MILITARY: Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania in the World War, H. G. Proctor, 1919 - Chapter XII 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 184 CHAPTER XII IN DEATH VALLEY HUN infantry in considerable force held Fismes. Their big guns had been moved across the Vesle, tacit admission they had no hope of holding the south bank of the river, but the strength of the force in the town indicated the customary intention to sell out as dearly as possible to their dogged and unfaltering pursuers. Lying in the woods, or whatever other shelter they could find, our infantrymen for two days watched French and American batteries moving into position. It seemed the procession was interminable. "There'll be something doing for Fritz when those babies get going," was the opinion of the Pennsylvania doughboys. French and American forces already had crossed the river east and west of Fismes, which was almost the geographic center of the line between Soissons and Rheims. To stabilize the line, it was essential not only IN DEATH VALLEY 185 that Fismes be taken, but that the river crossings be forced and Fismette seized. Forward bodies of infantry continually had been feeling out the German positions in Fismes and on Saturday afternoon, August 3rd, reconnaissance parties from the 168th Infantry, formerly the Third Iowa National Guard, of the Rainbow Division, entered the southern edge of the town. They clung there desperately until the next day, but the Germans deluged them with gas, which hung close because of the river and the heavy atmosphere, and it was deemed inadvisable for the small force to remain. Their reconnaissance had been completed and they were ordered to return to their lines. The information they brought back aided the staff materially in planning the general attack. The Germans had placed heavy guns on the crests of hills one or two kilometers north of the river, from which they poured in a flanking fire. A few hours after the return of the men of the 168th, the massed French and American batteries turned loose with a racket that seemed to rend the universe. The Germans had been dropping shells 186 IRON DIVISION intermittently since daylight, but even this spasmodic firing stopped entirely under the hurricane of shrapnel, high explosive and gas shells from the Allied artillery, which swept the town, the river crossings and the country to the north. It was a case of "keep your head down, Fritzie boy," or lose it. The artillery preparation was not protracted. After an hour or so, it steadied down into a rolling barrage and the first wave of attackers went over. The 32d and 42d (Rainbow) Divisions, exhausted, had been brought out of the front line and Pennsylvania's iron men slipped into place. It fell to the fortune of the 112th Infantry to lead the advance on Fismes and, supported though it was by other regiments and by tremendous artillery fire, it was the 112th Pennsylvania that actually took Fismes. There was the usual harassing fire from enemy machine guns and snipers, especially to the east, but these were silenced after a time and the 112th romped into the southern edge of the town. Then ensued a repetition, on a larger scale, of the street and house fighting that had been experienced before in other villages and towns. IN DEATH VALLEY 187 Scouts crept from corner to corner, hiding behind bits of smashed masonry, working through holes in house walls and into cellars. A haze of dust kicked up by the shells hung in the bright sunlight. Every open stretch of street was swept by rifle and machine gun fire from one or both sides. Americans and Germans were so mingled that sometimes they shared the same house, firing out of different windows on different streets, and varying the procedure by attempts to kill their housemates. As the Americans crept slowly forward, always toward the river, the Germans showed no slightest inclination to follow their comrades to the north bank, and it became apparent that they were a sacrifice offered up by the German command to delay, as long as possible, the progress of those terrible Americans. They had been left behind with no hope of succor, simply to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Quite naturally, they fought like trapped wolves as long as fighting was possible. When convinced they had no further chance to win, they dropped their weapons and squalled : "Kamerad!" Two American officers and some wounded 188 THE IRON DIVISION men worked their way into one of the houses. Inside, they found two unwounded men from Pittsburgh. Almost as the two parties joined forces, one of the unwounded Pittsburghers, venturing incautiously near what had been a window, stopped a sniper's bullet and fell dead. The wounded were made as comfortable as possible to await the stretcher-bearers and the two officers and one enlisted man started to investigate the house. They were crawling on all fours. They came into a dismantled room and raised their heads to look over a pile of debris. They looked straight into the eyes of two Germans. One had a machine gun, the other a trench bomb in each hand. These German trench bombs were known among our soldiers as "potato mashers," because they are about the size of a can of sweet corn, fastened on the end of a short stick. They are thrown by the stick, and are a particularly nasty weapon - one of the worst the Germans had, many soldiers thought. The German with the bombs was slowly whirling them about by the handles, exactly like a pair of Indian clubs, as one of the Americans described it afterward. IN DEATH VALLEY 189 For the time you might have counted ten, there was not a movement on either side, because the men were so surprised, except that the German with the bombs kept whirling them slowly, around and around. The other German stood like a statue, but making funny, nervous noises - "uck-uck-uck " - in his throat. The Americans, telling about it later, frankly admitted they were too scared to move for a few moments, expecting every second the man with the "potato mashers" would throw them. The remarkable tableau ended with the crash of a rifle. The American private soldier had fired "from the hip." The German with the bombs bent forward as if he had a sharp pain in his stomach, but he did not come up again. He kept on going until his head hit the pile of debris, as if he were salaaming or kowtowing to the Americans. Then he collapsed in an inert heap on the floor, still holding his bombs. The other turned and ran, stumbling through the wreckage, out through the little garden in which flowers and green stuff still struggled through the broken stone. As he ran, he cried in a curious, whimpering, muffled tone, like a frightened 190 THE IRON DIVISION animal, his big helmet crushed down over his ears, a grotesque figure. He got out into the street, out into the open where machine guns and rifles still called from corner to corner and window to window. He was drilled in a dozen places at once and collapsed like a heap of dusty rags. There were innumerable instances of individual gallantry and of narrow escapes. In days of fighting when virtually every man performed a hero's part, it was impossible for anyone to keep track of all of even the more outstanding cases, and many a lad's deed went unnoticed while another's act brought him a citation and the coveted Distinguished Service Cross, the difference being that one was observed and reported and the other was not. A very small proportion of the deserving deeds were rewarded for this reason. Among the narrow escapes from death, probably Lieutenant Walter A. Davenport, formerly of Philadelphia, established a record. A machine gun bullet struck his belt buckle, was deflected and ripped a long gash in the muscles of his abdomen. He returned to duty before his regiment, the 111th, had finished its work IN DEATH VALLEY 191 in Fismette, a few weeks later, and was slightly gassed. It was at Fismes that Captain John M. Gentner, of Philadelphia, acting commander of the first battalion of the 109th, was wounded. He had been commander of Company C, but took over command of the battalion when Captain Gearty was killed in the Bois de Conde, below the Marne. After he was wounded, Captain Gentner was made the subject of a remarkable tribute from men of his battalion. They wrote for newspaper publication a letter of eulogy, in which they said: "The influence of Captain Gentner is still leading on the men of his battalion. None speak of him but in admiration and thankfulness for having helped them to be good soldiers. Daring, even brilliant, he led his men into seemingly hazardous attacks, and yet we felt a sense of safety. Other commanders say: 'I wouldn't send a man where I wouldn't go myself,' but Captain Gentner wouldn't send men where he would go himself. We looked upon him as a father. He has brought in wounded men from places where no one else would venture. He delighted in dangerous patrols IN THE IRON DIVISION and often regretted that his position prevented him from leading combat patrols. In places where food came to us rarely and in small quantity, he would claim that he had eaten when we knew that neither food nor water had crossed his lips for twenty-four hours. He was filled with admiration for his men - men who willingly would have followed him through the gates of hell, just because no trouble, no privation was too great for him to make his men comfortable." What a difference between that relationship of officer and enlisted man, and the sight our men saw of German soldiers being kicked and beaten with sabres by German officers in an effort to drive them forward into battle while the officers remained behind out of harm's way! With their never-failing sense of the dramatic and their natural tendency to picturesquely appropriate nomenclature, our men named the valley of the Vesle "Death Valley after the desperate fighting they encountered there. And so they took Fismes, these gallant American daredevils. Slowly but surely they went through it, mopping it up in a IN DEATH VALLEY 198 scientific manner. It was costly - such warfare always is - but they wiped out one German post after another, driving the Huns to the very edge of the town on the north, where they held on desperately for a few days until the American occupation was complete, and the last German foothold was gone from the Soissons-Rheims pocket, which for two weeks had been the focal point for the eyes of the world. Even before the operation was complete, and in callous disregard of the men they themselves had left behind to impede the American advance, the Germans cut loose with a hot artillery fire from the heights north of the river. They are not unlike the chalk cliffs of Dover, only not so high, these elevations along the Vesle. There were several high points on the north bank on which the Germans had observation posts, from which they could look down upon Fismes and the surrounding country as persons in a theatre balcony view the stage, and it was a terrible fire they poured in. Already their big guns had been withdrawn to the line of the Aisne, which is only five miles to the north and therefore 194 THE IRON DIVISION well within range. Lighter pieces in great number crowned the high ground nearer the Vesle, and machine guns held their usual prominent place in the German scheme. Once more they brought flame projectors into play, using them in this instance at what is believed to have been the greatest distance they tried to operate these weapons during the war. They accomplished little with the "flamenwerfer," however. Night and day the gun duel continued. The French and American batteries methodically set about to break up the concentration of Hun fire. Monday, August 5th, the shelling became so violent that observation virtually was impossible and maps had to be used, the American gun commanders picking out German positions that had been marked down earlier. German 105's and 155's (about four and six inches) hurled their high explosive shells. Shrapnel sprayed over the entire territory, and the American positions in the rear were heavily pounded and deluged with gas. The Germans shelled forests, crossroads, highways, clumps of trees and all other places where they thought troops or supplies might be concentrated or passing. IN DEATH VALLEY 195 Every position in the American lines which ordinarily would have been good from a military viewpoint became almost untenable from the fact that the Germans, having so recently been driven out, knew the terrain and the positions accurately. It was as safe in the open as in the supposed shelters. No sooner had the occupation of Fismes been established completely than the Americans calmly prepared to cross the river and take Fismette, regardless of the German resistance. For some reason still unexplained, since after developments have made it clear the Germans had no real hope of stopping short of the Chemin-des-Dames, north of the Aisne, they made the taking of Fismette almost a first-class operation, even driving the Americans back across the river after they once had established themselves, and counter-attacking repeatedly. Presumably, they had been unable to get away their vast quantities of munitions and supplies between the Vesle and the Aisne, and needed to hold up the pursuit while these were extricated. As a first step in the crossing of the river, 196 THE IRON DIVISION Major Robert M. Vail, of Scranton, commanding the 108th Machine Gun Battalion, operating with the 55th Infantry Brigade, sent over two companies of machine gunners. They waded the river, which was nearly to their armpits in places, holding their weapons above their heads. Others carried ammunition in boxes on their heads. They went over in a storm of shells and bullets, which took a heavy toll, but they established a bridgehead on the north bank and, fighting like demons, held it against tremendous odds while men of the 103d Engineers, ordered up for the work, threw bridges across the stream. It was in this work that units of the engineer regiment, particularly Company C, of Pottsville, were badly mauled. Working swiftly and unconcernedly in the midst of a tornado of almost every conceivable kind and size of shell, most of the time sustaining the discomfort of their gas masks, the engineers conducted themselves like veterans of years of service, instead of the tyros they actually were. Officers and men of the other organizations, watching the performance, thrilled with pride at the outstanding bravery of these heroic young IN DEATH VALLEY 197 Americans. Their own officers were too absorbed in their task to appreciate the work of the men until afterward, when they had also to mourn their losses. Methodically, working in water above their waists, many of them, the engineers thrust the arm of their bridge across the stream. Shells raged about them, churning the water to foam and throwing up geysers of mud and spray. 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. Hampered by the German fire, the bridge building was slow and, the machine gunners having made a good crossing, infantry was started over the ford. The process of 198 THE IRON DIVISION throwing men across was greatly hastened when at last the first bridge was completed. Other spans soon were ready, but the engineers knew no cessation from their task, for all too frequently Hun projectiles either tore holes in the bridges or wrecked them altogether.