Class 1. 
 
 Book. 
 
 CciiyrigMW 
 
 . P/ 
 
 eOEXRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
Forgotten Fights 
 of the A. E. F. 
 
 BY 
 
 IRVING EDWIN PUGH 
 
 AND 
 WILLIAM F. THAYER 
 
 Seven Battlefront Maps 
 
 Boston 
 
 The Roxburgh Publishing Company 
 
 Inc. 
 
J\6io 
 
 ft 
 
 Copyrighted 1921 
 
 By IRVING EDWIN PUGH 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 ©CI.A624002 
 
 ^^(> X 
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 
 
 The preparation of any historical work is 
 fraught with many and great difficulties, at 
 best, and this work has proved itself excep- 
 tionally so. The greatest difficulty was, of 
 necessity, encountered in the bringing to- 
 gether of the material from official sources 
 which could be relied upon for the making 
 of the work absolutely authentic and trust- 
 worthy, and so it was that the majority of 
 the material and information which is em- 
 bodied in this work was gathered personally 
 by the authors, while in active service with the 
 American forces in France and Germany. 
 The outstanding points of the battles men- 
 tioned are absolutely accurate and a matter 
 of official record, and have been woven into 
 the fabric of the story by the interspersion 
 of personal details and impressions as to make 
 the whole readable as well as authentic. 
 
 In the preparation of this work, we have 
 of necessity, called in several others, who have 
 rendered us highly valuable services both in 
 the writing and preparation of the work for 
 the press, and it is to those persons that we 
 extend, herewith, our sincere thanks for their 
 part in the making of the series a success 
 thus far. 
 
 We find ourselves indebted to several for- 
 mer soldiers who rendered valuable aid in 
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 
 
 the gathering of the details ; to official sources 
 for operation reports of the divisions men- 
 tioned; to ''The Stars and Stripes" for 
 poems quoted; and more especially, to Miss 
 Elizabeth Mary Ellingham, who has given 
 untiringly of her time and experience in 
 the technical preparation and the correc- 
 tions of the structure of the original manu- 
 scripts, and to whom we feel especially in- 
 debted, as this work was both tedious and 
 arduous. 
 
 THE AUTHORS. 
 
DEDICATORY. 
 
 Throughout the preparation of this work, 
 I have felt myself under the constant in- 
 fluence of one who has never failed to give 
 me the unstinted aid and encouragement 
 without which it would have been well nigh 
 the impossible to attempt setting forth the 
 story of our operations overseas. The 
 writing of any historical work is very tedious 
 and exacting to say the least, much more so, 
 that of history so recent as that of 1918, 
 and it was only by the constant careful at- 
 tention and tender solicitude that the work 
 has reached its consummation in the present 
 volume. 
 
 This one has ever been present at my side 
 in the re-reading and corrections of the text; 
 the tedious and boresome duties of getting 
 the touch of the soldier into the tale of the 
 historian; the tramping again through the 
 forest wastes of Villers-Cotterets or the 
 storming of the Bellicourt tunnel; ever as- 
 sisting, just at the opportune moment with 
 some little touch of realism or pathos or the 
 description of some bit of French country- 
 side, which had lost its individuality in the 
 maze of history notes, (for she has likewise 
 been to La Patrie and has lent the artist 
 touch to the bare tale of the soldier-historian. 
 She it is who has been the inspiration and 
 
DEDICATORY. 
 
 guide through the otherwise boresome tangle 
 of official details and piles of communiques 
 and maps. 
 
 She is sitting at my side as I write these 
 words, and to my wife I dedicate the story 
 which she has helped me prepare. 
 
 Irving Edwin Pugh. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 I Cantlgny : America's First Chance. 
 
 II With the Second Division on the 
 
 Paris-Metz Highway. 
 
 III When the Yanks Came. 
 
 IV Beginning of the Great July Coun- 
 
 ter. 
 
 V The Second Division at Vierzy 
 
 and in the Foret de Villers- 
 Cotteret. 
 
 VI The "Yankee" Division Holds 
 
 the Pivot at Bouresches. 
 
 VII With Our Second Corps at the 
 
 Hindenburg Line. 
 
 VIII The Yankee Soldier. 
 
 IX To Our Dead! 
 
FORGOTTON FIGHTS OF 
 THE A. E. F. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The annals of the Great European War are 
 so replete with the tales of heroism of the 
 fighting men of the several Allied Nations 
 that there seems nothing left to add, although 
 the true story of how these several million 
 or more heroes died may, perhaps, never be 
 fully known, for each one of them died with 
 his story untold, and the same shell-burst 
 that snuffed out his life ended forever the 
 probability of the world, — to say nothing of 
 his comrades, — ever knowing just what im- 
 pelled him to the Great Adventure. 
 
 Every crater upon the shell-torn fields of 
 Flanders; every tree whose withered arms 
 moan in the winds that sweep across those 
 desolate wastes of Picardy; every muddy 
 stream and rivulet that winds between the 
 poplars and vineyards of Champagne; every 
 solitary cross that marks the final "Blighty" 
 of some unknown and unsung hero; — all 
 these things serve but as grim reminders of 
 the mighty conflict, and as the 
 
 "Footprints on the Sands of Time," 
 
 that point the way that the martyrs of 
 
10 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Humanity and Democracy have trod, torn 
 and bleeding, weary and worn, starving and 
 delirious. 
 
 These are only passing landmarks, as 
 it were, of the great epic of Freedom; the 
 milestones along the desolate and barren 
 way along which the Armies of Justice and 
 Liberty and Freedom have marched to 
 Victory; the second Calvary, upon which 
 the Prince of Peace, once more reviled and 
 scourged by his oppressors, has passed, — 
 to His Golgotha, to be sure, — but, beyond 
 the pain and anguish of the cross; beyond 
 the sting of the blows of the scourge; beyond 
 the darkness and gloom of the tomb, like 
 the Man of Sorrows, the Martyrs of Free- 
 dom have caught the vision of the Holy 
 City; have realized that their sacrifice will 
 be rewarded, and their anguish and pain 
 have not been suffered in vain. Just as the 
 Master, riding triumphantly into the Jeru- 
 salem of old, caught there the vision of 
 Gethsemane and dark shadow of Calvary, 
 just so have the heroes of Flanders and Pi- 
 cardy, of the Marne and of the Aisne, of 
 Saint Mihiel and of the Argonne caught the 
 vision of the Holy City where they shall be 
 once more united with those for whom they 
 died; shall pass in review before the King of 
 Kings and Lord of the Ages, — the Great 
 Commander, their White Comrade, and hear 
 Him say, ''Well done, enter into rest." 
 
 Such is the vision that we who have come 
 safely through the hell of the trenches and 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 11 
 
 have been spared to fulfill our mission in the 
 world of Peace, have caught as the star- 
 shells of the Boche burst in the midnight air, 
 and flooded the narrow trenches with their 
 effulgency; and as we emerge again from the 
 great maelstrom of fighting and death, we 
 feel the greatest blessing that a soldier can 
 feel, — the knowledge of a duty well done. 
 It has been a really wonderful Adventure 
 for us, and we hope only to prove ourselves 
 worthy of the brave laddies that we have left 
 sleeping on the distant shores of France, 
 where : 
 
 "In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, . 
 Between the crosses, row on row. 
 That mark our place, and in the sky 
 The larks, still bravely singing fly." 
 Their voices are calling to us, even now, 
 as we return to the land for which they died ; 
 to the land that shelters and protects those 
 they loved; to the land that gave them birth, 
 and like a mother cuddled them to her 
 bosom, that in her hour of direst need, they 
 might be strong and fit to take up her quarrel, 
 and to protect her; to the land for which 
 they so manfully went forth to die, and so 
 bravely laid down their lives upon the shell- 
 swept plains of Flanders and through the 
 trackless wastes of the Argonne. Their 
 voices call to us: 
 
 "If ye break faith with we who die. 
 We shall not sleep, tho* poppies grow 
 In Flanders Fields." 
 
12 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Many are the paeans of victory and the 
 shouts of the multitude of free voices that 
 are raised to acclaim the heroes and the 
 victors, as they come marching proudly 
 home, with their battle-honored banners 
 waving in the summer breezes of their native 
 land; hark to the loud acclamations of love 
 and joy as "those who waited" welcome 
 the returned boy-veterans of the greatest 
 war the world has ever seen! See the manly 
 pride and youthful fervor and enthusiasm 
 of the laddies, as they swing along down the 
 broad avenue to the martial music of the 
 bands. There are triumphal arches erected 
 all along the line of march, bearing witness 
 to the pride and love of the Nation for her 
 valiant sons; the papers are full of the praises 
 of the heroes of the fighting armies, which 
 have covered themselves with glory in the 
 great conflict. 
 
 And, to-day, friends, if you were to enter 
 the town of Coblenz on the Rhine, you 
 would be thrilled with pride as your eyes 
 fell upon the flash of color that fitfully 
 waves from the heights of castle-crowned 
 Ehrenbreitstein. Ehrenbreitstein the proud; 
 Ehrenbreitstein the haughty; Ehrenbreit- 
 stein the impregnable; Ehrenbreitstein 
 the symbolic crystallization of Prussia's 
 boasted security and brute strength; Ehren- 
 breitstein, the mightiest of all that "watch 
 on the Rhine!" It was indeed the embodi- 
 ment of all that the proud Germans could 
 boast and say to all the world: "Ehrenbreit- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 13 
 
 Stein shall stand forever, — as shall also our 
 mighty German Empire!" 
 
 But, to-day, in solemn pride and grandeur, 
 high up on the lofty sides of the rock-bound 
 shores of the Rhine; high above the highest 
 towers of the mighty fortress; flinging its 
 folds triumphantly and majestically over the 
 Rhineland valleys and vine-clad hillsides; 
 telling the world, in accents that cannot be 
 mistaken, that the days of monarchies are 
 indeed slipping as the sands of the seas, flies 
 the glorious folds of your flag and my flag. 
 And it is a diff"erent flag, to many of us, too, 
 for its shining stars and its field of blue are 
 drawn from the highest heavens, symboliz- 
 ing that our guidance is Divine, and that its 
 stars shall shine, in undiminished luster 
 until the stars in heaven fade and cease to 
 shine; its stripes of white are the symboliza- 
 tion of the purity and fidelity of our sacred 
 American womanhood, which so many of 
 our heroes have died to keep unsullied by 
 the lawless and ruthless march of the violators 
 of Belgium and France; and its red stripes, 
 are no longer red only, for they are dyed a 
 deeper crimson by the sacred life-blood of 
 seventy- thousands of our immortals, who 
 silently keep their watch in Flanders fields. 
 
 We cannot forget! We must not forget! 
 We will never forget that the German armies 
 stand defenseless before the supreme bar 
 of Justice, and that there is no one who will 
 besmirch his honor or good name in their 
 defense! Their hands are red with the blood 
 
14 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 of murdered and maimed and broken child- 
 hood of Belgium and France! Childish 
 hands, which they, in their mad greed for 
 power and their place in the sun, have cut 
 off, still cry aloud for vengeance! Woman- 
 hood, that most sacred of all estates, which 
 they have ruthlessly trampled in the mire 
 and filth of bestiality which only a Hun 
 could dare think of, cries aloud against its 
 oppressors. Ruined towns and peasant cots, 
 torn and bruised and crushed by the heel 
 of the invader, raise their black ruins to 
 heaven and pray that Heaven shall send the 
 grasses and flowers to cover the scars left 
 behind in the path of the vandals. No! 
 No! We shall NEVER forget that the Ger- 
 man nation is defenselessly guilty of these 
 and other crimes too vulgar to mention ; and 
 we who have witnessed their works and have 
 seen with our own eyes the great Hun ma- 
 chine at its worst, grinding out its grist of 
 death and destruction and suffering, shall 
 never forget what they have done! We have 
 not come through the fires of hell and the 
 surging of the mighty hosts locked in deadly 
 conflict, to put our flag on Ehrenbreitstein 
 for a few short hours of "tinselled triumph," 
 but to see to it, that, from this day forth, 
 NEVER shall the German nation be trusted 
 as she has been in the past! She has for- 
 feited every right to consideration among 
 the councils of the civilized nations of the 
 world; she has proved herself a wolf and a 
 roaring lion, running wild throughout the 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 15 
 
 earth ''seeking whom she may devour." 
 She has set up her standard as the murderer 
 of children, the despoiler of womanhood, the 
 scourge of all that is high and holy and pure 
 and good. She has broken her faith with 
 those who considered her their friend, and 
 has boasted that all agreements between 
 nations are but "scraps of paper" which she 
 shall destroy at her own will and pleasure, 
 in order that she may carry out her plan of 
 world dominion! NO! NEVER more will 
 Germany stand within the circle of civilized 
 nations! We cannot forget! We must not 
 forget! We WILL not forget! 
 
 "Between its crag-ribbed summits 
 And ruined castles gray, 
 Between its clambering vineyards 
 And orchards white with May, 
 The rushing Rhine rolls seaward, 
 And hard by Coblenz town, 
 A flag on Ehrenbreitstein 
 Upon that tide looks down. 
 
 We have not brought that banner 
 
 Thro' storms of gas and lead. 
 
 Thro' your shell-swept leagues of trenches 
 
 That are mounded with our dead 
 
 For a tinsel hour of triumph 
 
 Above the ancient Rhine, 
 
 But to leave you for the future 
 
 A warning and a sign. 
 
16 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 You may bask you in your legends 
 
 Of Niebelungen lore; 
 
 Of the mighty strokes of Siegfried 
 
 And the hammer strokes of Thor: 
 
 But drink no more the potion 
 
 Of gods and super-men, 
 
 Or the flag on Ehrenbreitstein 
 
 Will cross the seas again." 
 
 Irving Edwin Pugh 
 William F. Thayer 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 17 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 America's First Chance: The Fight at 
 Cantigny. 
 
 "It is possible that in those ancient years 
 when Rome was crumbling before the at- 
 tacks of the barbarians from beyond the 
 Rhine, or when western Gaul was trembling 
 beneath the armies of Attila, the civilized 
 world of the time may have felt itself as 
 gravely threatened with destruction as did 
 modern civilization during the months of 
 April, May and June, 1918, when once again 
 the Huns, as always through the ages, the 
 assailants of the higher types of human devel- 
 opment, were making their supreme effort to 
 crush the armies of the Allies upon the soil 
 of France. But never in past eras, certainly, 
 was the stake involved for humanity so 
 vast, so world-embracing, and never did the 
 outcome of a supreme struggle seem to hang 
 more perilously in the balance." 
 
 So has written a historian of the recent 
 war, and surely no more truly has anyone 
 ever before written! 
 
 Things were hanging in the balance during 
 those three fateful months of 1918, for the 
 German Army on the Western Front, now 
 almost twice its former size, due to rein- 
 forcement from the collapsed Russian front; 
 its troops armed and trained to perfection, 
 
18 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 and animated by the assurance of speedy and 
 glorious success, opposing the armies of 
 France and England, "doggedly determined 
 still, but sorely worn and tried through nearly 
 four years of ceaseless battle and cruelly 
 battered by the plunges of the enemy in his 
 spring offensive." 
 
 The gravity of the crisis was startingly 
 apparent — something must be done, and 
 that quickly! There was but one factor, 
 which, although there was an element of 
 uncertainty, might serve to throw the scales 
 in favor of the Allies, and that factor was as 
 yet wholly untried. 
 
 The enemy was driving a wedge between 
 the British and French armies, and were 
 attempting to smash their way through to 
 the Channel ports, striking through the lines 
 just west of Amiens, as well as another 
 operation against the British in the vicinity 
 of Kemmel Hill, in Belgium. The enemy 
 smash was completely overrunning all weight 
 of resistance which the war-worn Allies 
 could throw in in their vain effort to stem the 
 tide of invasion. Within eight short days 
 after launching their mighty attack, the 
 enemy had completely enveloped the Somme 
 battle-fields, and had smashed through the 
 lines of the Allied armies for a gain of about 
 fifty or more kilometers. It seemed as if the 
 fall of Amiens was imminent, and, with that 
 city, the railway facilities centered there. 
 Then, too, the gigantic proportions of the 
 enemy offensive was tearing great gaping 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 19 
 
 holes in the ranks of the Allied reserves, and 
 the battle that was fast developing gave 
 promise of soon placing the Allied armies 
 in a very grave position. Accordingly, the 
 Allies turned to America. 
 
 The advancing hordes of the enemy were 
 everywhere victorious. In numbers of fight- 
 ing men, guns, experience and morale, they 
 had the edge on the Allies. Their forces had 
 been constantly assembling in the Western 
 theatre for the great attack that should end 
 the war before America could bring her power 
 and fresh reserves of men to bear upon their 
 blows. Germany's pick of men, coupled 
 with a choice selection of her best bets in 
 generalship, and the whole machine backed 
 with an experience extending over more than 
 three years of such warfare, had been as- 
 sembled for one last supreme spurt for the 
 goal. 
 
 The enemy's initial blow had fallen power- 
 lu^^ the point of junction of the French 
 and British forces, and, somewhat late in the 
 great struggle that had torn Europe to shreds 
 for oyer three years, the Allies saw clearly, 
 and for the first time, that there must be 
 built up a more co-ordinate working of their 
 armies if they should hope to gain the victory. 
 The gravity of this situation resulted in 
 a conference being called at Abbeville, on 
 May 2, 1918, and, after much discussion, 
 Marshal Foch was chosen as Allied Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, the terms of this conference 
 being stated as follows: 
 
20 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 "General Foch is charged by the British, 
 French and American Governments with the 
 co-ordination of the action of the Allied ar- 
 mies on the western front; to this end there 
 is conferred on him all the powers necessary 
 for its effective realization. To the same end 
 the British, French and American Govern- 
 ments confide in General Foch the strategic 
 direction of military operations. 
 
 "The Commander-in-Chief of the British, 
 French and American armies will exercise 
 to the fullest extent the tactical direction 
 of their armies. Each Commander-in-Chief 
 will have the right to appeal to his Govern- 
 ment, if in his opinion his army is placed in 
 danger by the instructions received from 
 General Foch. 
 
 (Signed) G. Clemenceau 
 
 Petain 
 F. Foch 
 Lloyd George 
 D. Haig, F. M. 
 Henry Wilson 
 Tasker H. Bliss 
 John J. Pershing." 
 
 There were, at the time of the Great Ger- 
 man Offensive of March 21st, 1918, in France, 
 approximately 300,000 American troops, of 
 which number, only a force of about four 
 combat divisions could be available in the 
 crisis. These four were: the 1st and 2nd, 
 who were then in line, and the 26th and 42nd, 
 who had just recently finished their first 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 21 
 
 month's trench training. As a necessary part 
 of their training in the trenches, some of 
 these divisions had taken part in local com- 
 bats, — the most notable being at Seicheprey, 
 on April 20th, by the 26th Division,— but 
 as yet, not one of them had been in battle 
 as an integral fighting unit. 
 
 Accordingly, the 26th and 42nd Divisions 
 at once took over quiet sectors to release 
 veteran divisions for the great battle; the 
 26th relieving the 1st Division, which was 
 ordered to the sector northwest of Paris, 
 to take up reserve positions; the 42nd re- 
 lieving two French divisions from their quiet 
 sectors in Lorraine. 
 
 On April 25th, 1918, the 1st American 
 Division received orders to relieve two French 
 divisions before the town of Cantigny, lying 
 in a sector, slightly northwest of Montdidier 
 and about twenty-five kilometers southeast 
 of Amiens, — in other words, at the very 
 apex of the gigantic enemy wedge, driven 
 there by their March Offensive, nearly 
 severing the Allied lines. Amiens was still in 
 danger, and there could be but one question 
 uppermost in the minds of all of the Allied 
 forces,— could the Americans hold? If they 
 did not, all was lost; if they did, as the Allies 
 firmly believed they would, then the dawn of 
 the day of glory had begun to break. 
 
 Immediately upon entering the sector 
 fronting Cantigny, the 1st Division was sub- 
 jected to more intense defensive operations 
 and raids than they had ever yet experienced. 
 
22 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Artillery fire was thrown upon them in deluges, 
 night and day, while the enemy maintained 
 frequent and annoying raiding tactics. But 
 the Yankee doughboys came back, with all 
 the vim and vigor and tenacity of their race, 
 and it was not long until they had recognized 
 the presence in their front of the 271st and 
 272nd Regiments of German infantry, with 
 average strengths per company of about 
 150 men, — some of the best troops of the 
 enemy forces at this time. 
 
 It soon developed that to hold the sector 
 at this point would not suffice, for the strongly 
 fortified and well-organized town of Cantigny, 
 standing on rising ground ahead of the 1st 
 Division, was affording the enemy admirable 
 observation points which overlooked the 
 American lines and rear areas. Further- 
 more, it presented a highly favorable posi- 
 tion from which the enemy might advance in 
 any further assaults he might send forward. 
 
 Cantigny faced the Yanks, out there across 
 No Man's Land, and, in order to make the 
 Allied positions safe and to afford a favorable 
 *'jumping-off" place for a possible Allied 
 counter-offensive, should the chance come, 
 Cantigny must be taken. Accordingly, prep- 
 arations were begun at once. 
 
 For this attack, the 28th Infantry was 
 chosen, with the 26th Infantry furnishing 
 one battalion for the support, and a number 
 of French tanks and flame-projectors. 
 
 Officially, the preparations for this opera- 
 tion are stated as follows: "A section of 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 23 
 
 terrain behind the American lines very sim- 
 ilar in natural features to that occupied 
 by Cantigny and its defenses, was selected 
 for maneuvering, and trenches in replica of 
 the enemy trenches were dug upon it. Sand 
 tables showing the topography, woods, lines 
 of change of the barrage, objectives, strong 
 points, and all houses in Cantigny which 
 might be expected to be organized as machine 
 gun nests were prepared and carefully 
 studied. Exact and detailed orders were 
 prepared by the staff and the artillery ar- 
 ranged, accurately, time tables for the pre- 
 liminary bombardment and the rolling bar- 
 rage." 
 
 So much for the preliminary preparation 
 for the attack. 
 
 And then came the night of May 27th- 
 28th; and morning saw the enemy going 
 over the top along the Chemin des Dames, 
 in what was later destined to prove itself 
 the last of their great offensives, and which 
 carried their lines down to the Marne at 
 Chateau-Thierry and threatened Paris with 
 imminent attack. 
 
 Zero hour for the Cantigny attack came on 
 the morning of May 28th, at the usual time, — 
 5.30, just as the first faint streaks of coming 
 day lighted up the flaming front lines. The 
 attacking units were accompanied by a dozen 
 French tanks and the flame-throwers were 
 in position, the flying units were ready for 
 their part in the observation, and the en- 
 gineers were likewise ready for their pioneer 
 
24 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 work. Furthermore, approximately 250 
 pieces of artillery (75 mm to 280 mm) were 
 ready to open the show at the appointed 
 second. 
 
 The night was calm and starlit, and 
 promptly at the zero hour, the artillery 
 barrage began its work with a roar, and a 
 hail of missiles crashed down upon Cantigny. 
 Great, jagged, painful, and gaping holes 
 began to appear in its walls and roofs, and 
 its buildings flew into jagged splinters, and 
 clouds of flying brick and stone-dust. This 
 terrific fire paralyzed the enemy, and when, 
 at half-past six, the fire ceased as drum-fire, 
 and became the rolling barrage, for the in- 
 fantry attack, advancing at the rate of 100 
 meters every two minutes, with the infantry 
 following at the distance of fifty meters 
 behind the barrage, the enemy was so be- 
 wildered that he could put up but compara- 
 tively little resistance. 
 
 "Mastered by the bayonets of the Ameri- 
 can infantry and terrified by the tanks and 
 flame-throwers, the enemy surrendered in 
 clusters, those who attempted to fight being 
 shot down or taken, as the rush of assaulting 
 troops mopped up the town and its covering 
 trenches." That is the way one of those who 
 was upon the ground at the time put the 
 story of the fight. 
 
 Shortly after the launching of the attack 
 the objective line beyond Cantigny was 
 reached and this with only slight losses. 
 It then, of course, became necessary to con- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 25 
 
 solidate and hold the gains, against severe 
 enemy counter-battery fire, which was be- 
 ginning to fall upon our newly-won positions, 
 in a devastating and withering barrage. It 
 also developed that the enemy would at- 
 tempt a counter-attack at once, and in order 
 to hold the positions it was necessary to se- 
 cure them at once, this work being accom- 
 plished by connecting a series of shell-holes 
 by a system of shallow trenches. These 
 systems were to be defended by the use of 
 the Chauchat automatic rifles. This is the 
 method of consolidation which was most 
 generally employed during the series of 
 brilliant American operations which so ma- 
 terially aided the Allied progress, during 
 these critical months of midsummer, 1918. 
 
 Wire entanglements were constucted by 
 the men of the engineer corps, under a gall- 
 ing and withering artillery fire and a con- 
 stant machine gun barrage, while the third 
 wave of the assault was employed in the 
 construction of several strong points in the 
 immediate rear of the front line, one of these 
 points being in the edge of the woods east of 
 the town of Cantigny, another in the little 
 patch of woodland northeast of the town, 
 and one in the cemetery north of the town. 
 
 Having completed these hasty preliminary 
 works, the Yankee doughboys awaited the 
 coming enemy counter, undergoing, for two 
 hours, the unabated intensity of the enem}^ 
 artillery fire, which was responsible for a 
 large number of our casualties, and which was 
 
26 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 responded to by our own artillery as well as 
 that of the French batteries which had been 
 assigned to our attacking troops. 
 
 Naturally, the enemy was supremely con- 
 fident that they could retake the lost po- 
 sitions from the ''green" American troops, 
 and, about two hours after the town had been 
 taken from them, they attacked from the 
 reserve trenches in the vicinity of Lalval 
 Wood, covered by a carefully checked and 
 prepared barrage. This attack was launched 
 against the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 
 28th Infantry. 
 
 One of the lessons which the enemy seemed 
 never to have really learned was that they 
 usually followed their barrage at too great 
 a distance, — usually about two hundred 
 meters. Our custom was to follow up the 
 barrage at a distance of from fifty to one 
 hundred meters, otherwise the artillery fire 
 would have passed over the line to be at- 
 tacked and, if followed at a distance of such 
 magnitude as that employed by the enemy, 
 would have given the infantry a chance to 
 get reorganized and waiting for the attack- 
 ing waves to come upon them. Our tactical 
 employment of the barrage, in synchroniza- 
 tion with the infantry attacks, was to follow 
 the barrage at such short distance as to throw 
 the bayonets into the enemy before they could 
 have even partially recovered from the 
 effects of the shell-fire, as they would then 
 present a disorganized and confused mass 
 rather than efficient fighting units. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 27 
 
 Accordingly, the Yankee doughboys waited 
 until the enemy waves were scarcely a hun- 
 dred yards from them and then a burst of 
 flame swept down the line, which sent the 
 enemy reeling backwards towards Frame- 
 court Wood, leaving at least 500 killed and 
 wounded upon the ground. 
 
 This was the first of six enemy counter- 
 attacks that came upon our lines, within 
 forty-eight hours, each successive attack being 
 more desperate than the preceding, and the 
 enemy became more and more chagrined 
 at their inability to retake the lost positions. 
 
 One military critic puts the situation in 
 this manner: '* It was not only that they were 
 of value to him in themselves ; the accumulat- 
 ing evidence of the dash and doggedness of 
 the American troops as they continued to 
 maintain themselves triumphantly against 
 the utmost efforts that their adversaries 
 could make was giving the lie so plainly to 
 the German thesis that the American troops 
 were no good and never could be made good ; 
 that it was impossible for the American 
 effort ever to become a decisive factor in the 
 war, that the enemy dared not let them re- 
 tain their advantage. If they did retain it, 
 the news was sure to leak out to the German 
 army and people and to strike a chill of 
 terror and foreboding to their hearts, as 
 they thought of the millions of other equally 
 sturdy Americans who were on their way to 
 France, in fact or potentiality." 
 
28 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 This was the reason that the enemy con- 
 tinued to hurl a devastating deluge of shell- 
 fire and gas into the crumbling ruins of the 
 town, and throw forward the best of their 
 troops in a vain effort to crush the thin but 
 stubborn American line. But, in these same 
 thinly held positions at Cantigny, they en- 
 countered the same strains of patriotic blood 
 and determination never to yield, that had 
 flowed through the veins of the ancestors 
 of the defenders of that thin line, — the blood 
 of the sons of those who had beaten back the 
 British at Concord and Lexington, — the 
 blood of men who *'had come three thousand 
 miles across the sea to fight for human 
 freedom and their own outraged rights, 
 upon a foreign soil, and they now stood 
 firmly to their task." 
 
 Finally, the enemy attacks were relaxed, 
 after they had suffered the loss of nearly one 
 thousand killed, half that number wounded 
 and two hundred or more prisoners, together 
 with several pieces of heavy and light ar- 
 tillery and many machine guns, rifles and 
 munitions. Now it was that, seeing no 
 sacrifice, however bloody, could ever re- 
 cover their lost positions; that the moral 
 effect of the fight must be balanced else- 
 where, and that American blood had come 
 at last to tip the scales in favor of the forces 
 of Right and Justice and Liberty, they with- 
 drew and settled down to their new positions. 
 
 Here, also, the men of the 1st Division, 
 held to their lines until relieved by French 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 29 
 
 troops during the night of July 8th-9th, 
 when they received their well-deserved rest, 
 short though it was, before they moved 
 down to win new laurels for themselves on 
 the fields of the Marne salient, southeast 
 of Soissons. 
 
 "At Cantigny," says one military critic, 
 "the^ 1st Division had taught the world 
 the significance of the lesson that the Amer- 
 ican soldier was fully equal to the soldier of 
 any other nation on the field of battle. Who 
 can estimate the extent of the subtle in- 
 fluence which this proof exerted upon the 
 gigantic armies locked in battle along the 
 Western front, heartening the warriors of 
 the Allies, dismaying those of the Central 
 Powers, as they struggled literally for the 
 mastery of the v/orld upon the fields of the 
 Marne and Picardy and Flanders, through 
 the weeks of June and July, 1918, — perhaps 
 the most momentous weeks in all history." 
 
 Small wonder, is it not, that we men of 
 the A. E. F., on meeting mud-bedraggled 
 buddies, slowly and wearily tramping along 
 the ''long, long trail" in the Argonne, and 
 hailing them with the inevitable question 
 of the fighting man: "What outfit, buddy?" 
 and upon receiving, in reply: "First Division," 
 could simply gasp out, "Oh!" and plod 
 along on our weary way to the lines ! 
 
30 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 With the vSecond Division on the Paris- 
 Metz Highway. 
 
 When the German Armies launched their 
 great Aisne Offensive, on May 27th, 1918, 
 the Allies found themselves as gravely- 
 threatened here as they had been in Picardy, 
 in March. 
 
 The German Army, between Reims and 
 Coucy-le-Chateau, at this time was able to 
 inflict some of the greatest surprises, if not 
 the greatest surprise of their third great of- 
 fensive of 1918. They were able to do this 
 on account of their rapid concentration of 
 their forces which they had brought into 
 this sector. 
 
 The Seventh German Army, under the 
 command of General von Boehn, and which 
 was now operating along the plateau of the 
 Chemin des Dames in the direction of 
 Soissons and to the east and south of that 
 city, and, in conjunction with the First 
 German Army, under General F. von Below, 
 operating to the east of the Seventh Army, 
 with its left attacking Reims, had broken 
 the Allied lines, and were advancing swiftly 
 southward, driving backward the weary 
 and inferior forces of the French and British, 
 already worn out by their severe fighting 
 in Picardy and Flanders. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 31 
 
 Little wonder, then, that the face of the 
 entire situation at this time looked exceed- 
 ingly black and gloomy for the Allies. The 
 enemy waves were forever advancing, toward 
 the Marne, which was the coveted prize 
 of their efforts, the attacking forces being 
 constantly replenished by fresh troops from 
 the Rhenish depots. To stop, or at least 
 to check, these advances, the allied forces 
 sent forward many frantic and heroic at- 
 tacks, — all of them in vain, — for their forces 
 were depleted and nearly exhausted. 
 
 Then came the later days of May, and the 
 gray hosts were overrunning Soissons and 
 Fere-en-Tardenois, and leaving the already 
 devastated city of Reims, — "la Grande 
 Blessee," as the good French peasants call 
 it, — in a pocketed salient which was becoming 
 daily more and more difficult for the allied 
 troops to hold. And, furthermore, by the 
 greatly increasing and constantly main- 
 tained pressure of the enemy masses, the 
 wedge which they had driven into the allied 
 lines was bulging dangerously in the direction 
 of the French capital. This bulge was more 
 apparent in the open and level country be- 
 tween the Ourcq and Marne rivers. 
 
 The allied forces threw every available 
 reserve against the advancing masses of 
 Prussian infantry, and succeeded in slacken- 
 ing the momentum of the enemy machine. 
 Nevertheless, the enemy still possessed the 
 decided advantage of having the initiative 
 in their hands, and could therefore select 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. F. F. 33 
 
 almost any point, from which, using this 
 advantage, they could drive another smaller 
 wedge into the allied lines. The most likely 
 place for such an attempt would therefore 
 be at a point between Soissons and Chateau- 
 Thierry, for it was at this face of the salient 
 that they would then create a western face 
 for their salient. 
 
 For the third time in a few short weeks, 
 the French people saw their enemy succeed 
 in driving backward their worn and weary 
 poilus; they knew that the situation was one 
 of extreme gravity; they knew that the hosts 
 of the enemy must be stopped now, or all 
 would be lost; but they set their teeth and 
 refused to yield an inch more of their precious 
 French soil to the desecrating feet of the 
 invader! How sublime and heroic was the 
 courage and the self-forgetting resolution 
 of the French people in such dark days as 
 those that preceded the battle of Chateau- 
 Thierry ! 
 
 The problem was very simple, on its face, 
 for the allied command. They must halt 
 the enemy attacks actually under way, and, 
 at the same time, hold enough reserves at 
 hand to meet attacks elsewhere. In doing 
 this they must employ only just so much of 
 their available strength as was necessary, 
 keeping the remainder always well at hand 
 for shifting to other points to meet the enemy 
 attacks which might develop elsewhere. 
 
 Such was the task that confronted Marshal 
 Foch during the dark days that came before 
 
34 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 the ever-memorable fighting of midsummer, 
 1918, and the fact that the forces available 
 for him to accomplish this feat, were wholly 
 inadequate, only enhances the brilliancy of 
 the success with which he met the crisis. 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief of the American 
 Forces in France, General Pershing, had 
 said: "All that we have is yours," at the 
 time of the great German offensive of March 
 21st. Therefore, "with faith in the valor 
 of the Americans, Marshal Foch ordered 
 them to a place of the greatest danger, and 
 therefore of the greatest honor, — to the 
 banks of the Marne near Chateau-Thierry 
 and to the great Paris-Metz Highway, where 
 it crosses rolling hills to the northwest of 
 Chateau-Thierry, there to throw themselves 
 across the apex of the German invasion and 
 bar the road to Paris." 
 
 Accordingly, the 2nd American Division, 
 under General Omar Bundy, was ordered 
 from its area, near Chaumont-en-Vexin, 
 northwest of Paris, to the vicinity of Chateau- 
 Thierry. They entrained at once, on May 
 30th, and moved to Montreiul-aux-Lions, 
 establishing a divisional P. C. there. This 
 is a little town on the Paris-Metz Highway, 
 about ten kilometers west of Chateau-Thierry 
 and on the main line of enemy advance. 
 
 As they advanced, the news from the front 
 became steadily darker. The enemy was 
 advancing always, and although the valiant 
 French poilus were fighting bravely and 
 heroically, they were greatly outnumbered 
 
I'5 f .? .^ ^ 
 
 L r* P J/) <, f a .2 
 
 Li! ^ " c • •; « 
 
 ~ p < fJ <r ^ 'i 
 
 E 
 
 
 ^^ d)^ u: ^ '^ * 
 
 
 
 III 
 if * 
 
 I- d p 
 
 3o 
 
 z 2 
 
36 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 and exhausted by their long fighting and 
 marching. The enemy was pushing forward 
 steadily, — so steadily in fact, that it would 
 become necessary for the Americans to take 
 up and establish a defensive position at once. 
 
 Accordingly, this was done, with the 9th 
 Infantry in line between Bonneil (near the 
 Marne, southwest of Chateau-Thierry) and 
 Le Thiolet, which was on the Paris-Metz 
 road; the 6th Marines, extending from Le 
 Thiolet to Lucy-le-Bocage; and the 23rd 
 Infantry, which was operating temporarily 
 under command of the 43rd French Division, 
 continued the line to the Bois de Veuilly. 
 
 Looking northeast from these positions, 
 one's vision encounters a series of crests and 
 slopes of a low ridge of hills, for the most 
 part rather heavily wooded. Further along, 
 the silvery thread of the little creek, — the 
 Ru Gobert, so soon to become a part of 
 America's great history, forever, — ran wind- 
 ingly, between the green and brown of its 
 banks, through its valley, turning, serpent- 
 like, in and out between the little scattered 
 villages of Belleau, Torcy, Bussiares, and 
 Bouresches. Still further on, one encountered 
 the more steeply rising slopes of the opposite 
 side of this valley, where the enemy lines 
 had been established already, with his ar- 
 tillery sweeping the positions which the 
 Yanks had but recently taken over. 
 
 After the Americans had organized their 
 defensive lines, the French were to fall back 
 through them, from their own indefensible 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 37 
 
 and only temporary positions. This was the 
 cause of much unjust criticism by people 
 who have claimed to know that our valiant 
 allies, the French poilus, had been in full 
 retreat and that the Americans, advancing 
 bravely to meet the enemy, had pushed 
 through their disorganized ranks and stopped 
 the Boche in a characteristic dashing Yankee 
 manner. Such was not the case, and the 
 War Department at Washington can furnish 
 any careful investigator with the truth of 
 the whole matter. 
 
 The falling back of the French at the 
 Paris-Metz road was just as much a planned 
 part of the operation as was the formation 
 of the defensive line by the men of the 2nd 
 American Division. 
 
 Let us try to play fair with the brave men 
 who fought with our noble allies, for they, 
 the poilus of France, had already won the 
 battle before our men got there, for they had 
 held the Boche during the highly critical 
 time that the Americans were organizing the 
 defensive positions where the enemy advance 
 was to be stopped. 
 
 Friends, do not be prone to underestimate 
 the aid which our valiant allies of all nation- 
 alities gave us, for we must remember that 
 we were fresh, while they had been worn out 
 by four years of fighting before we ever 
 came into it at all ; they had lost whole families 
 and had had their towns in scores wiped 
 from the face of the earth by the devastating 
 hand of war; our homes were safe and far 
 
38 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 from the destructive hand of the enemy ; and 
 for every American grave upon the soil of 
 France, there are a thousand French and 
 English graves, beside those of the heroic 
 Belgians. They were fighting and suffering 
 and dying, while we were trying to find out 
 whether or not we ought to fight, and whether 
 or not we should stay out of it, and take the 
 position of the passive neutral. Ask the 
 men who fought beside him what they think 
 of the poilu of France, and they will tell you 
 that he was just as good and, perhaps, a 
 lot better than they were. If the fighters 
 think well of them, why not those who 
 stayed at home? 
 
 Shall we ever forget the blue-clad poilus 
 of France? Funny fellows, they were, to 
 many of us, with their queer little caps, 
 tilted gayly on one side of their heads, and 
 their war-worn, and rain-faded horizon-blue 
 uniforms. And what a multitude of little 
 "musettes," — every last one of them, bulg- 
 ing like an Arabian water-skin, — filled with 
 the little trinkets they loved so well, and 
 with their rations for the long weary marches, 
 or vigils of trench-life. And, over all, was 
 slung his rifle, nearly as long as himself, — 
 but carried almost tenderly, it seemed, as 
 one would carry a child one loved! 
 
 It seemed to many of us that these sturdy 
 souls of France were made rather for love 
 and laughter, — for the associations of the 
 tiny gardens where red wine and white wine 
 of the southern vintage was wont to flow, 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 39 
 
 and where men were wont to gather, of an 
 evening, and pass the gossip of the day over 
 the flowing glasses. One could almost pic- 
 ture them, sitting there, in the reddening 
 sunlight of southern France or in Languedoc, 
 or Burgundy, sipping their wines, while the 
 maidens danced gayly in the open space 
 between the tables; not born for the stern 
 and awful realities of war, where the rough 
 and weary road stretches red and lone and 
 long, and desolate. But they surely trod 
 its JDlighted and broken pathway, with a 
 singing heart, — bravely and gayly! ever 
 dismissing the pain and sorrow and pathos 
 of it all with their heroic little: "C'est la 
 guerre!" and a shrug of their shoulders. 
 
 We have seen them, treading the pathway 
 down into the Valley of the Shadows, — 
 worn and weary, and hungry, — racked and 
 worn by the long days and nights in the 
 lines, — yet forever smiling, that heroic and 
 almost sublime smile, which it seemed, 
 nothing under heaven could wipe away! 
 Tender as women, always, when the little 
 children came wonderingly to look at their 
 sturdy forms, or glance over their rifles and 
 ask them for: "Un cigarette, s'il vous plait, 
 M'sieur." And yet, leaping with a snarl of 
 rage and anger, upon the enemy, with his 
 long, slender "Rosalie" at their throats! 
 
 Such is but a poor attempt to portray the 
 poilu. 
 
 Returning once again to the day of June 
 3rd, 1918, we find that the enemy was al- 
 
40 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 ready sounding out the front that was in- 
 terposed across his advance to the Paris- 
 Metz road, and was finding it solid. But he 
 only put off his attacks until the next day, 
 when he attempted to dislodge both the 2nd 
 American and 43rd French Divisions, by 
 launching an attack against the line from 
 Montcourt, near the Marne, to Chezy-en- 
 Orxois, about five kilometers northwest of 
 the Bois de Veuilly. But his attacks were 
 everywhere checked, due to the arrival of 
 the other units of the 2nd Division, — the 
 5th Marines and a part of the 2nd Field 
 Artillery Brigade, which had been rein- 
 forced by six groupments of French field 
 artillery. 
 
 The enemy lines had already been stopped 
 in the valley of the Ru Gobert, opposite the 
 Americans, and the same evening, the French 
 outposts retired through the American lines, 
 thus completing the movement of taking 
 over the sector. 
 
 About dusk, on June 4th, the enemy 
 launched a concerted attack on Veuilly-la- 
 Poterie, which was at the junction of the 2nd 
 American and the 43rd French Divisions. 
 This attack was repulsed to the north of the 
 village, and, later on, a renewal of the attack 
 suffered the same fate, with losses of about 
 two hundred, although they gained a slight 
 advantage on Hill 123, which, however, 
 they lost to the French on the following day. 
 
 Our artillery very effectively broke up an 
 enemy attack which was launched against 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 41 
 
 Hill 142, just south of Bussiares, on June 
 5th. 
 
 The American lines were everywhere hold- 
 ing tenaciously, although the fighting in this 
 vicinity had been violent and severe in the 
 extreme. For this reason, if no other, the 
 force of the enemy attacks may be said to 
 have reached their culmination on the night 
 of the 5th of June, and thus ended for all 
 time the tactical importance of the enemy 
 drive for Paris, just as the repulse further 
 eastward had stopped their advance through 
 the bulge of Chateau-Thierry. 
 
 Here, having been terribly worn down and 
 depleted by its harrowing fighting, the 43rd 
 French Division was relieved by the 167th 
 French Division, which took its positions on 
 the left of the 2nd American Division, while 
 the 164th French was likewise relieved by 
 the 4th French Cavalry Division, on the 
 right. 
 
 Then, too, the 2nd American Division was 
 realligned, and now presented the following 
 order of battle, from right to left; 9th In- 
 fantry, 23rd Infantry, of the 3rd Infantry 
 Brigade; the 6th Marines and 5th Marines 
 of the 4th Infantry Brigade, or, as it was later 
 called, the famous "Marine Brigade." Like- 
 wise, the front of the 2nd Division was 
 strengthened by drawing in its left flank, 
 from the Bois de Veuilly to the road between 
 Bussiares and Champillon. 
 
 Deluge after deluge of artillery fire was 
 thrown upon our newly taken positions by 
 
42 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 the enemy artillery, which was now employing 
 high explosive and yperite shells. This fire 
 greatly endangered the main artery of the 
 American system of supply, viz., the road to 
 la Ferte-sous-Jouarre. 
 
 As a new line of defense had been taken 
 and established, it was therefore necessary 
 to drive the enemy from their observation 
 and dominating points in the valley of the 
 creek, in order to make the American posi- 
 tions more tenable, and to remove the danger 
 of accurate enemy artillery fire, which might 
 paralyze the service of our supply. 
 
 Was the time now propitious for the at- 
 tempting of a direct break by the Yanks? 
 or would it be better to hold the enemy where 
 they now were, until such time as they were 
 in condition? 
 
 The 2nd American Division accordingly 
 set about the making of the plans for the 
 taking of this valley, in order that they might 
 dominate the positions there. 
 
 Therefore, in conjunction with the 167th 
 French Division, on its left, the 1st and 2nd 
 Battalions of the 5th Marines swept forward 
 through the broken woodlands, in the mists 
 of the morning, with their objectives set as 
 the edges of the crests north of Champillon, 
 as well as those looking down into the open 
 valley about Torcy and Bussiares. 
 
 This attack was met by intense machine 
 gun and rifle fire, but the Yankee "Leather- 
 necks" pushed onward, and at seven in the 
 morning had taken all objectives and com- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 43 
 
 manded the valley at this point. Now the 
 advance of the 167th French Division became 
 successful, and they established themselves 
 on the dominating heights just west of the 
 Marines. 
 
 With the object of pushing forward its 
 center so as to take the villages of Belleau 
 and Bouresches, and so as to align the center 
 with the left, the 2d Division set its objectives 
 on a line which ran along the valley from a 
 point east of Bussiares to the eastern edge 
 of Bouresches. Then, the 5th and 6th 
 Marines and the 23rd Infantry Regiments 
 were sent forward, on the morning of June 
 6th. These attacks were sent forward 
 against the tangled woodlands of the Bois 
 de Triangle and the Bois de Belleau (Belleau 
 Wood), and, as the lines surged backward 
 and forward, among the tumbled and tangled 
 thickets, one of the most ferocious battles 
 ever staged was fought by the determined 
 and maddened men of the contending hosts. 
 
 Time and time again, the surging lines 
 enveloped enemy nests, where the spiteful 
 flame of the spitting machine guns, tore their 
 ranks to bits and scattered the shrieking 
 wounded about the shell-swept ground be- 
 fore them. Again and again, they flew at 
 each others' throats cursing inwardly, as 
 they swayed to and fro in the deadly grapple 
 of maddened men; torn and bleeding and 
 half frenzied with pain, they fought desperate- 
 ly, driving their shining little trench-daggers 
 deep into the loins of their opponents, then 
 
44 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 letting the limp, still bodies slip noiselessly 
 to the ground, and dashing forward again to 
 seek out another. And all of the time, the 
 ground all about them was being torn by 
 shells, which were bursting everywhere, 
 throwing bits of stone and dirt and bodies, 
 and all of the debris of battle about in every 
 direction while making the earth tremble 
 beneath the feet of the warriors. 
 
 The following day, although the left had 
 been able to add hardly anything to their 
 advance of the preceding day, the right of 
 the 2d Division was now in possession of 
 Bouresches. Likewise, it had advanced into 
 the Bois de Belleau as far as Hill 181, where 
 they had dug in on the summit. In doing 
 this, the American lines now lay on advanta- 
 geous ground for observation of the enemy 
 lines and positions further in the woodland. 
 
 But the enemy machine gun nests in the 
 village and woods had taken a terrible toll, 
 and in these two battles the Marine Brigade 
 had sustained losses of 24 officers and 390 
 men killed or wounded, and the 9th and 23rd 
 Infantries had lost 377 officers and men. 
 
 From this point, for several weeks, a 
 battle almost without respite continued along 
 the front, more especially near Bouresches 
 and southeast of that town, toward Vaux, 
 as well as in the Bois de Belleau. As one 
 authority puts it: "The ability of the Amer- 
 icans to advance at these points, or of the 
 enemy to prevent them from advancing, be- 
 came so obviously a test, before the whole 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 45 
 
 world, of the relative moral stamina of the 
 two races, that the contest took on the im- 
 portance of one far greater than that repre- 
 sented by the mere tactical value of the ter- 
 ritory involved." And, although the lines 
 swayed backward and forward many times, 
 always the Americans maintained the su- 
 premacy. 
 
 Then the 9th Infantry, advancing north 
 of the Bois de la Morette, with the French 
 troops and companies E and F of the 30th 
 Infantry, 3d Division, took the southern 
 slope of Hill 204 and the village of Monneaux. 
 
 On June 11th, the Marine Brigade ad- 
 vanced, covered by a rolling barrage, and 
 took all of the remainder of the Bois de Bel- 
 leau, with the exception of a few spurs which 
 ran northward, — with over 300 prisoners and 
 39 machine guns and light trench mortars. 
 Finally, on June 25th, all these places were 
 cleared out by the superb advance which did 
 not halt until it was far out of the valley 
 toward Torcy and had netted 300 prisoners 
 and 24 machine guns. 
 
 Many enemy counter-attacks went astray 
 during these days, one of them launched on 
 the positions of the 9th and 23d Infantries, 
 in the vicinity of Bouresches and north of 
 the Bois de La Morette. This counter failed 
 to retake any of the lost ground from these 
 regiments. Still another of the more im- 
 portant enemy counters was an especially 
 violent one which was launched against 
 Bouresches and the Bois de Belleau, but was 
 
46 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 hurled back by the combined efforts of the 
 doughboys and marines. 
 
 During these weeks of fighting, the only 
 relief of the 2d Division was that of three bat- 
 talions of Marines, whose places were taken 
 for five days (June 16-21) by three battalions 
 of the 7th Infantry of the 3d Division. Then, 
 too, during these operations, there had been 
 opposed to this division, on various points 
 of its front: 197th (relieved June 9th); 
 237th (relieved June 11th); 10th (relieved 
 June 15th); 28th (relieved June 21st); and 
 the 5th Prussian Guard; 231st and 87th 
 enemy divisions. 
 
 One noted authority, in speaking of the 
 wonderful fight of the 2d Division in the valley 
 of the Ru Gobert, and their repulse of the 
 enemy masses, says: "And this at a time 
 when the German Command was exultantly 
 proclaiming to all the world the impending 
 overthrow and dissolution of the Allied 
 Armies! As a matter of fact, it was precisely 
 at this time and on account of this fighting 
 that the German High Command had borne 
 in upon it the iron fact that the scales were 
 swinging against them, slowly but none the 
 less surely." 
 
 However, there still remained one im- 
 portant task for the 2d division to perform 
 before its history in this theatre of opera- 
 tions should be called complete. Vaux must 
 be taken. 
 
 "In the creek valley between Hill 204 
 (taken by the French and Americans on 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 47 
 
 June 7th-8th), and the positions north of 
 the Bois de la Morette (taken by the 9th 
 Infantry at the same time), lay the village 
 of Vaux, — tiny but deadly. Its stone houses 
 were fortresses armed with German machine 
 guns; its cellars were bomb-proofs, sheltering 
 hidden swarms of infantry; its streets were 
 covered ways filled with ghastly surprises 
 for the attackers. It thrust out a menacing 
 salient into the American lines, sweeping 
 with its fire Monneaux and the communica- 
 tions of Hill 204. It had to be taken!" 
 
 That is the way a correspondent saw the 
 situation. 
 
 Having established liaison near Mon- 
 neaux, the 9th infantry prepared to take 
 Vaux, with the aid of the 3d Division. 
 
 "Accordingly, every bit of available ma- 
 terial of any kind on the subject of Vaux was 
 brought together and carefully studied. Maps 
 and old post-cards were gone over and refu- 
 gees described in minute detail the construc- 
 tion of its cellars and the intricacies of its 
 streets. Every platoon and squad leader 
 who was going into Vaux had a map showing 
 in red ink the particular cellar he was to 
 take and how to get to it." So writes an 
 early A. E. F. writer. 
 
 Then, on the morning of July 1st, after 
 intense artillery preparation, the attack 
 went forward, with the 9th Infantry, sup- 
 ported by the advance of the 23d Infantry 
 on the left, and the 3d Division on the right. 
 About fifteen minutes after the attack went 
 
48 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 over, the first wave was in the town, and in 
 less than half an hour it had been taken. 
 
 Northwest of Vaux lay the Bois de la 
 Roche, which position was taken by the 23d 
 Infantry, which also improved its positions 
 on Hill 204. But the enemy drove forward 
 a counter against the Bois de la Roche, the 
 next day, which was repulsed, many of the 
 attackers being cut off and taken prisoners. 
 
 Vaux was never re- taken by the enemy. 
 
 "Summing up the situation," says one 
 authority of A. E. F. history, "in Chateau- 
 Thierry, in the Bois de Belleau, in Bouresches 
 and Vaux and on Hill 204, the Germans had 
 now faced the men from across the seas in 
 fair combat; before the audience of the world 
 they had met with them the moral test, and 
 the result was a foretaste of what was soon 
 to come. By the 1st day of July, 1918, 
 men of discernment in Germany, could trace 
 the word "defeat" written across the setting 
 sun of "Der Tag." 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 49 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 When the Yanks Came. 
 
 "Over There, Over There, 
 Send the word, send the word over there. 
 That the Yanks are coming, 
 The Yanks are coming " 
 
 Those were the words of a rather popular 
 song that came into its own during the in- 
 fancy of the A. E. F. and was sung up and 
 down the land, from cantonments in the 
 "States" to Seicheprey, away up on that 
 almost forgotten sector "northwest of Toul," 
 where the handful of A. E. F.'ers had been 
 first introduced to "friend Jerry." 
 
 And it was true, too, for the Yanks were 
 coming with every ship that touched the 
 shores of France, and they were coming with 
 the determination that they wouldn't "come 
 back till it was over, Over There!" 
 
 Then came the month of June, 1918, when 
 the whole of the civilized world was scarcely 
 breathing, or rather, seemingly dared not 
 breathe, while the gray-clad hosts of Prus- 
 sian Autocracy were dashing forward, in 
 an avalanche of brute power and militaristic 
 domination, down through Fere-en-Tardenois 
 to the banks of the already historic Marne. 
 And, following this period of deepest dark- 
 ness for the allied cause, came the startling 
 and breath-taking news that the full ava- 
 
50 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 lanche of the enemy hordes had been met 
 and stopped on the banks of the Marne by 
 a mere handful of Yankees, — "With the 
 Help of God and a few Marines!" 
 
 Ask those who were there at the bridge- 
 head of Chateau-Thierry, — those weary and 
 bedraggled men of the 7th Machine Gun 
 Battalion, Third Division, who, with the 
 wear and tear of over a hundred and eighty 
 weary kilometers of hiking behind them, — 
 to say nothing of their thirty-six hours or 
 more without sleep, even for a few moments, — 
 plodded wearily into the battered little town 
 on the banks of the Marne, in the sunset of 
 that June evening, with the white and 
 gray puffs of the exploding enemy shells 
 dotting the twilight skies of summer. 
 
 When, on the 27th of May, 1918, the enemy 
 smashed through the thinly-held French 
 positions on the plateau of the Chemin des 
 Dames and dashed forward towards the 
 Marne, only two American divisions were 
 available for Marshal Foch to throw into 
 the breach in a mad attempt to stop or, at 
 least, to stem for the moment, the onrushing 
 enemy tide. 
 
 And so it was, that the first to get into the 
 apex of the great battle which was fast 
 developing here, — and, according to the 
 official reports of the operations, the only 
 "men who fought in Chateau-Thierry it- 
 self," — were the men of the 7th Machine 
 Gun Battalion, of the Third Division. Never- 
 theless, it stands also as a matter of official 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 51 
 
 history, that the majority of the fighting in 
 this area, — that is, the area to the north of 
 the town of Chateau-Thierry, — fell to the 
 men of the Second Division, who were des- 
 tined to make a name for themselves and for 
 American arms such as has scarcely ever 
 been equaled in our entire history, in their 
 fight in the Bois de Belleau, Torcy, Bus- 
 siares, and Bouresches, and in the valley of 
 the little creek, the Ru Gobert. 
 
 Perhaps it might be well to quote the 
 words of one of the members of the historical 
 section of the Great Headquarters, A. E. F., 
 staff as setting forth in the fewest and most 
 pointed words, the crux of the whole matter. 
 He says: "The Third Division was the first 
 to reach the banks of the Marne; and those 
 were Third Division machine gunners, who, 
 racing across country in their little 'hommes 
 40, Chevaux 8,' reached the river in time to 
 fight for four days and nights that gallant 
 fight at the Chateau-Thierry bridges, of 
 which the thrill ran around the world." 
 
 And, let it here be said that the Third 
 Division was at this time making at Chateau- 
 Thierry a name that shall stand for all time 
 as equal to any other that has ever been 
 blazoned upon the tablets of America's 
 glorious history. 
 
 The Third Division had, as yet, completed 
 only part of its period of training in the 
 vicinity of Chateauvillain and La Ferte 
 sur Aube when it received orders, on May 
 30th, 1918, to move at once to the front. 
 
52 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 This order stated that: "The 5th Infantry 
 Brigade, consisting of the 4th and 7th in- 
 fantries and the 8th Machine Gun Battalion, 
 will be attached to the 6th French Army, 
 under General Degoutte, and assigned to the 
 defense of the passage of the Marne from 
 Chateau-Thierry to Dormans. That part 
 of the 6th Infantry Brigade, consisting of the 
 38th Infantry and half of the 9th Machine 
 Gun Battalion, will hold the crossings of 
 the Marne from Dormans eastward to 
 Damery, under direction of the 10th Colonial 
 French Division of the 5th French Army. 
 The remainder of the 6th Infantry Brigade, 
 viz., the 30th Infantry and the remaining 
 half of the 9th Machine Gun Battalion, will 
 be the support of the 5th Brigade. The 
 Divisional Machine Gun Battalion, — the 7th 
 — will march at once for Chateau-Thierry; 
 the remaining troops will go by rail May 31st, 
 for their respective destinations." 
 
 Of these various assignments, none proved 
 so urgent as that of the Divisional Machine 
 Gun Battalion, the 7th, which was in the 
 fighting from the first time they entered the 
 little town of Chateau-Thierry, until its 
 final relief, ninety-six hours later. The re- 
 mainder of the 3rd Division suffered very 
 slightly, with the exception of some severe 
 fighting in the Jaulgonne Bend of the Marne, 
 where the enemy attempted a crossing, but 
 was halted. 
 
 And so it was that, with the horizon-blue- 
 clad poilus of France, worn and weary and 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 53 
 
 mud-bedraggled, and torn and bleeding, fight- 
 ing a seemingly hopeless battle with the ad- 
 vancing enemy waves in the shell-torn streets 
 ahead of them, the men of the 7th Machine 
 Gun Battalion, hastily getting their guns 
 into position so as to play along the main 
 bridge in the center of the town, and like- 
 wise up and down the banks of the Marne 
 on both sides, went into battle which was to 
 continue for ninety-six hours more! 
 
 Wave after wave of the enemy hosts 
 swept forward towards the coveted goal, 
 determined to either take the bridge or to 
 make possible a crossing at some other point 
 which would enable them to deploy into the 
 open and almost level country beyond the 
 banks of the Marne. But, across the stream, 
 was the indomitable barrier of Yankee gun- 
 ners, and "once again, for the second time 
 in four years, they made the Marne the high 
 tide of the Hun invasion!" 
 
 Thousands of shells of all calibres flew 
 overhead; some of them with their sinister 
 whistle, many of them seemingly howling, 
 but all of them uniting in one great rising 
 crescendo, and the fortunes of battle ebbed 
 and flowed beneath them. Great enemy 
 shells dropped with crash and roar into the 
 thin line of stubborn American doughboys, 
 throwing debris of every description high 
 into the air, and filling the spaces between 
 the great rising chant and crescendo of battle 
 with the moans and shrieks of the dying and 
 wounded. Beyond, through the battered 
 
54 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Streets of the town, gray-clad masses began 
 to move forward, down to the banks of the 
 Marne. It was the enemy infantry, advancing 
 in their packed formation, resembling a 
 great gray monster crawling down to devour 
 the men who were standing their ground at 
 the bridges of Chateau-Thierry. They soon 
 deploy, fresh troops filling the gaps and then 
 they advance again towards the goal of 
 Prussian ambition, — the Marne. 
 
 Low, sinister shrieks and whistles come 
 from above, and the shells from the allied 
 batteries begin to fall in the midst of the ad- 
 vancing enemy masses. Men, covered with 
 blood and mud, crawling over one another, 
 and rushing about in a dazed state, writhing 
 in agony or pushing doggedly forward, at- 
 tempt to advance again to the river banks. 
 The ground and streets are dotted with the 
 huddled forms of the dead and dying, but 
 the second wave is already pressing forward, 
 and once again the Yankee machine guns 
 tear great gaping holes in their advancing 
 ranks; and still they hurl themselves against 
 the American positions among the shell- 
 holes and ruins along the river. 
 
 AH the time, the uncanny whistle of the 
 flying bullets, with their "s-s-s-s-s-s-s!" came 
 from the advancing hosts across the river, 
 and then, once again the Yanks turned the 
 muzzles of their deadly guns full on this 
 onward rushing wave of humanity, poured 
 forth a steady stream of steel, as the guns 
 rat-tat-tat their message of death and hate. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 55 
 
 Shrieks, curses and groans rise from the 
 ranks across the river, which was now run- 
 ning with the blood of the contending hosts, 
 and time and again the whole mad drama of 
 war is deepened by the boom of the batteries 
 in the rear, — adding their finishing touch to 
 the ghastliness of the scene. 
 
 But the 7th Machine Gun Battalion stuck! 
 and behind them and the barrier formed by 
 their comrades, clad in the immortal blue of 
 long-suffering France, the allied forces 
 were able to dispose more fresh troops, of 
 the 164th French and 3rd United States 
 Divisions. These new troops took up strong 
 defensive positions along the Marne on both 
 sides of the town, and effecting, by the 30th 
 Infantry, liaison with the 9th Infantry, of 
 the 2nd Division, on the right of that division, 
 near Mountcourt, west of the river. 
 
 Finally, came the morning of the 4th of 
 June, and with it relief for the weary 7th 
 Machine Gun Battalion! But, as they 
 filed out of their positions, and plodded 
 backward from the line of the river, they 
 seemed to wear the faint semblance of a smile 
 of victory, for behind them were the men of 
 two other regiments of their own division, 
 the 3rd, as well as an entire French division. 
 Why did they smile, — even though those 
 smiles were the smiles of the exhausted and 
 weary men who have stood face to face with 
 death for ninety-six long hours? Because 
 they knew that victory was theirs; that the 
 setting sun of that day should bring into 
 
56 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 being the birth of that new power which was 
 destined, even then, to spell defeat and ruin 
 for the proud banners of Prussian autocracy! 
 They were supremely confident that the 
 enemy never would break through the line 
 of heroes who they had left in charge of their 
 blood-bought lines along the Marne banks, 
 and in the streets of Chateau-Thierry. 
 
 It is true the operation had been costly, 
 but had it been even more costly, it surely 
 would have been worth the price. When it 
 is considered what effect the fighting of the 
 untried American troops had upon the morale 
 of the allied armies, perhaps never before had 
 any like number of men in so short a time 
 contributed as much to the final victory as 
 did the 2nd and 3rd Divisions at and near 
 Chateau-Thierry. 
 
 As one writer, whose name I have forgotten 
 for the time being, puts it: "The mother of 
 every boy who was killed there can say that 
 no soldier's life ever was given more effec- 
 tively during the whole war." 
 
 How brave and self-sacrificing and alto- 
 gether noble have been our mothers and all 
 of our noble American women during these 
 stirring times ! And still all of their care and 
 devotion had for its ending a grave in France! 
 
 "There, where poppies bloom, and fields 
 are scarred 
 
 With unknown heroes' graves, remorseless, 
 numb, 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 57 
 
 And swifter than the light'ning it may come 
 From unknown depths where earthly joys 
 
 are barred, 
 Where Love is lost, the quickening pulse is 
 
 still 
 And Death's rhythmical beat is audible. 
 Or in the trench where golden hearted Truth, 
 Clad in the panoply of grace and right, 
 Sublimely pours the sweet red wine of youth 
 A surf of blood upon the sea of Might." 
 
 And still has there been no agonizing cry of 
 revolt from the mother or wife or sweetheart, 
 no furious imprecations, no bitterness of 
 soul. 
 
 And so America stoops and kisses the cold, 
 still lips of her martyred sons, covering them 
 with her starry banner of Liberty; placing 
 them, — her supreme sacrifice of honor and 
 love, — upon the Altar of God's throne, that 
 Liberty and Justice and Freedom from Op- 
 pression may not be forever lost amidst the 
 crushing and brutal blows of the Mailed 
 Fist and Iron Heel of the Autocrat. 
 
 Returning to the discussion of the relative 
 importance of the fight at Chateau-Thierry, 
 let us consider for a few moments, what it 
 meant to the allied cause and morale, at this 
 stage of the great game of chess which was 
 being waged on the western frontier of civiliza- 
 tion. Perhaps it would be best to quote 
 several noted authorities. 
 
 The first one at hand, written by a staff 
 officer of the A. E. F. Headquarters, states: 
 
58 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 "The effect on the French was immediate, 
 visible and startling. The drooping French 
 morale revived as a midsummer flower lifts 
 its head after a cooling shower." 
 
 The same authority, later adds: ''The 
 American morale had also been sagging. It 
 could not have been otherwise. Our troops 
 had had to wait around too long, and it 
 had taken all the heart out of them. Home- 
 sick beyond words, they had to prepare 
 themselves slowly for trench warfare, a 
 deadly thing, the while the world told them 
 that the war would last for years and years. 
 They began to wonder whether they were 
 going to be so darned good after all. Then 
 suddenly the whole face of the matter changed. 
 News came from the Marne valley that 
 Americans were pitching into the fight, that 
 it was old-fashioned, paste-'em-one-in-the- 
 eye fighting of their own sort, that they were 
 getting away with murder. And every 
 American from Camp Lewis to Toul, said: 
 'Gee, we're pretty good,' and became so by 
 thinking it." 
 
 And you can readily see what sort of effect 
 this would have on the troops in France. 
 Of course, every division, either on ship 
 or already landing, began to feel that, after 
 everything was said and done, the stories 
 of enemy prowess were idle tales of the billets, 
 and that there would really be nothing to it, 
 when they would be given the chance to get 
 into the game for good. They began to 
 think that all of these weary months of train- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 59 
 
 ing was all "bunk" and unnecessary; that 
 all they needed was the chance to take "a 
 paste at that Big German Rifle Range," and 
 they would show what sort of stuff they were 
 made of. 
 
 Accordingly, General Pershing became com- 
 mander of a bunch of real fighting units, 
 scarcely more than raw recruits, of only a few 
 short months' training. Transformed, al- 
 most over night, into units fit to put into 
 immediate use at the fighting lines, should 
 the necessity arise for throwing them into 
 the breach at once. 
 
 And, then and there, the policy of sending 
 them into the fight at once was adopted, and, 
 as one of our army men puts it: **A11 that 
 happened from July 18th to November 11th 
 followed as a natural though unforeseen con- 
 sequence of what happened in June north- 
 west of Chateau-Thierry. Just as an electric 
 spark will, in a flash, take a jar of properly 
 proportioned hydrogen and oxygen and turn 
 it into water, so the current which, spitting 
 blue flame and setting the whole world a- 
 tingle, ran forth from Belleau Wood in June, 
 1918, took that miscellaneous assortment of 
 dubious Americans known as the A. E. F. 
 and turned it into an army." 
 
 Let us get the true perspective of the fight 
 at the Chateau-Thierry area and see just 
 what it means and really amounted to, from 
 the purely military standpoint. After all, 
 it was not so much of a miracle as we have been 
 told it was. 
 
60 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 It is true that the Americans, with the aid 
 of their almost exhausted allies, the French, 
 did stop the German drive at the banks of 
 the Marne, and, when the lines moved again, 
 their direction was towards Germany. But 
 let us also remember that, when the Germans 
 smashed through the Chemin des Dames 
 plateau area on May 27th, the allied troops 
 had already established a new defensive line 
 and system of well chosen positions, manned 
 by men who were thoroughly schooled in 
 their calling and highly capable of withstand- 
 ing anything that the enemy would probably 
 bring against them. And this line of defenses 
 was in a position which met and, as history 
 already recounts, turned the tide of German 
 invasion. But that tide of invasion consisted 
 of a German army which was almost already 
 exhausted by its incredibly successful ad- 
 vance, — an advance which carried it across 
 the Aisne, through Tardenois and the Ourcq, 
 and down to the very banks of the historic 
 Marne. The enemy troops had already out- 
 run even its own expectations and was tired 
 out by its drive, and almost unsupported, 
 on account of the inability of its supplies 
 and reserves to keep pace with the rapidity 
 of its advance. 
 
 There has existed a sort of popular notion 
 in this country, that our valiant allies, the 
 French, were at this time, in full retreat 
 through the advancing lines of American 
 troops, and that our men were therefore 
 forced to stand alone and meet the Hun 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 61 
 
 hordes, bearing the brunt of the fray and 
 finally pushing the invaders backward as 
 their victorious waves swept forward in 
 counter-attack. 
 
 This notion is not at all true, and further- 
 more mightily unfair to our valiant allies 
 and friends, — the horizon-blue-clad poilus 
 of France. 
 
 From sources that are official, and, there- 
 fore, of much more value as authoritative 
 than would be even the works of the most 
 highly credited correspondents or officers, 
 the story of what really took place comes to 
 me in this manner. The Americans were 
 now operating under command of the French 
 General Degoutte, who was commanding 
 the corps in whose sector they were operat- 
 ing. Opposing the German advance were 
 two French divisions, which were already 
 sadly depleted, and weary from their con- 
 stant fighting of five days' duration, dis- 
 heartened, and nearly having reached the 
 limit of their physical endurance. Yet they 
 were ordered to hold their ground until the 
 Americans could get into line behind them. 
 And hold they did, as best they could, and 
 with the determination with which only the 
 poilus of France can fight! After the Ameri- 
 cans had formed their defensive lines, the 
 French troops were to fall back through these 
 lines and withdrew for a much-needed rest. 
 
 Everything that took place after this time 
 
 was strictly according to orders that had been 
 
 ssued to the commanders of the several 
 
62 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 divisions engaged, as well as to the corps 
 commander, General Degoutte. Therefore, 
 the withdrawal of the exhausted French was 
 no reflection upon their already proved 
 indomitable spirit and stoicism, for in holding 
 as they did just long enough for the resistance 
 lines to be formed, they had already done 
 their full share. 
 
 As these facts were, of course, known to 
 only those of high command or at least to 
 only those who were entitled to know, the 
 troops and also the correspondents, con- 
 strued it faultily, and we find them con- 
 tinually spreading this false impression abroad 
 throughout the land. 
 
 Certainly, these men have never lived and 
 fought beside those same French poilus, or 
 else they would never have even so much as 
 dreamed of him yielding a precious inch of his 
 beloved France to the foe. 
 
 The spirit of the Yanks, as they advanced 
 to the battlefront, through roads streaming 
 with worn and weary and battered French 
 troops, swarming to the rear in an almost 
 bewildered and dazed sort of way, was little 
 short of wonderful, for they continued their 
 advance with spirits unbroken and nerves 
 unshaken. And to most of them it surely 
 must have seemed as if they alone were hold- 
 ing firm, when all about them was crumbling 
 before the gigantic Hun battering ram. 
 
 And so the sunset of June 5th, 1918, brought 
 to the battered and shell-torn streets of 
 Chateau-Thierry, the light of victory and 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 63 
 
 the promise of deliverance, as the rat-tat- 
 tat of the guns resounded through the ruins of 
 what had once been busy streets, and down 
 along the banks of the river that divides the 
 town into sections. The crumbling ruins of 
 the bridges, turned red and dusty yellow in 
 the slanting rays of the setting sun, the red- 
 tiled roofs of the houses across the river, now 
 scarred and torn by the incessant rain of 
 shells and the spatter of shrapnel and machine 
 gun fire, lent a sort of colorful touch to the 
 plaster walls of the houses, whose smoking 
 ruins stood, looking it seemed, with pitying 
 and wistful windows calling to the spitting 
 fire of the guns to win them back again to the 
 folds of the tricolor of France. The bridge 
 of the Marne, a crumpled ruin, — a pile of 
 stones, now — with here and there the hud- 
 dled form of some brave Yank or poilu, 
 locked in death-grip with his opponent, in 
 the blue-gray uniform of the guard, over 
 whose silent forms sang the ominous song of 
 the machine guns and the whine of the shells 
 bursting beyond, in the further end of the 
 town. 
 
 And further on, from the Chateau garden, 
 surrounded by its great stone wall, with its 
 massive wooden gates, and with its courtyard 
 and gardens strewn with the bodies of the 
 slain; its flowers and plants trampled under 
 foot of the surging hosts which, only a short 
 time previous had been locked in deadly 
 conflict; its well and lattice porticoes torn 
 and twisted by the bursting shells, looked 
 
64 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 out and beyond to the tall tower of the cathe- 
 dral, which now reflected the glory of the 
 sunset, as if a new halo of glory had crowned 
 its loft>^ spire. All was peaceful now, except 
 for the patter of the distant machine guns, 
 and the great round moon rose over soil 
 redeemed for France! 
 The Yanks had come! 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 65 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Beginning of the Great July Counter. 
 
 Perhaps a changing from the defensive to 
 the offensive is the most difficult and delicate 
 operation in the science of warfare. Yet that 
 was precisely what Marshal Foch did when 
 he took the initiative from the hands of von 
 Ludendorff, and began to work the lines of 
 battle backward, in that magnificent series 
 of victories that marked the great July 
 counter-stroke of 1918. And, furthermore, 
 this operation was destined to carry the allied 
 armies forward in one continuous sweep of 
 victory that would have its ending only when 
 the representatives of the German republic 
 should meet to conclude an armistice on 
 November 11th. 
 
 Let us, therefore, examine the whole 
 situation that confronted the allied command, 
 as well as the method employed in the con- 
 version of the enemy attacks into allied 
 advantages. By doing this we shall bring into 
 the proper perspective the part that was 
 played in these operations by the American 
 units engaged. 
 
 It had always been the policy of the enemy 
 to follow up each and every one of his major 
 offensives by a short breathing spell, in order 
 that his troops might be reformed and con- 
 solidated in their new positions, before 
 
66 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 launching out again in other operations. 
 Accordingly, it was nothing out of the or- 
 dinary when he brought his offensive of May 
 and June, 1918, to a halt, — or rather, had 
 it halted for him, — at the Marne about the 
 5th or 6th of June. 
 
 Let us now divert our attention to the 
 strength of the enemy forces which were 
 massed along the section of front, known as 
 the Argonne-Chateau-Thierry front. By 
 the second week of July, the enemy had 
 massed a total of sixty-three divisions, — 
 every one of them refitted, reinforceed and 
 rested, — in this vicinity. A great number 
 of the enemy reserves were placed opposite 
 the British in the Amiens salient; very few 
 on the front from the Argonne forest to the 
 Swiss border ; and a large number to the rear, 
 in position to be rushed to any sector. Allied 
 intelligence located eleven divisions behind 
 General F. von Below's First Army and 
 General von Einem's Third Army, both of 
 the group of the German Crown Prince; in 
 addition to the eighteen divisions already in 
 the battle front. 
 
 The German press was blatantly announc- 
 ing that the allied armies could never again 
 assume offensive tactics, as their reserves 
 had already all been used up in resisting the 
 German attacks. But, due to the increasing 
 rapidity of transportation, American troops 
 had been coming over so rapidly that the 
 allies had a mass of reserves amounting to 
 not less than seventy-two divisions. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 67 
 
 Knowing the time, place and strength of 
 the enemy attack, which was delivered on the 
 Champagne-Chateau-Thierry front on July 
 15th, the allied command was able to dispose 
 just enough of their forces along these lines 
 to meet and hold the attack firmly. Then, 
 two days after the attack was delivered, the 
 armies of von Below and von Mudra (who 
 had replaced von Einem) had engaged thirty- 
 eight divisions, was holding eleven divisions 
 in close support, and thereby reducing their 
 reserves to about fifty-one divisions. They 
 had gained but a few miles and were now being 
 repulsed everywhere. This fact was because 
 the twenty-seven allied divisions in front 
 lines and nineteen in close reserve (part of 
 the 6th, 5th and 4th French Armies), were 
 able to reduce the power of the enemy to noth- 
 ing while inflicting upon him terrible losses. 
 
 On July 18th, when the enemy had in- 
 volved about fifty divisions — or nearly one- 
 fourth of his total forces on the western front, 
 — in his hopeless drive in Champagne and the 
 eastern side of the Marne salient. Marshal 
 Foch struck. The blow was intended to fall 
 upon the west side of this salient, thereby 
 striking at the system of enemy communica- 
 tions which were necessary to the enemy 
 troops fighting on the opposite side of the 
 salient. He could then crush the enemy 
 forces between the closing wings of his armies 
 or oblige them to break off the fighting. This 
 would mean retreat under the most adverse 
 conditions. 
 
68 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 And the French and American troops en- 
 gaged in this maneuver carried it through with 
 the precision and gallantry that proved them 
 worthy of the best traditions of both nations. 
 
 At the opening of the counter-offensive, 
 the enemy was holding the western face of 
 their salient, between Chateau-Thierry and 
 the Aisne River with eleven divisions, with- 
 out any support; while the allies had twelve 
 divisions in line and ten more in reserve, 
 ready to take their places for the assault 
 early the next morning, — July 18th. 
 
 In order that the surprise effect of the ad- 
 vance might not be diminished, the attack 
 went over without any artillery preparation. 
 The advance was made along the front from 
 the Aisne northwest of Soissons to Chateau- 
 Thierry. Fire for accompaniment was laid 
 down, and along the whole line a withering 
 barrage tore the ground in front of our ad- 
 vancing infantry. By nightfall the Yanks 
 had smashed through the enemy trench sys- 
 tems to an average depth of four miles. In 
 this first day's battle, 17,000 prisoners and 
 250 guns were taken. From this day forth, 
 with undiminished vigor, the allied attacks 
 continued to gain, sometimes greater and 
 sometimes lesser distances, but always going 
 forward, and the direct result of it all was the 
 withering of the enemy initiative once and 
 for all. 
 
 There were three American divisions which 
 took part in the offensive operations which 
 began on the morning of July 18th, 1918, — 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 69 
 
 viz., the 1st, 2d and 26th Divisions. Of 
 these the 1st, lying a short distance south of 
 the Aisne, with the 2d Division on its ri^ht 
 was a part of the 20th Corps of the 10th 
 French Army. The remaining units of the 
 corps were: the 58th, 69th French Divisions 
 and the 1st Moroccan Division. North of 
 the 20th Corps, four divisions of the 1st 
 French Army carried the lines to the Aisne 
 and formed the extreme left of the attack Ac- 
 cordmgly, the 20th Corps was disposed for 
 action with the 1st American Division on the 
 left, the 1st Moroccan Division in the center, 
 and the 2d American Division on the right* 
 covering a front of about six miles, and having 
 the 58th and 69th French Divisions in reserve 
 Then came two divisions of the 30th French 
 Corps, three divisions of the 11th, two divi- 
 sions of the 2d, and two divisions of the 7th 
 Corps. Then the First American Corps, 
 under General Hunter Liggett and consisting 
 of: the 167th French Division on the left 
 and the 26th American Division on the right. 
 To the right of this corps, was the 38th French 
 Corps, with the 39th French and the 3d 
 American Divisions, from left to right, fol- 
 lowed by the four divisions of the 3d Corps, 
 three divisions of the 1st Colonial, four divi- 
 sions of the 5th, three divisions of the 2d 
 Italian, and four divisions of the 1st African 
 Colonial Corps. These dispositions would 
 carry the line beyond the city of Reims. 
 
 Thus it was seen that the Americans were 
 once again given the post of greatest danger, 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 71 
 
 and therefore of greatest honor, for they were 
 to drive into the center of the salient, capture 
 the highlands southwest of Soissons, and then 
 the front would naturally pivot upon these 
 highlands in swinging northeast and north 
 toward the Vesle River. This task was given 
 to the 1st and 2d American Divisions and 
 the 1st Moroccan Division. 
 
 The 26th Division was entrusted with a 
 most delicate and tedious operation, viz., 
 that of marking time and acting as a pivot 
 for the troops operating around the Foret 
 de Villers-Cotterets, while these troops were 
 hammering in the western bulge of the front 
 and straightening it out to swing northward 
 like a gate closing on the Vesle. Then, 
 after the straightening process was com- 
 pleted, the 26th was to become the swinging 
 edge of the gate, advancing to the Vesle with 
 longer gains than those troops to the west of 
 it. 
 
 The 3d American Division could, therefore, 
 not begin its part of the work until all of this 
 attack to the westward was well under way, 
 and the enemy attack was stopped and driven 
 backward. Then they too, pivoting on Reims, 
 were likewise to close on the Vesle. 
 
 Accordingly, the 1st Division went over 
 the top on the morning of July 18th, into the 
 gray dawn of the plateau between Curty and 
 Missy-aux-Bois. The 18th and 16th In- 
 fantries of the 1st Brigade, and the 26th and 
 28th Infantries of the 2d Brigade, were sent 
 forward for the attack. Before them and 
 
72 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 across the lines of the German 6th, 11th 
 Bavarian and 42d Divisions, part of von 
 Boehn's Seventh German Army, swept the 
 barrage from the batteries of the 5th, 6th 
 and 7th Field Artillery Regiments, supported 
 by a number of French batteries. 
 
 The country was level, open stretches 
 which ran to the east and southeast, devoid 
 of cover, except for the tree fringes which 
 marked the deep ravine of Missy-aux-Bois, 
 and, further on, the poplar-lined roadway that 
 lay between Soissons and Paris. Just at 
 the edge of the woodland was the little village 
 of Missy; while still further on, was Berzy-le- 
 Sec. 
 
 Behind the charging doughboys, lay the 
 deep-cut ravine between the villages of St. 
 Pierre-Aigle and Laversine, on the eastern 
 edge of which were the trenches which they 
 had taken over from a brigade of the Moroc- 
 cans the night before. 
 
 Within two hours from the time of the 
 jumping-off, the men of the 1st Division had 
 overrun more than two miles of the tangle of 
 enemy trenches and wire, and had covered 
 more than half the distance across the open 
 tableland to Missy. Then, two hours later, 
 the second objective, — from Crevancon Farm 
 to the eastern edge of the Missy Ravine, was 
 reached, after a sharp and bloody struggle 
 by the 26th and 28th Infantries in the Missy 
 Ravine. 
 
 The Yanks charged in the face of terrific 
 machine gun fire, taking a series of enemy 
 
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 IS 
 
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74 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 nests along the ridge and then moving slowly 
 down the ravine. Meanwhile the Boche 
 gunners were filling this ravine with shells. 
 A strongly fortified post at St. Amand Farm, 
 near Missy Ravine, held up the advance for 
 a time, sweeping the western slope of the 
 valley, until a direct frontal attack was sent 
 forward with bombing parties, to "mop it 
 up." 
 
 It was mopped! Later, strong resistance 
 was encountered in a group of buildings, 
 just as the sun peeped through the low 
 hanging clouds. Here the enemy had in- 
 stalled machine guns, behind stone garden 
 walls and the foundations of the houses. 
 The Yanks began methodically mopping up 
 these nests, the men creeping toward the 
 guns, whose fire was so high as to cause but 
 few casualties. Then, suddenly, they leaped 
 to their feet and rushed forward with a shower 
 of grenades, thus escaping fairly well. 
 
 By this time, the enemy had recovered from 
 his initial surprise, and, the 18th Infantry 
 having pushed on to its third objective, — 
 Chaudun, — the 26th and 28th infantries were 
 unable to push across the Soissons-Paris 
 road, on the plateau between Missy and 
 Ploisy. This was largely because of the in- 
 tense machine gun fire from the flank, sweep- 
 ing their rear from the ravine of Missy, which 
 the 153d French Division had been unable 
 to take. 
 
 Missy Ravine was a thickly-grown tangle 
 of trees and underbrush, laced with barbed- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 75 
 
 wire, so as to make it almost entirely im- 
 passable. Masked machine guns enfiladed 
 every inch of the ground, which was likewise 
 swampy. It was therefore useless for tanks 
 to attack the enemy positions. From the 
 ravine, the open, level country, devoid of 
 cover or buildings, and cut only by the Sois- 
 sons-Paris roadway, sloped away, finally 
 dropping suddenly into Ploisy Ravine. This 
 plateau was cut by many sunken roads, 
 which afforded admirable concealment for 
 the enemy machine gunners. 
 
 The enemy, during the night of July 18th, 
 threw his 34th Division into line between 
 Missy and Ploisy, between the 11th Bavarian 
 and the 42d Divisions, and also put his 28th 
 Division into the head of the Chazelle Ravine, 
 before Chaudun. This was done to prevent 
 the cutting of the Soissons-Paris road. 
 
 The 1st Division's objective line was set 
 between Berzy-le-Sec, on the heights of the 
 Crise Valley and the important railways and 
 roads within its valley, and extending south- 
 eastward to Buzancy. This division there- 
 fore sent the 16th and 18th Infantries for- 
 ward to Chazelle, half way between Chadun 
 and the Soissons-Paris railway. The attack 
 began at four o'clock of the' 19th of July. 
 Meantime, the 26th and 28th Infantries, 
 half-crazed by thirst, galled by a frontal fire 
 from Ploisy Ravine and by the rearward fire 
 froni the Missy Ravine, could not cross the 
 Paris-Soissons roadway. A section of French 
 tanks waddled forward to support them, but 
 
76 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 these were shot to pieces on the edge of the 
 Ploisy Ravine, — reminding one of the famous 
 light brigade at Balaklava: 
 
 "Their's not to reason why, 
 Their's not to make reply, 
 Their's but to do or die, 
 Into the Valley of death, 
 Into the mouth of hell, 
 Rode the six hundred." 
 
 As the front lay almost at right angles to 
 the lines of the sector at this time, it was clear- 
 ly necessary to re-align the front. Therefore, 
 a savage attack was driven forward at 5.30 
 in the evening, by the 2d Brigade, for the 
 clearing of the head of Ploisy Ravine. The 
 ranks were torn by shells and machine gun 
 fire, but they reached the ravine, leaping at 
 the flaming guns and tearing their way 
 through the enemy lines, taking Ploisy Village 
 and the ravine head. During the night, in 
 pitchy blackness, in the vicinity of the stone- 
 walled Courmelles Farm, a bitter struggle 
 was waged. "A struggle of squads and 
 little knots of men creeping and listening for 
 one another; of quick, snarling rushes and 
 dull blows; of sudden, blinding flashes of 
 machine gun or rifle, through the Stygian 
 blackness." So relates Captain Hanson, 
 of the A. E. F. historical section. 
 
 But the Yanks maintained their advance 
 through Courmelles Farm, to the rim of 
 Ploisy Ravine, — the last barrier between 
 them and the battered heights of Berzy-le-Sec. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 77 
 
 And beyond lay the Crise Valley, with its 
 steep slopes, covered with pine trees, and the 
 road which ran parallel to the railway line 
 through Soissons, past Courmelles Farm, in 
 the 153d French Division's sector, and about 
 2 miles northeast by north of Berzy-le-Sec. 
 Set on a hillside is Berzy-le-Sec, with a 
 broken forest nestling close at the foot of 
 the^ hill,— a battered village, silhouetted 
 against the sunset. And below it were wheat- 
 fields, — dotted with those blood-red poppies 
 of France! All a bit of typical French coun- 
 tryside. 
 
 If one will carefully examine the map and 
 apply what little knowledge of military 
 science that he may possess, combined with 
 a slight knowledge of tactical problems, it 
 is easily seen that, should the Americans 
 succeed in taking Berzy, it would mean that 
 the Soissons-Oulchy le Chateau railway and 
 the Soissons-Chateau Thierry highway could 
 no longer be used for transport into the 
 Marne salient from Soissons, — the railhead. 
 In short, the salient would be lost, as Berzy 
 was the key to it, as well as the salient be- 
 tween the Vesle and Marne Rivers, and which 
 would now become untenable. 
 
 Therefore, the enemy threw into the line 
 protecting this village and its important 
 heights another division, — the 46th Reserve. 
 
 Knowing that the 153d French Division 
 was still too far from the village to strike, 
 being still engaged on the far side of the 
 Ploisy Ravine, the staff of the 20th Corps, 
 
78 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 accordingly, ordered the 1st Division to take 
 Berzy-le-Sec at 2 P.M. on July 20th. The 
 2d Brigade was designated, plus one battalion 
 from the divisional reserve, for the operation. 
 
 After a furious barrage of two hours' 
 duration, noon until 2 P.M., the lines moved 
 forward, striking at Berzy and the spur 
 north of it. As our lines advanced, the ruins 
 of Berzy, the hill and roadways literally spat 
 fire in our faces, while shrapnel burst with 
 its sinister and spiteful crack above our 
 heads. Time after time, throughout the 
 afternoon and night, the lines surged back 
 and forth in attack and counter-attack. 
 Machine gun nests were taken and retaken, 
 and the opposing infantry grappled with one 
 another with bayonets and trench-knives, 
 grenades and clubbed rifles. 
 
 Berzy was still in the possession of the 
 enemy at sunset of July 20th. "Through the 
 night its guns, like those of a beleagued 
 fortress, continued to flame. In it stood at 
 bay the last German garrison of that plateau 
 south of Soissons, with the whole western 
 front of the Marne salient pinned upon it, 
 which had been for so long a black menace 
 over Paris." 
 
 Finally, early on the morning of the 21st, 
 after artillery preparation of three hours or 
 more, and which reduced Berzy practically 
 to ruins, — heaps of ruins, — the Yanks ad- 
 vanced again. This was to be their supreme 
 eff^ort and the first wave rose up and rolled 
 toward, into and over the ruins of the village. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 79 
 
 Machine guns spat in their faces from the 
 ruins ahead ; yet they drove through the vil- 
 lage, past the ruined church and along the 
 flaming street to the Crise Valley. Here 
 they looked down along the Chateau-Thierry 
 road, parallel to the stream for a distance, to 
 Soissons, in the midst of its hills. 
 
 The victory was won ! 
 
 The 1st Brigade had already advanced 
 across the Soissons-Chateau Thierry road, 
 and was advancing down the valley of the 
 Crise, the city and yards of Soissons were 
 open to artillery fire, while the 26th Infantry 
 lay on the plateau in a maze of sunken roads. 
 
 Then, during the night of July 22d, in the 
 Crise Valley beyond Berzy-le-Sec, the 1st 
 Division was relieved by the 15th Scottish 
 Division of the British forces, and sent back- 
 ward to Dommartin, northeast of Paris, for 
 a rest. The 1st Division had suffered 7,000 
 casualties,— 1,816 by the 28th Infantry alone, 
 -^not a single man being taken by the enemy; 
 sixty per cent, of its infantry officers were 
 killed or wounded; in addition to the killed 
 and wounded enemy, it had taken 3,500 
 prisoners, 86 field guns, numbers of machine 
 guns, munitions and other material of war, 
 and had advanced eleven kilometers in four 
 days, against the untiring efforts of parts of 
 seven enemy divisions, and broke the hinge 
 of the enemy's defensive line between the 
 Aisne and the Marne. 
 
 We shall now see how the 2d Division fought 
 its way forward in the great July attack, 
 
80 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 past the Foret de Villers-Cotterets, Vaux- 
 castille Ravine, Bois de Leonore, the village 
 of Vierzy, Beaurepaire Farm, Chevigny Farm, 
 and also find out how it was that the 2d 
 Division did so much toward giving the 
 Marne salient so prominent a place in the 
 history of the war. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 81 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Second Division at Vierzy and in 
 the foret de villers-cotterets. 
 
 If the reader could journey to the stretch 
 of countryside that lies southwest of Soissons 
 he would find himself standing in the midst 
 of a land that has been mutilated almost 
 beyond belief. Everywhere are trenches, 
 pillboxes and observation posts, but hardly 
 any signs of human habitation, — mere shells 
 of homes that have long since been pounded 
 into shapeless masses of stone and mortar, — 
 for he would be standing in a part of the 
 battle-fields which have witnessed some of 
 the most terrific fighting of the whole con- 
 flict. 
 
 Upon this tortured land, where once 
 throbbed the life of industry and echoed the 
 laughter of children, armies have struggled, 
 staggered, died as the reeling and bending 
 lines, like waves of the sea, swept back and 
 forth under the smashing charges and coun- 
 ter-attacks of desperate, maddened men. 
 Silence now reigns over the fearful wilder- 
 ness where only a few short months ago the 
 roar of artillery, the whine of shells, and the 
 crack of rifles, mingled with the shrieks of 
 the mangled and the moans of the dying in 
 an inferno of destruction. A tree, here and 
 there, shattered and broken, with branches 
 
82 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 torn and twisted, still stands, — gaunt specter 
 of death which had swept across the plains. 
 
 Such is the setting for the theatre of fight- 
 ing of the 2d Division during the initial stage 
 of the July counter attack of 1918. 
 
 Fresh from the terrible and bloody fight- 
 ing in its sector northwest of Chateau- 
 Thierry, with the proud record of its fight 
 at Bouresches and in the Bois de Belleau, 
 the 2d Division was relieved from its support 
 positions on the night of July 16th-17th, 
 being conveyed in motor lorries to a point 
 near Marcilly, on the western side of the 
 Foret de Villers-Cotterets. 
 
 Shortly after its arrival there, orders were 
 received for an attack that was to be de- 
 livered at 4.35 on the morning of July 18th. 
 This attack was to be delivered on the front 
 which lay along the eastern edge of the Foret 
 de Villers-Cotterets, an immense stretch of 
 forest about ten or more square miles in 
 area, and which lay in the front of the 2d 
 Division. This forest was cut by a network 
 of main and farm roads, which was later the 
 cause of a great deal of trouble and confusion 
 in carrying out the plans of the attack. 
 
 Night had fallen, and with it a driving 
 rain, making the pitchy blackness doubly 
 impenetrable, — in fact so much so that one 
 could not even see the man ahead of him, 
 though he was only a pace or so away. The 
 hour for the advance was rapidly drawing 
 near, and yet the troops were seemingly so 
 much confused that it would be next to the 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 83 
 
 impossible to have them reach their positions 
 in time for the attack. But they were there. 
 
 The artillery barrage fell with a roar and 
 crash on the enemy positions, as day was 
 breaking. The first line battalions of the 23d 
 Infantry on the right and the 9th Infantry 
 and 5th Marines on the left, went over be- 
 hind it. Breathless and staggering from 
 over a mile and a half of double-time, they 
 reached their places at the appointed minute, 
 and then hurled themselves upon the first 
 line enemy trenches, — like great gray specters 
 coming out of the dawn. 
 
 Lying on the edge of the forest near 
 Chavigny Farm, on the right, and Carrefour 
 des Fourneaux on the left, the 2d Division 
 sector ran northeast for one and a half miles 
 over open, rolling country, across Verte 
 Feuille and Beaurepaire Farms. Then it 
 swung to the right, using the hill west of 
 Vauxcastille as a pivot, and narrowing grad- 
 ually, ran eastward and a bit south across the 
 ravine of Vauxcastille and the Bois de Leonore 
 north of it; then on to the ravine and village 
 of Vierzy, where it crossed the Paris-Soissons 
 railway tunnel. From this point, crossing 
 a high, flat ridge, devoid of buildings but 
 intersected by some farm roads, it crossed the 
 main Soissons-Chateau Thierry road between 
 the villages of Taux and Hartennes, ending 
 in the Bois d'Hartennes. 
 
 The enemy counter-barrage fire opened at 
 once, but the 2d Battalion of the 23d In- 
 fantry, using rifles only as weapons, was on 
 

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FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 85 
 
 their first objective line, — Beaurepaire Farm, 
 — less than a quarter of an hour after going 
 over the top. The 9th Infantry and the 5th 
 Marines had also reached their line. 
 
 Having reached this line, the 2d Division 
 now plunged into the ravine of the Bois 
 Leonore and Vauxcastille, fought its way 
 across the marshy woods and up over the 
 embankment of the Paris-Soissons railway. 
 Then, after a brief but sanguinary battle 
 with enemy infantry and machine guns, 
 pushed onward to the plateau overlooking 
 Vierzy. 
 
 Advancing in sectors parallel to that of the 
 2d Division, the 1st Moroccan Division, on 
 the left, advancing toward Lachelle and the 
 ravines beyond, and the 38th French Divi- 
 sion, on the right, striking in the direction of 
 Montremboeuf Farm, fought their way for- 
 ward as the 2d Division (American) was ad- 
 vancing in its own sector. 
 
 As the 2d Division had already entered 
 the western side of the village of Vierzy, and 
 although it was practically surrounded, — 
 north, west, and a bit on the south sides, — 
 the enemy still clung determinedly to the 
 rest of the village. They also put up stiff 
 machine gun resistance from dugouts and in 
 the Vauxcastille Ravine, where our troops of 
 the support waves encountered determined 
 resistance. Our casualties were, therefore, 
 quite severe. 
 
 Nevertheless, although the men had been 
 without food or water for over a day, the 
 
86 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 advance was pushed forward at once in the 
 direction of the Bois d'Hartennes. At the 
 same time, a renewed attack was made upon 
 Vierzy. In this attack, the 9th and 23d 
 Infantries went forward, being later sup- 
 ported by the French tanks and one battal- 
 ion of the Moroccans. At eight in the 
 evening our advance again encountered very 
 stubborn resistance, more especially from the 
 intensity of the enemy artillery and machine 
 gun fire. 
 
 Our lines pushed on about two miles, until 
 the 9th Infantry was on the plateau south 
 of Charantigny and the 23d Infantry half- 
 way between Vierzy and Tigny. Our right 
 wing was bent southwest, presenting its 
 whole front a pronounced salient across open 
 ground, with the enemy on the south and 
 east of it. 
 
 Vierzy was taken, but the ground was 
 covered with wounded, and it was deemed 
 impossible to further advance. Accordingly, 
 those who remained dug-in, and then the men 
 of the 102d Engineers, following their pre- 
 rogative as engineers of digging all night and 
 fighting all day, advanced through the rem- 
 nants of the 9th Infantry and 6th Marines, 
 and began to drive forward again. This ad- 
 vance reached Tigny, where, on the edge of 
 the Bois d'Hartennes and about three- 
 fourths of a mile from the Soissons-Chateau 
 Thierry road, the remnants of the engineers 
 were brought to a stop. They entrenched 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 87 
 
 themselves, and, with machine guns, held 
 every inch of their gains. 
 
 That is the kind of stuff the men of the 
 engineer regiments were made of, — they could 
 construct, destruct or fight with equal 
 ability, — and most of the time, they were 
 working all night and then sent in to fight 
 all day! 
 
 The 2d Division's casualties had now 
 reached such numbers as to almost exhaust 
 even their wonderful driving power. It had 
 been reduced to about half its strength, — 
 the 23d Infantry having 37 officers and 1,478 
 men left out of 99 officers and 3,400 men. 
 
 Here the 2d Division was relieved by the 
 58th French Division during the night of 
 the 19th-20th, resting till noon the next day, 
 in the forest. 
 
 The 2d Division had advanced 7 miles in 
 26 hours, — one of its regiments, the 23d 
 Infantry, took 2,175 prisoners from 11 dif- 
 ferent enemy divisions. This regiment also 
 took two batteries of 150mm guns, five bat- 
 teries of 77mm guns, one battery of 210mm, 
 about 100 machine guns and 15,000 rounds 
 of 77mm ammunition. 
 
 And that sort of fighting which the Boche 
 learned from the Yanks of the 2d Division in 
 the Foret de Villers-Cotterets, in July, 1918, 
 was the thing that scared the Germans to 
 death. 
 
88 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. F. F. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The "Yankee" Division Holds the Pivot 
 at bouresches. 
 
 As has already been brought out in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, the 26th or "Yankee" Di- 
 vision had been entrusted with a most delicate 
 and tedious part of the operations during the 
 counter-stroke of July, 1918. This operation 
 consisted of marking time and acting as the 
 pivot for the troops which were operating 
 around the Foret de Villers-Cotterets, while 
 those troops were hammering in the western 
 bulge of the front and straightening it out for 
 the swing northward like a gate closing on the 
 Vesle. 
 
 The Yankee Division was under the com- 
 mand of Major General C. R. Edwards, at 
 this time, and consisted of the 51st Infantry 
 Brigade, consisting of the 101st and 102d 
 Infantries and 102d Machine Gun Battalion; 
 the 52d Infantry Brigade, with the 103d and 
 104th Infantries and the 103d Machine Gun 
 Battalion; the 51st Field Artillery Brigade, 
 with the 101st, 102d and 103d Field Artillery 
 Regiments, and the 101st Engineers and other 
 divisional troops. 
 
 The "Yankee" Division had already be- 
 come highly veteran in all of the various 
 departments and branches of trench warfare, 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 89 
 
 for it had been in the line, during the pre- 
 ceding winter along the historic Chemin des 
 Dames, entering that sector on February 6th, 
 1917, and remaining there for fifty days. 
 Then, too, it had spent eighty-six more days 
 in the American "Old Home Sector," north- 
 west of Toul. It was the first American 
 division, not regular army, to take part in a 
 great offensive operation, and it also took 
 part in every other great offensive operation 
 until the ending of hostilities. A record, 
 indeed, to be proud of, and one which placed 
 the 26th Division in the first place among the 
 National Guard units that took part in our 
 history overseas. 
 
 To say the least, the country northwest 
 of Chateau-Thierry was not a very pleasant 
 sort of place to be during those ever-memora- 
 ble days of mid-July, 1918. It was a series of 
 shallow and incomplete trenches, extending 
 from near Vaux and Bouresches, around east 
 and the northern edges of the Bois de Bel- 
 leau (Belleau Wood), to a point near Bus- 
 siares. These positions were under constant 
 harassing fire from enemy batteries, and like- 
 wise many enemy machine guns and snipers 
 were comfortably installed all along the edges 
 of the woods, banks of the Ru Gobert Creek, 
 and in the ruined villages of Torcy and Bel- 
 leau, close to our front lines. 
 
 The 26th Division took over these lines 
 during the night of July 16th, and immediately 
 that ever-present and necessary phase of 
 trench-life known as "raiding" set in. 
 
90 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 As the majority of my readers have never 
 been out there in the darkness of the trench 
 areas, where the lights that come and go are 
 only the fitful brilliancy of the flares and sig- 
 nals or the sputter of the angry little hidden 
 machine guns; where the slightest unguarded 
 move means almost certain death, perhaps 
 it would be well to try to picture to them just 
 what a raid is like. 
 
 With the lengthening of the shadows, and 
 the setting of the sun behind the purple 
 crests of the torn hillsides of Picardy, the 
 whole face of the fighting is changed, for now 
 the men creep out through the mists and 
 shadows into No Man's Land, there to meet 
 other men, face to face and hand to hand, and 
 then, occur the slight patrol engagements of 
 the raiding parties. Quite naturally, these 
 raids, for the most part, are never mentioned 
 m the communiques of the day, but they 
 nevertheless form an important part of the 
 intelligence work of the fighting forces, for 
 it is during these raids that prisoners are 
 taken and much useful information obtained. 
 
 Night life along the front is both weird 
 and at the same time very picturesque. 
 There are flares, flares, flares, as far as the 
 eye can see, bursting into brief brilliance 
 and then leaving the night blacker than 
 ever. The slightest unusual movement or 
 suggested alarm sets vari-colored signal rock- 
 ets hissing from the trenches. Then comes 
 the shattering voice of the vicious machine 
 guns, spraying steel- jacketed pellets of death 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 91 
 
 with reckless fury. Small parties of men now 
 creep snake-like out through No Man's 
 Land, cut their way through the lines of tan- 
 gled wire, and then lie in wait just behind 
 the enemy parapets, where they can hear all 
 that is said and all that is going on within 
 the enemy lines. The slightest noise or the 
 grating of a pebble will bring down the fury 
 of the machine guns that are hidden behind 
 the mounds of earth or in the edge of the 
 thickets before you. You lie there, scarcely 
 daring to breathe for fear of being heard by 
 the enemy, and never daring to move until 
 the signal comes. A chain of Verey lights 
 flash upward to the right, lighting up the 
 surrounding country and its maze of trenches 
 and tangled wire with almost the brilliance 
 of broad daylight. Then comes the signal. 
 You throw yourself forward into the enemy 
 line; clean the section of trenches alloted to 
 your section, taking prisoners and then dash- 
 ing backward across the shell-torn and tan- 
 gled debris of No Man's Land to your own 
 lines. You drop safely into your own trenches 
 again just as the inevitable retaliatory fire 
 can come from the enemy positions. 
 
 Then comes the first faint streak of the 
 coming dawn, and the face of the front is 
 gradually changed, as the heavy mists lift 
 their clinging curtain from the torn and 
 tangled masses of earth and wire that have so 
 lately seen so much feverish activity and such 
 bloody struggling of desperate men. 
 
92 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Such is a raiding party, and many are the 
 tales that the boys of the A. E. F. Combat 
 Divisions can tell of these "parties" too. 
 
 After a week of this sort of life, the whole 
 thing quite naturally resolved itself into the 
 same continuous round of monotonous duties, 
 and the men of the 26th Division were eager 
 to have things happen. 
 
 And happen they did, and rather rapidly, 
 too, for they received orders on the night of 
 July 17th, calling for an advance the next 
 morning. 
 
 The problem which faced the Americans 
 was rather a difficult one, if considered from 
 purely tactical viewpoints, for the "Yankee" 
 Division was to perform the tedious and dif- 
 ficult operation of acting as the pivot, upon 
 which should swing the entire fortunes of the 
 whole series of operations which were to be 
 undertaken by the First Corps in the great 
 battle. This is a most exacting tactical 
 problem, and, in this instance, it was solved 
 as follows: (1) the left of the 26th Division 
 was to attack north and northeast, pivoting 
 on the village of Bouresches, and guiding on 
 the 167th French Division, on its left, but 
 never getting ahead of the 167th, while swing- 
 ing gradually northeast, until the whole 
 front of the left should have been straightened ; 
 (2) having accomplished this maneuver, the 
 26th was now to attack with the right wing 
 of the division, — half of it eastward and half 
 northward, taking the woods in front, then 
 executing a half-turn to the northeast, to 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 93 
 
 bring the front into alignment with the general 
 front; (3) from this point the advance was 
 to be carried straight-away. 
 
 The division had already been disposed as 
 follows: (1) the 101st Infantry was on the 
 extreme right, near Vaux, and facing north- 
 ward; (2) the 102d, facing eastward, extending 
 a trifle beyond the village of Bouresches ; (3) 
 the 104th, from its position in the Bois de 
 Belleau, faced eastward and northeastward; 
 and (4) the 103d, on the extreme left of the 
 line, facing northeast and north. 
 
 Accordingly, at 4.35 o'clock on the morning 
 of July 18th, and under the cover of the neu- 
 tralization fire laid down by the 101st Field 
 Artillery, the 52d Brigade, advancing three 
 battalions, went through the mists of the 
 morning toward the enemy. The 2d Bat- 
 talion of the 103d Infantry was advanced 
 in a northeasterly direction from its position 
 in the Bois de Belleau, with the objective 
 of taking the railway line in the creek valley 
 between Bouresches and Belleau villages; 
 the 3d Battalion of the 104th, advancing 
 northward, with objectives set as Belleau 
 village and Givry, as well as the railway line 
 that ran between them; the remaining bat- 
 talion, the 3d Battalion of the 103d Infantry, 
 on the left of the brigade sector, was to at- 
 tack northward, with objectives at Torcy 
 and the railway beyond that village. 
 
 The 201st Division of von Boehn's Seventh 
 German Army was encountered and sur- 
 prised, putting the 3d Battalion of the 103d 
 
94 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Infantry inside of Torcy and pushing for- 
 ward, taking the grade of the railroad and the 
 creek bank. Here the positions were con- 
 solidated. The center battalion, the 3d 
 Battalion of the 104th, had already become 
 so confused in inky blackness of the Bois de 
 Belleau that the advance was delayed some- 
 what. But, when they finally started out of 
 the forest, the enemy, now thoroughly aroused, 
 was pushed backward, as the Yanks cleaned 
 up Belleau and then Givry, with their shin- 
 ing bayonets. Then, having advanced their 
 flanks up the slopes of Hill 193, north of 
 Givry, they continued onward, reaching a 
 point half-way up that hill before they could 
 be stopped. 
 
 Hill 193 was found to be untenable, and 
 our troops there were recalled, the enemy 
 gunners re-occupying it, and its commanding 
 positions, from which they poured a wither- 
 ing fire in enfilade westward along the front 
 of the 167th French Division, as well as en- 
 filading our entire front in the creek valley 
 or the hills east of it, as far as Bouresches. 
 This forced the 2d Battalion of the 103d, 
 which had advanced to the railroad and the 
 creek beyond, to retire from the creek line 
 and to cling with the utmost difficulty to 
 the grade of the railroad. Here they dug 
 their fox-holes and stuck! 
 
 But, across the fire-swept belt in their rear, 
 it was impossible to bring supplies and am- 
 munition, and after dark, they withdrew to 
 the edge of the woods. However, a detach- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 95 
 
 ment of the 102d, which had advanced with 
 them, still managed to retain possession of 
 the slightly less-exposed point of the Boures- 
 ches railway station. As for the battalions 
 in Torcy and those in Belleau and Givry, 
 they had not fared so badly where they now 
 lay, although the ground between them and 
 the woods was an inferno. 
 
 As for the troops which were being torn 
 to bits by the enfilade fire from Hill 193, 
 there was nothing to do now, that is, nothing 
 except to await the arrival of the French 
 division on the Givry-Monthiers line. 
 
 Then, assuming that the French would 
 attack with them, a general advance of the 
 26th Division was ordered for 3 o'clock of the 
 afternoon of the 20th, with the object of 
 aligning the front facing northeast on the 
 line of crests beyond the valley of the creek 
 and running from Les Brusses Farm (one 
 kilometer west of Belleau), through Hill 190, 
 to La Goneterie Farm. 
 
 No preparatory fire was employed, except 
 for an accompanying barrage, and the attack 
 was made with the 51st brigade sending 
 forward the 3d Battalion of the 102d Infantry, 
 northeastward into the Bois de Bouresches. 
 These woods were cleared, then, the 3d 
 Battalion of the 101st, on the right, attacked 
 the Bois de la Halmardiere, north of them, 
 echeloning on left, and thus swinging itself 
 facing northeast also. 
 
 In the left sector, the 52d Brigade had a 
 much harder fight, due to the shifting of 
 
96 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 battalions under enemy fire from their north 
 front in order to send forward their attack 
 eastward. This involved cautious maneuver- 
 ing. They advanced, however, from Belleau, 
 up the railway, across the creek and took 
 Les Brusses Farm. At the same time the 
 1st Battalion of the 103d advanced from Bois 
 de Belleau until they had dug themselves in 
 firmly in possession of Hill 190, as well as 
 being in liaison with troops in the Bois de 
 Bouresches, by six o'clock that evening. 
 
 The French, however, could not take 
 Hill 193, in spite of the fact that they made 
 several magnificent attacks, and therefore, 
 all during the night, the enemy guns swept 
 the American lines, isolating the battalion 
 at Les Brusses Farm. 
 
 But the main part of the problem had been 
 worked out, and, July 21st, the enemy, re- 
 pulsed on a front of about sixty miles, and 
 fearing that they might be pocketed in the 
 Chateau-Thierry salient, was in full retreat. 
 
 "Now it was that, leaving behind them at 
 last the woods and the fields in which for 
 more than seven weeks, while the wheat 
 ripened and the poppies bloomed and faded, 
 the doggedness of America had been pitted 
 against the stubbornness of Germany, the 
 26th swept forward in pursuit." 
 
 Shall we men of the A. E. F. ever forget 
 those multitudes of blood-red waving pop- 
 pies of Picardy and Artois and Flanders? 
 Poppies in those broad French wheat-fields, 
 on those pleasant slopes of France; poppies 
 
1^ ' 
 
 9> 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 * 1. 
 
 X 
 
98 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 which every day became a deeper blood-red. 
 nodding and dancing in the soft breezes of 
 summer, while above them the skylarks sang 
 lilting, liquid tunes, during that wonderful 
 and most beautiful month of all the year, 
 in any country and in any clime, — June! 
 Poppies reddening in the fields along the road- 
 way that led over that rolling French coun- 
 tryside toward the little town of Monthiers, 
 seemingly unmindful of the spiteful rattle 
 as the machine guns played from their masked 
 coverts! Over those same poppies, too, 
 rang the sharp and singing song of the shrap- 
 nel, as it greets the coming morning, among 
 the bruised and shell- torn fields of Artois. 
 
 And oh, how those stalwart and brave 
 Yankee lads used to love those tiny blood- 
 red poppies of Flanders! And how they used 
 to press them in their letters to the home- 
 folks, or else place them gently within the 
 sacred little folder where they kept those 
 pictures of the loved ones! And how they 
 used to wear them next their hearts as they 
 leaped to the big advance, down through the 
 poppied wheatfields to the flaming woods 
 ahead. And, then, as the sunset with its 
 mellow light, came to bathe the torn and 
 tortured world of their existence, broken 
 and bruised and trampled, the tiny poppies 
 had likewise shared in the day of victory, — 
 broken and bruished and dead as were their 
 brave knights in khaki whose helms they had 
 decorated in the fray! And, yonder in the 
 woodland, where the flashing rifles and bay- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 99 
 
 onets shine in the sunset glow, still other 
 ''Knights of the Poppies" were holding the 
 line with their files. 
 
 ''Poppies in the wheatfields; 
 How still beside them lie 
 Scattered forms that stir not 
 When the star-shells burst on high, 
 Gently o'er them bending 
 Beneath the moon's soft glance. 
 Poppies in the wheatfields 
 On the ransomed hills of France." 
 
 (Author unknown.) 
 
 Ail day long on July 21st, the Yankee 
 Division marched across country in columns, 
 headed by advance guards, as the old I. D. 
 R. required, and not until evening, after a 
 march of nearly nine kilometers had led the 
 advance far across the Soissons-Chateau 
 Thierry highway, that heavy machine gun 
 fire stopped the forward movement and 
 brought the warning that the enemy had 
 made a stand in the broad, shallow creek val- 
 ley in which lie the tiny villages of Trugny 
 and, one kilometer north of it, Epieds. 
 
 East of these villages, up the gently slop- 
 ing fields, stood the Bois de Trugny, filled 
 with enemy machine guns. 
 
 In the heavy mists of the gray morning of 
 July 22d, the 26th Division attacked, driv- 
 ing forward one battalion each of the 103d 
 and 104th toward Epieds, two and one-half 
 battalions of the 102d against Trugny, and 
 
100 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 two battalions of the 101st moving along the 
 Bois de Barbillon, to flank those villages. 
 
 Our batteries, further to the rear, did not 
 know very definitely where the front was, 
 and could not, therefore, deliver a very ef- 
 fective barrage, while the enemy artillery, 
 adjusted by their planes, deluged our lines 
 with gas and high explosives. 
 
 An enemy strong point at La Gouttiere 
 Farm, in the 167th French sector, which 
 galled our troops on the left flank and rear, 
 proved highly annoying to the advance, but 
 on they went, on the left and center, into 
 the edges of the villages before they were 
 turned back. The 101st Machine Gun Bat- 
 talion, skirting with its infantry, the Bois 
 de Barbillon, penetrated the Bois de Trugny, 
 and when finally forced backward by con- 
 centrated fire, stopped defiantly directly 
 south of Trugny and stayed there, a thorn in 
 the enemy flank. 
 
 Three battalions of the 52d Brigade re- 
 peated the attack on the left during the after- 
 noon, but La Gouttiere Farm was still in the 
 hands of the enemy. The French division 
 was being engaged bitterly beating off^ enemy 
 counters, with the assistance of the 26th 
 American Division Artillery, which had ex- 
 tended its zone of fire entirely across the 
 French sector. 
 
 On the morning of July 23d, our artillery 
 dropped destructive fire on the enemy posi- 
 tions, in preparation for an attack on the 
 Bois de Trugny. The 101st Infantry, work- 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 101 
 
 ing with the 101st Engineers, made the ad- 
 vance, and although slow progress was made 
 at first, the line was pushed into the edge of 
 the woods. Then our positions encountered 
 heavy machine gun concentration in front 
 and on both flanks, which was highly de- 
 structive. The attackers, accordingly suffered 
 heavily, being forced to fall back to the other 
 edge of the woods. 
 
 The 56th Infantry Brigade, of the 28th 
 Division, was now placed under the command 
 of the 26th, by the Corps command, in order 
 that the driving forward of the attack should 
 not stop. Intelligence headquarters now re- 
 ported a further enemy withdrawal, and once 
 again the allied forces swept majestically 
 forward across the hills of Artois. The ad- 
 vance of the 26th Division was pushed for- 
 ward in the direction of the Jaulgonne-Fere 
 en Tardenois highway, northeast of the 
 Bois de Trugny. through the Foret de Fere. 
 Here it was held up by machine gun fire, 
 just west of the road, and which came from 
 the direction of the Croix Rouge Farm, forc- 
 ing them to dig-in along this line for the night. 
 Here the 26th Division was relieved by 
 the 42d Division, and the weary "Yankee" 
 Division left the 51st Brigade Artillery and 
 the 101st Engineers to go on with the men of 
 the "Rainbow." The remainder of the 
 26th were drawn back to the area of Entre- 
 pilly, on July 26th. 
 
 In its eight days of battle, the "Yankee" 
 Division had advanced eighteen and one-half 
 
102 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 kilometers, had taken about 250 prisoners, 4 
 field pieces, numerous machine guns, and 
 great quantities of ammunition. Its losses 
 were 5,300 men, of whom 600 were killed. 
 
 Where the lads of the "Yankee" Division 
 have fallen upon the battle-fields there would 
 they rest, for, to them, there could be no 
 holier hills found than those hills of France 
 to hold the soldier's clay. Deep in the hearts 
 of their fellow-countrymen their fast, firm 
 and immortal sepulcher shall ever be, greater 
 than all the tombs of ancient kings. They 
 have served their country overseas, and 
 loved her, — dying with a heart that sings! 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 103 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 With Our Second Corps at the Hinden- 
 BURG Line. 
 
 If my readers could be dropped down into 
 the stretch of French countryside that lies 
 along the Canal du Nord, which runs be- 
 tween Saint Quentin and Cambrai, he would 
 see that, after all, for the most part the battle 
 fronts are pretty much alike along the entire 
 line from Switzerland to the turbulent waters 
 of the North Sea. Unnumbered dugouts, 
 many of them made of concrete, still line the 
 roadsides or honeycomb the slopes of the 
 hills. At commanding points, machine gun 
 emplacements and observation posts, con- 
 structed alike of masonry, with steel beams 
 and reinforced concrete, stand as lonely sen- 
 tinels over the desolation they helped to 
 create. Wire entanglements, broken wagons, 
 pieces of artillery, cartridge cases, and frag- 
 ments of weapons bear mute testimony to 
 the frightfulness of which they were a part. 
 
 The devastated area in France and Belgium 
 extends for over three hundred miles. Its 
 average breadth is probably ten miles, and 
 in all this region there is hardly a house but 
 has been either totally destroyed or badly 
 damaged. The gifts of nature and the 
 products of man alike are ravaged by the holo- 
 caust of war. Think of the tragedy of it 
 
104 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 all! Remember that most of this area was 
 not the scene of one battle alone, but was the 
 cauldron in which, for four years, had been 
 brewed the pottage of the most destructive 
 warfare known to history. 
 
 But the rains of the French springtime were 
 coaxing the grasses and daisies forth from 
 their winter coverts, — covering the great 
 gaping scars of war. Daisies nodded their 
 heads in the winds, and masses of poppies, — 
 those poppies of song and story, — gorgeous 
 in their brilliant red, gave warmth and color 
 to the somber scene. 
 
 If the reader could have entered the lines 
 with the men of the 27th Division before Le 
 Catelet, on that memorable September morn- 
 ing, 1918, he would have been looking across 
 the rolling French countryside toward per- 
 haps the strongest point in that iron-bound 
 position, behind which the enemy were 
 standing and declaring to the Allied forces: 
 "Thus far you will come, and no farther!" 
 
 From a position within the confines of 
 Guillemont Ferme, one looks down across a 
 succession of rolling valleys toward Le 
 Catelet, the objective of some of the units 
 of the 27th Division. To the right of Guille- 
 mont Ferme is Claymore Valley, with Dirk 
 Valley at its right, down which the road runs 
 from Malakoff and Quennemont Farms to 
 Bony, which lay just inside of the great bands 
 of wire and trenches of the Hindenburg 
 Line. Quennemont Ferme lies about five 
 or six hundred yards northwest by north of 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 105 
 
 Malakoff Wood, a tiny patch of woodland, in- 
 terlaced with the enemy lines of trenches 
 and bands of wire entanglements. Further 
 on, within the enemy positions, one could 
 see the point of the hillside, overlooking the 
 valley of the Escaut River, and likewise 
 the extreme northern end of the great Canal 
 Tunnel, where it begins its three-mile journey 
 under the hillsides that lie before the town of 
 Le Catelet. Such is but a fleeting glance at 
 the terrain over which the men of our own 
 27th Division were to advance in their at- 
 tack of September 29th, against the so-called 
 impregnable positions of the Hindenburg 
 Line. 
 
 Perhaps it would be well to correct another 
 erroneous impression which has been pretty 
 much broadcast since the ending of the great 
 conflict, viz., that the Hindenburg Line was 
 nothing but a sort of local feature of the sector 
 occupied by the 27th and 30th American 
 Divisions, and some few Australians. Such 
 was not the case, for the Hindenburg Line, 
 which was the enemy's best bet in defensive 
 positions, ran from the seacoast near the 
 Belgian border, the entire length of the 
 western front and ended in the Vosges coun- 
 try near Epinal. It had been constructed with 
 the same care and impregnability throughout 
 its entire length, and was to have been the 
 greatest depth of Allied penetration. 
 
 And so it was that, while the majority of 
 our troops were madly fighting through 
 drenching rains, and knee deep in mud of the 
 
106 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Argonne; through swampy ground and deep- 
 est forest tangles; driving their lines forward 
 through every conceivable sort of an obstacle, 
 up the slopes of shell-torn hills, only to meet 
 another just beyond, — inch by inch, foot 
 by foot, — as the indomitable Yanks hacked 
 and tore their way through thousands of 
 enemy machine guns, — slogging along through 
 acres of sticky and clinging mud; the others, 
 further north, with the British, were driving 
 forward only because, in the Argonne, the 
 main body of the American Forces were 
 drawing and riveting there the best divisions 
 that badgered Ludendorff could muster. 
 
 As one authority puts it: "While the Amer- 
 icans, in their own offensive, were nosing 
 their way through the enemy defenses north- 
 west of Verdun, other American units, 
 fighting side by side with the Australians, 
 for the first time in this war that Yanks and 
 Aussies had lined up together in a major 
 operation, took part in the victorious British 
 advance in Picardy." 
 
 To these two divisions went the distinction 
 of playing an important role in fighting which 
 pierced the main defenses of the Hindenburg 
 Line, at a point where that line and barrier 
 of freedom was especially strong and where 
 the enemy was prepared to resist with des- 
 peration. 
 
 These men fought their way, on the right 
 of the British advance, north of Cambrai and 
 Saint Quentin, with their objectives set at 
 points beyond the line of the Saint Quentin 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 107 
 
 Canal, on a stretch of front where that water- 
 way, running underground for three miles, 
 passes through what is known as the Belli- 
 court Tunnel. 
 
 The hillcrest just above the tunnel, the 
 only stretch between Saint Quentin and 
 Cambrai where this waterway protection 
 did not exist and where an attack by tanks 
 could be expected, had been fortified with 
 all the care of the German General Staff. 
 The Hindenburg Line in this vicinity was 
 based upon the line of this tunnel, and its 
 steep sides and stone embankments offered 
 a most formidable line of defense. Here the 
 Germans had concentrated troops and ma- 
 chine guns, with strongly defended lines pro- 
 tecting the hill in front. 
 
 On entering the tunnel, one found the water- 
 way to be thirty feet wide, with a broad tow- 
 path on each side. Caverns had been dug 
 out of the side walls and food and munitions 
 were stored there, while the canal channel was 
 filled with barges, which had been fitted up 
 for troop quarters. In addition to this, 
 there were galleries leading off in several 
 directions and also another gallery above the 
 tunnel itself. Having fitted these numerous 
 barges with bunks and kitchens, the enemy 
 had floated them into the tunnel, and had 
 thus made the hill a literal fortress. Elec- 
 tric lights, telephones, and a water system 
 had been installed. Protected from the 
 heaviest artillery fire by the earth and 
 masonry above them, with each end of the 
 
108 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 tunnel blocked by concrete walls, the enemy 
 was secure from all attack. Openings in the 
 roof of the tunnel, through which stairways 
 ran, gave exits for the men when ordered to 
 take the offensive or relieve those in the out- 
 lying trenches. At the mouth of the tunnel, 
 lying close together, a correspondent picked 
 up two battered helmets, — one an American, 
 the other a German. What was their story? 
 Where were the men who wore them? Did 
 they meet here on alien soil, far from home, 
 to grapple in a hand-to-hand conflict for 
 supremacy until death sealed the verdict 
 of their fate? Perhaps the answer lies buried 
 in some unknown grave. 
 
 The Americans started their attack at 5.50 
 o'clock on the morning of September 29th, 
 having previously fought their way to their 
 jumping-off places, taking, a few days before, 
 Guillemont Ferme, Quennemont Ferme, and 
 a little hill known merely as "The Knoll," 
 all outpost positions of the Hindenburg Line. 
 
 That arrogant system of defenses was re- 
 garded by the enemy as impregnable for it 
 was constructed over miles and miles of hills 
 and valleys, thorny with machine guns, 
 honeycombed with mines and all sorts of 
 enemy traps, and symbolizing all the pride, 
 arrogance, treachery and invulnerability of 
 the German war-lords. "Look at our Hin- 
 denburg Line — it stands — it is unconquered! 
 Deutschland uber alles! Gott strafe Amer- 
 ika!" Such was no doubt the cry of many 
 of the enemy press agents, but you will all 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 109 
 
 very well remember that this hue and cry was 
 done before the 29th of September, 1918. 
 
 Let us realize fully that Marshal Foch 
 absolutely knew the possibility or possibili- 
 ties of this system of defenses; knew their 
 value to the enemy spirit in the homes of 
 the peasants beyond the Rhine. Therefore 
 it became his great object during the later 
 months of the war, to bring this ever-increas- 
 ing strain that had been telling so terribly on 
 the spirit of the German people to such a point 
 that it could not hold out any longer. 
 
 Accordingly, we can recall how Foch drove 
 forward his invincible Allied drive during the 
 summer months of 1918, beginning with the 
 great counterstroke of July 18th, when he 
 drove his legions against Ludendorff and 
 smashed up his flanks and center quite badly. 
 Then, on September 12th, he had sent for- 
 ward the First American Army, under Gen- 
 eral Pershing, in its first entirely American 
 offensive, in Saint Mihiel, with such results 
 as the Allied chiefs themselves had never 
 dreamed of. 
 
 One authority had put the situation and 
 also endeavoured to place the part played 
 by our boys at the Hindenburg Line in a 
 quite enlarged and highly magnified aspect, 
 which I am sure even the boys themselves 
 of our 27th Division will smile at and pass by 
 as the prattle of one who was rather high- 
 spirited and over-enthusiastic. He says: 
 
 "The British, Canadians, and Australians, 
 with the American troops called upon to 
 
110 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 carry the ball across Hindy's goal line were 
 entrusted with the most considerable thrust 
 between the Meuse and the North Sea." 
 
 Such was not the case at all, and, as my 
 mission in this work is to tell the story of the 
 American forces, with impartiality and ac- 
 curacy, sticking closely to the official reports 
 and accounts of these operations, I shall 
 place the breaking of the Hindenburg Line 
 in its true historical perspective, as set forth 
 in official circles, by men who know far more 
 about its relation to the great Allied smash 
 than any other men in the whole world, — 
 the men who planned and executed that 
 smash. 
 
 These men, under the unified leadership 
 system which Marshal Foch had organized 
 under his command, planned the great Allied 
 smash which was to be thrown against the 
 enemy at strategic points in the long-drawn 
 battle-line. As the official report of this 
 phase of allied operations puts it: "Every 
 army performing its part as an intermeshing 
 cog, without whose action the whole might 
 stop." 
 
 On September 21st, General Franchet 
 d'Esprey's allied forces struck a smashing 
 and final blow to Bulgaria on the Macedo- 
 nian front, and on the 24th of September, 
 General Allenby's British Army broke through 
 in Palestine, — thus putting Bulgaria and 
 Turkey out of it. Then, on the 24th of 
 October, the Italians battered the Austrian 
 defenses to pieces along the Piave and in the 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. Ill 
 
 Trentino, binding the enemy by a dictated 
 armistice. 
 
 On the extreme left of the western front 
 in France and Belgium, the Belgian and 
 British armies were instructed to keep up 
 their pressure against the German right, — 
 that section of the Armies of the Central 
 Powers that was under the command of the 
 Crown Prince of Bavaria. The French, in 
 the center, were to keep on hammering against 
 the Armies of the German Crown Prince, 
 consisting of the First, Second, Seventh 
 and Eighteenth Armies, which made up his 
 Gruppen. 
 
 Now let us quote again from the official 
 sources: "But the real blows were to be 
 struck on the right, where the entire force 
 of the American machine was to be pitted 
 against the German Third Army, under von 
 Einem and the right of the Fifth Army under 
 the command of von der Marwitz, these 
 blows being intended to smash their way 
 through the lines of the German Armies and 
 cut the communications from the vicinity 
 of Montmedy on through to Sedan." 
 
 Thus it can be clearly seen that, contrary 
 to the ideas of historians who were entirely 
 unfamiliar with the workings and plannings 
 of the allied commands, the really great 
 fight, — and, as a matter of fact, the greatest 
 fight that American troops ever have engaged 
 in during the entire history of our country, 
 was planned and fought in the mud of the 
 Argonne, and that section which lies between 
 
112 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 the Meuse River line and the western ex- 
 tremity of the Argonne plateau. 
 
 This does not detract one whit, however, 
 from the wonderful work which was accom- 
 plished by our men of the 27th and 30th 
 Divisions, who were operating with our 
 Second Corps, with the British, in the vicinity 
 of the Bellicourt tunnel of the Hindenburg 
 system. These facts that I have enumerated 
 above, serve only to set us right in regard to 
 the place that this fight held in the great 
 allied offensive that led finally to victory, in 
 the last few months of 1918. 
 
 For the sake of getting things well in mind, 
 it might be well to enumerate the construc- 
 tion of the 27th Division, as it fought in 
 France. The 27th Division consisted of 
 the following units: The 105th, 106th, 107th 
 and 108th Infantry Regiments; the 104th, 
 105th and 106th Machine Gun Battalions; 
 the 104th, 105th and 106th Regiments of 
 Field Artillery; the 102d Trench Mortar 
 Battery; the 102d Engineers, and other di- 
 visional and staff troops. 
 
 These were the troops of the 27th Division 
 which faced that impregnable system of 
 enemy defenses, as they entered the line on 
 that September evening in 1918. 
 
 The allied staffs already had in their pos- 
 session a German staff book which went into 
 minutest detail in regard to the construction 
 of the boasted Hindenburg Line, and which 
 made bold to state that the section in the 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 113 
 
 vicinity of Bellicourt tunnel was the hardest 
 for any attacking force to assault. 
 
 The outer defenses, as we have mentioned 
 before, consisted of several lines of trenches, 
 protected by masses of wire, as well as three 
 strong points,— the Knoll, Quennemont Farm 
 and Guillemont Farm, to say nothing of light 
 and heavy machine guns, minenwerfer of all 
 sizes, and concealed batteries everywhere. 
 Likewise, at Guillemont Farm, the enemy 
 had installed a most powerful flamenwerfer 
 or flame-projector system. Such was the 
 main part of the construction of the ground, 
 which the enemy had extended to a depth of 
 six miles, gullied and harrowed and literally 
 strewn with hidden machine guns, which 
 only spoke when our waves were at their 
 mouths. 
 
 Major General O'Ryan, commanding, set 
 up his divisional P. C. in a chalk quarry at 
 Saint Emilie, some few thousand yards 
 behind the front, and, in accordance with the 
 usual Flanders weather, — rain, — which is one 
 of the greatest products of that part of France 
 — ^had turned the roads into quagmires of 
 slippery and clinging mud. And always and 
 seemingly forever, roared the snarling and 
 growling British guns, wiping out enemy 
 works and pulverizing enemy defenses. 
 
 No one who has never been at the battle 
 area, under wartime conditions, can appre- 
 ciate how pulsingly filled with restrained 
 eagerness the men of these units were, — 
 that unconquerable Yankee spirit that even 
 
114 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 the drenching rains of France could not 
 dampen! Then is the time, when man talks 
 to man confidentially of little secrets; of the 
 bright lights of the little old town back there 
 among the hills of the Empire State; of 
 familiar places around Times Square or 
 Herald Square, and how they know their 
 friends were back there enjoying the light and 
 warmth, and then it is that they begin to talk 
 of their chances of getting back there once 
 more to "carry on" there with the same vigor 
 and dash that they were ''carrying on" that 
 night in Picardy mud and rain! 
 
 Out across No Man's Land, some four 
 thousand yards ahead of them, lay the for- 
 midable system of the Canal Tunnel, while 
 on their right lay the men of the 30th Amer- 
 ican Division, flanked by the French 10th 
 Army, while the 3d British Corps was on 
 their left. 
 
 The operations which were destined to 
 end in the breaking of the Canal Tunnel line, 
 began with a machine gun barrage by com- 
 panies A, C and D of the 105th Machine Gun 
 Battalion, with Company B covering Tom- 
 bois Road. The 104th Machine Gun Battal- 
 ion was held in reserve to take over the sup- 
 port positions at the critical time. This ma- 
 chine gun preparation was followed by the 
 artillery preparation, which fell upon the 
 enemy positions at 5.20 on the morning of 
 September 27th, and at which time the 106th 
 Infantry, composing the attacking party, in 
 conjunction with flank protection by one 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 115 
 
 battalion of the 105th Infantry, on their left, 
 affording flank protection against the enemy 
 positions in the vicinity of Vendhuile. 
 
 The enemy tank traps took a heavy toll, — 
 out of some forty tanks going forward in the 
 attack, only a dozen came back. Scores of 
 men of the 106th Infantry fell before the 
 withering fire of the enemy machine guns, 
 which presented a veritable net-work of cross- 
 fire in their front. But the advance was 
 maintained, and the lines, though torn and 
 rent by a tornado of exploding enemy shells, 
 kept moving. At points in the immediate 
 vicinity of Knoll Farm, the struggle for the 
 mastery was particularly severe and bloody, 
 and the shell-torn and crumbling ruins of the 
 farm changed hands four times before the 
 enclosure was finally strewn with the dead 
 and dying of both sides, although the enemy 
 dead outnumbered our own by dozens. The 
 fighting continued all day, with the com- 
 bating lines of bloody and snarling and 
 vicious men continually at each other's 
 throats, and, when the darkness finally set- 
 tled down over the countrysides of Picardy, 
 the 106th Infantry had been reduced to a 
 small body of worn and weary, bloodstained 
 and gasping humans, who continued to cling 
 with the bull-dog tenacity of the Yanks to the 
 gains which the sanguinary struggle of the 
 day had netted them. 
 
 On the morning of the 28th of September, 
 having planned the taking of the enemy 
 strong points at Quennemont and Guille- 
 
116 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 mont Farms and The Knoll, which were 
 necessary for jumping-off points for the main 
 attack, the divisional command sent forward 
 the 107th and 108th Infantry Regiments, 
 to the relief of the weary 106th, and the 
 struggle for these positions was continued. 
 All day long the seething lines of steel and 
 battling humanity surged backward and for- 
 ward in deadly combat, men dying in tens 
 and scores in the vicinity of the strong points 
 at Guillemont and Quennemont Farms. But 
 the positions were taken as planned, and 
 night saw the men of the 27th Division con- 
 solidating their positions in these points. 
 
 At 5.50 o'clock, on the morning of Septem- 
 ber 29th, thirty-five guns of the 105th Ma- 
 chine Gun Battalion opened a deadly barrage 
 over the heads of the infantry, with the Tun- 
 nel as its target, firing for one-half hour, at 
 the rate of two hundred rounds per minute. 
 
 Then, as the first streaks of the coming 
 dawn began to filter over the torn and bruised 
 French hillsides, came the greatest barrage 
 of the entire war from the British guns. A 
 veritable cataract of steel and fire leaped 
 from the muzzles of our guns and fell upon the 
 enemy positions of "Hindy;" over went the 
 men of the 27th, fighting like demons every 
 inch of the way; snarling, growling, frenzied 
 Huns forced into the most desperate fight- 
 ing of their lives, — the fight to hold their oft- 
 boasted Hindenburg Line, — fought fiercely, 
 and held tenaciously to their positions, until 
 the dash and unbeatable spirit of the men of 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 117 
 
 the 27th pushed their waves forward and made 
 the positions untenable. 
 
 The attack was synchronized with those 
 of the French and British on the south and 
 north flanks, and a squadron of forty tanks 
 lumbered noisily forward toward the fire- 
 spitting nests ahead, but were soon put out of 
 the fighting by traps. Some of the enemy 
 wire had escaped the preparatory fire of our 
 batteries, and accordingly, the 102d Engi- 
 neers moved forward, in advance of the in- 
 fantry, and placed rolls of wire similar to 
 ** chicken-wire" over the enemy entangle- 
 ments, and allowed the infantry to advance 
 over these bands of wire and into the ** im- 
 pregnable" positions beyond. Heavy mists 
 and smoke entirely over-spread the country- 
 side, as the men of the 107th and 108th 
 Infantries swept forward against the frowning 
 positions of "Hindy" that seemed to scowl 
 menacingly upon them just ahead. But 
 they continued their advance, in face of 
 strong enemy flank fire, as well as fierce enemy 
 attacks on their front, rear and flank, and a 
 terrible counter by enemy reserves from 
 Vendhuile, against the left of their sector, 
 with the purpose of rolling up and crushing 
 the American attack. These counters were 
 met by the 105th Infantry, whose duty it 
 was to shatter them, the enemy, nevertheless, 
 operating on this flank, holding back the 
 27th Division's left, and delivering repeated 
 hurricanes of fire and men against our 
 positions. 
 
118 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Concrete pill-boxes had been strewn 
 throughout the enemy positions in great 
 quantities, and these were put out of action 
 by the tanks, or, more often, encircled by the 
 men of the 107th and 108th Infantries, and 
 the defenders slain with grenades. It hap- 
 pened, too, that many times, after the initial 
 attacking waves had advanced over some of 
 the tunnel terrain, enemy reserves would 
 emerge from hidden air-shafts behind them 
 and pour a withering fire upon them as they 
 advanced. These underground shafts were 
 of great importance to the enemy, as they 
 of necessity prolonged their fight and in- 
 creased the major casualties of the attackers. 
 
 By two o'clock in the afternoon, our troops 
 had taken the southern entrance of the tunnel, 
 were in possession of Bellicourt, Nauroy 
 and Cabaret Wood Farm, and before four 
 o'clock they had entered Gouy, with the 
 fields in their rear strewn with their valiant 
 dead. 
 
 Every road that led from the vicinity of 
 the fighting to the rear, and more especially 
 to the dressing stations, was trod by weary 
 and worn and bruised and bleeding sons of 
 the Empire State, who had come three 
 thousand miles to show the Boche that 
 pride and arrogance could not aspire to rule 
 the affairs of men. Quennemont and Guille- 
 mont Farms had lost their peace-time quietude 
 and had been turned into veritable hells- 
 on-earth; their farmyards carpeted with the 
 dead and dying; their great flagstones 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 119 
 
 Stained with the reddening stains of newly- 
 spilied blood; their great walls torn and 
 crumbling, and emitting the odors of battle, 
 and the smell of human blood and scorching 
 flesh and gas, and everywhere — the dead. 
 Here men had died in scores, silencing the 
 enemy guns. 
 
 Evening came, and the reddening glow of 
 the setting sun, as it fell behind the hills to 
 the west, found the doughboys established 
 in Bony, while one battalion, having ad- 
 vanced far beyond its objective, had entered 
 Gouy; and then the Australians "leap- 
 frogged" through them, and carried on. 
 
 The battalion in Gouy was cut off and en- 
 tirely surrounded, but clung steadily to 
 their positions, in spite of the fact that the 
 rear was combed by shell -fire and machine 
 gun bullets, and across this area no com- 
 munication could be established. They were 
 attacked from the front, rear, and both 
 flanks, to say nothing of being fired on from 
 the airplanes of the enemy which were con- 
 stantly circling overhead, but they held their 
 positions for eight hours. However, rumors 
 began to reach Saint Emilie that this bat- 
 talion had been lost, and those seemed to be 
 borne out by the statement of a German officer 
 who said that his men alone had taken prisoner 
 over one hundred men in the vicinity of 
 Guillemont Farm. General O'Ryan dis- 
 missed him with the words: "Take him 
 away, he lies!" 
 
120 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 Some of the stories of this battalion were 
 to the effect that they had attempted to 
 surrender and had been ambushed ; that they 
 had all been killed outright, and finally, 
 that they had been taken. The fact was that, 
 as they advanced, the enemy had poured 
 from concealed passages in their rear and 
 shot down scores of them. Finally, they were 
 discovered by a bunch of Australians, and, 
 with a cry for revenge in their hearts, the men 
 of this "lost battalion" dashed forward 
 again with the "Aussies" and stuck with 
 them. 
 
 Some idea of the severity of the fighting 
 can be realized when the authentic statement 
 is made that one company of the 107th In- 
 fantry went into the fight with 212 men and 
 came out with only 12 men unwounded. 
 When some of the 107th units had been torn 
 to shreds, they had to retire to support 
 positions and the 108th advanced, bombing 
 out dugouts and positions in the main system 
 and taking more than their own strength 
 in prisoners, keeping these men with them, 
 and at the same time fighting off severe 
 enemy counters. 
 
 Then came the Australians, bringing relief 
 to the weary men of the 27th Division, many 
 of whom went forward with them, refusing 
 to get out of the fighting, although many of 
 their outfits had been torn to shreds. 
 
 And so it is that our pledge has been kept 
 "on Flanders Fields!" It has been kept as 
 our lines leaped forward over the top, as 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 121 
 
 the faint streaks of coming day tinged the 
 roseate east, as the lines of stalwart vouths 
 advanced to do or die — determined that no 
 price, however high, should be deemed too 
 great to insure the people of bleeding France 
 that 
 
 "Poppies should bloom and keep their place 
 On Flanders Fields." 
 
 Under the lilies of France they lie, silently 
 sleeping their last long sleep, as the soft 
 breezes of coming spring murmur a soothing 
 lullaby as they pass over the scarred fields,— 
 fields scarred by the shell-craters of the 
 fighting hosts, and scarred, too, with the 
 graves of heroes. 
 
 Having accomplished the seemingly im- 
 possible, the 27th Division was relieved, and 
 sent to the rear areas for a brief rest, before 
 being returned to the line for the dash of 
 October. 
 
 The enemy had taken up prepared posi- 
 tions along the line of the Selle River, and 
 were completing preparations for determined 
 resistance. The 27th and 30th Divisions, 
 returning, took over the front and imme- 
 diately made careful reconnaissances. 
 
 On October 8th, the 30th Division, from 
 its positions just east of Montbrehain, be- 
 tween Cambrai and Saint Quentin, stood 
 ready to begin a new drive which should 
 carry it across the Selle River and in the di- 
 rection of the Canal de Sambre. The di- 
 
CO «0 
 
 
 ■o • 
 
 • 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 123 
 
 rection of this advance must, of necessity, be 
 toward the northeast, across rolling country. 
 The enemy put up strong machine gun 
 resistance at the villages and farms that lay 
 scattered through the countryside, and it 
 was therefore considered highly probable 
 that strong resistance and also the most 
 bitterly-fought defense could be looked for 
 beyond the Selle River line. Accordingly, a 
 general attack was made by the 1st French 
 Army, and the 4th British Army, of which 
 the 2d American Corps was a part. This 
 army was disposed with the 9th British Corps 
 on the right, the 2d American Corps in the 
 center, and the 13th British Corps on the 
 left. Then came the 3d British Army, on the 
 extreme left. 
 
 The attack was accompanied with a rolling 
 barrage and tanks, the 30th Division at- 
 tacking with the 117th Infantry on its right, 
 the 118th Infantry on the left. The enemy 
 put down a strong counter-barrage, but the 
 heavy mists of the morning favored the at- 
 tackers, and except for heavy fighting on the 
 villages and farms and bits of woodland, the 
 advance was across open country against 
 only slight enemy resistance. 
 
 By noon, Brancourt and Fremont were in 
 our hands, and the line was running diagon- 
 ally across the Bohain-Premont-Cambrai 
 road, with the enemy retiring rapidly, and 
 putting up only rear guard actions with ma- 
 chine guns, burning buildings and supply 
 and ammunition dumps. 
 
124 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 At five in the evening, the 6th British 
 Division had taken Bohain; the 30th Amer- 
 ican Division was occupying Busigny and 
 Becquigny, while, to the west of Busigny, the 
 30th was astride the western circuit of the 
 enemy's most important railway line, — that 
 which ran from Metz to Mezieres and Hirson 
 to Valenciennes and Lille. 
 
 By October 10th, the 25th British Division 
 was advancing on the left, the 6th British 
 Division was a slight distance behind on the 
 right, and the attack was resumed. Escau- 
 fourt on the left, the western edges of Saint 
 Souplet in the center, and Vaux-Andigny 
 on the right were taken in this attack. Saint 
 Souplet is situated on the west of the Selle 
 River, and, on account of the favorable 
 terrain in its vicinity, the enemy had es- 
 tablished a resistance line on the hills east 
 of the river, at which point their reinforce- 
 ments held up our advance. 
 
 However, on the 11th of October, Saint 
 Souplet, Vaux-Andigny and Saint Benin 
 were cleared, and the advance along the river 
 continued. This advance would command 
 the railway line parallel to the Selle, from 
 St. Souplet to Le Cateau. Here the 27th 
 Division relieved the 30th. 
 
 The 4th Army front had now penetrated 
 far to the east of the desolate Somme Valley, 
 and was now in the midst of scenes untouched 
 by the devastating hands of war. There was 
 green in abundance here. Green things grew 
 in the fields and gardens, where the houses 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 125 
 
 still had roofs on them, and windows, and 
 where the civilians lived the lives of normal 
 human beings. 
 
 In this peaceful valley, the 27th lay still 
 for a couple of days, waiting for guns, sup- 
 plies and ammunition, which had been lost 
 in the dash, to come up. Then, on October 
 16th, having rested for a few days, and hav- 
 ing reorganized its forces, the 30th Division 
 returned to the line, taking over the right 
 half of the 27th Division's sector. This gave 
 each division a frontage of only about 2,000 
 yards, thereby giving the driving power of 
 each division a decidedly greater punch. It 
 was evidenced that here the enemy would 
 resist stubbornly, for there was disposed in 
 line, five complete divisions, as well as ele- 
 ments of six others in reserve areas. 
 
 On October 17th, at 5.25 A.M., through a 
 drizzling rain and heavy, low-hanging mists, 
 under cover of their barrage, the attack was 
 resumed by the two American divisions. 
 Heavy counter-barrage fire was laid down by 
 the enemy, as well as greatly increased ma- 
 chine gun fire. Despite resistance, however, 
 and the slippery, chalky soil, the men of the 
 27th Division waded through the river, 
 climbed the opposite bank and pushed dog- 
 gedly forward into the mists. As practically 
 all of the bridges had been destroyed by the 
 enemy, the 102d Engineers, advancing just 
 behind the first wave of the attack, threw 
 hastily-constructed bridges across the river, 
 and the 105th and 108th Infantry Regiments 
 
126 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 soon were successfully assaulting the heights 
 beyond. 
 
 The enemy losses were heavy, and fourteen 
 hundred prisoners, large quantities of muni- 
 tions and railroad stock were taken. 
 
 The feat of fording the stream, climbing the 
 slippery banks on the opposite side, and 
 scaling the embankment of the railway, just 
 beyond St. Souplet, in the face of the galling 
 enemy fire, was almost unbelievable. Yet 
 it was done. 
 
 Fourteen tanks, part of the 301st American 
 Tank Battalion, having crossed the river to 
 the north of St. Souplet, preceded the attack- 
 ing waves of the 27th Division, whose left 
 had been held up by the difficulty experienced 
 by the 25th British Division in breaking 
 through the little triangle formed by the rail- 
 way line south of Le Cateau. But, neverthe- 
 less, the front of the 27th Division was pushed 
 over the ridge, taking Molain on the right and 
 establishing their lines through the positions 
 in Arbre de Guise. And this in spite of the 
 fact that both their flanks were drawn back- 
 ward for liaison with the other divisions. 
 
 The advancing forces were now encounter- 
 ing especially heavy artillery fire and the 
 enemy were launching several strong coun- 
 ters, which evidenced that they were forced 
 to resist strongly to cover their further with- 
 drawal of their heavy artillery. They had 
 been surprised by the resumption of the 
 attacks. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 127 
 
 On the 18th of October, the 27th Division 
 again attacked, with the 13th Corps (British), 
 encountering heavy machine gun resistance 
 from the farms on the slopes ahead, as well 
 as counter-attacks supported by enemy ar- 
 tillery. But, at noon, the 30th Division, 
 after obstinate fighting for Ribeauville, took 
 that town, after heavy artillery preparation, 
 and, by mid-afternoon, the enemy resistance 
 had so far weakened as to allow the whole 
 front to push forward to the next line of hills, 
 which lay about two miles from the Canal de 
 Sambre, and in the vicinity of the town of 
 Catillon. As the moonlight, cold and clear, 
 came to throw its lengthening shades over 
 the battle-fields, it looked down upon the men 
 of the 30th Division occupying Mazingheim 
 (between Ribeauville and Catillon) assist- 
 ed by flank attacks by the 27th Division 
 from the north. The 27th took Jonc de Mer 
 Farm and La Roux Farm, crossing Jonc de 
 Mer brook and the ridge and pushing for- 
 ward almost to the ridge west of the St. 
 Maurice River. 
 
 On October 19th patrols were pushed for- 
 ward toward the Canal de Sambre, all along 
 the front, those of the 27th Division, reaching 
 the western bank of the St. Maurice River, 
 while those of the 30th Division reached the 
 last ridge west of Catillon and the Canal. 
 
 Artillery and other necessary preparations 
 were now begun for the next great organized 
 attack, which had for its purpose the crossing 
 of the Canal de Sambre and the St. Maurice 
 
128 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 River. But, as the 27th and 30th American 
 Divisions were not in condition to be used 
 longer without a rest, and having become 
 critically reduced by losses and fatigue they 
 were relieved, on the 21st of October, by the 
 6th British Division, which took over the 
 sector of the 27th, and the 1st British Division, 
 taking over that of the 30th, during the night. 
 The 27th and 30th Divisions now were drawn 
 back to the vicinity of Amiens for a rest. 
 
 In its battle from September 29th to Octo- 
 ber 21st, the Second American Corps had 
 advanced a total of about twenty miles, 
 taken about one-tenth of the prisoners of the 
 A. E. F. 
 
 From this point the British forces of the 
 6th and 1st Division pushed the enemy for- 
 ward for a distance of about twenty-five 
 miles beyond the Sambre, and, when the 
 signing of the armistice called a halt to the 
 hostilities all along the front, it found them 
 just within the frontier of Belgium. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 129 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Yankee Soldier. 
 
 And so it was that the American doughboy 
 in France, "came, saw, and conquered" every- 
 thing before him. And, then, when his work 
 was done, he was compelled to stay in France 
 many weary months, while others argued 
 and made speeches on Leagues of Nations 
 and peace conferences and the like, — seeming- 
 ly having forgotten the men who made those 
 things possible. 
 
 And the Yankee soldier did some kicking, 
 and no one on earth could blame him for 
 doing so either. He was entitled to grumble. 
 Of his deeds, they are already history. Of 
 himself, on the line or in the rest areas, he 
 was an American, — that is all — a big, reliant, 
 fearless, splendid American. He did every 
 job that was asked of him and did it right. 
 He played hard and he fought hard. He 
 went into a fight with as brave a heart as 
 God ever placed in human breast, and with 
 a smile on his face he passed down into the 
 Valley of the Shadow. He was the finest 
 soldier in Europe, and there are scores of 
 great soldiers of all nations who will attest 
 the veracity of this statement, and have done 
 so already. Sam Browne belts were not popu- 
 lar with him. Some of his officers, newly 
 come to their rank, were not equal to their 
 
130 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 tasks, but he always was. He was always 
 and simply, — the little old fighting private! 
 
 By his sublime courage, his unfailing op- 
 timism and his abiding faith that nothing 
 could withstand the United States of Amer- 
 ica, he smashed through every obstacle, 
 and would have gone to Berlin, had not the 
 Armistice stopped his victorious advance. 
 As one "scrap of paper" had been Germany's 
 downfall, so another scrap of paper saved her 
 from reaping the whirlwind she had started. 
 
 Of this we are certain. Never again will 
 any nation which saw the American soldier 
 in action, challenge him without a realization 
 of what the challenge means. 
 
 If you had been with him, lived with him 
 and fought beside him, and been through 
 hell with him, and had seen him turn up at 
 every turn with a grin, then you would have 
 come to know him, as I have known him. 
 
 Have you ever stopped to think that he 
 has faced the Great Unknown so much 
 that it holds no fear for him? That he knows 
 what glory means, when it is mixed with 
 mud and blood and the suffering and death 
 and fighting of the nerve- wracking days and 
 nights in the line? Do you know that he has 
 slept in the slush and mud and rain and still 
 sang or whistled a tune of rag-time as the 
 great guns barked and tore the heavens with 
 their flashes? Do you know that he has 
 lived upon a single meal a day, and kept on 
 singing the lilting tunes of the home-town 
 cabaret? Do you know that, perhaps, he 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 131 
 
 has fallen many times in the dark with limp, 
 still things all around him? And then, at the 
 hospital, called the nurse "kid" and begged 
 her to help him get back to that sort of life 
 again? Did you ever hike a hundred miles 
 and carry your house on your back, while 
 your feet were blistered and sore, and your 
 shoulders were cut by the pack-straps? 
 Did you ever live in the rain and snow and the 
 cold, and eat your meals with your plate in 
 your lap? I have marched along dusty 
 French roads,— only one of a million Amer- 
 ican lads,— all so very much alike after all,— 
 spirits as keen as a fresh flash of flame,— 
 ready to strike whenever the chance might 
 come to them, as come it would. Just a 
 bunch of lads, with boyish grins,— waiting 
 the chance to hustle into the fight,— thrilled 
 by the battle and the din and crash of the 
 guns. Tramping along through the darkness; 
 splashing along through the mud and rain, 
 with a pack chafing our backs, — bound for 
 the trenches again ! Watching the flashes 
 of light in the distance and the splotches of 
 red in the sky; hearing now and then the 
 scream of a shell bursting in a convoy creep- 
 ing along the road to the right. Tramping 
 along, — rain in our faces and running icy 
 cold down our backs,— silent and thoughtful, 
 —forever moving forward,— bound for the 
 lines again! 
 
 The first crimson streaks of coming dawn 
 appear in the eastern heavens; and the pock- 
 marked fields begin to come out of the misty 
 
132 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 morning, that chills one to the very bone. 
 Like a silvery thread the river cuts a wind- 
 ing course through the green and brown of 
 its banks. 
 
 And yet, how very quiet and lonely the 
 whole land is ! Only the dead men whose dis- 
 torted bodies lie along the roadways or hang 
 upon the great tangles of the wire before 
 the old battered trenches, live in this beau- 
 tiful land. And what a multitude of shallow 
 graves are in the fields, — some of them are 
 marked by crosses, others only by a single 
 stick with its tiny metal tag upon it, and still 
 others by the owner's rifle, its bayonet driven 
 point down into the soil, and its occupant's 
 bloodstained helmet hanging from its bolt. 
 Graves, singly or in twos or threes or clus- 
 ters, — as they fell. 
 
 And yet we pass thousands of human 
 beings, — clad in blue, — the immortal horizon- 
 blue of heroic France. And we think of his 
 long vigil, — we try to place our few short 
 days of fighting and hell beside his four years 
 and more; and we fall to wondering whether 
 his home has been destroyed as those are 
 before us, and thank God that the fighting 
 and destruction and suffering and death and 
 sacrifice is all so far away from our own dear 
 homes and the loved ones back there; that 
 our little cottage, — a cosy, snug little affair, 
 with its roses and gardens and the children 
 and mother and dad, and perhaps the wife 
 or sweetheart, — is still there, — ^just as cosy 
 and warm, and the folks just as sweet as 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 133 
 
 when we left them, in the budding springtime. 
 And we wonder if we, too, shall be returning 
 to them all once again, after this terrible 
 nightmare of fighting is all over, — or, — or 
 whether we shall soon be nestled snugly in 
 one of those little green mounds of sacred 
 French soil, like those in the field nearby? 
 And then, almost as if by some sort of a 
 pre-arranged plan, someone in the column 
 strikes up the familiar tune, and we all sing 
 as we tramp onward: 
 
 "Keep your head down, Fritzie boy, 
 Keep your head down, Fritzie boy. 
 Last night, by the star-shell light 
 We saw you, we saw you. 
 You were mending your broken wire. 
 When we opened our rapid fire. 
 If you want to see your father in your 
 
 Fatherland, 
 Keep your head down, Fritzie boy." 
 
 Shall we ever forget those scenes we saw, 
 as we slogged along the weary miles that led 
 to the front? Loud spitting motor trucks 
 and great trains of wagons, and caissons and 
 guns, and weary tramping men, — all jammed 
 into one seemingly conglomerate mass, — 
 plodding along in the darkness and mud and 
 rain of France, moving toward the front. 
 
 And night after night, always came the 
 same sights, — nights of hard and never- 
 ceasing work and marching, — days of toil 
 over maps and battle plans ; one or two hours' 
 sleep, — at least we called it sleep, — in every 
 
134 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 twenty-four, just a wink now and then, as 
 chance or circumstance permitted, — until 
 we lost all trace or semblance of time- 
 reckoning. Day meant nothing but toil and 
 working over maps and plans again, and night 
 meant nothing but dull tramping onward 
 through seas of mud and tangled masses of 
 humans and guns and caissons and rain, 
 pushed here and there by the passing of the 
 huge camions and lorries laden with the food 
 for the great guns that were flashing out 
 just ahead of us, — calling us onward to the 
 land of heroes, fighting and death, perhaps. 
 Life had resolved itself into nothing but mud 
 and rain and weary men and guns. 
 
 Weary, did I say? Well, some weary too! 
 but nevertheless, always singing. And what 
 did we sing? — "Dixie" and "Where Do We 
 Go from Here,"— "The Last Long Mile," 
 and many of those weary, muddy French 
 roads were covered to the tune of: 
 
 "There's a long, long trail a- winding 
 Into the land of my dreams." 
 
 But, now we have returned again! 
 
 To get back home, again, and to see there 
 old friends and faces of long vanished days; 
 to hear some friendly voice call out from the 
 old familiar streets or oft-remembered places, 
 which we trod in the days of youth, before 
 the red days of 1914. To get back home again, 
 where rain and sunshine is abundant; where 
 the lights of home hold up their golden shield, 
 with its soft, warm arms of welcome, from 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 135 
 
 out the long ago, waiting to welcome us from 
 the fields of France. 
 
 To get back home again, — to know at 
 last the guns are silent from Flanders to 
 Lorraine; the days of marching through the 
 mud are past, the nights of terror in the 
 driving rains of France, lie hidden in the 
 midst of the Argonne glades, — all of it a grim, 
 yet holy specter of our dreams, — of the years 
 that wait ahead of us, where every shadow 
 lifts before the smile of loved ones that wel- 
 come through their tears. 
 
 To get back home again, — to see the purple 
 twilights and sunsets of the native land, — 
 beyond the black shadows and misty dawns 
 still filled with ghosts and death, — beyond 
 the dreamless sleep of those who wait to 
 hold the line they fought for to the end, — 
 eternal sentinels at Freedom's Gate! 
 
 "And only silent thoughts of those who stay 
 To hold the guard across the endless years. 
 Who will not come again the ancient way." 
 
 Above the broken walls, the apple-boughs 
 of the French springtime are murmurous with 
 bees; again the breezes of coming "Prin- 
 temps" whirl the drifting chestnut-flowers, 
 and the little ruffling winds will soon be going 
 merrily through the poplar trees; and though 
 we are now far, far away in our homeland, 
 we shall know that once again the spring has 
 come to France. 
 
 Soon again the blood-red poppies shall 
 bloom in the wheatfields; the rains of spring 
 
136 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 gleam along the boulevards, and the flower- 
 girls, with mignonette and pinks and clematis 
 shall come again to sell their wares in Paris 
 streets; the Seine, slipping under the pretty 
 bridges to the sea, — and the west; and out 
 in the countryside of the beautiful Yonne 
 Valley, shall shine the pale golden smile of 
 the buttercups, that glorifies the gray ruins 
 with bravery heartbreaking and valiant, — 
 the smile that lights the eyes of France! 
 And beyond the dark days of the past, we 
 have seen, not the worn, steadfast France, — 
 wan, gallant, spent, with eyes burned hag- 
 gard by the spirit of the Maid of Orleans and 
 Charlotte of Normandy, — but France, tri- 
 umphant, high of heart, smiling through 
 throbbing drums, — on Reims restored, Nan- 
 cy and Alsace-Lorraine, in this new spring 
 that comes, — the spring the halt and blind 
 and dead and the rest of us who fought, have 
 brought again to France! 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 137 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 To Our Dead! 
 
 When our glasses are raised in the many 
 happy fetes that shall crown the homecoming 
 of the fighters; when the cheeks of the vic- 
 tors are flushed with the new joys of the home- 
 land; and when the Cup of Life seems filled 
 to its fullest measure with the joy of living 
 once more in the peaceful land of our 
 nativity ; let us then drink, deep and long, — 
 those of us who shall tread again the undis- 
 turbed pathway of life, — let us drink to 
 those who gave their Wine of Life that the 
 world might once again enjoy the sunshine 
 of Peace, and whose souls hallow the stretches 
 of the Argonne and the silent wastes of Pi- 
 cardy. 
 
 They are sleeping where they fell, along 
 our lines ; placed in their narrow cots of earth 
 by the hands of loving and sorrowing com- 
 rades! Beside the gaping shell-craters of 
 Thiaucourt, and upon the bloody slopes of 
 the Bois de Belleau and the bald Nose of 
 Grand Pre; sleeping quietly the last sleep 
 of the brave, among the poppied fields of 
 France. 
 
 How silently they rest beneath their tiny 
 wooden crosses! Hearing no more the roar 
 of guns that once belched their thunder of 
 
138 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 death across the barren wastes of No Man's 
 Land; unmindful of the sweet songs of the 
 birds among the bursting buds and blossoms 
 of spring, in the apple orchards of Picardy. 
 
 How bravely and gallantly they marched 
 away, — that other generations, as yet un- 
 born, might possess the fruits of their suf- 
 fering and death, — that the heritage of hap- 
 piness for which they fought and bled should 
 bless the whole earth. What a glorious 
 martyrdom! Baring their bosoms freely, 
 rather than have the flag of their country 
 dishonored and her name reviled; their 
 breasts the bulwark and the fortress of right 
 and justice, upon which the temple of Free- 
 dom should be raised in the sight of all 
 nations. 
 
 It was not our privilege to die for the land 
 that we love. But when are met the loyal 
 hosts of those who fought, — around that 
 board shall ring the glasses, raised in memory 
 of our hero dead! Not even death itself shall 
 utterly divide we who have struggled to- 
 gether on the fields of France. We salute 
 our hero dead! — Dead upon the Field of 
 Honor for the nation in the hour of her need ! 
 Our banners carry the glorious names of 
 Cantigny, Bois de Belleau, Torcy, Chateau- 
 Thierry, Marne, Champagne, Saint Mihiel 
 and Argonne, and many others, — stars in 
 America's crown of glory, — names which they 
 who died upon those fields have written in 
 letters of purest gold upon the crown of the 
 country which sent them forth! 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 139 
 
 Let US here offer our last, supreme homage 
 of gratitude and affection, — would it might 
 have been beside those freshly-dug graves 
 upon the slopes of the Argonne, where they 
 rest in the shadow of the Tricolor of France, 
 beside all the brave fellows, whose deeds they 
 have emulated, — justly entitled to be counted 
 among the illustrious dead of the ages, — 
 America's sacrifice upon the Altar of Freedom ! 
 
 Lads of the Golden Legion, we who knew 
 you, worked with you, ate with you, slept 
 with you, and fought beside you, salute you 
 as we pass the spot where you lie. Our 
 breath comes faster, our hearts beat stronger, 
 and our eyes grow dim with the tears of 
 comrades, as we pass the spot, but we pass on, 
 better and stronger men. Your bodies alone, 
 torn by the merciless hands of the enemy, 
 have gone from amongst us; your souls, 
 long since gone to the Great White Comrade 
 still hover over us; your memory remains 
 in our hearts, — imperishable, shining and 
 tender. 
 
 Laddies, we who have returned to the land 
 of our fathers, salute you! — Farewell! 
 
140 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 
 
 THE HOMECOMING. 
 
 From the squelching mud of Flanders, 
 From the Chateau-Thierry wheat, 
 From the shattered Halles of Ypres, 
 From where Scarpe and Escaut meet, 
 From the shell-strewn slopes of Verdun, 
 Comes the tramp of marching feet. 
 For the boys are coming home. 
 
 Ye who sat in the twilight when the light of 
 
 your homes was gone, 
 Who wearily watched and waited till the 
 
 day when the war was done, 
 What will ye think on the day when they all 
 
 come back, who can, 
 And the boy you sent with a mother's tears 
 
 returns, but returns a man. 
 
 Browned by the suns of foreign climes, with 
 
 the lines of fate in his face, 
 The lines of men who have fought with men 
 
 in many a fearful place, 
 Men who have looked old death in the face 
 
 and laughed as he passed them by. 
 But, "Where is the boy 1 gave to you?" I 
 
 can hear the mothers cry. 
 
 Oh, mother, thy son has come back to thee, 
 
 tempered and tried like steel. 
 In the flaming fire of the hell of war where 
 
 the charging legions reel. 
 Where the rocket gleams on the bayonet 
 
 (where it is not dyed with red), 
 And the fitful glare of the Verey flare lights 
 
 up the face of the dead. 
 
FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 141 
 
 He has seen men die with a smile on their lips 
 
 that the nations might be free. 
 He has charged the foe with his blood on fire 
 
 and has seen the foeman flee. 
 And mother, the boy who thus passed through 
 
 hell can be no longer a boy. 
 For the ore of Man in that furnace tried is 
 
 metal without alloy. 
 
 And to those whose sons have tarried awhile, 
 
 asleep in their Mother Earth, 
 Whose brave young souls have barred the 
 
 foe from the land that gave them birth, 
 I say to them "Weep," for weep they must, 
 
 but hold up their heads, as they can. 
 For the boy they gave at the Nation's call 
 
 has gone to his rest, a man. 
 
 From the squelching mud of Flanders, 
 From the Chateau-Thierry wheat. 
 From the shattered Halles of Ypres, 
 From where Scarpe and Escaut meet, 
 From the shell-strewn slopes of Verdun, 
 Comes the tramp of marching feet. 
 For the men are coming home. 
 
 James Beveridge, Sgt. M. C, 
 First printed in "Stars and Stripes," France. 
 
 [finis.] 
 
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