Buffalo, N. Y., later killed, and Captain Robert S. Caine, of Pittsburgh, who went to France as lieutenants of Company G, 111th Infantry, on their own initiative started a raid which developed into a successful attack and resulted in the capture of the highway where it crosses the Vesle.

Captain Schlosser, who was almost a giant in size, carried a rifle himself and, instead of having his men advance in company formation, led them filtering through the woods in Indian fas.h.i.+on. He captured two Maxim guns and killed the crews and he and Captain Caine and their men held their positions against counter-attacks by the remnants of three German regiments.

Not all the losses were confined to the attacking troops. The enemy artillery, continually sh.e.l.ling the back areas, took its sad toll of American life and limb. The 103d Engineers, who had been performing prodigious work in their own line, suffered the loss of their second in command, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank J. Duffy, of Scranton, Pa. As he stepped into a side car in front of headquarters on the evening of August 17th to make a tour of the lines, a huge sh.e.l.l exploded immediately behind, killing him and the cycle driver instantly.

Back on the hills south of Fismes, the Pennsylvania artillery all this time had been earning the right to rank in the Iron Division glory roll along with their doughboy comrades. At one time, just as a battery had geared up to move and the men already were astride their horses, a big sh.e.l.l dropped plump upon the lead team of one of the guns.

"Steady, men," called an officer, and the men sat their plunging, trembling horses as if on parade. It was an ideal time for a costly stampede, but the conduct of the artillerymen prevented this and won the highest praise of officers and men of other units who saw the occurrence.

Two men were killed and three severely wounded and two horses were blown to bits. The wheel driver trotted to a first aid station to get help for the wounded men, while the regiment went on. After delivering his message, the driver obtained a supply of powder and sh.e.l.ls and went on the gallop to the battery position to deliver the ammunition. Then he said to men about him:

"Now, if you fellows have all that stuff unloaded and one of you will help me down, I'll get you to tie a knot around this leg of mine."

Only then was it discovered that he had been attending to other wounded men and the ammunition needs of the battery with a bad gash in his own leg from a sh.e.l.l fragment.

Members of the headquarters companies of the artillery regiments maintained communications constantly, stringing telephone wires in the face of heavy enemy fire in almost impossible places. There was no thought of failing. When some men died in an attempt, others promptly stepped into the breach to "carry on."

Still the German guns from their hilltops poured down their galling fire upon the American positions. Still the snipers and machine gunners hung on in Fismette and still the crossing of the Vesle under bombardment was so hazardous that an attack in force was impracticable.

The fighting in the streets of the town swayed back and forth until August 28th. That day the Germans came down out of their hills in a roaring tide. They boiled into Fismette and drove the small force of Pennsylvanians back to the river, where an amazingly few men managed to hold a bridgehead on the northern bank, and the town once more was German territory.

Then our gunners went systematically to work to level the place, for the high command had lost all hope of taking it by infantry a.s.sault without an unworthy loss of brave men.

CHAPTER XV

A MARTIAL PANORAMA

But meanwhile great and portentous things had been happening elsewhere on the long battle line. Up in Flanders, the British troops, with American brigades fighting shoulder to shoulder with them, were driving the Germans eastward. Farther south, the French were hounding the fleeing Germans. And American forces around Soissons were pounding away in such a fas.h.i.+on as to make the positions along the Vesle untenable for their stubborn defenders.

The enlisted men knew little or nothing of this and even the junior officers were surprised when word came back from patrols on the north of the river on September 4th, that they met almost no opposition from the enemy. Even his artillery fire had fallen off to a little desultory sh.e.l.ling, so at once a general advance was ordered.

Roads in the rear instantly became alive with motor trucks, big guns, columns of men, wagon trains and all the countless activities of an army on the march. The sight of the main forces crossing the river was a wonderful one to the officers standing on the hills overlooking the scene, and one that they never will forget.

The long columns debouched from the wooded shelters, deployed into wide, thin lines and moved off down the slope into the narrow river valley.

Below them lay the villages and towns of the Vesle, pounded almost to dust by the thousands of sh.e.l.ls which had fallen upon them during the weeks the two armies contended for their possession. The men went down the hill exactly as they had done so often in war maneuvers and sham battles at training camps. Only an occasional burst of black smoke and a spouting geyser of earth and stones showed it was real warfare, although even that had been so well simulated in the training that, except that now and then a man or two dropped and either lay still or got up and limped slowly back up the hill, the whole thing might have been merely a drama of mimic warfare. Many of the officers who watched did, in fact, compare it with scenes they had witnessed in motion pictures.

Despite the occasional casualty, the line moved steadily forward. On reaching the river, there was little effort to converge at the hastily constructed bridges. Men who were close enough veered over to them, but the rest plunged into the water and either waded or swam across, according to the depth where they happened to be and the individual's ability to swim.

Once on the north side, they started up the long slope as imperturbably as they had come down the other side, although every man knew that when they reached the crest of the rise they would face the German machine gun fire from positions on the next ridge to the north.

Without faltering an instant, the thin lines topped the rise and disappeared from the watchers to the south, and the fight was on again.

The German machine gunners resisted and retired foot by foot, but the American advance was unfaltering. It had been freely predicted that the enemy would make a stand on the high plateau between the Vesle and the Aisne, but the pressure elsewhere on his line to the west and north precluded the possibility of this and he plunged on northward.

The 109th Infantry made its crossing of the Vesle about two and a half miles east of Fismes, the regiment's position on the south of the river having been at Magneux. Its next objective point was Muscourt. The Germans confronting it had not retired so precipitately as those at Fismette and the regiment fought its way across the river and on northward, losing its third commander in the action.

Colonel Samuel V. Ham, regular army officer, who had succeeded Colonel Coulter when he was wounded, led the firing line of the regiment across the river. He was so severely wounded that he was unable to move, but remained ten hours on the field looking after the welfare of his men. So conspicuous was his action that he was cited and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the official citation reading as follows:

"For extraordinary heroism in action near Magneux, France, September 6, 1918. By courageously leading his firing line in the advance across the Vesle River from Magneux toward Muscourt, Colonel Ham exemplified the greatest heroism and truest leaders.h.i.+p, instilling in his men confidence in their undertaking. Having been severely wounded and unable to move, he remained ten hours on the field of battle, directing the attack, and refused to leave or receive medical attention until his men had been cared for."

The Pennsylvania regiments came onto the high ground, from which the lowlands to the north were spread out before them like a panorama, and in the misty distance, fifteen miles away, they could descry the towers of the Cathedral at Laon. This was, in a sense, the Allied promised land. It was defiled and invaded France and, furthermore, Laon, since 1914 had been the pivot of the German line, the bastion upon which the great front made its turn from north and south to east and west.

The five miles of hill, plateau and valley lying between the Vesle and the Aisne were not crossed with impunity. It was on the Aisne plateau that another company of the 109th wrote its name high on the scroll of honor.

A small wood below the village of Villers-en-Prayeres obstructed the advance of the regiment. It had been strongly organized by the Germans and was fairly alive with Boche machine gunners and snipers. Company G, of the old First, was ordered to dispose of it. The orders were carried out in what the official communique of the next day referred to as a "small but brilliant operation." Considering the small extent of the action and the fact that it was but an incident of the whole battle, the fact that it was mentioned at all in the official reports speaks volumes for the men who carried it out.

The glory and distinction were won at a bitter cost. Company G, after the fight was over, ranked side by side with Companies L and M of the same regiment and B and C of the 110th for their splendid stand and heavy losses south of the Marne. There were 125 casualties in the company of 260 men. Included among them were Sergeant Frederick E.

Bauer, Sergeant Graham McConnell, Corporal Thomas S. B. Horn, Private Charles A. Knapp, all of Philadelphia, and Sergeant John H. Winthrop, D.

S. C., of Bryn Mawr, killed, and Lieutenant Harold A. Fahr and Sergeant Earl Prentzel, both of Willow Grove, Pa.; Corporal Theodore G. Smythe, Bugler Howard W. Munder, Privates Gus A. Faulkner, Charles Quenzer, Thomas Biddle, Robert C. Dilks, Frederick C. Glenn, Charles Lohmiller and Bernard Horan, all of Philadelphia, wounded.

Private Paul Helsel, of Doylestown, Pa., a member of the same company, came out of the battle with six bullet holes through his s.h.i.+rt, two through his breeches, the bayonet of his rifle shot away and a bullet embedded in the first aid packet carried on his hip, but without a scratch on his person.

The Americans were subjected at times to a heavy artillery fire, especially while crossing the plateau. For about two miles it was necessary for them to advance in the open on high ground, plainly visible to German observers. There was little cover, and both heavy and light artillery swept the zone, but with slight effect and without checking to any degree the forward movement.

The advance of the Americans over the plateau was effected without material loss because, instead of advancing in regular formations, they were filtered into and through the zone, never presenting a satisfactory target.

The German stand on the Vesle had enabled them to remove the bulk of the supplies they had acc.u.mulated there and what they could not remove they burned. Vast fires, sending up clouds of smoke in the distance, marked where ammunition dumps and other stocks of supplies were being destroyed that they might not fall into the hands of the Americans. Thus it was that the progress from the Vesle presented a different aspect from that between the Marne and the Vesle, where the way had been impeded in places by the unimaginable quant.i.ties of supplies of every conceivable kind the Hun had abandoned in his flight.