MILITARY: Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania in the World War, H. G. Proctor, 1919 - Chapter XIII 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 STARS OF GRIM DRAMA 199 CHAPTER XIII STARS OF GRIM DRAMA IN Fismette, the Pennsylvanians ran into a stone wall of resistance. The enemy made desperate efforts to dislodge them and drive them back across the river. One counter-attack after another was met and beaten off by the valiant little band of Americans, supported by the roaring guns on the heights to the south. The Pennsylvanians had the double satisfaction now of knowing their own artillery brigade was mingling its fire with that of the other American and French batteries. On August 8th, Brigadier-General William G. Price, of Chester, rode up to regimental headquarters of the 109th Infantry and greeted his friends among the officers. He informed them that his brigade was immediately behind and that he was hunting division headquarters to report for action. A guide was assigned him and the General left in his motor car. Word soon spread through the infantry regiments that all the 200 THE IRON DIVISION Pennsylvania gunners at last were in the fight. The weather turned wet again, varying from a drizzle to a heavy downpour, but never quite ceasing. The penetration of Fismette went slowly but steadily on, in the face of strong resistance, the Germans reacting viciously at every point of contact. Here, as elsewhere along the front between Soissons and Rheims, the action consisted of a series of sharp local engagements, with considerable hand-to-hand fighting, in which American bayonets played an important role. Amid the fever of battle and not knowing what moment may prove their last, men move as if in a trance. Hours and days pass undistinguished and unrecorded. With the fundamental scheme of existence shattered and with friends of years and chums of months of campaigning killed between sunrise and sunset, it is no wonder that men's minds become abnormal and their acts superhuman. In quiet, peaceful homes it is impossible to understand this psychology. One may comprehend the mental shock sustained when a relative or neighbor or close friend STARS OF GRIM DRAMA 201 falls victim to accident or disease; but that feeling is but distantly related to the effect upon the soldier when he realizes that a dozen, possibly half a hundred, of his comrades and close associates of weeks of work and recreation have been wiped out of existence in an hour - men with whom he had talked daily, possibly was talking at the time of dissolution. The same experience is repeated day after day with deep effect upon his mental, as well as his physical, state of being. Even in civil life, one learns that loss of sleep in time acts like a drug. After twenty-four or thirty-six hours without sleep, it becomes increasingly easy to do without further, until the limit of human endurance is reached and the victim collapses. Also, infrequent food and drink may be borne at increasingly long intervals. The condition is not infrequently described, accurately enough, as being "too hungry to eat," or "too tired to rest." Inevitably the reaction comes, and the longer the relief is postponed, the worse is the reaction. For this reason, the first day in repose for soldiers after a long campaign is usually worse than the campaign itself. 202 THE IRON DIVISION But while the deprivation of sleep, food and drink continues, it is undeniable that, though the physical being may support the loss with decreasing discomfort up to the point of collapse, the effect upon the senses is almost that of an opiate. Men lose their sense of proportion. Everything ordinarily of prime importance recedes into the background. The soldier is imbued with but one overmastering aspiration - to go on and on and on. It is no wonder that, in such case, he feels that his own fate is a small matter, as it is liable to be sealed at any moment, in the same way as that of his comrades; no wonder that he faces death with the same indifference as a man at home faces a summer shower. This, then, is the state to which our Pennsylvania soldiers had now been reduced, and in consequence their deeds of personal heroism began to multiply. This was the period when individual men achieved most frequently the great glory of the service - citation and decoration for bravery in action. They had overstepped, individually and collectively, all the bounds of personal fear of death or injury. STARS OF GRIM DRAMA 203 The Germans hurled one fresh regiment after another into the inferno which was Fismette, in a determined effort to dislodge that pitiful handful of Americans which had found lodgment on its river edge. Five times fresh, vigorous forces, with hardly a lull, were hurled at the position. All the time the guns kept up an incessant cannonade, both of Fismette and Fismes and the back reaches of the Allied front, while the attacking forces were strongly supported by airplanes, artillery and machine guns. The tide of battle swayed back and forth as the Americans, reinforced at intervals by groups of men who succeeded in crossing the river, worked their way forward, only to be hurled back by vastly superior forces of the enemy, and hero after hero stalked, actor-like, across the murky stage. Some gallant acts were recorded and, duly and in due time, won their reward. Many more never were heard of, for the reason that participants and witnesses were beyond mortal honor, or else the only witnesses were part and parcel of the heroic act and therefore, according to the Anglo-Saxon code of 204 THE IRON DIVISION honor, their lips were sealed. They could not tell of their own fine deeds. It was the 111th Infantry which came into its gallant own in the first penetration of Fismette, and its men took high rank in the heroic galaxy constituting the Iron Division. Probably the most noteworthy deed of individual heroism was that of Corporal Raymond B. Rowbottom, of Avalon, Pa., near Pittsburgh, member of Company E, and Corporal James D. Moore, Erie, Pa., of Company G, both of the 111th. They were on outpost duty together with automatic rifle teams in a house beyond the spinning mill on the western edge of Fismette. The mill had been one of the hotly contested strongholds of the Germans because of its size and the thickness of its old stone walls. The situation was such that the loss of the firing post in the house would have endangered not only a battalion which was coming up under Lieutenant L. Howard Fielding, of Llanerch, Pa., but also would have made the whole military operation more difficult, if not impossible. A flare thrown from a German post landed in the room where Rowbottom and STARS OF GRIM DRAMA 205 Moore had established themselves, and in a moment the place was ablaze. This was on the night of August 12th. The flare had been thrown for the particular purpose of providing illumination for the German snipers and machine gunners to see their target. The fire that started from it not only answered this purpose better than the flare alone could have, but also distracted the attention of the American outpost and threatened to drive them from the house. There was, of course, no water in the house except the small quantity contained in the canteens of the men. With this absurdly inadequate supply and their own bare hands, fighting flames in a room as bright as day and under a heavy, concentrated machine gun and rifle fire, Rowbottom and Moore extinguished the blaze and then calmly resumed their automatic rifle work. For hours they went thirsty, until their throats were parched and their tongues swelled. For this deed, both men were cited and given the Distinguished Service Cross. Five wounded men were left behind unavoidably when a detachment of the 111th was called hurriedly back from an 206 THE IRON DIVISION advanced post which it was seen could not be held without too great sacrifice. Private Albert R. Murphy, of Philadelphia, a member of the sanitary detachment of the 111th, volunteered to go out after them. Despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles and constantly under vicious fire from scores of enemy marksmen, Murphy stuck to his task until the last man was back, although it took three days and nights of repeated effort. He, too, was cited and given the Distinguished Service Cross. A sergeant of Company C, 111th Infantry, was shot on August 10th and lay in an exposed position. Sergeant Alfred Stevenson, of Chester, a member of the same company, volunteered to go to the rescue. He successfully made his way through the enemy fire to the side of the wounded comrade. As he leaned over the man to get a grip on him so he could carry the burden, a sharpshooter's bullet struck him. Stevenson partially raised himself and said to the wounded man: "Gee, they got me that time." As he spoke the words, the sniper shot him again and he fell dead. The wounded man lay in a clump of bushes and between STARS OF GRIM DRAMA 207 there and our lines was an open space of considerable width. When Stevenson did not reappear with the wounded man, Corporal Robert R. Riley, of Chester, a member of the same company, and two comrades asked permission to go after the two. At their first effort, all were wounded and forced to return. Corporal Riley's wound was not severe, however, and he insisted upon making another attempt. This time he reached the spot, only to find his old schoolmate, Stevenson, dead, and the man for whom the effort was made able to crawl back after having first aid treatment. Riley collapsed on his way back and was carried in by Private Edward Davis and sent to a hospital, where he recovered and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. On August 10th, a detachment of men of the 111th captured some enemy machine guns and a quantity of ammunition. Corporal Raymond Peacock, of Norristown, a member of Company F, was the only man available who knew how to operate the enemy gun, a Maxim. He had just been so badly wounded in the left shoulder that the arm was partially useless. Neverthe- 208 THE IRON DIVISION less, he volunteered to go forward and operate the gun. He participated in a spirited assault, firing the weapon with one hand, until he was wounded again. A Distinguished Service Cross was his reward. An officer of the 111th called for a runner to take a message from Fismette back to Fismes. The path that had to be covered was pounded by big shells and sprayed with machine gun bullets, and the man who volunteered went but a short distance when he dropped, riddled like a sieve. Undaunted by the sight, Private Lester Carson, of Clearfield, Pa., a member of Company L, promptly volunteered and was given a duplicate message. His luck held, for he got through over the same route, by an exercise of daring, aggressiveness and care, and delivered the note. He, too, won a Distinguished Service Cross. For five days of the most intense fighting, from August 9th to 13th, Private Fred Otte, Fairmount City, Pa., a member of Company A, 111th Infantry, acted as a runner between his battalion headquarters in Fismes and the troops in Fismette. He made several trips across the Vesle under heavy shell and machine gun fire, and when STARS OF GRIM DRAMA 209 the bridge was destroyed he continued his trips by swimming the river, in spite of wire entanglements in the water. For this he received a Distinguished Service Cross, Bugler Harold S. Gilham, of Pittsburgh, Company H, and Private Charles A. Printz, of Norristown, Company F, both of the 111th, not only volunteered as runners to carry messages to the rear, but on their return showed their scorn of the enemy by burdening themselves with heavy boxes of ammunition which was badly needed. Sergeant James R. McKenney, of Pittsburgh, Company E, 111th Infantry, took out a patrol to mop up snipers. When he returned, successful, he was ordered to rest, but begged and obtained permission to take out another patrol. Sergeant Richard H. Vaughan, of Royersford, Pa., Company A, 111th Infantry, was severely gassed and his scalp was laid open by a piece of shrapnel. Despite this, he refused to go back for treatment, but had his wound treated on the field and continued to command his platoon for four days until relieved. He died later of his injuries, but a Distinguished Service Cross was awarded to him and sent to his father, 210 THE IRON DIVISION Dr. E. M. Vaughan, of Royersford, together with the text of the official citation, which told the tale of the Sergeant's heroism and concluded with the statement: "By his bravery and encouragement to his men, he exemplified the highest qualities of leadership." Corporal James V. Gleason, of Pottstown, Pa., Company A, 111th, was publicly commended and given the Distinguished Service Cross for his "great aid in restoring and holding control of the line in absolute disregard to personal danger and without food or rest for seventy-two hours." How terse and yet how graphic are these precise words of the official citation! Lieutenants Walter Ettinger, of Phoenixville, who later was killed, and Robert B. Woodbury, of Pottsville, the former an officer of Company D, and the latter of Company M, 111th Infantry, spent three sleepless days and nights aiding and encouraging their men to hold a position. On August 12th, the Germans delivered an attack in force, preceded by an intense bombardment and accompanied by a rolling barrage, which was too pretentious to be met by the small American force in Fis- STARS OF GRIM DRAMA 211 mette. In the face of those onrushing German hordes, there were but two things to do - die heroically but futilely or retire. True to American army traditions, under which men never are required to lay down their lives uselessly, the American force slowly, reluctantly and stubbornly retired across the river. Instantly the Franco-American guns gave tongue. They laid down upon Fismette a bombardment which made the German effort seem trifling. With the walls falling around them, the Germans began to flee. And then the task of conquering that stubborn little village was begun again. This second advance was led by a detachment of the 111th, under Captain James Archibald Williams and Lieutenant H. E. Leonard, both of Pittsburgh. They swam the Vesle under a hail of fire, for the enemy centered much of his artillery upon the bridges, and shrapnel and machine gun bullets fell upon them like rain. Soaked from head to foot, the Pennsylvanians got a footing on the northern bank, only to find they were unsupported as yet on either flank. Undaunted, they plunged forward into a little ravine which 212 THE IRON DIVISION seemed to offer some protection. On the contrary, they found there had settled into it most of the gas with which the enemy had been drenching the town. Various kinds of the poisonous vapor, mustard gas, sneeze gas, tear gas and chlorine gas, had accumulated there in a seething mixture, providing the worst experience with this form of Hun deviltry the men had met. Gas masks were already in place, however, and forward they went on the run. Machine guns chattered angrily at them, and the gunners stood their ground until the flashing bayonets of the Americans were almost at their breasts. Then they either broke and fled or bleated the customary plea for mercy.