Part 47

We began to brighten perceptibly. Instead of the earth rocking it became the gentle tossing of a languorous, moonlit sea. We leaned our heads in genuine affection against the dirt sides of our little slit trench and began to marvel at its motherly shelter. How they could churn up the whole world and never drop one in! Of course they could not drop one in. They had no brain, the swine.

If a chemist could run them through a Pasteur filter, he would get a trace of intellectual process about the mental grade of the Pithecanthropus erectus!

That’s it. He is shooting away his fireworks in the vain hope of something. Wonder what it is. Anyway, he shot it away for eight hours on our support and reserve lines, but at about 4 o’clock on the morning of the 15th he lifted his general bombardment on the front line and started a rolling barrage, one hundred meters in three minutes.

Behind it, almost hugging it, they came!

God, weren’t we glad to see the grayness of them!

This was more like. Something we could see, feel and fight. And when we say they came we mean two divisions of them.

“When two divisions of German shock troops pile up on a regiment of American fighting men”—Do you remember what we told you!

Well! they piled up, at first with excellent formation and a distribution of machine guns, as bumble bees distribute themselves after the small boy wallops their nest with his handful of switches—all over everywhere.

On the river bank where they came in crowds, boats, and pontoon bridges, it was eye to eye, tooth to tooth, and hand-to-hand. It was a strange silence after the barrage had passed. The tack-tack-tack of machine guns, mounted and firing from boats as they came, and the clash of steel as the bayonets met sounded like a death stillness compared to it.

The lines on the river were fought out completely. The barrage had not reached the railway bank and reënforcements could not be sent to them. They paid the supreme price, but the action delayed the enemy advance so that the organizations in depth could unlimber and meet the advance with the result as stated above—this is a story, not a requiem.

Their barrage got away from them, an unpardonable crime in military science but humanly pardonable when one learns they thought it impossible to be met and fought on the river bank.

* * * * *

Our line of resistance was the Metz-Paris Railway. The embankment is some nine feet high with tiny slit trenches on the forward edge but not sufficiently forward to be on the military crest. When the Boche started their advance across the wheat fields intervening, some five hundred yards, this embankment became a living thing and American Springfields began to laugh in their faces.

That wasn’t fair. They had been assured with all German sangfroid that there would be no resistance after their barrage. But those were shock troops brought from afar with orders. “To Paris. No Stop-overs.”

Though their brains became loose-leaf ledgers with no index and the Kaiser became a more ghastly figure, they were fighters. I should say, professional soldiers. So they came on. We admit they looked like the whole German army and we had to wonder if the little old Springfield would keep on laughing. We had been warned of a big offensive, but we did not know the Boche thought our front was like a city park, free for all.

The Springfield did keep on laughing and after covering about half the distance they were transferred from a soldiers’ maneuver column into a German military omelet. However, their machine guns had infiltrated through the high wheat and covered our front as flies cover spilled molasses.

The rest hit the ground and continued their advance in a more becoming manner, like a mole. They wriggled themselves, many of them to the very foot of the railway embankment, where they were safe from our fire for the above mentioned reason. They rested, then charged the crest, were hurled back; rested, threw stick grenades and charged some more, but never successfully, until the splendid heroes of that line joined their comrades of the river bank, joined them on that long journey to that land which knows no war.

Then came the supporting troops from their immediate rear in a charge to which history will never do justice. They couldn’t come before, as there is only room for a certain number to fight on the forward edge. To the Germans on the embankment the Kaiser must have taken on a more material aspect; they saw visions of Paris, but visions only, which disappeared like mist in the sunshine.

It was not sunshine that hit them. No. It was an earthquake. San Francisco one April morning of 1906 had nothing on that shock which must have been felt back in the Reichstag. Bayonets, rifle butts, fists and teeth. Our boys in khaki were overwhelmed by numbers in gray.

But the McAlexander spirit; that is God-given and Heaven-sent!

The Colonel had said, “Let ’em come.” Well, here they are, and God, the joy of it all!

* * * * *

Did you ever turn yourself loose in a mad passion that knew no limit? Were you ever blinded by blood and lust to kill and let yourself go in a crowd where you could feel their bodies crumble and sink to the depths below you, then brace yourself on them, and destroy, destroy, destroy!

I hope not, but we did—and what do numbers amount to against spirit? In San Francisco the earthquake subsided and we were left to contemplate and ponder. There was no subsiding of these seismic demons of Colonel Ulysses Grant McAlexander, once they had their orders. We were to hold that railroad. Did we hold it, Go down there and count the German graves. Six hundred before one company alone. Ask the prisoners, pens of them, why they didn’t fulfil their mission. They don’t know just what happened, but whatever it was, it was awful, colossal.

Sir, they did not even take the first line of resistance of the 38th. An officer, later captured, stated that only twelve of the 6th Grenadiers, the Kaiser’s favorite Prussian shock troops, returned to their side of the Marne.

Yes, back they went, and they stood not upon the manner of their going, although I will say their machine guns covered their retreat to the limit of their ability. Without their usual “nest” arrangement they were comparatively easy picking for us. For instance, during the retreat Corporal Newell with his squad augmented by two men went down into the field and captured five guns, killing or capturing their crews.

* * * * *

During the heat of battle one lone private crawled down the embankment through the wheat to the flank of a machine-gun crew who were too busy on their front to know where his shots were coming from. He picked off seven Germans and dragged the gun back with him. These incidents are not typical, but they serve to illustrate the many, many remarkable individual feats of heroism of the 38th, under the stress of battle.

No grander man lived than Lieutenant Kenneth P. Murray, killed in a flank attack which started in a line from the railway to the church in Mézy, drove in one hundred and eighty-five prisoners, but from which only three returned, the company commander and two privates. Lieutenant Mercer M. Phillips died on the railway with a blood-dripping bayonet on the rifle in his hands. Lieutenant David C. Calkins, whose troops blocked the enemy’s progress at the river edge until the barrage passed and those in his support could get into action, made the supreme sacrifice.

Many, many other splendid souls, born leaders of brave men, joined the great majority with a smile on their lips and pistols empty.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank H. Adams, that great soldier with a lion’s heart, and yet who led his command by an irresistible personal magnetism, by precept and example and never an unkind word—that big, handsome, he-fighter won the Distinguished Service Cross by standing in the way of a whole regiment, not one that he had any direct connection with, but one nearby that was practically routed by the shock the 38th stood and fought back. He brought comparative order out of chaos and succeeded in getting them in a support position.

We could mention hundreds of great deeds by great men on that day, but this is a story of the 38th, not of the indomitable spirits that go to make it up, or we would never reach the end.

* * * * *

At 10 o’clock, on the 15th, our front was fairly cleared and we were beginning to feel that it was a great day, when something else happened. Can you, who were not with us, imagine how a prohibitionist feels on a yachting party? Completely surrounded by hell and damnation and can’t get off.

The enemy had penetrated to our left like the boll weevil through a Southerner’s cotton patch and fortified himself with minenwerfers, machine guns and barbed wire. They did not penetrate to our right. No, they simply walked over and wondered how much of a hike it was to Paris. We were then aware of the reason for “Feverish preparations on the part of the French on our right.”

Do you remember what we told you? We thought it was to fight, but evidently no such idea ever marred the sweet thoughts of the 131st. Say what you please, make any defense you like. They weren’t there. And that’s the business we have in hand just now. They weren’t there. Whence they came or whither they went we know not. A. W. O. L. most likely, but that is neither here nor there.

On the morning of July 15, 1918, when Colonel McAlexander was hurling battalion after battalion of the 38th into the Surmelin valley, the Gateway to Paris, and out-fighting, out-maneuvering, out-generaling the Kaiser’s favorites, there were no friendly troops on our right where they had been on the evening of the 14th.

However, thank God for a real soldier’s instinct. The Colonel had anticipated and was prepared to meet a right flank attack. Good old Captain Reid was there to meet them when they tried to consolidate their line through our regiment. He met them first with rifle fire, then with the bayonet, and finally with butts. He fought them all over the ridge and down on every side except our side. He never let them set foot on our sector of the Marne and though it cost him nearly his entire command he was there when fresher troops could get to him for relief.

On the left we repulsed a heavy rear attack and a light flank attack with a handful of the most exhausted troops in France—old “G” company reduced to fifty-two men from two hundred and fifty-one—taking up new positions and fighting off ten to one is a picture that will ever live in the memory of the 38th.

Major Rowe made desperate efforts to reinforce, but the Boche, just at that place, had us under direct fire of Austrian 88’s, German 77’s, and one pounders. You know what direct fire means. Effective forces can’t be sent against it, that’s all.

* * * * *

So, for three days we fought on our flanks, for three days the German high command gave us all they had in their desperation to open the gateway. The Colonel received an order. “Fall back if you think best.”

He answered, “Is it up to my decision?”

The answer: “Yes.”

The Colonel’s answer: “Then I hold my lines!”

God, what a world of torture and yet solace in that answer! What a world of pain and joy! We were shot to ribbons, cut to small sections, unfed, and oh, so tired; but the drive would never have stopped once they consolidated their lines through the 38th.

It was Paris for them and a terrible defeat for us if we withdrew and gave them the little Surmelin valley. The Colonel had been studying the attack orders taken from captured German officers and knew as no one else knew what it meant to fall back.

He was there for a soldier’s purpose and did a soldier’s duty. He paid an awful price, made sacrifices of officers and men that tore his heart to pieces. But he held the Gateway to Paris and not only that, drove them back across the Marne and _followed them across_.

Believe it or not, it was an absolute physical impossibility, but we went right on after them and fought them again at Jaulgonne—still nobody on our right, mind you—where for several days and several nights it steadily rained and where for the same length of time we hammered them with shot and bayonet until they fell back with such impetus that our next big battle was at Fismes on the River Vesle.

One soldier was heard to remark: “I don’t see any more prisoners coming in. I wonder what can be the matter?”

Second soldier: “Didn’t you hear the Colonel say he had all the information he needed?”

There are not many of us left of the old 38th. There has been considerable talk in French circles about “Regiment d’elite,” “unconquerable tenacity,” and the like. Yes, our flag is to be decorated with the Croix de Guerre and it is generally recognized in high French command that “McAlexander’s defense was peculiarly American in conception, plan and execution.” You see we have been under French command and our deeds have not been recounted at home. All the glory goes to the High Command.

Things like this though, we keep close to our hearts:

27 July, 1918.

General Order I. (From the Field.) To the Officers and Men of the 38th U. S. Infantry.

The Colonel commanding the regiment wishes to praise you for the heroic manner in which you took your baptism of fire on July 15, 1918, upon the banks of the Marne. No regiment in the history of our nation has ever shown a finer spirit or performed a greater deed.

Let us cherish within our hearts the memory of our fallen comrades. Salute them! Then forward!

MCALEXANDER.

And look at this for an official report and try to remember if in all history such a feat was ever before accomplished:

Headquarters, 38th U. S. Infantry. A. P. O. 740, France, 8 August, 1918.

From: Commanding Officer, 38th U. S. Infantry. To: The Adjutant General, U. S. Army. (Through Military Channels.) Subject: Capture of Prisoners from Three German Divisions.

1. In the second battle of the Marne, July 15-23, 1918, the 38th U. S. Infantry was attacked on the south bank of the Marne, July 15-18, by two German divisions, and it captured prisoners from each of their regiments, namely:

{ 6th Grenadier Guards 10th Division { 47th Infantry { 398th Infantry

{ 5th Grenadier Guards 36th Division { 128th Infantry { 175th Infantry

2. On July 22, 1918, this regiment attacked the 10th Division Landwehr on the north bank of Marne and captured prisoners from its three regiments, namely:

{ 372nd Infantry 10th Division Landwehr { 377th Infantry { 378th Infantry

3. It is believed that the capture of prisoners from nine enemy regiments during nine days of battle constitutes a record justifying a report to the War Department.

4. Identification of twenty-one separate and distinct regimental and other units were secured from enemy positions in front of this regiment.

U. G. MCALEXANDER, Colonel, 38th U. S. Infantry.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Military abbreviation for “absent without leave.”

AMERICA’S HIGHEST WAR HONOR

The 78 Soldiers Who Won the Congressional Medal of Honor for an Act of Supreme Courage

England’s most coveted reward for heroism in battle is the Victoria Cross. France gives her _Médaille Militaire_; Germany, her Iron Cross.

There has been little need of war medals in the United States, but with the entrance of this country into the war Congress established its medal of honor—called by its full title, The Congressional Medal of Honor.

This decoration is given only to those who achieve an act of supreme courage, or, as “General Orders” have it, to those who in action “have fought with conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty.”

Seventy-eight of the 1,200,000 men in the A. E. F. received these awards. Fifty-seven of this number were enlisted men, twenty-one were officers. Nineteen awards were posthumous. For every 15,400 soldiers who were in action one received the Congressional Medal.

The best showing was made by the 30th Division, the National Guard organization of the Carolinas and Tennessee. Second honors go to the 89th Division, which is the selective draft unit of Western Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, South Dakota, and New Mexico. The third largest is the 33rd or National Guard Division of Illinois. Fourth honors go to the famous 2nd Division of Regulars, which includes the Marines, while fifth place is shared by the two New York divisions, the 27th and 77th. The list follows:

1ST DIVISION

_Colyer, Wilbur E., Sergeant_, Co. A, 1st Engineers, 1st Division, Ozone Park, L. I.—Verdun, France, Oct. 9, 1918. Volunteering with two other soldiers to locate machine-gun nests, Sergeant Colyer advanced on the hostile positions to a point where he was half surrounded by the nests, which were in ambush. He killed the gunner of one gun with a captured German grenade and then turned this gun on the other nests, silencing all of them before he returned to his platoon. He was later killed in action.

* * * * *

_Ellis, Michael B., Sergeant_, Co. C, 28th Infantry, 1st Division, East St. Louis, Ill.—Exermont, France, Oct. 5, 1918. During the entire day’s engagement he operated far in advance of the first wave of his company, voluntarily undertaking most dangerous missions and single-handed attacking and reducing machine-gun nests. Flanking one emplacement, he killed two of the enemy with rifle fire and captured seventeen others. Later he single-handed advanced under heavy fire and captured twenty-seven prisoners, including two officers and six machine guns, which had been holding up the advance of the company. The captured officers indicated the locations of four other machine guns, and he in turn captured these, together with their crews, at all times showing marked heroism and fearlessness.

2ND DIVISION

_Bart, Frank J., Private_, Co. C, 9th Infantry, 2nd Division, Newark, N. J.—Médéah Farm, France, Oct. 3, 1918. Private Bart, being on duty as a company runner, when the advance was held up by machine-gun fire voluntarily picked up an automatic rifle, ran out ahead of the line, and silenced a hostile machine-gun nest, killing the German gunners. The advance then continued, and, when it was again hindered shortly afterward by another machine-gun nest, this courageous soldier repeated his bold exploit by putting the second machine gun out of action.

* * * * *

_Cukela, Louis, First Lieutenant_, 5th Regiment Marines, 2nd Division, Minneapolis, Minn.—Villers-Cotterets, France, July 18, 1918. When his company, advancing through a wood, met with strong resistance from an enemy strong point, Lieutenant Cukela (then Sergeant) crawled out from the flank and made his way toward the German lines in the face of heavy fire, disregarding the warnings of his comrades. He succeeded in getting behind the enemy position and rushed a machine-gun emplacement, killing or driving off the crew with his bayonet. With German hand grenades he then bombed out the remaining portion of the strong point, capturing four men and two damaged machine guns.

* * * * *

_Hoffman, Charles F., Gunnery Sergeant_, 5th Regiment Marines, Second Division, Brooklyn, N. Y.—Château-Thierry, France, June 6, 1918. Immediately after the company to which he belonged had reached its objective on Hill 142, several hostile counter-attacks were launched against the line before the new position had been consolidated. Sergeant Hoffman was attempting to organize a position on the north slope of the hill when he saw twelve of the enemy, armed with five light machine guns, crawling toward his group. Giving the alarm, he rushed the hostile detachment, bayoneted the two leaders, and forced the others to flee, abandoning their guns. His quick action, initiative, and courage drove the enemy from a position from which they could have swept the hill with machine-gun fire and forced the withdrawal of our troops.

* * * * *

_Kocak, Matej, Sergeant_, Co. C, 5th Regiment Marines, 2nd Division, Albany, N. Y.—Soissons, France, July 18, 1918. When the advance of his battalion was checked by a hidden machine-gun nest he went forward alone, unprotected by covering fire from his own men, and worked in between the German position in the face of fire from an enemy covering detachment. Locating the machine-gun nest, he rushed it, and with his bayonet drove off the crew. Shortly after this he organized twenty-five French colonial soldiers who had become separated from their company, and led them in attacking another machine-gun nest, which was also put out of action.

* * * * *

_Kelly, John Joseph, Private_, 6th Regiment Marines, 2nd Division, Chicago, Ill.—Blanc Mont Ridge, France, Oct. 3, 1918. Private Kelly ran through our own barrage 100 yards in advance of the front line, and attacked an enemy machine-gun nest, killing the gunner with a grenade, shooting another member of the crew with his pistol, and returned through the barrage with eight prisoners.

* * * * *

_Van Iersal, Louis, Sergeant_, Co. M, 9th Infantry, 2nd Division, Newark, N. Y.—Mouzon, France, Nov. 9, 1918. While a member of the reconnoissance patrol sent out at night to ascertain the condition of a damaged bridge, Sergeant Van Iersal volunteered to lead a party across the bridge in the face of heavy machine-gun and rifle fire from a range of only 75 yards. Crawling alone along the débris of the ruined bridge, he came upon a trap, which gave away and precipitated him into the water. In spite of the swift current, he succeeded in swimming across the stream, and found a lodging place among the timbers on the opposite bank. Disregarding the enemy fire, he made a careful investigation of the hostile position by which the bridge was defended and then returned to the other bank of the river, reporting this valuable information to the battalion commander.

* * * * *

_Pruitt, John H., Corporal_, 78th Co., 6th Regiment of Marines, 2nd Division, Phoenix, Ariz.—Blanc Mont Ridge, France, Oct. 3, 1918. Corporal Pruitt single-handed attacked two machine guns, capturing them and killing two of the enemy. He then captured forty prisoners in a dugout near by. This gallant soldier was killed soon afterward by shell fire while he was sniping at the enemy.

3RD DIVISION

_Barkley, John L., Private, first class_, Company K, 4th Infantry, 3rd Division, Blairstown, Mo.—Cunel, France, Oct. 7, 1918. Private Barkley, who was stationed in an observation post half a kilometer from the German line, on his own initiative repaired a captured enemy machine gun and mounted it in a disabled French tank near his post. Shortly afterward, when the enemy launched a counter-attack against our forces, Private Barkley got into the tank, waited under the hostile barrage until the enemy line was abreast of him, and then opened fire, completely breaking up the counter-attack and killing and wounding a large number of the enemy. Five minutes later an enemy 77-millimeter gun opened fire on the tank point blank. One shell struck the driver wheel of the tank, but this soldier, nevertheless, remained in the tank; and after the barrage ceased broke up a second enemy counter-attack, thereby enabling our forces to gain and hold Hill 253.

* * * * *