H. G. Proctor

“ It is no wonder that, in such case, he feels that his own fate is a small matter, as it is liable to be sealed at any moment, in the same way as that of his comrades; no wonder that he faces death with the same indifference as a man at home faces a summer shower.
This, then, is the state to which our Pennsylvania soldiers had now been reduced, and in consequence their deeds of personal heroism began to multiply. This was the period when individual men achieved most frequently the great glory of the service—citation and decoration for bravery in action. ”

“ Suddenly from directly over their heads came the angry "rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat" of a machine gun, like a pneumatic riveter at work on the steel skeleton of a skyscraper back in God's country. Simultaneously, the bawling of hoarse-voiced commands in German told them that the visitors who had taken possession of the ground floor of their subterranean domicile were the pestiferous Boche.
It is hardly necessary to add that Major Mackey and his companions kept quiet, expecting every moment to be called on to surrender. But Fritz had his hands full. ”

“ From that moment, our men were themselves again. They saw the Germans were not invincible. They themselves had broken up a Prussian Guards' attack. All their confidence, self-reliance, initiative, elan, came to the fore. They felt themselves unbeatable.
But one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one repulse of an enemy make a victory. Time after time the Germans returned to the assault. Groups of them gained the wheat fields, where they felt protected from the fire of our men. ”

“ The tide of battle swayed back and forth as the Americans, reinforced at intervals by groups of men who succeeded in crossing the river, worked their way forward, only to be hurled back by vastly superior forces of the enemy, and hero after hero stalked, actor-like, across the murky stage. ”

“ Soldiers adjust their masks only when certain that gas is about. They dread gas more than anything else the German has to offer, more than any other single thing in the whole category of horrors with which the Kaiser distinguished this war from all other wars in the world's history. Yet the discomfort of the gas mask, improved as the present model is over the device that first intervened between England's doughty men and a terrible death is such that it is donned only in dire necessity. Soldiers hate the gas mask intolerably, but they hate gas even more. ”

“ The penetration of Fismette went slowly but steadily on, in the face of strong resistance, the Germans reacting viciously at every point of contact. Here, as elsewhere along the front between Soissons and Rheims, the action consisted of a series of sharp local engagements, with considerable hand-to-hand fighting, in which American bayonets played an important role.
Amid the fever of battle and not knowing what moment may prove their last, men move as if in a trance. Hours and days pass undistinguished and unrecorded. ”

“ So Sergeant Meighan, hearing the peculiar sound by which soldiers identify a gas shell from all others, slipped on his mask. [Pg 152] It never is easy to adjust, and he got a taste of the poison before his mask was secure—just enough to make him feel rather faint and ill. He knew that if his mask slipped to one side, if only enough to give him one breath of the outer air, he would suffer torture, probably die. He knew that if he wriggled out of his hole in the ground, however inconspicuous he made himself, he would be cut to ribbons by machine gun bullets. ”

“ Men who had come through the battle apparently unscathed, now collapsed utterly as their nerves gave way with the release of the tension, like the snapping of a tight-coiled spring, and more than one went under the physicians' care from that rest camp, miles away from German fire. ”

“ Pennsylvania soldiers dropped from them like a robe from a boxer in the ring. Their French comrades said afterward they were amazed and deeply proud of the steadiness and calmness of these new allies. Their officers, even in the inferno of battle, thrilled with pride at the way their men met the baptism of fire.
All the new troops going to France have been "blooded" gradually in minor engagements and have been frequently in contact with the enemy before being launched into a major operation. ”

“ When enough men had gained the southern bank, the assault was carried to the Franco-American lines.
Machine guns in countless numbers spat venomously from both sides. Rifle-fire and rifle-grenade and hand-grenade explosions rolled together in one tremendous cacophony. ”

“ Infantry, artillery, engineers, the supply services, tanks, the air service, medical service, the high command and the staff, all were American. It was a proud day for the doughboys when showers of leaflets dropped from a squadron of airplanes flying over one day and they read on the printed pages a pledge from American airmen to co-operate with the American fighting men on the ground to the limit of their ability and asked similar co-operation from the foot soldiers. ”

“ Men constantly dropped out of the service as their enlistments expired and the burden of recruiting and training new men was always to be met. It was discouraging work, but carried forward steadily and unfalteringly.
Persons who visited the National Guard of Pennsylvania in its training camps, especially the last one in this country, Camp Hancock, at Augusta, Ga., were impressed with the quiet confidence with which the older officers and enlisted men viewed their handiwork. Many of the newer men in the service, catching the spirit of confidence, voiced it in boyish boastfulness. ”

“ Toward the last of the action below the Vesle, a group of men of the 110th had established an outpost in a large cave, which extended a considerable distance back in a cliff—just how far none of the men ever discovered. After they had been there several days, Dr. Barker arranged to cheer them a little in their lonely vigil. The cave had been an underground quarry. The Germans had occupied it, knew exactly where it was and its value as a hiding place, and kept a constant stream of machine gun bullets flying past its mouth. ”

“ Bennett, watching the grim little tableau, had not lowered his gun, and the live German fell directly on his gun, impaling himself on the bayonet. The force of the blow almost dropped the big American.
The men of the 111th were no whit behind their comrades of the other regiments in the intensity of their fighting spirit nor in their accomplishments. Individuals performed the same kind of heroic feats, whatever regiment they called their own. In other words, all were true Americans. ”

“ At last the Germans launched one great attack, in which they apparently had every intention of driving the Americans from the village and the surrounding positions and every hope of being successful. They came on confidently and with undeniable courage. The fighting that resulted was desperate. Our Pennsylvania men stood up to them like the gallant veterans they had now become.
[Pg 283] The fighting was hand-to-hand, breast-to-breast. In many spots, man contended against man in a struggle as primitive, as dogged and as uncompromising as any fighting ever has been. ”

“ For twenty-five hours the 110th had given virtually constant battle, and officers and men felt they soon must give way and fall back. Y. M. C. A. men serving with the Americans had established themselves in a dugout in the face of a low bluff facing away from the enemy, where they and their supplies were reasonably safe from shell fire, and from these dugouts they issued forth, with a courage that won the admiration of the fighting men, to carry chocolate, cigarettes and other bits of comfort to the hard pressed doughboys and to render whatever aid they could. ”

“ There is something—a kind of heritage from our pioneer, Indian-fighting ancestors, probably—that gives to an American lad a natural advantage at this sort of fighting, and scores of Germans remained behind in the shelter of the wheat when the tide of battle had passed far away, with the spires of grain nodding and whispering a requiem over them. ”

“ A runner from division headquarters brought up a copy of a great London daily newspaper in which appeared the following comment:
"The feature of the battle on which the eyes of all the world are fixed, and those of the enemy with particular intentness, is the conduct of the American troops. The magnificent counter-attack in which the Americans flung back the Germans on the Marne after they had crossed was much more than the outstanding event of the fighting. ”

“ Periods of rest in the inferno of fighting in the Argonne were not frequent, but this group of Iron Division doughboys was snapped by the camera during a lull, while they were grouped about the entrance to an old German dugout.
The Iron Division now was completely assembled, functioning smoothly and efficiently, every unit working as a cog in the one great wheel. The artillery brigade, which had made its bow to modern warfare in the Vesle region, was established on the line well to the rear of the infantry. It had rushed at top speed from the Aisne plateau, making some record hikes. ”

“ There must be, for the loved ones of these modern crusaders, as well as for the thousands of former members of the National Guard, who, like the writer, whole-heartedly envied the opportunities for glorious service that came to their successors in the organization, a sense of deep and abiding pride in the priceless record of achievement. To all such, and to those others to whom American valor is always a readable subject, whatever the locale, the narrative is presented as not unworthy of its cause. ”

“ The Germans hurled one fresh regiment after another into the inferno which was Fismette, in a determined effort to dislodge that pitiful handful of Americans which had found lodgment on its river edge. Five times fresh, vigorous forces, with hardly a lull, were hurled at the position. All the time the guns kept up an incessant cannonade, both of Fismette and Fismes and the back reaches of the Allied front, while the attacking forces were strongly supported by airplanes, artillery and machine guns. ”

“ When some men died in an attempt, others promptly stepped into the breach to "carry on."
Still the German guns from their hilltops poured down their galling fire upon the American positions. Still the snipers and machine gunners hung on in Fismette and still the crossing of the Vesle under bombardment was so hazardous that an attack in force was impracticable.
The fighting in the streets of the town swayed back and forth until August 28th. That day the Germans came down out of their hills in a roaring tide. ”

“ The Americans had discovered by this time the complete truth of what their British instructors had told them—that the Hun hates and fears the bayonet more than any other weapon of warfare. So they wasted few bullets. Rifle fire, they discovered, was a mighty thing in defense, when a man has a chance to steady himself and aim with precision while the enemy is [Pg 90] doing the advancing. But when conditions are reversed, the best rifleman has little chance to shine in pressing forward in an attack, so it was the bayonet that was used this time. ”

“ America exempts men of the cloth from military service, but offers them an opportunity to serve their country [Pg 275] and humanity, as well as their calling, by acting as chaplains to the fighting men. As such, they are supposed to have nothing to do with the fighting. But there come times, in the heat and rush of battle, when quick action by the nearest man of ability and judgment points the way to victory.
Such an occasion arose on the second day of the Argonne drive, when all the officers of a battalion of the 111th Infantry were incapacitated. ”

“ Long afterward they told gleefully of finding, here and there, a Hun who bravely gave battle, for our men frankly preferred to kill their men fighting rather than to slaughter them or take them prisoner.
Some of the Americans were so eager to keep close on the heels of the retreating Huns that they did not stop long enough thoroughly to clean up machine gun nests and other strong points. Groups of the Boche hid until the main body of the Americans had passed on, then raked them from the rear with machine gun and rifle fire, snipers concealed in trees being particularly annoying in this way. ”

“ Runners maintaining liaison with brigade headquarters and the other regiments were both better off and worse off, according to the point of view. Theirs was an exceedingly hazardous duty, with none of the relatively safe shelter of the regiment, but, too, it had that highly desirable spice of real danger and adventure that had been a potent influence in luring these men to France.
Liaison, in a military sense, is the maintaining of communications. It is essential at all times that organizations operating together should be in close touch. To do this men frequently do the seemingly impossible. ”

“ The whole field of the forward movement was so pitted with shell craters as to make the going almost like mountain climbing. Over this field a part of the great battle of Verdun in 1916 had been fought and the pits scooped out by the artillery of that time, added to those due to the constant minor fire since, lay so close together that it was utterly impossible for all the men to make their way between. ”

“ The best troops will go stale through neglect of drill during a campaign, and drill and discipline are almost synonymous. As undisciplined troops are worse than useless in battle, the necessity of occasional periods [Pg 242] of drill, distasteful though they may be to the soldier, is obvious.
"A day in a rest camp is about as bad as a day in battle," is not an uncommon expression from the men, although, as is always the case with soldiers, they appreciate a change of any kind. ”

“ On August 12th, the Germans delivered an attack in force, preceded by an intense bombardment and accompanied by a rolling barrage, which was too pretentious to be met by the small American force in [Pg 211] Fismette. In the face of those onrushing German hordes, there were but two things to do—die heroically but futilely or retire. True to American army traditions, under which men never are required to lay down their lives uselessly, the American force slowly, reluctantly and stubbornly retired across the river. ”

“ Instantly the Franco-American guns gave tongue. They laid down upon Fismette a bombardment which made the German effort seem trifling. With the walls falling around them, the Germans began to flee. And then the task of conquering that stubborn little village was begun again.
This second advance was led by a detachment of the 111th, under Captain James Archibald Williams and Lieutenant H. E. Leonard, both of Pittsburgh. They swam the Vesle under a hail of fire, for the enemy centered much of his artillery upon the bridges, and shrapnel and machine gun bullets fell upon them like rain. ”

“ Now and then a flying fragment of steel struck one of the toilers, whereupon he either dropped and floated downstream, uninterested in the further progress of the war, or struggled to the bank for first aid and made his way to a hospital.
The first bridge was nearly completed when a big shell scored a direct hit and it disappeared in a mass of kindling wood. Patiently and tenaciously, the engineers, deprived by their duties of even the satisfaction of seizing a rifle and trying to wreak a little vengeance, started to rebuild the structure. ”

“ The 109th Infantry was sent away to the west to flank the town from that direction, and the 110th co-operated with regiments of other divisions in the direct assault.
The utter razing of Epieds and other towns above the Marne by artillery fire, in order to blast the Germans out of their strongholds, led to a decision to avoid such destructive methods wherever possible, and the taking of Sergy was almost entirely an infantry and machine gun battle.
It was marked, as so many other of the Pennsylvanians' fights were, by the "never-say-die" spirit that refused to know defeat. ”

“ They came on machine gun nests, in the advance between Mezy, Moulins and Courtemont-Varennes, to find their comrades who had been taken prisoner in the earlier fighting tied out in front in such a way as to fall first victims to their friends' fire should an attack be made on the gunners. Men told, with tears rolling down their cheeks, how these brave lads, seeing the advancing Americans, shouted to them:
"Shoot! Shoot! Don't stop for us!" ”