Frederic Richard Kilner

“ Gun drill for the cannoneers and grooming for the drivers occupied the mornings. The afternoons the men had to themselves, for games of horseshoes, writing letters to make up for lost time at the front, baths in the cold brook, and washing clothes in the village fountain. Eggs and potatoes and milk were abundant in the town—until the battery’s consumption depleted the supply—and the men ate as often in some French kitchen as in their battery mess line. ”

“ Jerry Rosse, on his ration cart, brought up fresh beef, which Tubach made into delicious roasts and nourishing steaks, as well as an abundance of supplies which enabled us to eat better than we had dreamed a battery could eat in the field.
Daytimes one would scarcely imagine a war was on. Not a gun could be heard. Over the crest in front we could see the black ovals of the enemy’s observation balloons. Occasionally an aeroplane’s whir made us scurry to cover, while a machine gun took a few shots at it, if it was an enemy craft. ”

“ Shelling was frequent, and gas was always noticeable at night. Itching throats and watering eyes were too common for comfort. When the battery was in readiness to move out, the caissons having gone and the guns waiting for sundown [Pg 58] to follow, the enemy gave a parting salute, a little fuller of thrills than any before. In the trail pit was the only protection. The buzz of jagged fragments through the air, the loud whang and eruption of sod and soil from a burst not far from Captain Robbins’ tent, sent everyone to this slight shelter. ”

“ To the Frenchmen the quickness and the constant good-humor of the American boys, much younger than the average among them, were matters of comment. “Toujours chantant, toujours riant” (Always singing, always laughing) , were the words of the lieutenant who fired the battery. The warm-hearted hospitality of these Frenchmen—resting in this sector from the fearful work, night and day, at Verdun and pardonable, one would say, if somewhat uneven-tempered and unmindful of others in their fatigue from that strain—impressed the Americans in turn. ”

“ Two days later the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Redden struck the men an even harder blow. The men of the Second Battalion gave him their full devotion when he had been their major. When Colonel Reilly had been raised to the command of the 83d infantry brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Redden had led the 149th Field Artillery through the hardest days of the war, accepting the most arduous tasks and heaviest responsibility. And when the men of the regiment followed him on the long hard march into Germany, they looked forward to the day when he should lead them home. ”

“ Since a battery comprises nearly two hundred men, and includes activities of diverse kinds at different places, it is obviously impossible for a brief narrative such as this, compiled by a single person, to furnish complete details on all of them. To suggest the life of the men in their various sorts of work, to trace as accurately as possible the accomplishments of the battery on the front in France, and to recount the outstanding incidents and events of its history, is as much as can be claimed for these chapters. ”

“ The crowded roads on the way up, teeming with supply trains, batteries of artillery, machine-gun carts and caissons of ammunition, gave evidence of what thorough and powerful preparations the American army had made for driving the enemy from the St. Mihiel salient. The roads themselves, very vital to an advancing army, had been put in excellent condition, and guide posts and marks were on every hand to expedite and facilitate traffic. Infantry was billeted in the towns as close to the line as they could be kept concealed, and came up in long lines when night fell September 11. ”

“ The men worked like demons, deaf now to all the thunder and roar about them, no eye to the crimson glare that lit up the horizon in front beneath the black piles of smoke like thunder clouds over the front lines, unconscious of the occasional shrapnel that fell near or the fragments from the big shells that burst along the crest and sometimes over towards them. ”

“ There were between forty and fifty men altogether, including the four gun crews and the engineers’ detail. When we marched along a road screened from the enemy by a mat of boughs stretched by wires between high poles along one side of the way, we knew we were not far from the front. The big thrill came, however, when, turning off the high road, we went forward one squad at a time at intervals of about 200 yards. The chief object was to avoid attracting the notice of some chance enemy aeroplane by the movement of a considerable body of men. ”

“ Those who had not gone out in the first hitches, were out next day on another search. When they were on their way to the battery position, a great rainstorm burst. A high wind swept from the woods where the enemy had been dropping gas shells during the day. Alarms came so frequently that the order was given to put on masks. To follow a road in utter darkness amid beating rain with gas masks on was next to impossible. And that the caissons reached the position without accident seemed a miracle, for which the drivers can not be given too much credit. The gas alerte passed. ”

“ From the simple exercise of taking post, the drill advanced day by day to the simulated firing of the battery according to problems like those of artillery in action. The men not working on gun squads stood back by the limbers and “took data,” their attention to the proceedings being gauged by one of the drill corporals when he pounced on some one for the result of his figures. Interest was quite likely to wander when one was more concerned with shuffling his feet to warm them a bit, or with searching for a dry spot—comparatively speaking—so that his wet feet would not become wetter. ”

“ Immediately as much of the burnt surface as could be was covered with rolls of painted canvas on wire netting, such as the French artillery used. Then all the men were set to gathering grass in the fields back of the position. Not long after, about fifty men from D and F batteries came over to help, and all the available men were brought out in the chariot du parc from the battery’s horse-line at Lunéville. So eagerly and rapidly did all of them work that the old netting was restretched and woven full of grass by midnight. ”

“ In the packages from home were ample additions to the battery mess in the form of candy, cake, cookies and occasionally cocoa. The three stoves, at each end and in the middle of the long shack, formed the centers of parties limited in size to the number who could squeeze into the warm circle. The others, engaged in reading letters from home or writing in reply, sat or lay on their cots, iron beds with steel springs, furnished with mattress, pillow and plenty of blankets. On the shelf between the windows and on the row of hooks below, were arranged each man’s belongings. ”

“ On Christmas Eve the square stone building which had served as the battery guardhouse was thrown open to the battery, decorated with pine boughs and holly, with a spangled, candle-lighted Christmas tree in the center. Every man received chocolate, cakes and tobacco, and a little gift from Captain Waters. Just outside, a huge bonfire threw a red warmth over the whole scene, not the least part of which was a barrel of beer tapped for the occasion. Next day a holiday dinner was served, of roast pork, mashed potatoes, creamed onions, apple sauce, cabbage salad, apple pie, bread, butter and coffee. ”

“ The angles were so graduated that no shadow was cast by the sun, and the color blended so well with the surroundings that no human trace was visible on the hillside from a distance.
As fast as the camouflage could be “woven” and put in place to shield them from observance by the enemy planes that whirred overhead in the bright afternoons, the gun pits were dug. Platforms and “circulaires” were installed as each pit was dug. The guns of the second platoon were brought from Lunéville on the evening of March 7, and caissons of ammunitions followed during the night. ”

“ About midnight the gongs sounded an alarm, and everyone was awakened for the first fire-drill. But the blue lights at the stairways that were the sole illumination, refused to work, and since no one could tell in the pitch blackness where to turn or whom to follow, the men were sent back to their bunks.
The next day Battery E went on “K. P.” Since more than 2.500 men were served in the forward mess hall in approximately two hours, the force of “kitchen police” required was large. The cooking was done by the regular ship’s cooks in their kitchen with huge caldrons and immense kettles. ”

“ Brush and trees had to be cut down to permit firing without danger of a shell bursting prematurely in the tree tops in front of the guns. Gun pits were commenced, proving a difficult task in the sticky clay full of wiry roots. But these were not finished by us. After three days here, the battery was relieved by artillery of the 89th Division, and started on the cross country hike to the Argonne, whence had come a hurry call for the tired veterans of the 42nd Division to aid the troops held up at one part of the line by terrific resistance on the part of the Germans. ”

“ When, on January 7, the battery left Dernau, it was with some regret at parting with comfortable quarters. But that regret was forgotten when we arrived at Ringen, a farming town on the upland away from the left bank of the river. For here were not only rooms as comfortable as those at Dernau, but beds as well, a “wirtschaft” to serve as a mess hall, and stables for all the horses. The town held only Batteries E and F, and therefore allowed more elbow-room than did Dernau, where all six batteries of the regiment [Pg 81] had been crowded in. ”

“ The itching in one’s throat left no doubt of there being actual danger present. The favorable wind carried away the noxious fumes of several shells that burst at the edge of the flat-tops. The boys dug their bunks deep to escape the fragments. Near the machine gunners, the shells burst thick, and both Donahue and Harry Overstreet were sent to the hospital with bad poison burns. Practically everyone at the position suffered a little from gas, some in one way and some in another, but, since they were afflicted in no violent way, they stuck to their work, disregarding minor discomforts. ”

“ Ammunition came up at night, and three thousand rounds per gun was stacked in the trench in front, and camouflaged, ready at hand when the attack should come.
For meals the cannoneers walked, in reliefs, to an expanse of low brush, just over a rise a few hundred yards behind us. At a distance this was an innocent looking spot. But when one followed a path into it, he discovered on [Pg 43] every hand pup-tents full of infantrymen, battery and company kitchens cooking meals, and wagons and teams hidden by the foliage. ”

“ Saturday, February 9, following a mounted inspection, in which the regiment was equipped as for the field, we considered ourselves on our way to war. The guard that night began the wearing of steel helmets. Duffle bags were ordered packed. The following evening they were collected, and taken to the railroad station at Guer. Long will the men of Battery E remember the night they were hauled out of bed twice to push the wagons out of the mud, the night they unwittingly gave their last farewell to their duffle bags, which they expected to see so soon, yet were to see again never. ”

“ From 7 a. m. to 5 p. m. was a long arduous day, particularly since it was begun and ended by a hike of two miles from the dug-out to the position. Rain fell most of the time, soaking through slickers and blouses to one’s very skin.
Two of the days the gunners, No. 1 and No. 2 men of each section spent at a French battery near by, to gain experience in actual firing. Little firing was done—only 24 rounds per gun one day and 15 rounds the second, for in this quiet sector there was little ordinarily but reprisal fire—but the men learned quickly the actual working of a battery. ”

“ Until the first platoon’s guns came up, the gun crews of that platoon alternated on the pieces with the crews of the second platoon, who could sleep in the billet in town on their nights off. The men on the guns had two watches to keep, one at the guns, and one at the “rocket post” on top the hill, to notify the battery if a red rocket, the signal for a barrage, appeared at points laid out on a chart. ”

“ On Tuesday the battery made a short hike up the river to Oberwinter, where we boarded the train for Brest. The big American box cars, hot meals served when the train stopped, abundant candy and cigarettes from the welfare organizations, doughnuts and coffee and oranges at various stops made the ride far different from those we had taken months before from one front to another. The run, 72 hours, equalled that of through passenger trains.
At Brest there were three days of sanitary processes and equipment inspections, with a night of stevedore work at the docks sandwiched in. ”

“ About five kilometres back, the horse-lines were located in a wood of evergreens, where the caissons and picket lines were camouflaged under trees. During the hot, sunny days before the attack, the men lay in the shade and “read their shirts.” After July 14, they were so constantly on the road for ammunition that the horse-lines were deserted.
Sunday, July 14, was “Bastille Day,” the French Fourth of July. If the rumor was true that the French army issued a bottle of champagne to each three soldiers in way of celebration, it affected the American troops with it not the least. ”

“ Exciting aeroplane battles, or an occasional balloon sent down in flames, were all the evidence of warfare. Captain Robbins read the communiques of the preceding days, and told of the mighty repulse the enemy had suffered.
A projectile with an I. A. L. fuse, the most delicate of those we used, had stuck in the bore of the Third Section piece on the evening of the 17th. Since all efforts of the battery mechanics were unavailing, the piece was taken to the divisional repair shop at about dawn on the 19th and another gun sent from the shop to replace it. ”

“ This news of death in our own battery—the first enlisted men lost in action—caused a heavy sorrow and grief that could not be shaken off, among the men of the battery, whose friendship by this time had become very close.
On the night of August 10, the battery moved back to a spot within a few hundred feet of that it had occupied before making the last advance. The caissons drivers made trip after trip to bring back all the ammunition, under frequent shell fire on the road. Horse after horse, weakened to exhaustion, dropped in harness, and had to be taken out of the hitch. ”