Almost one-third of the Americans killed in the war lost their lives during the Meuse (River)-Argonne (Forest) campaign, which was in fact three successive strikes beginning on September 26, 1918, against entrenched German troops. The densely wooded, rolling terrain of northeastern France favored the Germans, who had been fortifying their lines since they captured the region four years earlier. Virtually none of the U.S. soldiers involved in the first wave of the attack had ever been in battle before. But with support from the French, the troops made slow but steady progress against fierce resistance. As the second phase commenced in early October, two battalions of Americans were pinned down in a ravine for five hellish days. When the Germans suggested they surrender, the Americans yelled back certain expletives that, even untranslated, could be easily understood to mean “NO.” Reinforcements were rushed in, and the troops were saved. The third assault, which began on November 1, battered the Germans into a full surrender a week and a half later. The Meuse-Argonne offensive lasted forty-seven days and involved 1.2 million Americans. One of these soldiers vividly described, in a quirky and almost whimsical style, the decisive campaign to Elmer J. Sutters, an old friend back in the States. (The soldier, whose full name cannot be determined, sent the letter after the war, when censorship was lifted.)
Cote D’Or France
Dear Old Bunkie,
Now don’t go into epileptic fits or something like that when you read this letter, that is because I sent one to you as I know I haven’t written you a letter for some time. Too busy with Uncle Sam’s affairs just now and am working to beat hell.
I guess you would like to know of a few of my experiences over here while the scrimmage was on so I’ll give you a few little yarns.
We were in the line up at Thiacourt (St. Michel Sector) at first and although we did no actual fighting as we were in reserve at first and then in support, we got a lot of strafing from Jerry in the nature of Artillery fire and Air raids.
But in the Argonne Forest was where we got in it in earnest and even if I do say it myself, the good old Lightning (78th) Division will go down in history as second to none for the work they did there.
It was here, old man, that I got my first Hun with the bayonet. That was on the day prior to taking Grandpre and we had just broke through the enemy first line defenses when this happened.
We were pressing through a thicket when this big plug-ugly Hun suddenly loomed up in front of me and made a one-armed stab at me with his bayonet. You can make a hell of a long reach this way, but it’s a rather awkward thrust as the bayonet makes the rifle heavy at the muzzle when you’ve got hold of your rifle at the small of the stock like this guy had. A homelier guy I never saw before in all my life and he’d make two in size compared to Dad and you know what a big man my old Dad is.
Well you can imagine that this bud did not catch me unawares.
I was ready for him. I thought I was going to have a pretty stiff one-sided fight on my hands, with the odds in his favor, but he was a cinch. Before I even realized it myself I parried off his blow and had him through his throat. It was my first hand to hand fight.
It was all over in a second, that is it for Jerry. He never even made a shriek. He went down like a log.
It was hand to hand all the way through that section of the woods as it was considered a vulnerable point, but we finally cleared them out and opened up the way for an attack on Grandpre itself.
The 311th Infantry supported by the 310th stormed the neighboring heights to the north of Grandpre making the town intenable and enabled the 312th and the 309th Infantry regiments to make a dash for the citadel.
We took it, but at heavy cost. I lost a buddie in that last charge. If short five or ten yard dashes can be called a charge and I certainly didn’t have much love for the Boches after he went west. We can’t mention any names of boys who were killed in our letters so I’ll have to postpone it until I get home but he came from New Hampshire and a whiter fellow never lived. He was the only child too, old chap and his parents certainly have my sympathy.
Although I don’t know his people I wrote a letter to them trying to make it as soft as I could. Well, he gave his all to the cause and you can’t expect a fellow to do more. If a fellow goes down, its up to the next one to carry on and make them pay dearly for every life taken. You know what I mean.
I know that the first thing you would ask me when you see me again for the first if I was afraid. Now I am not going to stick my chest out and exclaim “Like hell I was” or anything of the sort. I sure was afraid, and you and any other chap would be too, but what I was afraid of most was that I would be yellow.
If a fellow gets a yellow streak and backs down the other boys won’t have anything to do with him and that was what I was afraid of the most, of getting a yellow streak.
But I didn’t. I was as plucky as any other doughboy and carried on all the way through and although I didn’t get as much as a scratch I had many a close call. Enough of them to make a fellow’s hair turn white. I crouched for three hours one night up to my waist in water in a shell hole waiting for our barrage to lift.
The water was like ice and there four or five dead Huns floating around in it too. Not very pleasant, eh?
While sneaking about the ruins of Grandpre “Mopping Up” we came across a Prussian Chap in a ruined building with a rifle. He was a sniper, alive and the reason he was still there was because he could not get out although the opening was big enough for him to crawl through. During the bombardment the roof of the building had fell through in such a way as to pin him there by the feet and although he was practically uninjured he could not get himself free. I’ll explain better when I see you, as I can tell it better than I can write it. He begged us to help him and although we had been cautioned against treatury one of the fellows who was with me put down his rifle and started to crawl through to free him. The moment he got his head and shoulders through the hole which had been smashed by a shell, by the way, this Hun hauls off and lets him have a charge right square in the face.
Poor Dan never knew what happened. His face was unrecognizable. We didn’t do a thing but riddle that hole, we were that furious, and we didn’t stop shooting until our magazines were empty.
That Hun was the dirtiest skunk that ever lived, but even now I’ve got an idea that he thought Dan was going to do for him. Dan was some husky boy and boasted of being a foot-ball player somewhere out in Tennessee where he came from. I’ve mentioned his name as Dan but that is not his name at all. I’ve just got it down here so I can write my story out better.
Up near Brickemay we ran into another pretty stiff proposition. We had to fight through the woods that seemed to be full of machine gun nests. We had just cleared out one of them with hand grenades and while we were sneaking up a rather steep hill, thickly wooded, we saw these Huns suddenly appear and run about a dozen paces and disappear down into a clearly camouflaged dug-out.
The Yanks were pressing the Huns hard, they were some of the Famous Prussian Guard too, and after these three birds had gone down into their hole we sneaked right up. There were three of us together, all Buck Privates. I took a hand grenade out of my bag, pulled out the retaining pin and heaved it down into the dug-out. That’s the only and safest way of getting a Hun out of a dug-out. There was a helluva an explosion in about six seconds. I threw two more down to join the first and keep it company Well after the big noise had stopped down there we crept down to investigate.
There was only one room down there, a big concrete affair and only one entrance, the one we came down, and that room was a mess. There were fifteen dead Huns down there and the walls, floor and ceiling were splashed with red, so you can see what damage a hand grenade can do. I don’t know whether my grenades killed them all, we didn’t have time to accertain, as we had to hurry right out again, but I know I got the three we saw beating it down there.
I was also with a detachment of men who took a dozen prisoners out of a dug-out and the worst of the whole thing was that they were only mere kids.
Just think of it old man. Mere kids, that is the most of them and they all expected to be killed immediately.
They were all scared stiff. We bagged the lot and sent them to the man under guard.
Well I was there to the finish old man and we had just mashed Fritz’s last resistance up near Sedan when we were relieved by a French Division who captured Sedan next day.
We had opened the way for the French to take Sedan and although we did not actually take the city, we can claim credit for making it a quick sure thing.
We were near Brickemay again on our way back out of the lines when I and another chap, Louis Becker, were ordered to proceed by the narrow-gage railroad to Grandpre and report to the Division Casual Detachment. When we got there I was attached to the Quatermasters’ office as orderly and Becker was installed in the Q.M. Warehouse at the railroad.
Fritz pulled off a peach of an air raid that night, and although there was danger for everyone it certainly looked funny to see these S.O.S. chaps step about while the music was in progress.
It was about 7:30 pm and quiet, yes very dark outside when the thing started and he came back again and again at regular intervals often minutes and bombed hell out of everything in sight, but what he really wanted to get and that was our Supply and Ammunition Depots. Anyhow we were all sitting in the office and I was telling them of some of my experiences when the thing started.
Fritz dropped one of this famous “Benzine Cans” somewhere in the vicinity with the usual salvo.
Emediately there was a wild stampede in the office to get out. They all piled out into the road and beat it hellbent for election up the road. Now there is only one sane thing to do and I did it. Nothing heroic about it old man, just common sense and it wasn’t the first time I did it either, even though my heart was trying to pound a hole through my ribs at the time. I went outside and walked out on the railroad and lay down flat in a shallow trench I had stumbled upon between to sleepers along the tracks and I stayed there all night too. It was an organized raid, or rather a general raid and I saw the flashes from the exploding bomb all around me all night.
These crazy stiffs in the Q.M. office did nothing but run up and down the road and railroad all night trying to find a dug-out to crawl into when you couldn’t even see your hand if you held it six inches away from your nose, it was so dark. I couldn’t see the boobs, but I could hear them all night, they made such a racket shouting to one another and running about like hens with their heads chopped. It wasn’t their fault that none of them got hit that night as he came mighty close at times. He did get some up in the town, six killed and twenty-two including a major wounded out of the 6th Division.
He came so close that one bomb struck right near a small wooden shack where the Engineers use to store tools and blew that thing to hallaballoo.
That shed stood only about 100 or 150 yards from where I was laying, a safe place but rather uncomfortable as I was laying on a lot of broken stone, and a big piece of that shed came down ker-smak only six feet from where I was.
Oh boy! I felt like getting up then and scooting for another place but I didn’t. That thing couldn’t do anymore damage after landing once so I stayed where I was and it was a good thing I did.
The next instant another landed right on the railroad and exploded with terrific force.
You see it landed right on the railroad, a good hard resisting substance, and that was what made it so loud.
This one burst about 500 yards away from me, but those things can kill at 1,000 yards and the concussion lifted me up out of this trench between the rails, about a foot or so in the air and I came down again ker-flump. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, but nothing hit me and that was better than anything. I got a good thump though. The concussion of the bomb hitting and exploding on a concrete like road bed was what lifted me off the ground.
At 500 yards too. You can imagine the awful kick to one of these “benzine cans” that Jerry sprinkles around on Supply and Ammunition Dumps and Depots.
Well I guess this will be all for just now so with best regards and good wishes to you, Elmer, Mother Sutters, Pop, Mutt, and all the kyoodles. I close.
Your Old Friend and Comrade in Mischief
Dickwitch
P.S. Say you old slab of a lop-sided tin-eared Jackass, what’s wrong with you anyhow. Got writer’s cramp or what? Pick up a pen for the Love of Pete and write to your old buddie in France. Dick