With Their Bare Hands

The problems of the 79th were not unique; no one in First Army had gotten very far against the German lines. Things had started out well early on the first day, September 26, when most of the divisions were able to advance several miles against little opposition. But as the morning progressed, divisional and brigade staffs lost contact with their units, which began to go astray, bog down, or simply break up as they got deeper into the German defenses. All of the problems that had plagued the attackers at St Mihiel reappeared. In their inexperience, the men bunched up in the advance, failed to dig in when halted, and neglected to mop up bypassed machine gun nests. Much of the infantry had never trained with artillery and none had trained with tanks, so they failed to use those weapons to reduce German strong points. The rolling barrage almost always ran away from the infantry, so that German machine gunners were free to emerge from their shelters, resume their posts, and pour bullets into the advancing ranks. In the absence of effective counterbattery fire, German artillery, especially the big guns east of the Meuse, made life a constant hell. The American artillery itself was virtually blind, having no communication with the front lines except for runners; in fact, almost all communication between rear elements and the front lines was agonizingly slow when not entirely absent. The roads had been poorly reconnoitered and the preparations for their repair were inadequate so guns, ammunition, food, supplies, and ambulances were immobilized for days. Military police were ignorant of road discipline and of the locations of important command posts.

Progress was worst on the far left, where I Corps had to attack up the heavily wooded hogback of the Argonne Forest, thickly sown with German obstacles and strong points, and along the Aire valley to its east. Its 77th and 28th Divisions made only a little over a mile the first day and hardly that the second. The 35th Division to their right advanced further but at the cost of an almost complete breakdown in cohesion and command that would cost it dearly in the next few days. In V Corps, in the center of the line, the 91st Division got five to six miles from its starting point on the first day, then stalled. We have already seen the fortunes of the 37th and 79th Divisions. Only on the right were the divisions of III Corps—the 4th, 80th, and 33rd—able to reach the Corps Objective on schedule. The 4th got stuck a day later; the other two reached the Meuse River where, according to plan, they sat tight.

Elsewhere on the Western Front, however, Foch’s offensive against the Hindenburg Line was proceeding apace. On September 26 the French Fourth Army attacked north toward Mézières on a 24-mile front. They didn’t get much further than the Americans to their right (calling into question the belief of the French advisers with the AEF that their army knew what it was doing while the Americans did not). The next day the British First and Third Armies, comprising 27 divisions led by the Canadian Corps, attacked eastward from the old Somme battlefield, crossing the Canal du Nord and gaining more than four miles. A day later, they broke through the Hindenburg Line and reached the outskirts of Cambrai. The same day, September 28, a combined force of Belgians, French, and British totaling 28 divisions assaulted the German line at Passchendaele, of bloody memory.* Unlike in 1917, they overran four German defensive lines, captured the town, and advanced five miles. More was to come.

None of this was apparent to the officers and men of the 79th, still sheltering on the hillsides north of Montfaucon. At 20 minutes past midnight on the 28th, Kuhn received Pershing’s orders: The enemy was expected to withdraw. First Army was to continue its advance to the Combined Army First Objective (a line about six to nine miles ahead of its current position and thus impossible to achieve in one day). The attack would resume at 7:00 a.m. The missions of corps, divisions, and auxiliary units would remain the same as the previous day—a sign that Pershing’s operations staff was out of touch with events. Once again no mission was assigned to army artillery.¹ Nevertheless, V Corps added the injunction, “Divisions will advance independently of each other pushing the attack with the utmost vigor and regardless of cost.”² By now Kuhn was in close contact with his brigades’ PCs and, knowing what to expect, he had anticipated V Corps by issuing his own Field Order No. 8: The 157th Brigade would advance on the left, the 316th Infantry Regiment leading and the 313th following 1,000 meters to its rear. On the right, the 158th would attack in parallel, with the 315th Infantry in front and the 314th the same distance behind. The 57th Field Artillery Brigade would shell the ground ahead for “not less than one hour’s duration,” to end at H-hour. Accompanying batteries were to advance with the regiments and provide supporting fire, but there would be no rolling barrage; by now, Kuhn had no unrealistic expectations of the artillery.³ His order specified no objectives or axes of attack, but everyone knew what they were. Nearly a mile ahead of the 157th Brigade, straddling the dividing line between the 79th and the 37th Division to its west, loomed the Bois de Beuge; to its right, at the same distance from the 158th, sat Nantillois. Other wooded hills lay behind those immediate targets—Bois 268 on the left, Bois 250 behind it, the Bois des Ogons on the right—before each of which lay a treeless valley, easily observed by the German machine guns, which the men would have to cross. Tenney Ross ordered Irwin’s artillery to shell the woods in the hope of disrupting the German machine guns, but it was too early for the infantry to worry about those somewhat distant objectives.

At 2:30 a.m. an officer came to the headquarters of the 316th with verbal orders to relieve the 313th and lead the attack. Colonel Charles and his staff immediately went forward to the top of Montfaucon hill, where amid the ruins of the church he gave his instructions to his battalion commanders. German artillery fell on the American lines, sending Charles’s staff scampering back down the hill; but at 7:00 a.m. sharp the regiment attacked in line with the 315th to its right, 1st and 3rd Battalions in the lead. Across their path lay an unwooded valley that dipped and rose to the Bois de Beuge. As they crossed, the regiment was shredded by fire from machine guns, trench mortars, and Austrian 88mm guns from the Bois de Beuge and Bois 268. Captain L.E. Knowlton, commanding the Machine Gun Company, described the regiment’s first taste of front-line combat: “Just as the battalions had deployed the Boche came to life. Then for the first time our men saw comrades fall; for a space of perhaps twenty minutes the greater part lay crouched in shell holes, terrified and dazed, uncertain whether to go forward or back.”⁴ Cries for first aid filled the air from those wounded who could do more than moan. Major John Baird Atwood, commander of the 3rd Battalion, sent a runner to regimental headquarters with the message: “Being fired at point blank by field pieces. For God’s sake get artillery or we’ll be annihilated.” But the phone lines were dead—no one could get through to the artillery for two critical hours.⁵ Atwood halted the attack to await machine guns or artillery that could destroy the obstacles; but he was peremptorily ordered to advance without waiting.⁶

Despite their losses, the 316th continued to crawl forward, assisted by three one-pounder mobile guns that disposed of several machine gun positions. At a critical moment, a corporal in Company C led a badly depleted platoon around the flank of a machine gun post and took it from the rear. At 8:20 a.m. the artillery that Major Atwood had requested landed in the Bois de Beuge, inflicting heavy losses on the Germans and forcing them to abandon many of their guns and much of their ammunition. This cleared the way for the advance into the Bois de Beuge. At 8:51 a.m. Atwood sent a message, “Our troops now entering southern edge of Bois de Beuge”; nine minutes later he was dead.⁷ Captain John Somers took command and sent a message to Charles that 3rd Battalion was badly disorganized. Virtually every company in the two lead battalions had officers killed or wounded. Company L lost all its officers; three others lost their company commanders. At 10:15 a.m. Charles reported to the Division PC that he had lost 17 officers and 250 men “so far.”⁸ In reply, Kuhn informed him that he was sending a company of large tanks to help capture the Bois de Beuge. But by the time Charles got the message the Bois was in American hands and the 316th was beyond it, crossing yet another open vale on its way to Bois 268.

It was obvious by now that the enemy had received major reinforcements. New German regiments appeared in the line, and the volume of artillery fire greatly increased. The Germans had placed their artillery under central control, allowing them quickly to concentrate large volumes of fire on any part of the front. Visibility improved to the point that German aircraft and balloons could observe the American positions. More than 60 batteries were firing at First Army, mainly from the high ground to the north of Montfaucon and from the Heights of the Meuse, which enfiladed the American lines from the east. Heavy shells fell on the attacking divisions’ flanks and rear, on occupied towns, woods, and camps, and on traffic stuck on the roads. At noon Kuhn sent a plea to V Corps:

Hostile artillery fire upon our troops seems to be increased. Believed to come from positions in Bois de Cunel, Bois des Ogons, and Bois de Fays, which are also infested with machine guns. If heavy gun fire can be regulated by balloon or airplane so as not to fire on advancing troops, request heaviest artillery concentration possible be placed on known artillery positions, but generally on above named three woods ... Our observation balloon at Malancourt shot down about one hour ago ... My people are straining every effort to put good wire through to you. Deem it essential that Corps cooperate in every possible way.⁹

For once, the 79th could provide good artillery direction; the post in the “château” atop Montfaucon was able to keep continuous observation to the north, despite German shelling. This was fortunate, because the sole tethered balloon belonging to the 6th Balloon Company was shot down at 9:45 that morning. Aerial observation was no help; apart from the weather, the air over the battlefield was dominated by the Germans, who had as many as 20 planes at a time in the sky, strafing the infantry, bombing trucks on the roads, shooting down balloons, and spotting for their own artillery. (By now the soldiers had learned that enemy planes overhead meant that accurate shell fire would quickly follow.) But although the 79th had an unobstructed view for many miles to the north, and although the artillery of the 79th had been reinforced that morning by two French and three American batteries, the requested bombardment apparently never materialized. The division’s operations report for September 28 does not mention artillery support, except for the opening barrage, and field messages make it clear that enemy fire was not neutralized all day.*

* Army and corps artillery did fire intense barrages on the line Fléville–Romagne-sous-Montfaucon. But that line was nearly two miles beyond the front and several miles south of the German artillery positions, so little damage was done. (Lanza, “The End of the Battle of Montfaucon,” p. 356.)

The new direction of German fire caused many Americans to believe they were being shelled by their own artillery. At 2:00 p.m. a garbled radio message arrived at Kuhn’s headquarters from an unknown source begging the American guns to stop shelling their own troops in the Bois de Beuge.* In fact, it was enemy fire that was landing on the 316th, directed by a distant balloon. Nevertheless, at 2:30 p.m. Ross sent a message to V Corps, “Stop all artillery fire south of horizontal line 83.0. Our troops approaching that line. Have aeroplane observe and report to you the positions of our troops.”¹⁰ The designated line ran east–west north of Bois 268 but south of the Bois de Cunel. The men of the 79th were actually more than a mile south of it. They would sorely miss the guns of V Corps.

* The body of the message, as transcribed by Kuhn’s radio operator, read, “Heavy – (F – R – I E N D L Y) – Artillery – on our – right – are – shelling – BOIS – (null) They E – B – E Tru G – E – Have – it – stopped – we – do not need – it.” One can almost hear the shells landing in the background. (“79th Division Field Messages,” 1918, RG 120, 79th Division, Boxes 4–5, 32.16, NARA, sent 2:00 p.m.)

One of the first units to advance against Bois 268 was the 1st Platoon of Company G. When it was about halfway across the valley several machine guns opened up with heavy fire and some of the men volunteered to take them out. One of these, Private Harry Wagner, crawled for about 20 yards carrying a pistol and two hand grenades. Creeping up on one of the nests, he saw three Germans; he threw a grenade, killing two of them. The third threw up his hands and called “Kamerad.” Wagner made the survivor carry the machine gun and drove him to the rear. A French officer, an adviser with the 316th, saw the action and reported it. A few days later, recovering from a gas attack, Wagner was awarded the Croix de Guerre.¹¹

As the infantry of the 316th approached Bois 268, its supporting machine guns finally caught up with them for the first time since the initial attack three days earlier. Now the rolling character of the countryside favored the Americans, who from their hilltop positions in the Bois de Beuge had a clear view of the German lines. Captain L.E. Knowlton, commanding the 316th’s Machine Gun Company, wrote after the war:

Then came my machine-gunners’ turn. For three days they had carried their heavy burdens, striving to keep up with the fast-travelling and more lightly-burdened riflemen with never a chance to get back at the Boches, who were picking them off in ever increasing numbers. Suddenly about one thousand yards away along the foot of the hills about Romagne a battalion of Germans appeared in the open, and moved toward us in rather close lines—the heaven-sent machine-gun target! We opened up on them until they began to scatter and seek cover and then ceased firing, hoarding our scanty supply of ammunition.¹²

They were joined by Company C of the 312th Machine Gun Battalion, which by 1:30 p.m. had emplaced its three platoons facing Bois 268. The 2nd Platoon opened fire on machine gun positions behind a railroad line ahead of them; this attracted return fire that killed the battalion sergeant major and two privates and wounded a lieutenant. But one of the men repaired a shrapnel-damaged German machine gun under fire and sprayed the German gunners, who withdrew, leaving one heavy and three light machine guns plus assorted rifles and equipment. The 2nd Platoon and the Machine Gun Company of the 316th continued to fire on groups of Germans at a range of about one kilometer, inflicting casualties, scattering the survivors, and preventing them from establishing a defensive line. By dark they had run out of ammunition and dug in.

Still not knowing to which of the reorganized brigades they were now assigned, the three companies of the French 14th Light Tank Battalion spent most of the day immobile. Finally, Captain Toutain, commander of one of the tank companies, unable to find Colonel Charles and not wanting to waste any more time, moved his platoons toward and beyond the Bois de Beuge. Linking up with the forward elements of the 316th, two of his platoons attacked Bois 268 from the east while the third attacked it from the west. At first, reported Major Guillot, the battalion commander, the American infantry followed; but it soon lost contact with the tanks. Twice the tank platoon leaders tried to get the infantry to advance. Toutain’s company lost two tanks in the action.¹³ By nightfall, the tanks were back at their assembly point in the Bois de Beuge.

In the late morning General Kuhn, having received no reports from Colonel Charles, was becoming concerned about the 316th and asked Colonel Oury to send an officer from 158th Brigade headquarters to locate the regiment and report back. Oury assigned the task to Lieutenant Clifton Lisle, who found Charles’s PC just north of Montfaucon hill. He sent a message to Kuhn, “Found Col. Charles at 11H15. He was then moving forward. He was at point 11.4–78.8. At that time they were under heavy shrapnel fire.”¹⁴ Lisle remained with Charles as the 316th advanced; about 3:15 p.m. he informed Oury that the front companies of the 316th had reached the southern edge of Bois 268 and that three of the large St Chamond tanks had entered the wood. He added, “Artillery support throughout the day entirely inadequate. Lack of phone wire has reduced communication to runners. Troops now without food or water.”¹⁵ (For his exploit in crossing the battlefield under fire, finding the 316th, and reporting back, Lisle was later awarded the Silver Star.) In fact, elements of the regiment had advanced even further than Lisle knew. Captain Somers’s 3rd Battalion had made it to the north edge of Bois 268 and one platoon of Company G had passed through that wood entirely, crossed the slope beyond, and entered Bois 250, where it dug in. By mid-afternoon most of the 316th was in Bois 268 and Charles took the opportunity to reorganize. It was clear that German artillery fire would allow no further advance that day, so the colonel ordered the 316th to bivouac. He sent a runner forward to the platoon that had reached Bois 250, telling them to fall back to join the regiment after dark. Efforts were made to get food up to the men, but the only result was the death of a lieutenant in the supply train. Charles’s advance on the 28th had left four officers and 43 men dead.¹⁶

At least the dead had no more worries; the ordeal of the wounded continued. A historian of the 79th described their plight:

The entire back area was so thoroughly shelled, behind the 313th, 316th and 315th regiments that even the proper medical attention could not be given the men. The nearest field hospitals were unable to advance within several miles of the fighting line and stretcher-bearers carried the more desperately hurt through shell fire which frequently further injured the original sufferer and struck the carriers as well. Other men, less severely wounded, hobbled or crawled back, yard after yard, kilometer after kilometer, until they came at last to the dressing stations.¹⁷

Private Schellberg of the 313th Infantry’s Machine Gun Company wrote to his brother:

Every place you went you heard the wounded calling for firstaid, it was awful. A Frenchman told some of us that as long as he was at war thats the worst he has seen. We lost two Leuts and a hole lot of other men in this battle. We lost three carts and mules and one driver was killed and two wounded. One of the drivers had his horse shot and he kept on going with the rope he was leading him with thinking he still had his horse. He was wounded in the leg.¹⁸

Nor were doctors immune to losses from enemy fire. Dr Hanson wrote in his memoirs:

After a trip up to the battalion dressing station and an ambulance dressing station in Montfaucon I returned to the hospital to get some grub. Shortly afterwards two of my doctor friends came limping in gassed, clothes torn and scared, saying that the Boche had shelled the battalion station I had just left and killed two of my friends, a doctor and a dentist, and a number of patients. I had barely made them a little more comfortable when I got word that the ambulance station in Montfaucon was shelled too. Here I lost several friends, enlisted men in the ambulance company.¹⁹

During the day the rain had been intermittent but at night the skies opened up, washing the field in torrents, turning the ground into a muddy morass, and inflicting further suffering on the men. They continued to be hampered by their gas masks, which they were afraid to take off. At least the shelling stopped, so stretcher-bearers were able to evacuate more of the wounded to field hospitals. By the end of the day, the advanced dressing stations had passed over 2,000 casualties to the rear—sick, wounded, and gassed. The round trip from the hospital just over a mile west of Avocourt was 42 hours. Frequently light, horse-drawn ambulances, less road-bound than the motorized ones, would be used to relieve the pressure.

As ever, the roads were a bottleneck not only for the wounded but for artillery, supplies, and ammunition needed at the front. The 304th Engineers reported that it spent the 28th maintaining the section from Avocourt through Malancourt, which was “passable,” and by 9:00 p.m. the stretch from Malancourt to Montfaucon was in “fair condition.”²⁰ Colonel W.T. Hannum, an officer on the AEF General Staff returning from a visit to the 4th Division, saw things differently:

The road from Malancourt to Avocourt was exceptionally poor. It was there that most of the delay in troop movement and traffic was experienced. The ground was very much disturbed by previous shell fire. The old road was, in spaces, completely destroyed. Foundation of new road was very poor. The troops engaged in preparing the road were apparently very poorly handled and were not accomplishing much of a permanent or even semi-permanent value.²¹

It took him six and a half hours to travel 13 miles. It did not help that French troops using the V Corps roads had not been informed of the direction of travel and frequently blocked traffic by going the wrong way.²² By the end of the day the 304th Supply Train was able to get one truck convoy past Malancourt to the supply trains of the regiments and machine gun battalions, but the latter were still mired below Montfaucon, and even carrying parties couldn’t get food through to the front lines. The motorized ammunition convoy was similarly stuck, but the horse-drawn section was able to deliver 900,000 rounds of .30-caliber ammunition despite being shelled. This was the first ammunition resupply received by the regiments since the jumpoff on the 26th. But neither food nor ambulances could reach the front.

While Nicholson and his 157th Brigade assaulted on the left, Oury’s 158th was to go into action on the right. But by 2:00 a.m. on the morning of the attack, Oury had received no orders from Kuhn, so he sent his adjutant to division headquarters to pick up Field Order No. 8. It said that the 315th Infantry under Colonel Knowles, hitherto in support, was to lead the attack on Nantillois with the 314th following at 1,000 meters. H-hour was set for 7:00 a.m. At 5:30 a.m. Knowles sent a message to the headquarters of the 157th Brigade next door, asking for tanks to assist his 1st Battalion, as they had none to counter the machine gun nests in front of him. At 7:00 a.m. he dispatched a runner to Kuhn’s PC with the request:

Have artillery pound 10.2–80.2, 13.1–80.5, 12.6–81.5 and line 10.0–82.3 to 11.0–82.6. These hostile positions form a cup into which we cannot advance without ruinous losses. Some guns to be directed on Nantillois. The artillery must get busy fast if they are to assist infantry ... Please rush artillery fire.²³

The German positions formed a rough semicircle centered on Nantillois with a radius of half a mile to a mile—easy range for their guns. The 158th Brigade had been ordered to attack into a heavily defended cul-de-sac. The runner did not reach Kuhn’s PC until nine hours later.

By H-hour the tanks had not arrived, and only four batteries of 75s were in position to fire. The opening bombardment was, in the words of Kuhn himself, “feeble”—so feeble that the 315th Infantry didn’t know it was happening because they couldn’t hear it above the din of the German shells.²⁴ Knowles sent an urgent message back to Kuhn asking for more artillery on the German lines and on Nantillois. But by 7:30 a.m. he realized that no support would be coming, so he ordered the 315th forward.

The 1st Battalion was to encircle the town from the west while the 3rd Battalion was to attack from the south. Things went well for the first couple of hundred yards, despite strafing from German aircraft and enfilading artillery fire. But as the leading companies climbed to the top of a rise below the town, machine guns and riflemen opened up from the Bois de Beuge to the west and the Bois de Septsarges to the east, accompanied by heavy artillery. Major Fred Patterson, commanding the 1st Battalion, sent a desperate message to Colonel Oury:

We cannot get out of this pocket. Any cut we take covered by MG. We find no troops on left. They should be there to skirt Bois du Boyee [sic—may mean “Beuge”]. Tanks are not with us. First Aid badly needed. Must have artillery.²⁵

A coordinated advance was now impossible; progress could be made only by small groups making brief rushes, then taking cover. Once again, officers and men fell dead and wounded. Patterson himself was badly wounded in the leg, but refused to give up command until that night. Despite everything, the leading companies reached what was left of Nantillois by 10:50 a.m., capturing six 77mm guns. Each of the three companies that took the town had lost one-third of its men, and the other companies suffered almost as much. The support companies were left to mop up the machine guns and snipers that had been bypassed in the rush while the main body continued on, reaching Hill 274 about half a mile to the north at 1:00 p.m. Sergeant Davies of Company B wrote in his diary:

We are getting some artillery support now. The German artillery is very active guided by their planes which are constantly over us, and they seem to be able to place their shells wherever we happen to be. We move up the road to our left and then up the hill. The Germans seem to have machine guns all over this hill. With D Co. on our right and L Co. of the 3rd battalion on our left we work our way to the top of the hill. We lost quite a few men there.²⁶

At the top of the hill, Knowles called a halt to reorganize. He had already sent a message to Oury, who at 11:25 a.m. dispatched a runner to Kuhn announcing the fall of Nantillois. Half a mile ahead of them loomed the Bois des Ogons.

The 1st and 3rd Battalions were now joined on Hill 274 by the French tanks, which had come up behind the attacking infantry. The single artillery battery accompanying the 315th was ordered to lay down a half-hour bombardment on the Bois des Ogons and the Madeleine Farm, a fortified position to its west. But before the attack could get properly going, German field pieces in the Bois des Ogons and heavier guns east of the Meuse plastered the landscape with high explosive shells. Sergeant Davies continued in his diary:

Just ahead of us about 700 yards is another hill crowned by a dense wood. The Germans seem to be preparing for a counter attack here. They are pouring a heavy machine gun and rifle fire on us from there. Major Patterson ordered our company to form in line of skirmishers and go over after them. We formed our line 1st and 2nd platoon in front and the 4th platoon in support. A shell landed just in front of where I was laying killing Buckwald and wounding Lieut. Conahan and another officer. I was thrown about 10 feet but fortunately was not injured. Lieut. Bagans jumped out in front of the company and led us on the run for the woods. How any of us got there is more than I can tell. Bullets just pelted around us like hail. The bottom of my rain slicker was cut to ribbons. With L and D Companies we managed to get to the edge of the woods. We had to fight for every inch of ground now.²⁷

Two of the huge St Chamond tanks and two of the Renaults were almost immediately destroyed. The rest of the tanks went ahead of the two attacking battalions, getting as far as the southern edge of the wood. At that point, the machine gun and artillery fire became too much to withstand and the battalions withdrew back to Hill 274. Sergeant Davies described the retreat:

The woods were full of machine guns and snipers and several of our men got hit. We were making good progress when we were ordered out of the woods. Word had been received that the Germans were going to set the woods on fire, so we had to give it up. Lieut. Bagans actually cried when we had to evacuate, he said it had cost so much to take the woods, it seemed a crime to give them up now.²⁸

Major Richard, the French tank battalion commander, had a somewhat different view of the action. As he wrote in his report, one platoon of his 344th Company destroyed centers of resistance in the Bois des Ogons while another demolished Madeleine Farm along with a large number of machine guns and field pieces. Nevertheless, because the infantry failed to follow, his tanks had to retire. Tired of taking positions and then not having the infantry occupy them (as he saw it), he sent the following order to his company commanders with translated copies to the commanders of the 314th and 315th Infantry Regiments:

The encounters of September 27th distinctly show that the American Infantry follows the tanks only at a great distance, and does not join them, when the latter have reached the objective. Thus, Nantillois, carried off by the 343d Co, has not been occupied by the American troops, which remained 1500 ms. behind. The Company Commanders will cause explanations to be made to the Regimental commanders to whom they are attached that the help should be a reciprocal one and that the regulations applying to the Artillery of Assault [i.e., tanks] prescribes that the Infantry should take as honor to go where the tanks go. Forgetting of this rule may have unfortunate consequences for tank platoons working isolately [sic]. Consequently, the Battalion Commander orders formally not to get ahead of the American Infantry more than of 200 ms., and if it does not follow any further, to take positions behind the infantry lines. [Translation in the original].²⁹

It helped, up to a point; in his report Major Richard acknowledged that the infantry kept within 200 meters of his tanks. But they still failed to hold the positions the tanks had overrun, forcing the armor to withdraw.

Have been stopped by heavy H.E. fire & MGs due to greenness of troops rather than the danger involved ... Due to casualties & exhaustion 314, my Cos are much reduced in strength. All stragglers collected this A.M. & returned to commands. I am moving with the 314th Inf. well around Montfaucon to come in on the flank of our sector across the ridge, hoping to get in rear of MGs & Inf. 15 tanks cover our next advance. I’m waiting for them to get in position, hence delay. Request all possible Artillery support on objectives already indicated to Artillery liaison officers. Men are suffering due to lack of water none having been gotten since start of advance.³⁰

A little over an hour later Colonel Knowles sent Kuhn a second message giving sobering details. Men were deserting their positions in search of food and water. Soldiers from the other regiments had mixed in with his own, disorganizing his command. Many officers were dead or wounded; the medical officers were wholly exhausted. The supply train could not get through because of the shelling. The machine guns were low on ammunition. “Wounded with practically no help but 1st Aid and many who could be saved are dying because of lack of attention and exposure.”³¹

By now the 2nd Battalion had reached Hill 274; with Knowles’s entire regiment in one place, Oury had no choice but to try again. He sent the 315th against the Madeleine Farm, a fortified German position just west of the Bois des Ogons whose heavy defenses—still effective, despite Major Richard’s claim—belied its charming name. The attack was supported by four small and two large French tanks, a single battery of artillery, and one company of the 312th Machine Gun Battalion, which fired a barrage overhead. At 4:00 p.m. the 315th moved forward but once again ran into the fire of field guns from the Madeleine Farm, machine guns from the Bois des Ogons, and heavy artillery from the Heights of the Meuse, the last being accurately directed by a tethered balloon over Cote Lemont three miles to the east. As Kuhn watched from the summit of Montfaucon, the two St Chamonds blew up and three of the light Renaults, aflame and with their drivers wounded, went to the rear.³² Others were disabled even though not set afire; their crews abandoned the inert hulks and hurried rearwards. Lieutenant Miller Johnson of Company K stopped a fleeing French soldier. “What’s the matter with the tanks?” he demanded. “Too much Boche artillery,” answered the Frenchman, barely stopping in his retreat. “American no good, damn fool. American no give damn for artillery. Big damn fool.”³³

Eventually, amid heavy losses, the 1st and 3rd Battalions reached the Bois des Ogons; but it was obvious that they could not hold it under the heavy German bombardment, especially since no counterbattery fire was forthcoming from the American guns despite Oury’s request. As Kuhn later wrote, “Again the leading elements reached the edge of the woods and again they melted away under the whirlwind of fire.”³⁴ For a second time the men withdrew to the southern slope of Hill 274 to reorganize for another advance.* Knowles sent a plea to Kuhn’s PC: “Men of 315th Inf. must have food. Too weak for further advance without food.”³⁵ But the supply trains were still stuck in the traffic jam below Montfaucon.

* The historian of the German 147th Infantry Regiment wrote that the withdrawal of the Americans from the Bois des Ogons resulted from a counterattack that caught the Americans in the flank and inflicted great loss, including four tanks that were left behind. (Heinrich Siebert, Geschichte des Infanterie-Regiments Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg (2. Masurisches) Nr. 147, Erinnerungsblätter Deutscher Regimenter (Berlin: Gerhard Stalling, 1927), p. 281.)

Once again Knowles reorganized his regiment and at 6:00 p.m., still without artillery support, the 315th lunged for a third time into the valley separating it from the Madeleine Farm and the Bois des Ogons. This time Sergeant Davies’s 1st Battalion penetrated several hundred yards into the wood, using their grenades to capture a collection of wooden shacks. Upon exploration, these proved to be a command post including an artillery plotting room, where the 315th found maps and other papers. One hundred yards further into the wood was a building with a Red Cross flag, which the men took to be a hospital. Lieutenant Bagans, who was leading the advance of Davies’s Company B, wanted to explore the building, but changed his mind. That was a good thing; the flag was a disguise, and the building was a fortified German machine gun position.³⁶ Word came that the Germans were about to launch a counterattack, and a heavy bombardment emphasized the point. Yet again the 315th was ordered back to Hill 274. At some point during the day General Hoefer of the 117th Infantry Division ordered the 5th Storm Battalion, then attached to his command, to take Hill 274. The 5th was Captain Willy Rohr’s outfit, the original assault battalion—and now one of the only remaining ones—trained and experienced in infiltration and combined-arms tactics.* Fortunately for the men of the 315th, Hoefer canceled the order and held the 5th in the Bois de Cunel to serve as local support.³⁷

In the words of the division historian, “The night of September 28–29, on the front lines, was one of horror.”³⁸ The steady rain turned the earth to bottomless mud; the shell holes were viscous ponds. Everyone was soaked to the skin. The blackness was complete. German machine guns raked the ground and heavy artillery blanketed the area with shrapnel and high explosive. For the 315th, a small bit of refuge could be found on the reverse slope of Hill 274, which the men had taken to calling “Suicide Hill”; to their west, the 316th sheltered behind the stumps of Bois 268. But these offered no relief from the plunging howitzer shells or from the groans of the wounded, many of whom still lay exposed on the field in front. Still no food was forthcoming. Sergeant Davies of the 315th somehow found the will power to write in his diary:

We got back to the hill [274] again under heavy shell fire and was ordered to dig in for the night. Our dead all over the hill. We have lost pretty heavy in this scrap. Saw Baimbridge carried off wounded. Heard Charlie Lynn was killed. I hope to God it is not true. It would be a great loss to me. As darkness comes on it starts to rain. I’m all in. Hungry and thirsty, I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. About 10 P.M. the Germans started to shell our position, God it was awful. Saw a man blown to pieces just below where Monty and I were lying. We decided to move off the hill. Monty and I and a few others got down near the base of the hill when a shell landed right among us killing Cook and taking Richardson’s leg off at the knee I was stunned for a few minutes and Monty dragged me over to a big shell hole, where he and Mike Campbell and I spent the rest of the night. We were in mud up to our waists, but it looked like the safest place around here. I am sick and disgusted with this life. It seems to me that the men who are killed are better off. This is simply a living death, Hell can hold no terrors for me after this. We are not men any more, just savage beasts.³⁹

The men spent the night under a cold, steady rain in shell holes filled with mud, sheltered only by raincoats and overcoats. Exhausted as they were, sleep overcame discomfort and hunger. “But in the morning one felt far worse than after a night of intoxication. Deadened nerves, stiff muscles and rheumatism produce a state of mind dangerous to a soldier—the attitude of caring little what happens to him next.”⁴⁰ The officers of the 147th Field Artillery, which by now had come up about half a mile behind the infantry, were aware of the exhausted state of the attacking regiments and figured they were incapable of defending against a nighttime counterattack. So they ordered their machine guns forward and had the gunners stand guard all night with their pistols.*

* The night was dangerous not only at the front. The frequent failure of the support companies to mop up after the attackers left many Germans behind the American lines. Leroy Haile, an enlisted man in the 304th Engineers, gave this account of his attempt to find a place to sleep that night: “I found a dugout and as usual I called down in French and in German to see if anyone was there. I got no answer and started down. It was quite dark and as my candle was very short, I wanted to save it for the exploration of the interior. I got to the bottom of the steps and suddenly had the sensation of a bee sting in my left leg. I suddenly realized there was a person immediately in front of me and automatically started to shoot; I had an automatic ready in my hand. I shot four times and as the case with the automatic, it tends to rear up. I heard no sound from the man in front of me, the concussion was terrific in the small room and I felt something running down my left side of my face. I later found it to be blood as I had ruptured my eardrum. I fished out my candle and when I saw what I had done it was awful. The German had lunged at me, trying for the stomach but sticking my left leg with his bayonet. When I shot him, the bayonet came out and fortunately it had gone in my leg only a short distance. My shots had almost cut the man in half.” (LeRoy Yellott Haile, “A Civilian Goes to War,” n.d., World War I Survey, Box: 79th Division-Trains; Folder: Haile, Leroy Y, 304th Engineer, 79th Division, AHEC, pp. 54–55.)

The divisions on either side of the 79th did not do much better that day. Farnsworth’s 37th Division, to the west, had its 74th Brigade on the left and its 73rd Brigade on the right. The 74th began the day’s attack starting from a line a bit more than half a mile south of the Bois Emont; the 73rd, to its right, was about the same distance south of the Bois de Beuge. At 7:00 a.m. or a little after, each brigade attacked the wood in front of it. By then the accompanying artillery had reached the front line but their ammunition had not, so they were unable to lay down a preparatory barrage. The two brigades entered the Bois Emont and the Bois de Beuge respectively at 7:35 a.m. Three hours later the 74th had taken Cierges and sent a company 500 yards further to the northwest; the 73rd had passed through the Bois de Beuge to just south of the Cierges–Nantillois road. At this point the two brigades fell under heavy German fire from the three woods that the 79th had failed so far to take: the Bois de Fays, Bois des Ogons, and Bois de Cunel. The division, having only its accompanying guns, was unable to respond effectively. Once again the support elements crowded the advancing units and caused congestion at the front, increasing casualties and making the men yet more exhausted and harder to supply. Compounding their misery, infantry of the German 150th Regiment counterattacked, supported by machine guns and artillery firing high explosive and gas. On the right, the 73rd Brigade held the attackers; on the left, however, the 74th was pushed back through the Bois Emont and another 500 yards south, erasing their gains for the day. But the Germans failed to occupy the Bois in strength, and at 5:25 p.m. the 74th was able to advance back into the wood, occupying its southern two-thirds. By nightfall the division’s line ran through the top of the Bois Emont, skirted Cierges half a mile to its south and southeast, then ran northeast to link up with the front of the 79th Division at the northern edge of Bois 268. Altogether it had advanced one and a half miles for the day.⁴¹ At 7:20 p.m. General Farnsworth sent a message to his brigade commanders: “Have notified Corps Commander that we cannot advance and am insisting that the division be relieved immediately. It will probably be impracticable to expect the relief before tomorrow morning.”⁴²

To the right of the 79th the 4th Division under General Hines also attacked at 7:00 a.m. This time they had good artillery support which, by 10:00 a.m., was able to suppress the fire from the German guns enough to allow the infantry to advance relatively unhindered. In the division’s left sector the 39th Infantry Regiment attacked from its line on Hill 295 past Hill 266 toward the Bois des Ogons, about one and a half miles away. Reaching the railroad line south of Nantillois around noon, it made contact with the 315th Infantry Regiment. Now, unlike two days earlier, there were no qualms in the 4th about violating divisional boundaries. A company from the 39th moved into the sector of the 79th and joined up with a company of the 315th Regiment. This impromptu battalion attacked the town, pushing the enemy out and forcing them to withdraw as far as the Bois de Fays. The two companies then advanced together through Nantillois to Hill 274 where the battalions of the 39th reorganized and moved back into their own sector. Resuming its advance, the regiment got as far as the Bois de Fays a mile further on before it was stopped by machine gun fire; among the wounded was Colonel Bolles, the regimental commander. But the 79th had gotten stuck on Hill 274; this uncovered the left flank of the 4th, which came under heavy machine gun fire from the west as well as bombardment from the Heights of the Meuse. At 5:00 p.m. General Bullard, commanding the III Corps to which the 4th belonged, sent a stiff message to Kuhn:

Your message received stating that your 79th Division front troops were entering Organ [sic] Woods and Bois de Fay N. of Nantillois. Since that time the left flank of the 4th div. was at Cunel; was counter attacked and driven into the Bois de Fay to the S. edge; so reported. I think that the counter attack was not against my left flank of the advance line, but against the left flank of my reserve.⁴³

In fact, the 4th had gotten nowhere close to Cunel, which was over half a mile beyond the Bois de Fays. Nor do the records of the division mention a counterattack against its left flank at that time. But the intent was clear. Bullard was telling Kuhn, your delay in advancing is uncovering the flank not only of my front line but also of my reserve line. Eventually the 39th Infantry was ordered to withdraw to a ridge below the Nantillois–Brieulles road, where it spent the night. To its right, the 47th Infantry quickly penetrated the Bois de Brieulles, stopping at its northern edge. Capturing an ordnance dump, the regiment turned the munitions against the retreating Germans. That night the 7th Brigade, to which the 39th and 47th Regiments both belonged, was relieved by the 8th. It had advanced 11 miles, losing over 100 dead and over 500 wounded. It captured almost 2,000 prisoners, 30 guns, and many machine guns, Minenwerfer, and trench mortars.⁴⁴

The advance up the Barrois plateau by the American 79th, 37th, and 4th Divisions might have been thwarted for the day, but the Germans were feeling the pressure. By noon on the 28th the Germans were in retreat. The battered 117th Infantry Division had withdrawn from Nantillois to the Bois des Ogons; the 5th Bavarian Reserve Division and the left flank of the 7th Reserve Division drew back to the south edge of the Bois de Brieulles. Orders came down from Fifth Army to withdraw entirely the 117th and the 7th Reserve Division, which had held the line since the 26th, “[a]s soon as the situation permits.”⁴⁵ But there was to be no general retreat; on the contrary, Fifth Army decided to put up a stiff resistance based on artillery:

The situation requires that the artillery on both banks of the Meuse River be under one control. Effective 28 September, General M[arwitz] will assume command of all this artillery under direct orders of the Army ... The period, while the enemy has little artillery and munitions available in face of our Meuse West Group (SSI Corps), is to be profitably employed by our artillery. Hostile batteries will be counter-batteried; hostile camps and dug-outs will be gassed. Interdiction fire will be laid on Bois d’Avocourt–Malancourt–Montfaucon roads; Bethincourt; Cuisy and Septsarges.”⁴⁶

Artillery was especially to be used to stop infantry attacks. To replace the withdrawn units, the 115th Infantry Division moved up to the Bois des Ogons, joining the (German) 37th, which was already there. The 115th was rated third class by American intelligence and had taken heavy losses in the Aisne–Marne campaign back in July; but it had had two months’ rest and was the best formation available. Coming up behind them were elements of the 236th Division and the 45th Reserve Division. There was no time to maintain divisional integrity; as fast as individual regiments and even battalions reached the battlefield, they were thrown into the line wherever it needed reinforcement or wherever a gap had appeared.⁴⁷

The 117th, although slated for withdrawal, was literally not yet out of the woods. With the 151st Infantry Regiment (of the German 37th Division) on its right, the division held the southeast edge of the Bois de Beuge on the morning of the 28th. A massive American attack at 10:00 a.m. caused the men of the 151st to break and run. (This is almost certainly the attack of the 316th Infantry Regiment in which Major Atwood was killed.) In the words of the historian of the 117th, “The men of the 151st Regiment fled in groups and could not be restrained by the staff of the neighboring 450th Regiment. The men made it clear that their officers were no longer there, so they would not remain either.”*⁴⁸ The 1st Battalion of the 450th was thus exposed to its right and had to withdraw eastward. The battalion commander, Captain Kühne, was evacuated with wounds that later proved fatal; Reserve Lieutenant Hartmann, who took over the battalion, tried to establish a defensive line facing west. But the battalion was almost completely surrounded; those who escaped joined the fighting in the sector of the 5th Bavarian Reserve Division behind Nantillois. Lieutenant Hartmann was seen no more.⁴⁹

* According to the history of the 151st Infantry Regiment, it was the 450th that retreated first, exposing the 151st to flanking machine gun fire. The situation was saved by two battalions from the 115th Division which ran up and repelled the American advance. (Heinrich Plickert, Das 2. Ermländischen Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 151 im Weltkriege, Truppenteile des ehemaligen Preussischen Kontingents (Berlin: Gerhard Stalling, 1929), p. 304.) The two accounts differ even as to which regiment was on the left and which was on the right.

The Americans continued to advance.† Battalion Wehber withdrew to the eastern portion of the Bois des Ogons north of Nantillois. The 151st Regiment having disappeared, the battalion had no one on their right flank, so they placed two machine guns facing westward just as the Americans emerged from a small wood. The combined fire of Battalion Wehber and the machine guns, with help from the four guns of a light artillery battery that showed up at the right moment, pushed them back. The 450th continued to retreat, however, having no one on their right and only tenuous contact with the 11th Grenadiers on their left. The commander of the 450th ordered Wehber to move laterally to his right in order to cover the entire southern edge of the Bois des Ogons, but it quickly became clear that this was impossible; the Americans were too close to risk a flank movement. With the 11th Grenadiers retreating and the Bois des Ogons under German artillery fire, Wehber decided to pull back half a mile to the southern edge of the Bois de Cunel. There his battalion renewed contact with the Grenadiers on the left, now at the Madeleine Farm, and the 157th Infantry Regiment on the right. The retreat was finally stopped by the newly arrived 115th Division, which counterattacked against the American 37th, pushing it out of Cierges and back to the Bois Emont, where it spent the night.⁵⁰

The Germans hardly had a monopoly on confusion. On the night of September 28 Pershing’s First Army had only a hazy idea of where the enemy actually was. The day’s Summary of Intelligence for V Corps read, “Enemy Front Line: For the most part, undetermined at the end of the day by any of our sources of information.”⁵¹ Clemenceau’s Chief of Staff, General Jean-Henri Mordacq, visited Pershing that morning and later wrote:

I could read clearly in his eyes that, at that moment, he realized his mistake. His soldiers were dying bravely, but they were not advancing, or very little, and their losses were heavy. All that great body of men which the American Army represented was literally struck with paralysis because ‘the brain’ didn’t exist, because the generals and their staffs lacked experience. With enemies like the Germans, this kind of war couldn’t be improvised.⁵²

(General Mordacq’s ability to read people’s thoughts in their eyes was apparently remarkable.) None of this affected the orders Pershing issued for the next morning:

1. (a) The enemy is resisting on the heights of the Bois de Romagne and east of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon. This resistance consists mainly of artillery and machine-gun fire. Movements of convoys indicate a retirement to the north . . .

3. (A) The III, V and I Corps will advance within their zones of action as specified in Field Orders No. 20. without regard to objectives. The hour of attack will be designated by corps commanders but will not be later than 7 a.m., September 29.⁵³

Although the advance was to proceed “without regard for objectives,” V Corps’ stated goal was to drive the Germans from the Bois de Gesnes on the Romagne Heights, two and a half miles north of the corps’ line.* (As things turned out, the Bois de Gesnes would not be reached until October 10.) Once again the army artillery would not fire below a line roughly three miles ahead of the American troops. Colonel Lanza, chief of operations for First Army Artillery, was in the artillery’s PC at 1:30 a.m. when two officers from the First Army Operations Section came in. The attacking divisions had lost over 5,000 men the day before from hostile shell fire alone, they said, and it was essential to give them more artillery support. “It was explained to these officers that the fighting was way south of the line within which the mass of the artillery was prohibited from firing by formal written orders, and that there were no targets beyond this line.” Corps were authorized to request fire from the army guns, they were told, but they rarely did so.⁵⁴ As we have seen, of course, army gunners cheerfully disobeyed their no-fire orders whenever they got target information from the infantry. But even then, miscommunication prevented much of the army artillery from participating in the fight. Alden Brooks, the American officer assigned to the French 81st Heavy Artillery Regiment, found his unit unable to obtain information, unable to get into communication either with the divisions at the front or with First Army headquarters, and unable to convince the French general in command to fire without orders from above. Although assigned to support V Corps, the 16 high-powered 155mm guns of the 81st were silent for the entire five days of the first assault.⁵⁵

* Pershing maintained after the war that the French eventually adopted open warfare from the Americans; General Bach, who was a brigade commander in the 4th Division and, after the war, in close correspondence with Pershing, cites this “without regard to objectives” order as proof of American priority. (Pershing, My Experiences, vol. 2, p. 357; Bach, Fourth Division, vol. 368, pp. 166–67.) But three months earlier Pétain, in Directive No. 5 to his commanders, had specified, “To go far, it is necessary to aim from the start at distant objectives, without limiting, in advance and deliberately, the chances of success. One can also envision the possibility of advancing beyond the initial objectives that one has set, and, as a result, giving to large units general marching orders and extended zones of action far beyond those objectives.” (Ministère de la Guerre, Service Historique, AFGG, Tome Vi, 2e Volume, Annexes – 3e Volume, pp. 451–54.)

The men of the 79th had more immediate concerns. Already lying in muddy shell holes to avoid German artillery, they were made even more miserable by the steady rain that resumed during the night. Divisional and corps artillery laid down fire on the next day’s objectives, Bois des Ogons, the Madeleine Farm, the Bois de Cunel, and Cunel itself, but no target information was forthcoming either from the French 214th Aero Squadron or the 6th Balloon Company. As the locations of the German batteries were therefore unknown, the fire was ineffective and the enemy guns continued to plague the prostrate, sodden infantrymen. As daylight started to seep over the landscape, the volume of German fire increased. Not only did it pound the front line, it saturated the reserve regiments’ positions and the road back to Malancourt. A tethered balloon gave the Germans almost continuous observation; Allied planes were rarely in sight. High explosive mixed with gas poured in from the Bois de Cunel, La Mamelle Trench to its rear, Cunel itself, the Madeleine Farm, and the Ville aux Bois Farm. As always, the worst of all were the heavy shells from Hill 378 to the east of the Meuse.

By the morning of the 29th the men were starving. On the previous day the supply train of the 314th had advanced too far and been shelled to its destruction; the soldiers would get only one meal in the five days of the Montfaucon attack. Horses, mindless of the falling shells, wandered about searching for any edible vegetation. Men rifled German bodies looking for any rations they might carry; many became casualties as they exposed themselves to search for food. The only water was in the shell holes, dangerous to drink because of dissolved gas. Sergeant Davies of the 315th described his hunger to his diary:

I am so weak that I can hardly stand. None of us have had any food or water for days now. My throat and tongue feel like sandpaper. I have discarded my pack. I haven’t the strength to carry it any further ... There are a number of hospital men here caring for our wounded and we beg some food. They divide what they have with us, its not much, just a small piece of canned beef, and some soggy crackers but it tastes like the finest food in the world.⁵⁶

Faint from lack of sleep and food, chilled through from the incessant rainfall, their guns and equipment coated with rust, the men braced themselves for another advance against the hardening German opposition.