America's War for Humanity Part 11

"They had lost comrades at the hands of the Germans and now were to avenge them. No quarter was asked or expected. The Germans had orders to fight to the death and the Americans needed no such order.

"Without much artillery on either side and without gas, the Americans fought the Germans through that woods, four kilometers (nearly three miles) long, for six hours. At last we got through and took up a position across the northern end of the woods.

"Perhaps the most sensational part of the fight was when about Germans got around behind our men. They were chased into a clearing, where the Americans went at them from all sides with the bayonet, and I am told that three prisoners were all that were left of the Germans."

"How did you do it?" inquired a dazed Prussian officer, taken prisoner at Chateau Thierry by an American soldier. "We are storm troops."

"Storm h.e.l.l!" said the American. "I come from Kansas, where we have cyclones."

That was and is the idea. This spirit enabled American soldiers to go wherever they wanted to go. A European officer on observation duty with the United States force at Chateau Thierry wanted to know how our soldiers got through as they did.

"They seem to have been trained somewhere," he said, "for they fight all right. But that doesn't explain to me the way they keep going."

The American officer with whom he was talking gave this explanation:

"They were thoroughly trained in our camps at home in all but one thing.

They were not trained to stop going."

It was a splendid exhibition, the first of many of its kind.

A PERSONAL ACCOUNT

The following is one of hundreds of thrilling experience stories that could be told by officers and men who fought at that front.

Details of the partic.i.p.ation of the United States Marines in the counter-attack of the allies against German forces on the Marne, July 18, are given in a letter written shortly afterward by Major Robert L.

Denig, of the United States Marines, to his wife, in Philadelphia, and which had been forwarded to Was.h.i.+ngton for the historical files of the Marine Corps.

It is the best and truest form of war history, and important in that it gives details of action during those July days when American troops stopped the German drive.

It also establishes the fact that the Marines who helped stop the German drive on Paris at Belleau wood early in June were honored by being brought from this wood to Vierzy and Tigny, near Soissons, for partic.i.p.ation with a crack French division in the great counter-attack which started the disintegration of the German front in the west.

Names that became familiar through the fighting in Belleau wood are mentioned in Major Denig's letter as being prominent in the allied counter-attack--Lieut. Col. Thomas Holcomb, Lieut. Col. Benton W.

Sibley, Lieut. Col. John A. Hughes, Capt Pere Wilmer and others who took a prominent part in the fighting. The letter in substance follows:

"We took our positions at various places to wait for camions that were to take us somewhere in France, when or for what purpose we did not know. Our turn to enbus came near midnight.

GETTING TO THE FRONT UNDER DIFFICULTIES

"We at last got under way after a few big 'sea bags' had hit near by.

We went at a good clip and nearly got ditched in a couple of new sh.e.l.l holes. Sh.e.l.ls were falling fast by now and as the tenth truck went under the bridge a big one landed near with a crash and wounded the two drivers, killed two Marines and wounded five more.

"We did not know it at the time and did not notice anything wrong till we came to a crossroad, when we found we had only eleven cars all told.

We found the rest of the convoy after a hunt, but even then were not told of the loss, and did not find it out till the next day.

"After twelve hours' ride we were dumped in a big field, and after a few hours' rest started our march. It was hot as hades and we had had nothing to eat since the day before. We at last entered a forest; troops seemed to converge on it from all points. We marched some six miles in the forest. A finer one I have never seen--deer would scamper ahead and we could have eaten one raw.

"At 10 that night, without food, we lay down in a pouring rain to sleep.

Troops of all kinds pa.s.sed us in the night--a shadowy stream, more than a half-million men. Some French officers told us that they had never seen such concentration since Verdun, if then.

THE BIG DAY DAWNS

"The next day, July 18, we marched ahead through a jam of troops, trucks, etc., and came at last to a ration dump, where we fell to and ate our heads off for the first time in nearly two days. When we left there the men had bread stuck on their bayonets. I lugged a ham. All were loaded down.

"We finally stopped at the far end of the forest, nearing a dressing station. This station had been a big, fine stone farmhouse, but was now a complete ruin--wounded and dead lay all about. Joe Murray came by with his head all done up--his helmet had saved him. The lines had gone on ahead, so we were quite safe.

"Late in the afternoon we advanced again. Our route lay over an open field covered with dead.

"We lay down on a hillside for the night near some captured German guns, and until dark I watched the cavalry, some 4,000, come up and take positions.

"At 3:30 the next morning the regiment was soon under way to attack. We picked our way under cover of a gas infected valley to a town where we got our final instructions and left our packs.

GAS AND Sh.e.l.l SHOCK

"We formed up in a sunken road on two sides of a valley that was perpendicular to the enemy's front. We now began to get a few wounded; one man with ashen face came charging to the rear with sh.e.l.l shock. He shook all over, foamed at the mouth, could not speak. I put him under a tent and he acted as if he had a fit.

MARINES ADVANCE UNDER FIRE

"At 8:30 we jumped off with a line of tanks in the lead. For two 'kilos'

the four lines of Marines were as straight as a die, and their advance over the open plain in the bright sunlight was a picture I shall never forget. The fire got hotter and hotter, men fell, bullets sung, sh.e.l.ls whizzed-banged and the dust of battle got thick.

"Lieut. Overton was. .h.i.t by a big piece of sh.e.l.l and fell. Afterwards I heard he was. .h.i.t in the heart. He was buried that night and the pin found, which he had asked to have sent to his wife.

"A man near me was cut in two. Others when hit would stand, it seemed, an hour, then fall in a heap. I yelled to Wilmer that each gun in the barrage worked from right to left, then a rabbit ran ahead and I watched him, wondering if he would get hit. Good rabbit--it took my mind off the carnage.

"About sixty Germans jumped up out of a trench and tried to surrender, but their machine guns opened up, we fired back, they ran and our left company after them. That made a gap that had to be filled, so Sibley advanced one of his to do the job, then a sh.e.l.l lit in a machine gun crew of ours and cleaned it out completely.

DIGGING IN

"At 10:30 we dug in--the attack just died out, I found a hole or old trench and when I was flat on my back I got some protection Holcomb was next me; Wilmer some way off. We then tried to get reports. Two companies we never could get in touch with. Lloyd came in and reported he was holding some trenches near a mill with six men.

"Gates, with his trousers blown off, said he had sixteen men of various companies; another officer on the right reported he had and could see some forty men, all told. That, with the headquarters, was all we could find out about the battalion of nearly 800. Of the twenty company officers who went in, three came out, and one, Cates, was slightly wounded.

THE Sh.e.l.lS COME FAST

"From then on to about 8 p. m. life was a chance and mighty uncomfortable. It was hot as a furnace, no water, and they had our range to a 'T.' Three men lying in a shallow trench near me were blown to bits.

"You could hear men calling for help in the wheat fields. Their cries would get weaker and weaker and die out. The German planes were thick in the air; they were in groups of from three to twenty. They would look us over and then we would get a pounding.

"We had a machine gun officer with us, and at 6 o'clock a runner came up and reported that Sumner was killed. He commanded the machine gun company with us. He was. .h.i.t early in the fight, by a bullet, I hear. At the start he remarked: 'This looks easy; they do not seem to have much art.'

"Well, we just lay there all through the hot afternoon.

"It was great--a sh.e.l.l would land near by and you would bounce in your hole.

"As twilight came we sent out water parties for the relief of the wounded. At 9 o'clock we got a message congratulating us, and saying the Algerians would take us over at midnight. We then began to collect our wounded. Some had been evacuated during the day, but at that, we soon had about twenty on the field near us.

"A man who had been blinded wanted me to hold his hand. Another, wounded in the back, wanted his head patted; and so it went; one man got up on his hands and knees; I asked him what he wanted. He said: 'Look at the full moon,' then fell dead. I had him buried, and all the rest I could find.