DOUGHBOY DIARIES

 

        In the book World War I in Retrospect  we read:            "But all in all I was certainly less miserable there at Brest prior to embarkation than my comrades, for while the company was off unloading lumber in the rain and cold I sat in our sheet-iron billet by the camp stove and, pad on knee, devoted myself to the work of chronicler.            Even without the bargain I had made with the captain I would have been unavailable for heavy work because of an amusing, although extremely painful, episode. One cold and rainy morning in January the company was marched off to the delousing plant, where men and clothes were to receive the kerosene treatment. As right guide of the company, I was first to enjoy the delectable shower, after which, while waiting for my clothes, I stood naked with my back to the red-hot barracks stove. Others soon appeared and there was the usual banter and chatter. Presently one of the men asked me for a light for his cigarette. In the process of obliging I leaned forward just far enough to touch my rear on the stove. To this very day I remember the sticking sensation and my mad leap to safety. Next morning, when I reported for sick call, the doctor exclaimed: "Why, Sarge, you have a burn as large as a pie plate." For a time I was quite immobilized, never stirring from my pillow, but spiritually free and deeper than ever immersed in my narrative. Only one mistake I made in this connection. I wrote my mother that I had had a rather painful mishap and should probably not have been surprised when, on my return home, she greeted me with the question: "Now where were you wounded." "Wounded? Me? Nowhere." Well, you certainly wrote me of a mishap and of course I knew what you meant." Demonstration was hardly feasible, so I had to rely on argument to put her mind at rest.

            Life underground is the order of things within the scope of the enemy's guns. By the light of candles and lamps, soldiers live down here and eat and sleep. And yet men laugh and joke over the most serious things. A new habit of mind seems to have been created so suit this new outlook, one in which the exposure and danger and shell fire and the blood of comrades are usual factors, instead of the strange and shocking horrors they would be in normal life conditions."

 

DOUGHBOY SHEPHERDS

            "In many ways, the French civilian customs provided entertainment for the American soldiers of 1918. The Headquarters Company at Moyemont were daily aroused by the shrill blasts of the community stock-herder's trumpet. At the first peep of dawn, when all the good doughboys were pounding the blanket hard, he would sound off, shambling down the village street in motley garb—perhaps the regalia of his high office—dragging his wooden shoes with difficulty over the cobblestones. The first blast of his tin horn usually produced the desired result. Out of barns and yards tumbles sundry sheep, goats, cows and pigs to fall in behind him. Returning from the fields at dusk, the animals would instinctively fall out and retire to their respective habitations. Two members of the Regimental Band yearned for trouble. The machinations of their fertile brains sent the loudest and strongest First Cornet down the street one morning long before Reveille, blowing the Call to Arms. The Pied Piper of Hamlin boasted no such array. With stately tread, he conducted his unique platoon of animals around the town. Wither he went they dutifully followed. He stopped playing, but they still hung on. The joke was revealing complications. Showing signs of deep concern, the cornetist attempted the soothing strains of "Go to Sleep, My Baby," without result. Far be it for such loyal adherents to desert their leader in the midst of drill. But hark! What is that old familiar sound? The shrill call of the herder's old horn resounding through the village! With tails erect, or flying, or kinked or not showing at all, as the case may be, the animals dashed off in all directions. Pandemonium reigned, during which time the First Cornet made good his escape."

SID's PACK

            They maintained the brutal march until human endurance could no longer maintain them, then they fell by the wayside, sick, exhausted and oftentimes unconscious. 'Long about midday, General Wittenmeyer came upon a pathetic figure by the roadside, propped against his pack which he hadn't the energy to take off. "Dogs," he soliloquized, gazing ruefully at his feet, "you've gone back on me. For many a year you've been my main support and you've done your duty noble. I've been careful of you right along; but I guess I was too easy with you. And now, because you've had to take some hard knocks, you're laying down on me, ain't you? But I guess you done the best you could an' I can't blame you for putting me out of the running.

            Any feeble attempt at mirth and hilarity had long since failed. Conversation was at a standstill, but what the boys thought about the army at that time was unfit for publication. Yet the hike was productive of many surprises, among them General Wittemeyer's decision, after hearing the doughboy's lament, to order a lengthy rest at noon and—Sidney Wennick's quality of endurance.

            Sid had been cooking for the Signal Platoon all the time we were out with the British climbing the hills of Northern France. We had carried the pack a bit, nearly every day in the week. Sid hadn't. So, when we started on this jaunt the hardened veterans thought that Sid would be one of the first to drop out. Along about the fifth hour of marching, when fully ready to call it quits there was Sid Wennick marching blithely along, seemingly with no cares or worries. He was in at the finish, and probably the freshest man of the lot. That night, his Bunkie happened to be looking when Sid unrolled his pack. It comprised one blanket and a lot of straw; all the rest of his equipment was on the ration cart." 

GAS!

            A British general, in whose area and under whose jurisdiction we happened to be training, said to the American officer who accompanied him on tour of inspection one morning: "And are your men well trained in the matter of gas-defense?"

            "Oh yes indeed, "replied General Johnson.

            "Gas!" screamed the general at a passing American doughboy, for the purpose of making a practical test. Nothing but blank amazement masked the Latin-American countenance on the roadside.

            "Gas!" howled the general, thinking that the boy hadn't heard him. No response; not a quiver of intelligence.

            "Don't you know enough to put on your mask when you hear that warning?" cried the excited general.

            "Me no speak-a-da Eenglis," answered the American."

 STOLEN CHICKENS

 

            "Five chickens have disappeared from a shed near your Signal Platoon," the captain said. "This is nothing less than plain stealing and cannot be glossed over. Investigate."

            The captain goes over to one of the French neighbors and says in fluent French, "Avvy voo lost cinq chickens? The neighbor says "No." The captain reports the findings to the Town Commandant, who 'lows as how that ain't the right neighbor and proceeds to investigate, for himself. Here is the shed; foot-prints, gore, feathers. Unmistakable signs of a terrible carnage. Five hens are still cowering, wild-eyed in a corner, suffering from nervous prostration. If Monsieur Legrand formerly had ten and a rooster it is certain that the others must be A.W.O.L. Oh, no! He couldn't have sold them.

            The Supply Company advertises a big chicken dinner for the coming Sunday; but such evidence is purely circumstantial. H Company is billeted in the next street over; looks bad for H. E Company had a couple of recalcitrant's picked up in the street that fatal night; but that is nothing out of the way. The finger of suspicion undoubtedly points to Headquarters Company, though the First Sergeant swears the blood on the Orderly Room door-sill resulted from the company mechanic having cut a finger. Therefore, all four companies are finally ordered to chip in, purchasing out of their company funds an ephemeral portion of vanished chicken for every man in town."

 

David Homsher
American Battlefields of World War I: Chateau-Thierry--Then and Now
ISBN: 97809702444307 $19.95.
Winner of three National Book Awards. Available at bookstores everywhere.
and on website: www.battlegroundpro.com
WWI blog sites: www.davehomsher-wwi.blogspot.com/ AND www.doughboydiaries.blogspot.com/

DOUGHBOY DIARIES

 

 

    John F. Gilder writes of the psychology of the American soldier in his book Americans Defending Democracy, Our Soldier's Own Stories:            "The conduct of our men was characterized at all times by a remarkable spirit—a spirit difficult to define, but which reached in battle a veritable state of exaltation. It was a spirit which breathed confidence, determination and willingness to make any sacrifices to win.            This spirit was so marked as to be frequently commented upon in the British area. I am sure that no man who has not experienced the ordeal of battle can appreciate the feelings of the officer who sees his men coming out of battle after, perhaps, three or four days and nights of continuous fighting, plastered with mud, scratched and cut by wire and shell splinters, lame and stiff from the water of shell holes in which they have spent the nights, half dazed from shell-shock and loss of sleep, half sick, and frequently burned from poisonous gas and depressed by the loss of comrades whom they have seen killed or wounded about them.            Certainly one must admire the discipline of men who under such conditions keep in column and observe the many rules of the road as they patiently make their way to the rest camp over roads pounded with never-ceasing shellfire, but the officer's admiration turns to devoted affection when under such circumstances he receives from his men the responsive glance and the labored straightening of the exhausted body, which indicates that it is the physical machinery alone that is "all in"—that the spirit remains unimpaired. This has been the experience of our officers with their men.            Cases by the score have occurred where officers and men struck down in battle, in response to their spirit had struggled to their feet and gone on with their companies in the attack only to be hit again. Cases exist in every regiment where men have done this as many as three times before being killed or rendered helpless. This spirit cannot be produced by discipline alone.            The character of our cause had some relation to it. A spirit so intense cannot be developed in a period measured by months. In our case it was the growth of years of zealous effort to compel the recognition of the efficiency of their regiment—effort which involved not only sacrifice, but lack of appreciation and even hostility from some sources. Our men and the new men who gained their spirit were prepared to make any sacrifice to justify their confidence in themselves and their unit, and to this end they seemed to be willing to give their

lives freely."

EXCERPTS FROM SOLDIERS' DIARIES" Rats? What did you ever read of the rats in the trenches? Next to gas, they still slide on their fat bellies through my dreams. Poe could have got new inspiration from their dirty hordes. Rats, rats, rats, tens of thousands of rats—I see them still, slinking from new meals on corpses, crunching between battle lines, their hellish feasts. Full fed, slipping and sliding down into the wet trenches they swarm at night—and more than one poor wretch has been attacked and his face partly eaten off by them while he slept.            Stench? Did you ever breathe air foul with the gasses arising from a thousand rotting corpses. Dirt? Have you ever fought half madly through days and nights and weeks unwashed, with the feverish rests between long hours of agony, while the guns boom their awful symphony of death, and the bullets zip-zip-zip ceaselessly along the trench edge—that's your skyline—and your deathline, too, if you stretch and stand upright.            It was such a horrible grind that one of the boys in the company, who had been studying to be a minister before he left home, learned to swear worse than any man in the whole outfit.            A bayonet charge is a street fight magnified and made ten thousand times more fierce. It becomes on close range almost impossible to use your bayonets. So we fought with fists and feet, and used our guns, when possible, as clubs. We lay in our captured trench for about four hours. The boys, excited, because they still lived, sang and jested and told of queer experiences and narrow escapes they had had.            We were soon in the wood, where it was so dark that we could hardly distinguish friend from foe. I ran in and out among the trees and asked everyone I met who he was. I came upon one big fellow. My mouth opened to ask him who he was, when his fist shot out and took me between the eyes. I went down for the count, but I knew now who he was—he was a German. I got up as quickly as I could, you may be sure, and swung my rifle to hit him in the head, but the stock struck a tree and splintered. I thought I had broken all my fingers.            Gas? What do you know of it, you people who never heard earth and heaven rock with the frantic turmoil of the ceaseless bombardment? A crawling yellow cloud that pours in upon you, that gets you by the throat and shakes you as a huge mastiff might shake a kitten, and leaves you burning in every nerve and vein of your body with pain unthinkable; your eyes starting from their sockets; your face turned yellow green.            Death is everywhere, but we do not believe in it any more. And when on certain mornings, to the sound of cannon, that mix their rumblings with mystic voices of bells, in the devastated church which cries to the heavens through every breach opened in its walls, the chaplain blesses the regiment that he will presently accompany to the firing line.             The soldier in the front line trenches does not hear the enemy's artillery which is firing at him, or if he does hear it it is only as a confused, distant roar or rumble. The American artillery is some miles behind him. All he hears of his own guns is a moderate boom and roar. There is a sound of the clear whistle over his head as the shells pass on their way to "Fritz," which give him a feeling of assurance that he is being well supported and protected. So many of the German shells pass over his head or fall short, or land some distance up or down the line from him, that the constancy of their arrival in close or dangerous proximity is not nearly so great as might be supposed from the enormous number incessantly hurled in his direction.            In places the two lines were not one hundred yards apart, and no movement was possible during daylight. In some of the trenches which were under enfilade fire, our men had to sit all day long under the traverses, as are called those mounds of earth which stretch like partitions at intervals across a trench so as to give protection from lateral fire. Even when there was cover, such as that afforded by depressions or sunken roads, on the hillside below and behind our firing line, any attempt to cross the intervening space was met by fierce bursts of machine-gun and shell fire. The men on the firing line were on duty for twenty-four hours at a time, and brought rations and water with them when they came on duty, for none could be sent up to them during the day. Even the wounded could not be moved until dark.            There are many funny incidents in war, and one I particularly remember was that there were three or four of us in a group when a piece of shell dropped almost in our midst. There was not any great force in it, because before falling it had struck a tree; but as it dropped we started turning up the collars of our coats and rolling ourselves into balls—just as if things like that would make any difference to a bursting shell. However, it is amusing to see how men act like children at such times.             METHODS OF GERMAN SNIPERS               At Alsace, where I was in charge of a sector, with twenty men, it was my duty to study the terrain within my vision, and I had it down so plainly that each morning I could look out and see bushes that had not been there the night before, therefore proving to me that they were put there during the night by enemy patrols either for airplane signals or sniper's posts.            On August 1, 1918, about 9:30 a.m., a sniper in my platoon detected a black object some distance out on No Man's Land. Calling my attention to the mark, he said he saw it move. I was very cautious, because if we were to start firing, it might prove to be only a burnt stump, which it closely resembled, and therefore betray our location to enemy observers.             I studied the object until late that afternoon, when I finally decided to let the boy try his luck. He did, and it was a fine shot, as we saw the object fall. That night our patrol went out and investigated the spot and found the body of a young German skillfully camouflaged the color of the adjoining tree, with a bullet through his forehead. So the boy on the job was responsible for there being one less Hun sniper.             Another night I was sitting at the entrance to what was once an old German dugout when I heard a very mysterious noise out on the barbed wire.            I sent up an illumination rocket to try and see if I could find who the intruder might be. But I could not make out anything because of the density of the shrubbery and old wire. I waited for a while and again I heard noises, but of a different nature this time.             It was a German patrol. One German was crying for help in English, trying to get our boys to answer and go to the supposed American boy's assistance. They would ambush our boys, thus causing many casualties.             Some of these tricks could be detected, such as the cry of cats, birds and dogs, or anything that would cause our boys to waste ammunition or sacrifice their lives by answering.             The ruse of making our boys waste hand grenades and bullets worked successfully one night. On the following night the discovery was made that up in a tree, not far from our trench, sat a camouflaged German, cutting short strands of wire with clippers, thus making us believe there were German patrols breaking through., For a while before the discovery, our boys poured machine-gun and rifle fire into the wire entanglements, only to find that their shooting was in vain. After he was detected, the little Boche in the tree had no more use for his wire cutters or wire.

            Lack of space prevents reference to other methods of warfare that the American boys had to contend with, but it did not take them long to show the Hun that no matter how smart a man might be, there is always one born smarter.

            In William L. Langer's book Gas and Flame in World War I we read:            "We are proud of our Uncle Sam because he didn't show us up before Europe. And American soldiers have taught Europe a few things. I wonder if they'll profit from our system of sanitation? I wonder if they'll learn how to shave a man properly? An American is the only barber who shaves down on the upper lip. Every time I got shaved in France or Germany I thought the end of my nose was going off. Manners we ain't supposed to have, but we showed cultured Europe a few of the fundamentals of a gentleman. Did you ever notice Private Buck, how quickly Private Buck gave his seat to the European ladies? And did you notice how the European men stared at him? And the women graciously thanked him. Here in the home of Kultur the Herrn shove the women around by the scruff of the neck. This little act of chivalry—Americans giving their seats to Frauen and Fräulein—is the talk of all the Rhineland. "Americans are rough and loud and all that, especially in their cups," said a Frenchman to me; "at first we thought them as wild as Mangin's Algerians, but they're gentlemen under the skin." Europe will remember us for things other than the beaucoup francs and viel gelt. And for these, Europe is ever ready with the itching palm.

            It's America first when we get back home. We know what we are now. We were deferential before. We used to feel in the presence of old polished Europe like a country bumpkin suddenly lifted by his bootstraps and thrust on Fifth Avenue in New York City. "When a man comes to himself, " says Woodrow Wilson. The returning soldiers have come to themselves all right. Like the ancient Greek we are ready to call all barbarians born outside the big old land—we've had the Pentecost of Americanism, the fiery apostles are returning. Get ready the incense, ye politicians and editors. You can't fool us anymore."

 

 

 

David Homsher
American Battlefields of World War I: Chateau-Thierry--Then and Now
ISBN: 97809702444307 $19.95.
Winner of three National Book Awards. Available at bookstores everywhere.
and on website: www.battlegroundpro.com
WWI blog sites: www.davehomsher-wwi.blogspot.com/ AND www.doughboydiaries.blogspot.com/

DOUGHBOY DIARIES

 

             In Ernest Piexotto's book The American Front, we read:            "The 155's hidden under the trees, were firing in salvoes of four, while up in the Grande Tranché the crack, crack, crack of the "75's" was uninterrupted, barking and yelping like hounds on the chase. Our big barrage was going over.            But very little was coming back. So, as the road was absolutely deserted, we kept straight on until we struck traffic: ambulances and ammunition-trains going up. We hid our car again and soon had reached the P.C., passed it, and were out in the trenches. Here we were told that the infantry had already gone over the top and were now in the German first-line trenches.             Out in the blasted wastes of No Man's Land, however, where hill succeeded hill, once covered with dense forests, not but shell-torn barrens spotted with a few blackened stumps, nothing was visible but the shell bursts that kicked up clouds of dirt or broke in dense balls of smoke. The "doughboys," as had always been the case up to this time, were practically invisible, hidden in shell-holes, in trenches, or under any cover that they could find.

                                                     

            But soon the wounded began to filter in through the trenches—poor fellows, some walking quite erect with head or hand bound up; others stooping doubled up with pain or fear, their khaki coats spotted with great brownish stains, their faces and hands bloody. Then came the litter-bearers, staggering through the slippery mud up the hill, steadying themselves by a hand pressed against the trench walls as they bore their heavy burdens—still forms stretched flat, immobile, covered with an O.D. blanket from which protruded a pair of spiked shoes with the toes turned up. When we returned to the regimental P.C. these pathetic figures increased in number, for near it a first-aid dressing station had just been established. The stretchers lay upon the ground with the doctors stooping over them. The ambulances came up one by one, were filled as fast as the wounds were dressed, and dispatched to the rear.             To our left was a division of French Colonials, Senegalese as black as ink. Their wounded were also coming in, and one of the most striking pictures  I saw that day was one of these negro giants borne like a bronze knight on the shoulders of four prisoners—a group reminiscent of the statues on some mediaeval tomb.            By now the prisoners were arriving in squads; then they were brought in by droves. In the first lot I counted no less than a hundred and forty; in the second over a hundred, and still they steadily poured in. Most of them were serious-looking men of middle age, who certainly seemed glad to be through with it, flinging down their helmets with gestures that plainly said: "Thank God, that's over." A few were slightly wounded but the great proportion wore new uniforms, clean, unspotted with mud, showing clearly that they  had given up without a struggle; in fact, had dressed to go into captivity. Their sergeants lined them up in double ranks, under the watchful eye of their own lieutenants, while our men looked on with frank curiosity. Then they were questioned by our own Intelligence officers and marched off to the rear, shambling off with stooped shoulders under the guard of a few alert and rosy-cheeked young New Englanders.

            All day long they continued to pour in, and that evening, at Rarécourt, the accommodations provided were so inadequate to the numbers that had come in, that I saw hundreds of them huddled together, crowded into temporary pens, fenced round with barbed wire, passing the night in the drizzling rain—living evidence of our victory."

            In The Story of the 168^th Infantry we read:            "Suddenly, with the instantaneity of a lightning flash, the whole north seems to rise up in flames and hurl itself forward—like an agile, hungry tiger leaping down upon its prey. With a thunderous, dismaying roar it fall upon the Chamois, raining steel and destruction. There is no need to waken anyone; air and earth tremble with the concussion of bursting shells, and the men at the front, in the support, back in town, all find themselves on their feet without being conscious of the force that placed them there.            In the trenches every post, save those of the lookouts is instantly abandoned. Terrified bodies come rushing, slipping, stumbling, splashing to the dugouts, dodging bits of flying debris, ducking showers of dirt, their path lighted by flashing explosions. Already the wires connecting the front with the reserve are out, and all communication is suspended. From each G. C. rockets shoot heavenward, to be answered almost immediately by the alert artillery—half French, half American. Guards at dugout entrances breathlessly watch and wait, eyes and ears strained for the slightest variation in the deafening turmoil that may signify a shift in the barrage and give warning of the approach of the enemy.            Soon the bombardment resolves itself into one steady roar in which it is impossible to distinguish the individual detonations. The heavy concentration of enemy shells is turning the whole Chamois system into a hecatomb of horror and confusion. Trenches that were, cease to be and leave in their place gaping craters which in turn are torn afresh. Carmine flashes from the northern sky translate themselves into carmine splashes and pools on the furrowed soil. A heavy cloud of smoke and dust, like a gigantic pass to enshroud those torn bodies whose spirits have fled, obscures the waning moon.            Awed and shaken, the men crouch in the dark, oppressive dugouts, waiting for the signal that will send them forth to determine their fate. And while no man of them would avoid the responsibility about to be placed upon him, sudden memories crowd to the fore to make life seem more dear. An attempted jest, a bit of forced laughter, falls unheard from the lips of a comrade, for the pounding of the guns is equaled only by the wild pounding of their own hearts and the heavy breathing of their trembling bodies. A sickening sensation thus to be caged helpless like a hunted animal which awaits only the finishing stroke. At any moment one of the larger shells may bury them all—they  have the alternative of forsaking the inadequate shelter and being blown to pieces in the open trench—or the outnumbering force of picked Stosstruppen may fall upon them before they have an opportunity to defend themselves. The suspense is enough to drive one mad.             For a half hour there is no diminution of the fire. On the front line the enemy continues to rain a devastating storm from his field pieces, while the heavier guns, the 210's are directed on the support, and churn up the trenches about the headquarters of Companies B and D. The communicating boyaux have long since been obliterated, and with all wires severed the front is completely isolated.

            Shortly after five, as the first cold streaks of dawn are rifting the morning sky, the observers at the dugout mouths perceive a slight shifting of the barrage and immediately pass down the information. "Every man to his post," shout the commanders."

             "American Expeditionary Forces, France.                              August 1, 1918.             DEAR MOTHER,--Yesterday I had a wonderful experience; I saw an actual battle from a hill. I lay in a big field of crimson clover, all in blossom, on the top of a sunny hill. It was a beautiful Summer day, hot and brilliant. White butterflies fluttered everywhere; the air was full of the hum of bees; far overhead I could hear two larks singing. Below was a broad valley, a checker-board of yellow and green, ripened wheat fields and green clover; with here and there patches of velvet woods. There were old farmhouses along the road which dipped over the rolling fields and wound away through the tiny forests. On the right was a toy-like village with a big church steeple rising out of the center of it, controlling the whole country.            Then suddenly, our barrage began, like a mighty thundering behind me. The air was filled with the whine and shriek of thousands of shells and the sleepy road in the valley became an inferno. Dust clouds rose hundreds of feet; trees shook, trembled and fell; a shot hit the old tower and it crashed over. Relentlessly, the barrage kept up, beautiful to watch because of its dreadfulness; then it began to roll steadily forward, so that every square yard seemed to be covered. Then like a flash it stopped—the world was deathly still; so still that the hum of the insects became prominent again. Out from the woods below filtered a long thin line of brown American troops, their bayonets flashing in the sun. There came the monotonous rat-tat-tat of the Boche machine guns from the further woods; still they kept on, here and there a man went down, his bayonet making an arc of fire as he fell. Behind them came another wave, and another, and another, till every field was full of advancing men. They entered the woods and the fields were empty again, and—as if someone had pushed an electric button, the deafening barrage began anew, sweeping the woods clean before the hidden infantry.             Suddenly the barrage stopped and from the woods came a long grey column of about 600 BochePrisoners, a snake-like line, that wound away down the dusty road to the rear. The attack was over for the day—the woods that had so menaced our advance with their machine gun nests all clean and free. To-night we shall be on the march once more—still going forward, close on the heels of the Crown Prince's veterans. All my love, TREVENEN."                                                                                                                                                                 August 15, 1918            "I passed through several villages which have come into our hands only within the last week,--every one of them the scene of fierce and bloody fights. You can have no idea of the devastation, the complete desolation, of these pretty French villages which the artillery of each side has reduced to a battered mass of ruins; where the roofs and walls of the houses are still standing they are pitted with shell holes; of the rooms inside, perhaps one corner is left untouched with pictures on the walls, furniture standing, and in some places the tables set with dishes and the remains of a meal still there; the other corner is a heap of rubbish, piles of stone and timber which have fallen from a gaping hole in the roof above. The roads are full of shell holes, gardens destroyed, fruit trees sawed down, and the beautiful shade trees shattered and torn by the hail of shells and bursting shrapnel they have suffered. Everywhere along the roads and in the houses are scattered old rifles and uniforms, equipment of all kinds left behind or abandoned in the struggle, piles of shells and empty shell cases, guns and cannon destroyed or deserted, everywhere waste, ruin and destruction that makes one sick to look upon. How I pity the poor French inhabitants who will return to find their homes shattered masses of stone, in ruins as complete as if a mighty earthquake had leveled each house to the ground.            Yet the French will come back and immediately set about restoring their houses as best they can. In Chateau-Thierry the inhabitants followed the troops so closely that two days after the last German had been driven back from the town the French families began to come back.

            Surely no people with such indomitable courage as that can ever be crushed or conquered."

             "We had revised our idea of an offensive, and decided that, with all its disadvantages it had its good points, an admission never  found in the best-seller versions of warfare. In a quiet sector, life is fairly comfortable, with deep dugouts, trenches, and all that,--but you get stale. There is a  nervous strain and various other unpleasantnesses, yet no results are ever apparent. You simply get stale. It begins to look like an endless job.—But in a drive it's different! You can see the results of your work. When you go into action over dead Boche horses which are still warm, you realize that you are advancing. You are doing what you enlisted to do, and doing it hard. There is a chance for the enthusiasm and dash of other wars—so hopelessly lost in the deadlock of trench warfare. The roads teeming with armed men, columns of artillery stretching for miles, fields alive with troops infected with the spirit of the advance, prisoners streaming back, great panoramas of open country, changing scenes, excitements, quick alarms; all of these jumbled together produce a state of exhilaration."              In James Cooke's book, The Rainbow Division, we read:            "There is a strange transformation that the soldier undergoes. The report of any gun, at first, makes him jumpy, but the report of his own guns—these being nearer usually—make him jumpiest of all. But when he becomes acclimated, becomes accustomed to the work at the front, there is nothing that adds to his peace of mind and contentment like the crack of his own guns near at hand. When your own guns are belching a heavy torrent of  steel over your heads, you, if you are a seasoned campaigner, sleep a sweet sleep that know no dreams.            Lt. Thompson's feeling of isolation increased as he saw GC 9. The untried lieutenant recalled:            The sight that greeted us brought an immediate and positive reaction. "Desolate" was the only name for it. A mass of rusty barbed wire was sitting on crisscrosses of posts that seemed to grow from the ground. Ghost-like trees to the right were splattered with shell scars. Some had fallen into the mass of twisted wire and upturned earth. Others were broken off at various heights, like so many match sticks. The expanse of desolation sloped up a gentle rise. The German trenches were hidden behind the crest some two hundred yards away.            As he toured the line, Thompson was overpowered by a sickening stench. French intelligence was examining the body of a dead German soldier to find documents and to confirm the dead man's unit for order of battle information. The young officer became so violently ill that he staggered back to the dugout, where he was still overwhelmed by the smells of death, unwashed bodies, human excrement, rotting equipment, and spoiling food.             He watches as the ever-present "Slum" was served to the troops, who had no rags to clean their mess tins. An old wad of newspaper or crust of bread was used to wipe the greasy mess-plate that a few minutes before had held stew. All the lessons in military hygiene that Thompson had learned were invalid once in GC 9. A few minutes later, he looked at his wooden bunk, one of many in a tier, and underneath the bottom bunk stood ankle-deep water. On a small table a single flickering candle illuminated the dugout, and all Thompson could feel was a sense of isolation and desolation."

DOUGHBOY DIARIES

 

In Company K by William March we read: " Private Carroll Hart:Sergeant Tietjen was with me that day we took the machine gun nest in Veuilly Wood. We found the crew all killed except one heavyset, bearded man, and he was badly wounded. Just as we came up, the bearded man  reached inside his coat and fumbled. I thought he was going to throw a grenade, so I emptied my pistol into him. His arm came away from his coat with a jerking, irregular motion and his palm rested for a moment against his lips. Then the blood in his throat began to strangle him, and he made a gurgling, sighing sound. His eyes rolled back and his jaw fell open.I went over and opened his palm to see what he had in it. It was the photograph of a little German girl. She was round-faced, and freckled, and her hair was curled, for the occasion, over her shoulder. "That must have been his daughter," said Sergeant Tietjen.

That night I couldn't sleep for thinking of that German soldier. I rolled and pitched about and toward daybreak Tietjen came over and lay down by me. "It's no use blaming yourself that way, fellow," he said; "anybody in the world would have thought he was going to throw a grenade."

            In "The Ribbon Counter" in Points of Honor, by Thomas Boyd we read:            " The Machine Gun Nest--…It had seemed impossible that one division should accomplish, in one attack, what another division had failed three times to do—but when morning came, so faintly over the soggy earth, the infantry was close behind its own barrage with fixed bayonets pushing through the heavy woods, parting the low tree limbs and trampling the brush.            Captain Osborne, in the lead when the battalion broke into the woods, was the first to reach the clearing, a flat piece of ground at the base of a hill, black with trees. The clearing buzzed with the maddening, inquisitive zip-zip of the machine-guns ahead, but Osborne pushed on calmly, his shoulders a little bit forward, his head drawn into them so that his neck appeared shorter than it really was, and holding a Colt automatic in his hand. Strangely, MacMahon found himself following closely, with Morrow and Thomas joining. There were others, but they did not enter MacMahon's consciousness, not even when they sprawled foolishly on the ground. MacMahon saw only the few slabs of grey rock which peaked the hill, the untrampled, brown-tinged earth which led to it, and Captain Osborne and himself drawing nearer each moment to the slender muzzle of the Maxim outthrust from a crevice in the rock. Like a rapier of a thousand blades held by an invisible and expert fencer, the bullets of the machine-gun flashed by so closely that he could feel the scorch through his cloth puttees. Then, for the first time, Captain Osborne's pistol answered, and, as if it had been agreed upon, MacMahon shifted his rifle to his left hand and reached in the pocket of his blouse. Slowly his hand came out, grasping a grenade. For a moment he was scared, ready to fall to the ground: he could not put down his rifle, and he could not extract the pin from the grenade with one hand. His energy was draining away as he caught the pin between his teeth and twisted it out with a jerk. Calmly, his arm drew back; he aimed, and the missile, on a dead line, whined through the air, struck the top of the rock and bounced inside. He fell forward as the thing roared out in explosion, then watched the mushroom cloud of dense smoke rise above the gray slabs.            Of those who had climbed the hill but four reached the emplacement, though the machine-gun had been silenced, and as MacMahon followed Captain Osborne into the nest, where the biting smoke still hung, he saw the gunner, his face resting against the stock of the Maxim, his right hand clinging to the trigger guard and his left thrown in front of his head. The loader was seated beside the water-cooler, his body limp and his head lolling against his shoulder. His face was a chronicle of ten days' fear and privation: an uneven growth of beard on his cheeks was matted with grime, yellow where the dirt had not changed it to drabness; his pale blue eyes could not have taken on much of a difference in death; the lines at the corners had been engraved by nights of waiting, by the strain of repulsing an enemy three times, and the pupils had long held the knowledge of his end.

            The main line of resistance would be a short distance ahead, and Captain raised the German from the Maxim and placed the machine-gun so that the barrel pointed in the opposite direction, while MacMahon was sent back to discover how far the rest of the battalion had advanced."

In the book Fix Bayonets! by John W. Thomason, Jr., we read: The Charge at Soissons."Miles of close-laid batteries opened with one stupendous thunder. The air above the treetops spoke with unearthly noises, the shriek and rumble of light and heavy shells. Forward through the woods, very near, rose up a continued crashing roar of explosions, and the murk of smoke, and a hell of bright fires continually renewed. It lasted only five minutes, that barrage, with every French and American gun that could be brought to bear firing at top speed. But they were terrible minutes for the unsuspecting Boche. Dazed, beaten down, and swept away, he tumbled out of his hole when it lifted, only to find the long bayonets of the Americans licking like flame across his forward positions….His counter-barrage was slow and weak, and when it came the shells burst well behind the assaulting waves, which were already deep in his defenses….The battle roared into the wood. Three lines of machine guns, echeloned, held it. Here the Foret de Retz was like Dante's wood, so shattered and tortured and horrible it was, and the very trees seemed to writhe in agony. Here the fury of the barrage was spent, and the great trunks, thick as a man's body, were sheared off like weed-stalks; others were uprooted and lay gigantic along  the torn earth; big limbs still crashed down or swayed half-severed; splinters and debris choked the ways beneath. A few German shells fell among the men—mustard gas; and there in the wet woods one could see the devilish stuff spreading slowly, like a snaky mist, around the shell-hole after the smoke had lifted….

It was every man for himself, an irregular broken line, clawing through the tangles, climbing over fallen trees, plunging heavily into Boche rifle pits. Here and there, a well-fought Maxim gun held its front until somebody, officer, non-com, or private—got a few men together and, crawling to left or right, gained a flank and silenced it. And some guns were silenced by blind, furious rushes that left a trail of writhing khaki figures, but always carried two or three frenzied Marines with bayonets into the emplacement; from whence would come shooting and screaming and other clotted unpleasant sounds and then silence."

            In the book The American Spirit, by Joseph A. Minturn we read:

            "At Commercy we began to see buildings wrecked by German shells, and at a stop, a train load of German prisoners stood on a track next to us. They immediately began clamoring for tobacco and were willing to trade their caps, buttons, blouses, anything they had in fact, for a taste of the weed. We got several little trinkets and were preparing to get more when a French sergeant and a private soldier came along and ordered all traffic stopped. They reinforced their orders with fixed bayonets—those shivery needle kind of theirs—and handled them so recklessly in their excitable way that we were afraid they might hurt somebody and gave up idea of acquiring a "Gott mit Uns" belt buckle just at that time. German prisoners aggravated a Frenchman more than they did later after becoming more common. It had been too much the other way. As illustrating this feeling the story was current of a French general who saw a squad of German soldiers as he was passing. He got out of his car scowling, gave the order like von Hindenburg, calling them to "Attention!" in German, to which they responded like automatons. Then he walked behind and gave each prisoner a good swift kick and continued his journey a happier man."

            Leonard H. Nason, in his book Three Lights on a Match, tells us:            "So here he was. This was hardly his idea of what war should be. He had had some vision of men marching as they had done down Fifth Avenue, bands playing, flags waving, perhaps a few cheering spectators, and the bold brave Americans marching on the cowering enemy, who immediately yielded up their arms.            It was rather a shock to discover that the gallant soldiers looked like tramps, that they were not noble, but always hungry, and that the enemy did not cower. Sheehan had been led to believe that the Germans were demoralized. It had been his impression that the Americans had only sent over a few men to have the flag on the battlefield, and not to help toward winning the war.

            Whoever was throwing those shells about seemed to have no lack of nerve, nor did he seem to be on the verge of defeat. The obvious nervousness on the sentry's part had completed Sheehan's disillusionment. These men were afraid and so was he."

            Author of The Top Kick Leonard H. Nason tells us:            "A rifleman can burn up a tremendous amount of cartridges, upwards of four or five hundred rounds a day, provided he can get it. The ammunition pockets in his belt will hold only a certain amount, and the amount that can be carried in bandoleers is limited.            In the shank of the day the dead and wounded do not yield very much ammunition, having been shooting all day themselves. A machine-gun is in the same fix as a rifle, only more so, because of its greater rapidity of fire.                Author of Dear Old "K" James T. Duane tells us:            "On the return of the boys from France, many questions were asked by the home folks, and among the most frequently asked was, "How did you fellows every have the nerve to face the machine-guns and bayonets and how did it feel to be under artillery fire?"            Let me tell all my good friends that it is harder to describe the feelings in those events than it is to go through them. To advance in the face of machine-guns is no pleasant task, and to fight hand to hand with bayonets is another rough form of entertainment, but, when one realizes that he is there to accomplish a purpose, and the only means of accomplishing his end is to use his bayonet, he gets his fighting spirit up and advances with the idea that it is either you or the other fellow and, of course, you always vote for the other fellow. Perhaps the feeling under artillery fire is the easiest of any to describe, but the only feeling that I can liken it to, as the shells come toward you and you imagine your name is engraved on each one, is to be strapped onto  a railroad tie; as you lie there you feel the vibration of a heavy train coming in the distance. As it approaches with a terrible rumble and rattle, you await the moment to have it reach you with a rush and pass over your body, only to find that you were on the small section of the tie outside of the rail. It is always a happy relief when a shell which you hear whizzing in your direction lands—somewhere else in France. During a heavy shelling one day the enemy sent many shells far to the rear—fifteen landing near Division Headquarters. As they sailed over the heads of our lads, they shouted, "Go to it, Boche, give them more back there so they will know the war is still on; if you give them a lot, we're all for you.            Of the great days in a soldier's career, the morning of a big attack leads all. The orders have been issued and all final instructions have been transmitted to officers and men; everybody is moving about with a high tension spirit, and all await with a nervous strain the hour of starting. At the set hour our artillery lets loose a perfect thunder, and the fun is on. The artillery plays on the enemy lines for a given period, at H hour (zero hour) the artillery advances its range, and with a yell of "Let's go, boys," the doughboys are on their way, and after passing through great depths of barbed-wire entanglements, they reach the first enemy line. There is a certain thrill that keeps the chill running up and down the spine as you advance, but the greatest nervous strain is waiting in the moment when you come in personal contact with the enemy. You meet him, and the excitement is so great that you have no time to think of personal fear.             Have I been afraid in battle? Yes—awfully; I'll be no one in the army felt any more so than I. If a man says he was never afraid in battle, he is one of two cases—he is mentally unbalanced or else is handling the truth rather haphazardly.             As the boys said, "How could a man stand up and not feel a little fear when the Jerries were throwing freight cars, ash cans, and railroad tracks (as the big shells were sometimes called) at him?"            The machine-gun nests were difficult things to attack. The machine guns are usually so placed that they cover every portion of the enemy line, and are enfilading the whole position; that means that when they fire, each gun is firing its bullets so that they overlap the other, and this forms a sort of scissors-effect, the guns on the right firing to the left, the left guns to the right, and the frontal guns covering the interval. Thus every single inch of front is being covered by bullets."

 

 

David Homsher
American Battlefields of World War I: Chateau-Thierry--Then and Now
ISBN: 97809702444307 $19.95.
Winner of three National Book Awards. Available at bookstores everywhere.
and on website: www.battlegroundpro.com
WWI blog sites: www.davehomsher-wwi.blogspot.com/ AND www.doughboydiaries.blogspot.com/

DOUGHBOY DIARIES

 

            In A Corporal Once, by Leonard Nason, we read:            The afternoon wore on, the shadows began to lengthen, then, as the column slowly dragged its weary length up a long slope, the setting sun gleamed redly at them through the ghost of a long dead wood, set on fire by shells and burned weeks ago, and that now leered at them like a skeleton. They halted here again in the ditch. There were no ambulances now, and no talking. The men sat silently in the gathering darkness, some leaning back against their packs, trying to sleep, others peering about them anxiously, trying to see what lay ahead, or to gather some idea from the black woods before them as to what was going on. From time to time one could hear the soft thud of a pack being punched into more comfortable shape, the clink of a stopper striking against a canteen as some thirsty soldier drank, the crash of a rifle falling against the hard stones of the road.             For all there was a battle raging, the road was very still, save once in a great while, when the wind blew from the north, there would be a faint rattling, like a distant trolley car crossing a switch. What were they waiting for? No one knew. But down the road a few yards was the place where the drive had started that morning. The unburied dead lay thick in that road and on the fields, and the place was strewn with abandoned rifles and equipment. There is nothing so shattering to the morale of green troops as the sight of dead, so this column was being held until darkness before being taken through the zone where the troops had jumped off that morning.             "Godamighty!" exclaimed someone. "Lookit the Huns!"

            Exclamations ran along the column, a mutter of excitement. Coming up the road, escorted by a mounted M. P. was a long grey, column, prisoners. They marched calmly along, four abreast, looking neither to the right nor left, stolid and taciturn. The leader of the column was an officer, evidently of high rank, judging by his glittering boots and gleam of gold on his high collar and wide shoulder straps. He had a monocle screwed into his eye, at which the doughboys jeered derisively, and were promptly taken to task by their officers. Wasp-waisted, erect, his grey uniform fitting him like a glove, the officer stalked on, more as if he were leading a Potsdam review than a march to the prison pens. After him came several ranks of non-commissioned officers, distinguished by their superior bearing and the white facing on their collars. Then the rank and file, the cannon food, dirty, bearded, stinking with a small that is beyond belief, shambling, scuffling by, some wearing their coal-scuttle helmets, others the round cap, many bareheaded. They were of all ages, from smooth-faced boys to gray-bearded men. The uniforms were ill fitting and worn. Some of them plodded along stolidly, as though one place was as good as another, which it probably was, as far as they were concerned. The younger ones grinned bashfully at the Yanks. One or two of the older ones let the hate that was in them show in their eyes, and when one crossed looks with an infantryman, the Yank felt his spine creep."

            In God Have Mercy on Us!, by William Scanlon, we read: "The Attack:            "Tanks now came up from the rear and pass through us. The German artillery swings into action with a vengeance. Most of the fire is directed at the tanks, but as usual they shoot high and the shells burst among us. We curse the tanks.            We move forward…The tanks are about three hundred yards ahead…The German artillery and machine guns are working fast…And there is no sound in back of us of our own artillery answering…The wheat through which we are moving is full grown…We advance continuously, at a walk, without getting down…Our bayonets are held down, so they will not flash in the sun. They get tangled up in the long wheat and we have to tug to get them loose, pulling up the wheat…            The machine gun fire encountered before the town of Bouresches was bad but the fire now is a thousand times worse….It is like a hailstorm…My body is bent forward as though forcing myself through a heavy rain…My free hand clutches my blouse, pulling it tighter about my body…There are little crooked paths through the wheat…At the end of each little path lies a dead soldier…They would be hit, then stagger and drop…The bullets mow down the wheat…            Sergeant McFadden has the group next to me, on the left…He is leading…All of a sudden he swerves around, facing our group…He has a terrified, surprised look of agony on his face…His hand clutch at the air one moment, then they wrap themselves about his stomach…His teeth gnash…Biting the air, he staggers back and falls, close to my group…            Young runs over to help him, but McFadden is dead.            We approach a road lined with trees. Someone in my group cries, 'Look!' I turn. He is pointing up at a tree in the road. The figure of a man shows through the leaves. The men drop to their knees and fire. A German machine-gunner and his gun crash to the ground. No orders to fire had been given.             Across the road a tank stood motionless. The front of it had been damaged. Through an opening in the side we could see the charred remains of the operator. The whole inner portion of the tank had been lined with shells. A direct hit had penetrated the tank and caused all these shells to explode. It was a fiery oven with no chance to escape. It was still smoking as we passed by.            Three of our officers were down on the right behind some tanks when several shells crashed in the midst of them and messed them up pretty badly.            Word came from the right to swing back in the original direction. This meant we had to cross back over the road with the trees again and out into the open stubble-field. I was on the left flank now. This meant I had to go far enough out in the field to permit the other groups to get in.            I started across on a run, but as soon as I figured there was enough room for all, I faced to the east. The men crowded up, and first it was, 'Give way on the left,' then, 'Close over on the right.'             The machine guns were soon trained on us again and the men dropped fast. Two hundred yards ahead was an embankment that meant certain protection.

            Spud Murphy was over on my right, about ten men between us. I saw Spud stop, turn, and crumple down. He had been ripped open with machine-gun bullets. He died instantly."

            In the book Fix Bayonets! by John W. Thomason, Jr., we read:"Battle Sight...There was always good feeling between the Marines of the 2d Division and the Regular Army units that formed it, but the Marines and the 2d Engineers—"Say, if I ever got a drink, a 2d Engineer can have half of it! – Boy, they dig trenches and mend roads all night, and they fight all day! An' when us guys gets all killed off, they just come up an' take over the war! They's no better folks anywhere than the Engineers…"The Boche wanted Hill 142; he came, and the rifles broke him, and he came again. All his batteries were in action, and always his machine-guns scourged the place, but he could not make head against the rifles. Guns he could understand; he knew all about bombs and auto-rifles and machine-guns and trench mortars, but aimed, sustained rifle-fire, that comes from nowhere in particular and picks off men—it brought the war home to the individual and demoralized him.

And trained Americans fight best with rifles. Men get tired of carrying grenades and chaut-chaut clips; the guns cannot, even under the most favorable conditions, keep pace with the advancing infantry. Machine-gun crews have a way of getting killed at the start; trench-mortars and one-pounders are not always possible. But the rifle and bayonet goes anywhere a man can go, and the rifle and the bayonet win battles. Toward midday, this 6^th of June 1918, the condition around Hill 142 stabilized. A small action, fought by battalions over a limited area of no special importance, it gave the Boche something new to think about, and it may be that people who write histories will date an era from it."