Average Americans Part 10

Wortley was an older man and had always been ambitious to join the regular army. He had served an enlistment in the regulars and had been a sergeant. Later at the Leavenworth School he had received his commission. Wortley also had been wounded at Soissons.

Major Youell described to me a personal incident of this battle, which ill.u.s.trates very well the dull leathery mind that everyone gets after a certain amount of bitter fighting and fatigue. As commander of the Second Battalion he had received orders for an attack. He was not sure of his objectives. He got out his very best prismatic compa.s.s, which he valued more than any of his other possessions, as it was virtually impossible to replace it, sighted carefully, determined the direction of the attack, ordered the advance, put the compa.s.s on the ground, and walked off, leaving it there. When he next thought of it the compa.s.s was gone for good.

Another captain we had was thoroughly courageous personally, but he had one very bad fault. He could not keep his men under control. Once after an attack his battalion commander was checking up to see if the objectives were taken and all units in place. He found the objectives were taken all right, but that, in the instance of this one company, the company itself was missing! On the objective was sitting simply the company commander and his headquarters group. The rest of the company had missed its direction advancing through a wood and got lost.

I remember this same company commander in another action. We had been advancing behind tanks, which had all been disabled by direct fire from the Germans. I went forward to where he was lying with a handful of men by one of these tanks. I said to him, "Captain, where is your company?"

He said, "I don't know, sir; but the Germans are there." He knew where the enemy were and was perfectly game to go on and attack them with his eight or nine men.

Colonel Hjalmar Erickson was commander of the Twenty-sixth Infantry during this action. He was a fine troop leader and a powerful man physically. During a battle the higher command naturally want to know what is going on at the front. It is very difficult for the officer at the front to furnish these details; often he is busy, sometimes he knows nothing to tell. Once, during the first Argonne battle, the higher command called upon Erickson. Nothing was happening, but Erickson was equal to the occasion.

"Yes, yes, everything is fine. What has happened? Our heavies have just started firing and it sounds good," was Erickson's rea.s.suring message.

Meanwhile I had been given a Cla.s.s B rating and detailed as an instructor at the school of the line at Langres. After I had been there a short while I saw an officer from the First Division and told him I was awfully anxious to get back and felt quite up to field work again. A few days after that General Parker called up some of the commanding officers in the college on the telephone. I had one obstacle to overcome. I still had to walk with a cane, and, although this did not really make any difference to me from a physical standpoint, it was a question if I could get the medical department to pa.s.s me as Cla.s.s A. We decided that the best way to do was to take the bull by the horns and go anyhow. I said good-by to the college one night and went with Major Gowenlock, of the division staff, directly back to the division. I was technically A. W. O. L. for a couple of weeks, but they don't court-martial you for A. W. O. L. if you go in the right direction, and my orders came through all right. On reporting to General Frank Parker, who was commanding the division, he a.s.signed me to the command of my own regiment. When my orders finally came to the school directing me to report to C. G., of the First Division, for a.s.signment to duty, I was commanding the regiment in battle.

At about this time three cavalry troopers reported to the Twenty-sixth Infantry. They said they came from towns where they had been on military police duty. They stated that they had heard from a man in a hospital that the First Division was having a lot of fighting and so they had gone A. W. O. L. to join it. They were attached to one of the companies, and a letter was sent through regular channels saying that they were excellent men and we wanted their transfer to a combatant branch of the service. We phrased it this way in order to tease one of our higher command who belonged to the cavalry. A long while later, as I recall, an answer came back directing me to send the men back to their outfit, but they were all either killed or wounded at that time.

After the division was relieved from the Argonne it went into rest billets near the town of Ligny, there to rest and receive replacements before returning into the same battle. Advantage was taken of this brief period of rest to give leave to some of the enlisted personnel and officers. This was the first leave most of them had had since they had been in France. Captain Shipley Thomas took the men under his command to their area. He described to me on his return how on the way down all the men would talk about was: "Do you remember how we got that machine-gun nest? That was where McPherson got his." "Do you remember how Lieutenant Baxter and Sergeant Dobbs got those seventy-sevens by outflanking and surprising them?"

By the time they had been at the Y. M. C. A. Leave Area twenty-four hours they had forgotten all this. For seven days they had a fine time and their point of view changed entirely. As the train carried them north through France, when they stopped at a station they would lean out of the windows and inveigle some unsuspecting M. P. close to the train.

They would ask him with much earnestness what it was like at the front, explaining to him meanwhile that they were members of the Arkansas Balloon Corps, and when he got near enough throw soda-water bottles at his head. Later an indignant epistle reached me demanding an explanation and directing "an investigation to fix the responsibility." A commanding officer should know a great many things unofficially, and in this case my knowledge was all of an unofficial nature, so I was able with a clear conscience to indorse it back with the suggestion that they investigate some other unit.

Captain J. B. Card, Captain Richards, and some other of the officers were given leave. They started immediately for Nice. While they were traveling down we received orders that we were to go back into the battle, so wires were awaiting them when they got off the train to report back to their units immediately. They made a good connection and spent only three hours at Nice. They reported back smiling and thought it was a good joke on themselves.

General C. P. Summerall had been promoted to the command of a corps and General Frank Parker given command of the division. General Parker was also one of the First Division's own officers. Before getting the division he had in turn commanded the Eighteenth Infantry and the First Brigade. He had a fine theory for soldiering. Summarized briefly, it was that the way to handle troops was to explain to them, in so far as possible, all that was to take place and the importance of the actions of each individual man. He had all his officers out with the men as much as possible. He had them all emphasize to the private the importance of his individual intelligent action. This is a fine creed for a commanding officer, as it helps to give him the confidence of his men. Obedience is absolutely necessary in a soldier, but unintelligent obedience is not nearly as valuable as intelligent obedience given with confidence in the man who issues the order. It is intelligent comprehension of the aims of an order that lends most to its proper execution.

CHAPTER X

THE LAST BATTLE

"The giant grows blind in his fury and spite, One blow on the forehead will finish the fight."

HOLMES.

Hardly had the new replacements, some 1800 in all, learned to what company they belonged, when our definite orders reached us. The trucks arrived and we rattled off toward the front. We detrucked and bivouacked for a couple of days in a big wood while our supply trains came up. The weather, fortunately, was crisp and cool and bivouacking was really pleasant. What our mission was we did not know, but as we were to be in General Summerall's corps we were sure there would be plenty of fighting to go around.

General Summerall himself came and spoke to each of the infantry regiments. The regiment was formed in a three-sided square and he spoke from the blank side.

Almost immediately our orders arrived to move up. As usual we moved at night. The weather repented of its gentleness and cold heavy rain started. The roads were gone, the nights black, the columns splashed through mud with truck trains, with supplies for the troops ahead of us, crisscrossing and jamming by us. We pa.s.sed the barren zone that had been No Man's Land for four years and was now again France.

Early in the morning in a heavy mist we reached another patch of woods just in rear of where the line was. Here we gained contact with the Second Division that was ahead of us. They attacked the same day and again we received orders to follow them. On this night the maps played us a trick, for a road well marked turned out to be a little wood trail.

All night long we moved down it single file to get forward a bare seven kilometers. A wood trail in the rain is bad enough for the first man that moves over it, but it is almost impa.s.sable for the three thousandth man when his turn comes. We got through, however, and by morning the regiment was in place. The road was clogged with a stream of transports of all kinds--trucks, wagon trains, tanks, and tractors, double banked and stuck. Occasionally, pa.s.sing by them on foot, you would hear some general's aide spluttering in his limousine at the delay and wet.

Through this our supply train was brought forward by Captains Scott and Card and Lieutenant Cook with the uncanny ability to accomplish the seemingly impossible which had stood us in good stead many times.

Indeed, the train beat the infantry and when we arrived, we found them there banked beside the road, with the kitchens smoking, and the food spreading a comforting aroma through the rain-rotted woods. Orders were received to march to Landreville. We gave the men hot chow and put the column in motion as soon as they had finished. The sun came out and dried us off and we felt more cheerful.

Still following in the wake of the victorious Second Division, we pa.s.sed through the desolate, war-battered little town of Landreville.

There, to my intense astonishment, I suddenly came on my brother, Kermit, and my brother-in-law, Richard Derby, who was chief surgeon of the Second Division. My brother Kermit had transferred to the American army from the British, had finished his course at an artillery school, and was now reporting to the First Division for duty. Seeing them so unexpectedly was one of the most delightful surprises.

We went into position at Landreville and sent out patrols, which immediately gained contact with the marines in our front, who were preparing to attack next day.

That night my brother and I sat in a ruined shed, regimental headquarters, surrounded by dead Germans and Americans, and talked over all kinds of family affairs.

Again the following night, as the Second Division's attack had been successful, we moved forward. Again it rained. Next morning we were bivouacked in the Bois de la Folie, but before evening were on the march again to another position. By the time we had reached this position, orders came to move forward again and we went into position in woods just south of Beaumont. Here the Colonel of the Ninth Infantry and I had headquarters together in an old farmhouse that had been used by the Germans as a prisoners' cage. It was surrounded by wire and filthy beyond description.

Here we got orders that we were to take over from the division on the left of the Second Division and attack in the morning. By this time the troops had marched practically five nights in succession and also two of the days. Speaking of this, there is a military phrase which has always irritated me. It appears in all accounts of big battles. It is, "At this point fresh troops were thrown into action." There is no such thing as "throwing fresh troops" into action. By the time the troops get into action they have marched night after night and are thoroughly tired.

The correct phrase should be, "troops that have suffered no casualties." For example, that night my three majors, Legge, Frazier, and Youell, all of them young men not more than twenty-eight years old, came in to get their orders for the attack. We all sat down on wooden benches in the cellar. Something happened which made it necessary for me to change part of my orders. Making the changes did not take more than five minutes in all. By the time I was through, all three of them had fallen asleep where they sat.

After receiving the orders, I got in touch with the Second Division, and I want to say that when the next war comes I hope my side partners will be of the same type. Colonel Robert Van Horn, an old friend of mine, was commanding the Twenty-third Infantry, which was to be on the right flank. I was to attack with two battalions in line and one in support, my right flank on Beaumont, my left following a road that led north to Mouzon. Together Van Horn and I worked out our plans and arranged for the connections we wished to make. He had been fighting then for a number of days, but was just as keen to continue as a schoolboy in a game of football.

That night again sunny France justified her reputation and for the fifth day in succession it rained. The troops moved forward and with the easy precision of veterans found their positions, got their direction, and checked in as in place at the moment of attack.

At 5.35 in a heavy mist they went over the top. The Hun had, by this time, lost all his fight and we advanced for seven or eight kilometers to our objectives, Mouzon and Ville Montry. By 6.00 in the evening the sector was cleared, the troops established on the objectives, and the advanced elements fighting in Mouzon.

Two of the German prisoners who were brought back early this day, an officer and his orderly, were nothing more than boys. They said they had been retreating for days and that they were so tired that they had not woke up until some of the Americans had prodded them with a bayonet.

It was in this attack that, among others, one of the medical officers, Lieutenant Skillirs, was killed. Like most of our medical officers, he followed his work with absolute disregard for his personal safety. He was. .h.i.t by a sh.e.l.l toward the end of the attack while crossing the sh.e.l.led area to help some wounded.

At 8 o'clock we received word that we were to withdraw from the sector we had taken and march into a position from which we should attack Sedan next morning. The Seventy-seventh Division was to extend its right and occupy the sector we were leaving. Word was sent to the majors to collect their commands and a.s.semble them at a given point. All honor again to our supply company. They were there close in the rear of us and worked forward food to the men. At this time, with the men as tired as they were, it was of vital importance.

I received my detailed orders from General F. C. Marshall at a little half-burned farm.

By 8 o'clock the officers and men, who had marched and fought without stopping for twenty-four hours, were again a.s.sembled and moving west on the Beaumont-Stornay road. All night long the men plowed like mud-caked specters through the dark, some staggering as they walked. Once we had to move single file through our artillery, which was to follow in our rear. Often we had to take detours, as the Germans had mined the road.

At one place a bridge over a stream was gone and the whole division had to cross over single file. Everyone had reached the last stages of exhaustion. Captain Dye, a corking good officer, fainted on the march, lay unconscious in the mud for an hour, came to, and joined his company before the morning attack. Major Frazier, while riding at the head of his battalion, fell asleep on his horse and rolled off.

As I rode up and down the column I watched the men. Most of them were so tired that they said but little. Occasionally, however, I would run on to some of the old men, laughing and joking as usual. I remember hearing a sergeant, who was closing the rear of one platoon, say, "Ooh, la, la!"

"What is it, sergeant, aren't you getting enough exercise?" I said to him.

"Exercise, is it, sir? It's not the exercise I'm worried with, but I do be afraid that them Germans are better runners than we are! Faith, to get them is like trying to catch a flea under your thumb."

Another time I pa.s.sed an old sergeant called Johnson, at one of the five-minute rests.

"Sir," asked Johnson, "when do we hit 'em?"

"I'm not sure, sergeant," I said, "but I think about a kilometer and a half from here."

"That's good," Johnson replied. "If we can once get them and do 'em up proper they will let us have a rest."

Johnson voiced there the sentiments of the rank and file. They had been set a task and it never entered into their calculations that they could not do the task. They wanted to do it, do it well, and then have their rest.

In the morning we pa.s.sed through a French unit at Omicourt and started our attack. By afternoon we were on the heights overlooking Sedan, where word reached us to halt our attack. Shortly after we were told to withdraw, turning over to the French. We found later that it was considered wise that the French should take Sedan on account of the large sentimental value attached to it because of the German victory there in the war of 1870.

I waited in the sector until the troops had checked back, and then followed them to Chemery, where we were to spend the night. When I arrived I found the three battalion commanders sleeping in the stalls of a stable. As I came in one sat up and said: "Sir, I never knew until this minute what a lucky animal a horse is."