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A History of Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania Troops in the War
By John V. Hanlon (Copyright 1919 by The Pittsburg Press)
Chapter V
(The Pittsburg Press, Sunday, Feb. 2, 1919, pages 66-67)
Names in this chapter: Day, Martin, Price, Dunlap, Phelps, Allen, Davis,
Lightner, Wickerham, Marchand, Fetzer, Alexander, Kemp
When the Germans were retreating out of the
Soissons-Rheims Salient after the Battle of the Marne they put up a stubborn
resistance at many points. They were strongly organized in the villages and
under orders to hold back the Americans as long as possible, but the lads from
Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania were relentless in their pursuit and cleaned
out one town after another.
PITTSBURG AND WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA TROOPS OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH DIVISION DRIVE
THE GERMANS NORTH OF THE MARNE, CAPTURE SEVERAL TOWNS AFTER STRENUOUS BATTLES
AND GRADUALLY FORCE THE HUNS OUT OF THE SOISSON-RHEIMS SALIENT. NOTHING COULD
STOP THE PENNSYLVANIANS.
The Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania soldiers were
now in territory where the Germans had been long enough to establish themselves,
where they had expected to stay, but had been driven out sullenly and
reluctantly. Here it was that our boys had their first opportunity to learn what
it means to a peaceful countryside to undergo a German invasion.
The wonderful roads of France had been effaced in many
places by shellfire. Towns and villages were reduced to heaps of broken masonry.
Even the stone fences had been torn down. Not a wall was left standing and
mansions centuries old suffered the same devastation. Priceless rugs and
tapestries were scattered about and ground into the mud. Trees and grapevines
were cut off at the roots and in instances where the Hun had been unable to cut
down trees rings were hacked in the bark all around in order to kill them. They
country was bare of everything and a Texas cyclone could not have accomplished
nearly so much destruction as did these merciless and brutish Germans.
To add to all this the Hun did not have time to bury
his head and the stench was awful from the decomposed bodies lying about in
heaps. At one place our boys came upon a machine gun position, with many dead
boche scattered all around it. Close beside one of the guns, almost in a sitting
posture, was an American lad. He had one arm thrown over the weapon as if in
pride possession and his fine, youthful, clean-cut face was fixed in death with
a glorified smile of triumph.
As the Pennsylvanians came up to the spot scores of
officers and men unconsciously clicked their heels together and came to the
salute in silent tribute to this fair-haired boy who had not lived to enjoy his
well-won laurels. How he ever got through to that nest is, and will probably
always remain a mystery. He was not of our Pennsylvania troops, but he was
buried tenderly and the identification tags were sent back to headquarters. He
had evidently won through to the guns and had killed all the Germans, but in
doing so had been so severely wounded that he was just able to reach the spot
where our men found him.
And it was near the gruesome spot that shortly
afterwards our men were treated to another of the ever changing scenes of
battle. The sight was picturesque because it brought to mind the warfare of the
past and to Americans memories of pioneer days. Troop after troops of cavalry
came into sight and passed our men, the gallant horsemen sitting their steeds
with conscious pride, jingling accoutrements playing an accompaniment to their
sharp canter. Some were French and some Americans and our Pennsylvanians cheered
them lustily. They were on their way to further hurry the retreating foe.
Cavalry was not a common sight in this war. It had
seldom been seen on the battlefield since the Hun went mad in 1914.
The three regiments from Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania, One Hundred and Tenth, One Hundred and Eleventh and One Hundred
and Twelfth, were now in contact with the retreating enemy forces and drove
steadily northeastward in the direction of the towns of Trugny and Epieds, where
they met with stiff resistance. During this advance a part of the One Hundred
and Tenth regiment sought shelter under an overhanging bank to escape a sudden
spurt of enemy artillery fire. The men had not been there long and the officers
were congratulating themselves because of the narrow escape from being caught in
the open while this shelling was under way when a big shell burst over the edge
of the bank directly above Co. A.
Two men were killed outright and several were wounded.
Lieut. George W. R. Martin, of Narberth, with several of his men rushed to give
first aid to the wounded, and the first man he reached was Private Allanson R.
Day, Jr., of Monongahela City – “Deacon” Day as the boys called him because of a
mildness of manner and a religious turn of mind. As the lieutenant prepared to
render first aid to Day, the youngster told the officer to attend to Paul
Marshall, saying that Marshall was more severely wounded.
“Dress him first,” said Day, “I can wait.” Even then
the Monongahela lad was wounded to death as it developed later for he did not
survive.
It was during these days that our Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania soldiers
began to work up a real and intensive hate for the Hun. They learned more of him
and his ways after they crossed the Marne and they found their loudly-voiced
threats and objurgations [sic] turning to a steely, silent, implacable wrath
that boded no good for the Boche. It was a feeling of utter detestation and it
is doubtful if their officers could have turned them back had word come through
at that particular time that peace had been declared.
Gradually the Pennsylvanians began to close in on
Trugny and Epieds. The first named is about four miles from Chateau-Thierry and
Epieds about one mile from Trugny. They lie almost in a straight line along the
route where our troops were advancing. The Germans were having a strenuous time
to get their army and war material our of the Soissons-Rheims pocket and they
sent large numbers of fresh troops down to Trugney and Epieds in an effort to
hold back the determined Americans. These two villages were utilized in their
scheme of defense and were strongly held with machine guns and artillery.
HOW TWO TOWNS FELL
At times as our men moved up closer they were so eager
that they frequently passed their stated objectives and ran into their own
barrage fire with the result that their officers had to call off the barrage to
save them from being destroyed by our own guns. The Pittsburg and Western
Pennsylvania doughboys were out to avenge some hurts and had forgotten that
there was any such command as “Halt!”
Trugny and Epieds were hard nuts to crack. The Germans
were well prepared to withstand an attack and for 36 hours our men flirted
around the outskirts in attempts to flank or penetrate the towns. Finally the
allied guns were rushed up in numbers and they soon brought Trugny down about
the ears of its defenders and although they retired to Epieds strong machine gun
detachments were left behind to hamper as much as possible the American advance.
Epieds was even more difficult than Trugny and our
troops were in and out of the town three times before they were finally able to
rid the place of the Boche. The artillery first treated the village to a heavy
bombardment which made it grow smaller and smaller under the ceaseless pounding
of the guns. The buildings just seemed to pulverize and go up in dust. It was a
case of the Pennsylvanians getting into the village street and driving the
Germans from house to house. The Germans would send new troops in to stiffen the
resistance and drive our boys out, but they would immediately come back to the
attack.
Finally the Pennsylvania troops, learning that their
heavy artillery support had come up, decided not to risk any more lives in this
street fighting. The town was now swarming with Germans as heavy reinforcements
had been thrown in with orders to hold the Americans. The German army retiring
from the salient was apparently being hard pressed. Word was flashed to the
batteries and the village was buried under a deluge of heavy explosive shells.
Thousands of Germans perished and the others fled for their lives. When the
bombardment was lifted there was great heaps of slain Boche and what was once
Epieds was only a cloud of dust. There was not so much as a large pile of bricks
left standing. The artillery did terrible execution that day.
DRIVING OUT THE HUN
When the artillery bombardment ceased the Germans
prepared again to enter the site of the village in order to meet the expected
American attack. The debris was soon alive with gray coats and with a yell the
Pennsylvanians rushed out of the surrounding woods and were upon them before
they could recover from the surprise. The Germans were thrown into a state of
confusion and many were killed or taken prisoner before they could rally.
Scattered remnants of the kaiser’s soldiery then hurried northward to get away
as rapidly as possible from the cold steel of our doughboys.
The Pennsylvanians then pressed on and there was much
elation in the ranks when it was noised around that the Fifty-third Field
Artillery brigade was rushing up to go into action in support of the infantry.
This artillery brigade was the Twenty-eighth division’s own. It was under the
command of Brig. Gen. W. G. Price, Jr., of Chester, and included the One Hundred
and Seventh regiment. Word also came that still other organizations of the
Twenty-eighth division were hastening to the front, including the ammunition and
supply trains, and it was evident that the division was being reassembled in its
entirety as an intact fighting unit for the first time since its departure from
Camp Hancock.
The One Hundred and Seventh Artillery was made up of
many Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania lads, Batteries B, E and F, the
Headquarters Company, Supply Company and Sanitary Detachment, being from this
section of the state.
The One Hundred and Eleventh and the One Hundred and
Twelfth regiments of infantry were now leading the chase and they relentlessly
drove northeastward and in many instances they kept the Boche moving so fast
that many officers and men wrote home about having the enemy on the run and not
being able to keep up with him. The Germans would attempt to make a stand and
our doughboys would literally blast him out of the place and then move on. The
chase became so fast and furious that at times our Pittsburgh and Western
Pennsylvania men had to be restrained in their headlong drive in order to allow
the artillery a chance to come up and silence the German guns by expert counter
battery work.
Our men were eager with excitement and none but the
officers having access to maps, hundreds of the enlisted personnel believed they
were heading straight for Germany and that it was only a question of a short
time when they would be entering the kaiser’s domains. The fighting had been so
strenuous and forward movement so fast and confusing that without maps they
could only have hazy ideas as to the distances they had traveled.
GERMANS TRY TO RALLY
The Pennsylvanians were pictured as a set of rabbit
hounds almost whining in their anxiety to get at the foe. Deluged by high
explosives, shrapnel and gas shells, seeing their comrades mowed down by machine
gun fire, bombed from the sky, alternately in pouring rain and burning sun,
hungry half the time, their eyes sore and heavy from loss of sleep, half
suffocated from long intervals in gas masks, undergoing all the hardships of a
bitter campaign against a determined, vigorous and unscrupulous enemy, yet their
only thought was to drive on – and on – and on.
Beyond Epieds is the village of Courpoil and here the
Germans made another stand with many machine gun nests. It was another case of
street-to-street and hand-to-hand fighting with countless instances of
individual bravery and heroism and many casualties. The main body of Germans was
cleared out without so much trouble as was encountered at Epieds and our men
passed on leaving small detachments behind to “mop up” any straggling Germans
that might have been left behind.
Courpoil is on the edge of the forest of Fere and into that magnificent wooded
tract the Germans fled. Capt. W. R. Dunlap, of Pittsburg, commander of Company
E, One Hundred and Eleventh infantry, and Capt. Lucius M. Phelps of Oil City,
commander of Company G, One Hundred and Twelfth infantry, with their troops, led
the advance beyond Epieds and participated in the capture of Courpoil and the
advance into the forest. Capt. Phelps for a time had the difficult task of
leading an independent force making flank attacks on the enemy, to the left of
the main battering ram. Both these officers so distinguished themselves in this
difficult fighting that they were recommended for immediate advancement to the
rank of majors.
The Americans battled their way in little groups into
the edge of the forest and were hanging on to this fringe of the wooded area
when night fell. The forest seemed to be an almost impossible barrier and it was
decided to be utterly hopeless to attempt to continue advancing in the darkness.
It was while these widely scattered groups were holding
the fringe of the forest after nightfall that Lieut. William Allen, Jr., of
Company B, One Hundred and Eleventh infantry, of Pittsburg, so distinguished
himself as to be recommended for promotion and a medal. Owing to the groups
being separated it was necessary that headquarters should know their approximate
positions so as to be able to dispose of the forces for a renewal of the attack
the next morning. Lieut. Allen took two privates along with a patrol of three
men on either side and set out to traverse the forest along the line where our
groups were supposed to be. The lieutenant and his men always kept within
speaking distance of each other and throughout the night carefully threaded
their way. They did not know what instant they might stumble on Germans or e
fired on or thrust through by their comrades.
ACTS OF HEROISM
It was described as a hair-raising daredevil feat. When
Lieut. Allen found himself near other men he remained silent until a muttered
word or even such inconsequent things as the tinkle of a distinctly American
piece of equipment, or the smell of American tobacco – entirely different from
that in the European armies – let him know his neighbors were friends. Then a
soft call to establish his identity and make it safe for him to approach and the
lieutenant secured an idea as to the exact location and force of that particular
group.
Just as the first signs of the approaching dawn Lieut.
Allen and his men crawled back to the main American lines where in a shell-hole
which the general was using as headquarters he was able to sketch with the aid
of a pocket flashlight a map which enabled his superiors to plan the attack. The
plans thus made from the information gathered by Lieut. Allen worked with
clock-like precision and resulted in the Boche being driven further into the
woods.
Corp. Alfred W. Davis, of Uniontown, Company D, One
Hundred and Tenth infantry was moving forward through the woods in this
fighting, close to a lieutenant when a bullet from a sniper hidden in a tree
struck the corporal’s gun, was deflected and pierced the brain of the officer,
killing him instantly. This aroused the ire of Davis and crawling Indian-like up
a ravine he decided to make the Germans pay dearly for the death of the
lieutenant. When he picked off his 18th German in succession it was nearly dark
and so he called it a good day’s work and rejoined his company.
In the woods the Germans fought desperately despite the
fact that they were dazed by the intense artillery fire. They contested every
foot of the way and used every conceivable contrivance including the camouflage
to hinder the advance of those determined and unrelentless Pennsylvania
doughboys. They hid in rocks and under old tree-trunks and in piles of brush and
they camouflaged their steel helmets with brown, green and yellow and other
shades of paint so that it was almost impossible at times for our boys to pick
them out from the flicker of the shadows in the dense foliage.
During the progress of our troops there was one time
when touch had been lost with the forces on the right flank of the One Hundred
and Tenth infantry and Sergt. Blake Lightner, of Altoona, a liaison scout from
Company G, One Hundred and Tenth, started out to re-establish the connection.
While engaged in the hunt for the separated forces Lightner ran into an enemy
machine gun nest. He surprised and killed the crew and captured the guns single
handed. He hurried back, secured a machine gun crew, and established the men in
the former enemy nest and also re-established the communications.
During the trip he had also located a line of enemy
machine gun nests and when he returned to his command was able to furnish
information to his officers whereby it was possibly to lay down a barrage on the
enemy machine gun line.
“THE SPIRIT THAT WINS”
During one of these days of desperate fighting it was
discovered that the ammunition supply of the first battalion of the One Hundred
and Tenth regiment was running low due to the extra heavy shower of bullets with
which our boys had been deluging the Boche. It was almost nightfall and the
officers wanted to be sure that the supply on hand in the morning would be ample
to meet all requirements. Corp. Harold F. Wickerham, Washington, Pa., and
Private Boynton D. Marchand, Monongahela City, were sent back to brigade
headquarters with a message. When they reached the spot where headquarters had
been they found it had been moved.
There was nothing for the two soldiers to do except attempt to seek out the new
location of headquarters so they set off through the woods. After walking for
miles in the darkness they came to a town where another regiment was stationed
and were able to get into communication with their brigade headquarters over the
military telephone and thus deliver their message. The two lads were tired and
sleepy after their days of strenuous fighting and the long weary tramp through
the pitch dark woods and they were invited to remain in the town the rest of the
night and sleep.
But the Pennsylvanians were fully aware of the need for
ammunition, and they feared that their message [unreadable] through properly so
they set out again and in the early dawn reached their ammunition dump and
confirmed the message orally. Even then they rejected a [unreadable] to rest and
started back to join the regiment and arrived just in time to participate in a
battle in the afternoon. It was because the Pittsburg and Western Pennsylvania
doughboys were one and all inbred with this wonderful spirit that they were able
to write their names so high in the annals of this great world struggle.
The next village from which our boys had to drive the
foe was La Charmel, and it suffered about the same fate as Epieds. For two hours
a violent battled raged for possession of this town and twice it changed hands
during that time. Then our men retired to the outskirts and called for an
artillery barrage which soon made the place untenable for the Huns. They hastily
retreated and the Pennsylvanians entered and either killer or captured the
Germans who were unable to get away in time. Here again heaps of the slain were
found for the artillery had just about wiped the town off the map and many Boche
were caught in that terrific hurricane of explosive shells and shrapnel.
APPROACHING THE OURCQ
The Pennsylvanians were now approaching the Ourcq river
where the Germans had a second line of defense and they began to feel the
stiffened resistance. Each succeeding hour the fighting became more bitter and
determined, but nothing the Germans could offer was sufficient to retard the
advance of our troops, although at times this advance slowed up materially.
The dense forests were a maze of barbed wire stretched
from tree to tree and the density of the woods prevented our airmen from
locating the enemy and thus prevented our artillery from getting in its deadly
work.
A new system of attack on enemy posts was inaugurated
at this time in order to prevent the large number of casualties which always
ensued as a result of direct frontal attacks. The new scheme consisted of
“pinching” off and surrounding these posts just as the British accomplished the
capture of St. Quentin, Lille, Cambrai and other large cities.
Beuvardes, a village in the line of our advance was
strongly held by the Germans with masses of machine guns. The Germans had
concentrated fresh forces in the town and it was doubtful if it could have been
taken by direct assault without heavy loss of life to the Pennsylvanians. The
British tactics were brought into play, however. Our doughboys infiltrated La
Tournelle from the west and the Forest of Fere from the east, while French
troops worked on the lest with the result that Beuvardes was soon encircled,
became untenable for the Germans and many prisoners and machine guns were
captured as the result of the speed with which the enterprise was carried out.
It was this swift sure work of the Pittsburgh and
Western Pennsylvania doughboys that always caused their regiments to be in great
demand for tackling the extra hard military problems. The Pennsylvanians and the
Marines were always assigned to these important tasks and as a result their
casualties were always extremely heavy. But our Keystone lads love the strenuous
work and when they went up against a supposed heavy job and found it to be
rather easy they were always disappointed. Despite the lessons they had learned
on previous occasions about advancing beyond their objectives their officers
continued to have to drag them back from the front [unreadable].
HAD TO MOVE RAPIDLY
The rapid retreat of the Germans necessitated our
troops going forward just as rapidly at times in order to keep [unreadable] and
attempt to make the foe move even faster. At other times, when the Germans were
strongly organized in villages and other places which offered a natural site for
defense, our troops were slowed up in their advance. Then it was necessary to
pause for a few hours and dispose of the enemy rearguards. It was reported that
one Pennsylvania column advanced to fast that is was necessary to move the
regimental headquarters three times in one day.
And most of the time the regimental and even the
brigade headquarters were under the artillery fire of the German’s big guns and
it was from this cause that the first Pennsylvania officer of the rank of
lieutenant colonel as killed July 28. He was Wallace W. Fetzer, of Milton, Pa.,
second in command of the One Hundred and Tenth regiment.
Headquarters had been moved far forward and established
in a brick house which was still in a fair state of preservation. Work was just
getting well into swing again when a high explosive shell fell in the front yard
and threw a geyser of earth over Col. Kemp, who was at the door and Lieut. Co.
Fetzer, who was sitting on the steps. A moment later a second shell struck the
building, killing three orderlies. Col. Kemp was now thoroughly satisfied that
the Boche airmen had spotted his headquarters and he gave immediate orders to
pack up and move. The German artillery was registering too accurately to be done
by chance.
Officers and men of the staff were packing up to move
and Lieut. Stewart M. Alexander, of Altoona, regimental intelligence officer was
questioning two Hun captains, taken prisoner a short time previously, when a big
explosive shell scored a direct hit on the building. Seventeen men in the house
including the two German captains were killed outright. Col. Kemp and Lieut.
Col. Fetzer had left the house and were standing side by side in the yard. A
small piece struck Col. Kemp on the jaw and left him speechless and suffering
from shell-shock for some time.
Lieut. Alexander, face to face with the two German
officers, was blown clear out of the building into the middle of the roadway,
but was uninjured except for shock.
It was this almost uncanny facility of artillery fire for taking one man and
leaving another when the two were standing close together that led to the fancy
on the part of soldiers that it was useless to try to evade the big shells. This
was predicated on the belief that if “your number” was on one it would get you
no matter what you did, and if not it would pass harmlessly by. Thousands of men
became absolute fatalists in this regard.
After the death of Lieut. Col. Fetzer and the injury
sustained by Col. Kemp, Maj. Martin took command of the regiment and won high
commendation for his work during the next few days.
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