MILITARY: Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania in the World War, H. G. Proctor, 1919 - Chapter XIX 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 278 THE IRON DIVISION CHAPTER XIX ENSANGUINED APREMONT THE taking of Apremont was the greatest struggle the division had in its fighting career. Much has been said and written during the war of "the blood- soaked fields of France" and "streams of blood." Officers who were at Apremont solemnly vouch for the fact that there was a time in that town when the water running in the gutters was bright red with blood. And not all of it was German blood. The town was held in force, much as Fismes and Fismette had been, and presented much the same problem. So strong was the position that every approach to it was covered by heavy concentrations of machine guns and snipers. No longer were one or two Germans left in a nest to fire many guns as fast as they could. The enemy had brought up strong reinforcements of comparatively fresh troops and gave every evidence of a determination to ENSANGUINED APREMONT 279 stand. Not until compelled to by superior force did he let go, and then it was only to launch one counter-attack after another. It was at this time that Sergeant Andrew B. Lynch, of Philadelphia, won his Distinguished Service Cross by a remarkable piece of daring and self-sacrifice. A member of the headquarters company of the 110th Infantry, he was on duty with the one-pounder section of his company in a position slightly north of the village. Under orders he removed his guns to the rear and, after establishing the new position, was told that his commanding officer, Lieutenant Meyer S. Jacobs, had been taken prisoner. Sergeant Lynch and Corporal Robert F. Jeffery, of Sagamore, Pa., organized a rescue party of five and instantly moved forward and attacked a German patrol of thirty-six men who had Lieutenant Jacobs in custody. Fifteen of the Germans were killed and Sergeant Lynch personally took three prisoners and released his Lieutenant, unwounded. Immediately after the return to the American lines, Sergeant Lynch took command of seventy-five of his company who 280 THE IRON DIVISION had been held in reserve. Drawing his revolver, the sergeant commanded the men to follow him, launched a fresh attack, drove the enemy back two-thirds of a mile and established a new line in a ravine northwest of the village. The official citation when he was awarded his cross remarked that "Sergeant Lynch's conduct exemplified the greatest courage, judgment and leadership." Lieutenant John V. Merrick, of Roxborough, Philadelphia, with D Company of the 110th Infantry, had gained an objective to which he had been assigned and was holding the western end of a ravine near Apremont. He found his men were subjected to both a frontal and an enfilading fire and were without proper shelter. He ordered a withdrawal to a safer position and while doing so he was struck through the elbow and hand by machine gun bullets. Suffering intense pain, he declined to be evacuated and for two hours bravely and skilfully directed his men and brought them back to the company, together with stragglers from other units, who attached themselves to his party. ENSANGUINED APREMONT 281 Captain Charles L. McLain, of Indiana, Pa., who had distinguished himself below the Marne, again came into prominence at Apremont. He learned that Company C, 110th, was without officers. His own company was in reserve. There was no superior officer at hand, so without orders he turned over command of his own company to a junior officer, took command of the orphaned C Company and led the first wave in a hot attack. He was wounded in the leg, but continued at the head of his men, hobbling along with the aid of a cane, until his objective was reached. Then he allowed them to send him to a hospital. Both he and Lieutenant Merrick recovered from their wounds and rejoined their regiment. In the fighting close to the village of Apremont, the men used shell craters instead of digging trenches, organizing them as strong points. An attack on the German positions was planned for 5.30 o'clock in the morning. About three hundred Pennsylvania infantrymen in the town were awaiting a barrage which should clear the way for them to advance. Oddly enough, the Germans had planned an attack for almost the same time. The 282 THE IRON DIVISION Pennsylvanians were heavily supported by machine guns. The Germans launched their attack first and the result was better for the Pennsylvanians than they had expected to achieve in their own attack and was won with less cost. The Germans came straight at the shell craters and were mowed down in rows. Those that managed to get by ran into the waiting infantry in the town and those who survived that fight turned and fled, right past the machine guns in the shell holes again. It was pitiable, officers said later, or would have been if the Americans had not realized that the Germans had so much to answer for. Hardly a handful of the several hundred Germans who began that charge lived through it. At last the Germans launched one great attack, in which they apparently had every intention of driving the Americans from the village and the surrounding positions and every hope of being successful. They came on confidently and with undeniable courage. The fighting that resulted was desperate. Our Pennsylvania men stood up to them like the gallant veterans they had now become. ENSANGUINED APREMONT 283 The fighting was hand-to-hand, breast-to-breast. In many spots, man contended against man in a struggle as primitive, as dogged and as uncompromising as any fighting ever has been. When a contest narrowed down to one or two men on a side this way, there was but one outcome for the loser. There was neither time nor inclination on either side to surrender, nor time to take prisoners. Death, quick and merciful, for one or the other was the only possible eventuality. Our men fought like tigers, but the Germans outnumbered them somewhat and, after their first rush, had a certain advantage of position. The 109th Infantry bore the brunt of this attack. Major Mackey, who as Captain Mackey had won place in the fighting annals of the division in the battle below the Marne, was in his post command in an advanced position when the attack was launched. The "P. C.", as the army shortens post command, was in a cellar from which the house above had been almost blown away by artillery fire. With him were his battalion adjutant and a chaplain. He was keeping in touch with the rear and with the regi- 284 THE IRON DIVISION mental post command by means of telephone and runners. The runners ceased arriving and the telephone connection was severed. Only then did the men in the cellar realize the attack was gaining ground and that they might be in danger. Suddenly from directly over their heads came the angry "rat-atat-tat-tat-tat" of a machine gun, like a pneumatic riveter at work on the steel skeleton of a skyscraper back in God's country. Simultaneously, the bawling of hoarse-voiced commands in German told them that the visitors who had taken possession of the ground floor of their subterranean domicile were the pestiferous Boche. It is hardly necessary to add that Major Mackey and his companions kept quiet, expecting every moment to be called on to surrender. But Fritz had his hands full. Reinforcements were seeping up to the front line of the Americans and they were beginning to make a stand. Then the officers and men of Major Mackey's battalion saw what the Major had heard - the Hun machine gunners standing on the American "P. C." ENSANGUINED APREMONT 285 It called for no special command. There was a wild yell of anger and defiance, and away the Pennsylvanians went to the rescue. The reinforcements were right at their heels. The Germans had shot their bolt and would have been compelled to retreat very soon anyway, but the plight of Major Mackey and the other officers hastened it. In a very short time the enemy was in flight northward once more. It was after this fight that Company H of the 109th buried twenty-four of its men, said to have been the largest loss in killed of any company in the division in one engagement during the war. The losses all through were exceedingly heavy. There were instances of companies emerging from the combat in command of corporals, every commissioned officer and every sergeant having been put out of action, and in at least one instance, a battalion was commanded by a sergeant, the major, his staff, the commanders and lieutenants of all four companies having been incapacitated. It was terribly costly, but it wrote the name of Apremont on the records of the division as a word to thrill future members of the organization. 286 THE IRON DIVISION From Apremont the advance veered over to the west, still following the course of the river, toward Chatel-Chehery. When the artillery reached Apremont it ran into trouble again. One battery of the 109th was shelled and knocked to pieces. Guns were torn from their carriages, limbers and caissons blown to bits, horses killed and a number of men killed and many injured. Colonel Asher Miner, of Wilkes-Barre, went out in person and assisted in rallying the gunners, bringing order out of chaos and directing the men to a new position. Speaking of Colonel Miner's presence of mind, his constant presence at the scene of danger, the care with which he looked after his men and equipment and his general efficiency and ability, Brigadier-General Price paid him a high compliment. "Colonel Miner showed bravery upon many occasions," he said, "but it is when men do what they do not have to do that they are lifted to the special class of heroes. Miner is one of these." It was but shortly after this that Colonel Miner was so badly injured in the ankle that his foot had to be amputated. Just after leaving Apremont, fighting ENSANGUINED APREMONT 287 rod by rod, almost foot by foot, the infantry advance had a brisk engagement in the clearing out of Pleinchamp Farm. As was the case with the other farms of France which figured so frequently in the war news, this consisted of a considerable group of centuries-old buildings, built of stone with exceedingly thick walls, offering ideal protection for machine guns, snipers and one- pounders. The buildings were so situated that a force attacking one was open to hot fire from most of the others. It was cleared of the Germans in a brilliant little engagement, however, and our men began to close in on Chatel-Chehery. They were now in the act of driving their way through the Kriemhilde line, the second German defense line in that sector, which the Germans had predicted never would be broken. The 112th Infantry again came to the fore in this work. Hills 223 and 244, named from their height in meters - names which are purely for military purposes and appear only on the military maps - presented formidable obstacles in the path of the regiment. It is not, however, the American way to stand about and talk of 288 THE IRON DIVISION how strong the enemy probably is, so the 112th took another hitch in its belt, clenched its teeth and set out in a rush for Hill 244. Rather to their surprise, they swept over the eminence in their first rush. Neither machine gun nor rifle fire halted them. It was not the 112th's day to be annoyed and it continued to wipe out the German defense positions on Hill 223 in the same way. The night before this attack, Sergeant Ralph N. Summerton, of Warren, sat in a kitchen of the regiment, feeling about as miserable as one man may. He was suffering with Spanish influenza, and had upon his body and legs a number of aggravating wounds, inflicted when a German "potato masher," or trench bomb, went off close to him. He had refused to go to a hospital because he felt he was needed with the regiment, but he had upon his blouse two medical tags, indicating he had been treated for both the disease and the wounds. Lieutenant Dickson, the battalion adjutant, and Lieutenant Benjamin F. White, Jr., a surgeon, entered and Summerton asked Lieutenant Dickson how things were with the regiment. The officer remarked that there were no officers to lead I Com- ENSANGUINED APREMONT 289 pany in the attack next morning and Summerton started out. "You'd better either stay here or go to a hospital; you're a sick man," said the medical officer, but Summerton disregarded the advice, went to the company and assumed command and led the first wave in the assault on Hill 244 next morning. He actually was the first to the top of the hill, and performed the feat under the eyes of the brigade commander, although he was almost reeling from his illness and his wounds. Not only that, but after gaining the crest he continued to lead the attack until he got a rifle bullet through the shoulder, which put him out of the action. The regiment came next against Chene Tondu Ridge, and here the whole division came to a pause. It took just four days to reduce that stronghold. It was a case where nothing could be gained and much lost by trying brute force and speed, so it was cleared of Germans by a regular course of siege operations in the tactics with which the Pennsylvanians now were so familiar. Some men spotted the German firing 290 THE IRON DIVISION positions and concentrated their streams of bullets on them, while others crept forward to protected posts. These in turn set up a peppery fusillade and the others crept forward. So it went on, steadily up hill, steadily gaining, until, on the evening of the fourth day, the tired doughboys of the 112th lay down and slept on the crest of the ridge in token of their victory. They had redeemed it for France. These were the chief defenses which had to be overcome before the troops came to Chatel-Chehery itself. There much the same kind of fighting as at Apremont took place, although not on so fierce and extensive a scale.