MILITARY: Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania in the World War, H. G. Proctor, 1919 - Chapter XI Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja jbanja@msn.com Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/1pa/military/ww1/iron/iron-division.htm ________________________________________________ THE IRON DIVISION NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE WORLD WAR THE AUTHENTIC AND COMPREHENSIVE NARRATIVE OF THE GALLANT DEEDS AND GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE 28TH DIVISION IN THE WORLD'S GREATEST WAR by H. G. PROCTOR Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, Publishers, 1919 168 THE IRON DIVISION CHAPTER XI DRIVE TO THE VESLE WHEN the Hun grip was torn loose from the positions along the Ourcq, he had no other good stopping place short of the Vesle, so he lit out for that river as fast as he could move his battalions and equipment. Again only machine guns and sniping rearguards were left to impede the progress of the pursuers, and again there were times when it was exceedingly difficult for the French and American forces to keep in contact with the enemy. The 32d Division, composed of Michigan and Wisconsin National Guards, had slipped into the front lines and, with regiments of the Rainbow Division, pressed the pursuit. The Pennsylvania regiments, with the 103d Engineers, and the 111th and the 112th Infantry leading, followed by the 109th and then the 110th, went forward in their rear, mopping up the few Huns they left in their wake who still showed fight. DRIVE TO THE VESLE 169 It had begun to rain again - a heavy, dispiriting downpour, such as Northern France is subjected to frequently. The fields became morasses. The roads, cut up by heavy traffic, were turned to quagmires. The distorted remains of what had been wonderful old trees, stripped of their foliage and blackened and torn by the breaths of monster guns, dripped dismally. In all that ruined, tortured land of horror on horror, there was not one bright spot, and there was only one thing to keep up the spirits of the soldiers - the Hun was definitely on the run. Drenched to the skin, wading in mud at times almost to their knees, amid the ruck and confusion of an army's wake, the Pennsylvanians trudged resolutely forward, inured to hardship, no longer sensible to ordinary discomforts, possessed of only one thought to come to battle once more with the hateful foe and inflict further punishment in revenge for the gallant lads who had gone from the ranks. All the time they were subjected to long-distance shelling by the big guns, as the Hun strafed the country to the south in hope of hampering transport 170 THE IRON DIVISION facilities and breaking up marching columns. All the time Boche fliers passed overhead, sometimes swooping low enough to slash at the columns with machine guns and at frequent intervals releasing bombs. There were casualties daily, although not, of course, on the same scale as in actual battle. Through Coulonges, Cohan, Dravegny, Longeville, Mont-sur-Courville and St. Gilles they plunged on relentlessly. Close by the hamlet of Chamery, near Cohan, the Pennsylvania men passed the grave of Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt, who had been brought down there by an enemy airman a few weeks before and was buried by the Germans. French troops, leading the Allied pursuit, had come on the grave first and established a military guard of honor over it and supplanted the rude cross and inscription erected by the Germans with a neater and more ornate marking. When the Americans arrived the French guard was removed and American soldiers mounted guard over the last resting place of the son of the onetime President. Just below Longeville, the Pennsylvan- DRIVE TO THE VESLE 171 ians came into an area where the fire was intensified to the equal of anything they had passed through since leaving the Marne. All the varieties of Hun projectiles were hurled at them, high explosives of various sizes, shrapnel and gas. Once more the misery and discomfort of the gas mask had to be undergone, but by this time the Pennsylvanians had learned well and truly the value of that little piece of equipment and had imbibed thoroughly the doctrine that, unpleasant as it might be, the mask was infinitely better than a whiff of that dread, sneaking, penetrating vapor with which the Hun poisoned the air. The "blonde beast" had his back to the Vesle and had turned to show his teeth and snarl in fury at our men closing in on him. The objective point on the river for the Pennsylvanians was Fismes. This was a town near the junction of the Vesle and Ardre rivers, which before the war had a population of a little more than 3,000. Here, in centuries long gone, the kings of France were wont to halt overnight on their way up to Rheims to be crowned. 172 THE IRON DIVISION It was on a railroad running through Rheims to the east. A few miles west of Fismes the railroad divides, one branch winding away southwestward to Paris the other running west through Soissons and Compiegne. The town was one of the largest German munitions depots in the Soissons-Rheims sector and second in importance only to Soissons. Across the narrow river was the village of Fismette, destined to be the scene of the writing of a truly glorious page of Pennsylvania's military history. The past tense is used with regard to the existence of both places, as they virtually were wiped out in the process of forcing the Hun from the Vesle River barrier and sending him flying northward to the Aisne. The railroad through Fismes and in its vicinity runs along the top of an embankment, raising it above the surrounding territory. There was a time, before the Americans were able to cross the railroad, that the embankment became virtually the barrier dividing redeemed France from darkest Hunland along that front. At night patrols from both sides would move DRIVE TO THE VESLE 173 forward to the railroad, and, burrowed in holes the Germans in the north side and the Americans in the south - would watch and wait and listen for signs of an attack. Each knew the other was only a few feet away; at times, in fact, they could hear each other talking, and once in a while defiant badinage would be exchanged in weird German from the south and in ragtime, vaudeville English from the north. Appearance of a head above the embankment on either side was a signal for a storm of lead and steel. The Americans had this advantage over the Germans: They knew the Huns were doomed to continue their retreat, and that the hold-up along the railroad was very temporary, and the Germans now realized the same thing. Therefore, the Americans fought triumphantly, with vigor and dash; the Germans, sullenly and in desperation. One man of the 110th went to sleep in a hole in the night and did not hear the withdrawal just before dawn. Obviously his name could not be made public. When he woke it was broad daylight, and he was only partly concealed by a little hole 174 THE IRON DIVISION in the railroad bank. There was nothing he could do. If he had tried to run for his regimental lines he would have been drilled like a sieve before he had gone fifty yards. Soon the German batteries would begin shelling, so he simply dug deeper into the embankment. "I just drove myself into that bank like a nail," he told his comrades later. He got away the next night. Richard Morse, of the 110th, whose home is in Harrisburg, went out with a raiding party. The Germans discovered the advance of the group and opened a concentrated fire, forcing them back. Morse was struck in the leg and fell. He was able to crawl, however, and crawling was all he could have done anyway, because the only line of retreat open to him was being swept by a hail of machine gun bullets. As he crawled he was hit by a second bullet. Then a third one creased the muscles of his back. A few feet farther, and two more struck him, making five in all. Then he tumbled into a shell hole. He waited until the threshing fire veered from his vicinity and he had regained a little strength, then crawled to another hole DRIVE TO THE VESLE 175 and flopped himself into that. Incredible as it may seem, he regained his own lines the fourth day by crawling from shell hole to shell hole, and started back to the hospital with every prospect of a quick recovery. He had been given up for dead, and the men of his own and neighboring companies gave him a rousing welcome. He had nothing to eat during those four days, but had found an empty tin can, and when it rained caught enough water in that to assuage his thirst. Corporal George D. Hyde, of Mt. Pleasant, Company E, 110th, hid in a hole in the side of the railroad embankment for thirty-six hours on the chance of obtaining valuable information. When returning, a piece of shrapnel struck the pouch in which he carried his grenades. Examining them, he found the cap of one driven well in. It was a miracle it had not exploded and torn a hole through him. "You ought to have seen me throw that grenade away," he said. In this waiting time it was decided to clean up a position of the enemy that was thrust out beyond their general line, from 176 THE IRON DIVISION which an annoying fire was kept up constantly. Accordingly, a battalion of the 110th was sent over to wipe it out. The Rev. Mandeville J. Barker, rector of the Episcopal Church in Uniontown, Pa., is chaplain of the 110th, with the rank of first lieutenant. He had endeared himself to officers and men alike by his happy combination of buoyant, gallant cheerfulness, sturdy Americanism, deep Christianity, indifference to hardship and the tender care he gave to the wounded. He had become, indeed, the most beloved man in the regiment. He went over the top with the battalion that attacked by night on the heights of the Vesle. It was not his duty to go; in fact had the regimental commander known his intention, he probably would have been forbidden to go. But go he did. He had an idea that his job was to look after the men's bodies as well as their souls, and when there was stern fighting to do, he liked to be in a position where he could attend to both phases of his work. The attacking party wiped out the Hun machine gun nest after a sharp fight and then retired to their own lines, as DRIVE TO THE VESLE 177 ordered. It was so dark that some of the wounded were overlooked. After the battalion returned, voices of American wounded could be heard out in that new No Man's Land, calling for help. Dr. Barker took his life and some first aid equipment and water in his two hands and slipped out into the dark, with only starshine and the voices of the wounded to guide him and, between the two armies, attended to the wounds of the men as best he could by the light of a small pocket torch, which he had to keep concealed from the enemy lookouts. One after another the clergyman hunted. Those who could walk he started back to the lines. Several he had to assist. One lad who was beyond help he sat beside and ministered to with the tenderness of a mother until the young soul struggled gropingly out into the Great Beyond. Then, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, the beloved "Sky Pilot" started back. But again the sound of a voice in agony halted him. This time, however, it was not English words that he heard, but a moaning petition in guttural German: "Ach Gott! Ach, mein lieber Gott!" 178 THE IRON DIVISION The men of the 110th loved their "parson" even more for what he did then. He turned right about and went back, groping in the dark for the sobbing man. He found a curly-haired young German, wounded so he could not walk and in mortal terror, not of death or of the dark, but of those "terrible Americans who torture and kill their prisoners." Such was the tale with which he and his comrades had been taught to loathe their American enemies. Dr. Barker treated his wounds and carried him back to the American lines. The youngster whimpered with fear when he found where he was going, and begged the clergyman not to leave him. When he finally was convinced that he would not be harmed, he kissed the chaplain's hands, crying over them, and insisted on turning over to Dr. Barker everything he owned that could be loosened - helmet, pistol, bayonet, cartridges, but-tons, and other odds and ends. "All hung over with loot, the parson was, when he came back," said a sergeant in telling of the scene afterward. "The Fighting Parson," as the men called him, did not fight, actually, but DRIVE TO THE VESLE 179 he went as close to it as possible. On one occasion snipers were bothering the men. Dr. Barker borrowed a pair of glasses, lay flat on the field and, after prolonged study, discovered the offenders, four of them, and notified an artillery observer. A big gun casually swung its snout around, barked three times and the snipers sniped no more. Two or three days later, the regiment went over and took that section of German line and found what was left of the four men. "The Parson's Boche," the men called them. 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. For three weeks it had been possible 180 THE IRON DIVISION to enter or leave the cave only after dark. Even then it was risky, for the mouth of the cave was only about fifty yards from the German trenches and slight sounds could be heard. After dark the Hun fire was laid down about the entrance at every suspicious noise. Sometimes the men inside would amuse themselves by heaving stones outside from a safe position within, to hear Fritz turn loose his "pepper boxes." Despite these difficulties, Dr. Barker got a motion picture outfit into the cave and gave a show of six reels to the men stationed there, after which Y. M. C. A. men entertained them with songs and eccentric dances. Men who saw that performance, in the light of torches and flambeaux, will never forget the picture. Toward the last there were sounds from the farther interior of the cave, and two American soldiers walked into the circle, blinking their eyes. Nobody gave much attention to them, supposing they just had wandered away a few minutes before, until one of them interrupted a song with the hoarsely whispered query: "Got any chow?" Which is army slang for food. DRIVE TO THE VESLE 181 "Aw, go lay down," was the querulous reply of the man addressed. "Ain't yuh got sense enough not to interrupt a show? Shut up, will yuh?" "Gee, but I'm hungry," came the answer. "I need some chow. We been lost in this doggone cave for two days." Investigation developed that he was telling the truth, and Dr. Barker produced from some mysterious horn of plenty some chocolate, which the famished men ate with avidity. With the natural, healthy curiosity of American youth, they had set out to explore the cave and had become lost in its mazes. Only the lights and noises of Dr. Barker's concert had led them out. An instance of the attitude of mind of the Pennsylvania men, who felt nothing but contempt for their foes, and of how little the arrogance and intolerance of the typical Prussian officer impressed them, was given by members of the 111th Ambulance Company, working with the 111th Infantry. Soldiers of Pennsylvania Dutch descent had amazed the Germans more than once not only by understanding the conversa- 182 THE IRON DIVISION tion of the enemy, but by their intense anger, almost ferocity, which they displayed on occasions when confronted with "the Intolerable Thing" called the Prussian spirit. Offspring of men and women of sturdy, free-minded stock who fled from oppression in Europe, they flamed with the spirit of the real liberty lover when in contact with the Prussian. A little group of the 111th's ambulanciers when carrying back the wounded, met a German major who was groaning and complaining vigorously and demanding instant attention. The contrast between his conduct and that of American officers, who almost invariably told the litter-bearers to go on and pick up worse wounded men, was glaring, but finally the bearers good-humoredly decided to get the major out of the way to stop his noise. He was not wounded severely, but was unable to walk, and they lifted him to the stretcher with the same care they gave to all the wounded. Promptly the major began to upbraid the Americans, speaking in his native tongue. In the language of a Billingsgate fishwife - or what corresponds to one in DRIVE TO THE VESLE 183 Hunland he - cursed the Americans, root, stock and branch, from President Wilson down to the newest recruit in the army. Thomas G. Fox, of Hummelstown, Pa., one of the bearers, understood his every word and repeated the diatribe in English to his fellows, who became restive under the tirade. At last the major said: "You Americans think you are going to win the war, but you're not." That was too much for Fox and his companions. "You think you are going to be carried back to a hospital, but you're not," said Fox. Whereupon the litter was turned over neatly and the major deposited, not too gently, on the hard ground. For some time he lay there, roaring his maledictions. Then he started to crawl back, and by the time he got to a hospital, he had lost some of his insolence.