HISTORICAL APPENDIX BY JOYCE KILMER
I
Fifth Avenue held a memorable crowd on the afternoon of the ninth of March, 1917. There were old women there in whose eyes was the eager light that only the thought of a son can cause to glow; there were proud old men—some of them with battered blue garrison-caps, and badges that told of service in the War between the States—there were wives, mothers, children—all waiting, in jubilant and affectionate expectation, the sound of a band playing “Garryowen” and the sight of a flag fluttering from a pole so covered with battle-furls as to glisten in the sunlight like a bar of silver.
The Sixty-ninth Regiment was back from the border. Escorted by its old friend, the Seventh New York, the Regiment marched nearly eight hundred strong, down the Avenue and east to the Armory. The crowd—or a large part of it—followed, and soon families separated for months were reunited. When the Sixty-ninth was mustered out of service that March day, after months of arduous service on the Mexican Border, it numbered 783 men. Almost immediately it lost some three hundred officers and men. This was in accordance with War Department orders and the National Defense Act of June 3rd, 1916, which provided that men with dependant relatives should be discharged from the service. Men were lost also because of the system, now discontinued, by which a soldier in the National Guard was furloughed to the reserve after three years of active service.
So in the early Spring of 1917, with participation in the European War a certainty, the Sixty-ninth Regiment found itself far below war strength, having lost a great number of men whom experience and training had made ideal soldiers. At once a recruiting campaign was instituted, but a recruiting campaign of a special kind. The Sixty-ninth has never found it at all difficult to fill its ranks—when it was under Southern fire in the Sixties it was brought up to war strength nine times. But the purpose in view now was to bring into the regiment men who would, in every purpose and way—physically, mentally and morally—keep up its ancient and honorable standards. It was easy enough to enlist hundreds of strong men who could be developed into good soldiers. But this was not the object of the recruiting of the Spring of 1917. It was desired to enlist strong, intelligent, decent-living men, men whose sturdy Americanism was strengthened and vivified by their Celtic blood, men who would be worthy successors of those unforgotten patriots who at Bloody Ford and on Marye’s Heights earned the title of “The Fighting Irish.”
The Regiment set its own standards in selecting recruits. In weight, for example, one hundred and twenty-eight pounds was established as the minimum. And if some honest man with broad shoulders and a knockout in each fist was unable to read ACXUROKY on a card hung thirty feet away—why, the examining physicians were instructed not to be overly meticulous in their work. But if the candidate, having every physical perfection, seemed to be the kind of man who would be out of harmony with the things for which the Sixty-ninth stands and has always stood, then the rigorous application of some of the qualifying tests invariably resulted in his rejection.
When, on April 6th, 1917, President Wilson declared that a state of war existed between the United States and Germany, his words found the Sixty-ninth Regiment ready, its ranks filled to war strength with soldiers of whom the men who fought at Gettysburg and Chancellorsville would not be ashamed. There was new intensity in the nightly drills; there was new fervor in the resolve of every man, veteran of the Border and recruit alike, to make the Regiment as nearly perfect a fighting unit as possible.
The 6th of April is a date which no American soldier will forget. And almost equally memorable is the 15th day of July of the same year—the day on which the National Guard was called into Federal Service. The Sixty-ninth regiment, 2002 strong, scarcely felt the heat of that torrid midsummer, so intent were all the men on preparing themselves for the great adventure, and so passionately eager were they for the call to service over-seas.
On the 5th of August the Regiment, still retaining the numerical designation which is permanently engraved upon the tablets of our nation’s history, was drafted into the Regular Army of the United States. This was a step nearer to the firing line—made, accordingly, with enthusiasm. And on the 25th day of August came the electrifying news that the Sixty-ninth Regiment had been selected as the first New York National Guard organization to be sent to the war in vanguard of the American Expeditionary Force.
The circumstances in which the announcement was made to the regiment were striking. It was a boiling Saturday afternoon and officers and men were exhausted from the exercises of the morning—a Divisional inspection in Central Park. The regiment marched through the dusty streets and ascended the steps into the Armory to learn that they were not to be immediately dismissed, but were to stay on the drill floor or in the Company rooms. Lieutenant Colonel Latham R. Reed had gone to Governor’s Island to attend an important conference, and officers and men were ordered to await his return. Everyone hopefully awaited the arrival of splendid tidings, and the weariness seemed to pass away.
When Lieutenant Colonel Reed returned, he called a meeting of his staff and the Battalion and Company Commanders, and told them such details as were then obtainable of the great honor which had come to the regiment they loved. There were present Major William J. Donovan, Major William B. Stacom, Major Timothy J. Moynahan, Captain George McAdie, Captain Thomas T. Reilley, Captain William Kennelly, Captain James A. McKenna, Jr., Captain Alexander E. Anderson, Captain Michael A. Kelly, Captain James J. Archer, Captain James G. Finn, Captain Van S. Merle-Smith, Captain John P. Hurley, and Captain William T. Doyle. They heard the good news with undisguised delight and at once proceeded to prepare for the necessary intensive training.
But as great as was their delight, it was clouded with one regret. And that regret was felt also by every enlisted man. They all knew that the Regiment had been the first selected to go abroad not because of what it had done in the Civil War, nor because it was representative of what was best in the citizenship of our nation’s greatest city. It had been selected, after a long and searching examination of the military resources of the country, because its record in the most recent important test—the Mexican Border Campaign—showed it to be the best trained and equipped fighting unit that America possessed. And the man who had done more than all others to bring the Regiment to this point, the man who during the long strenuous months on the Border had moulded it after his own ideal pattern of soldierly efficiency—that man was absent from the conference at which was announced the momentous news. There was not an officer in the conference room, there was not an enlisted man on the drill floor that day, who did not think of Colonel William N. Haskell—of the joy with which he would lead his beloved Regiment into the Great War, of the joy with which that Regiment would follow him across the ocean and over the parapet and through the German lines to the Kaiser’s palace. There was not an officer or man who did not recall his last words when he was ordered to another duty “I want to lead the 69th Regiment into a fight.”
Colonel Haskell was absent from this historic conference. He had been lent, not given to the Regiment, and now the Government claimed his valuable services to solve some of the problems of the new National Army. But he was present in spirit—in the thoughts of everyone in the building and in the fitness he had given to the Regiment’s personnel.
Soon after the announcement that the Sixty-ninth Regiment was to be one of the very first into battle it was learned that the Regiment was to be brought up to a strength of 3500, according to the scheme which the French military experts had developed from their hard-bought experience with the conditions of modern warfare. It would have been a task gratifying to the whole Regiment, including Colonel Charles Hine, who now was placed in command, to build up the Regiment to this size by means of the recruiting methods which already had proved so successful. But it had been decided by higher authorities that the Regiment’s numbers should be augmented by additions from other New York National Guard organizations. Accordingly, one day in August, 1917, there arrived at the armory the first of the new increments—332 men from the 7th New York Infantry.
The ties that bind the 7th and the 69th are ancient and strong. The friendship between the two organizations has often been strikingly manifested. It was much in evidence when the New York National Guard was stationed on the Border. But it has never been displayed more convincingly than on the day that the men from the 7th joined the 69th. Escorted to the doors of the armory by the rest of the 7th, led by Colonel Willard C. Fisk, the men found the entire 69th Regiment assembled to welcome them. They were made at home; they found it no difficult task to orient themselves to their new surroundings. Without any disloyalty to the venerable regiment they had left, they accepted as their own the traditions and standards of the 69th and became not a distinct group added to the Regiment but a vital part of it.
On the 20th of August the 69th Regiment, now 2,500 strong, again marched through New York, and again an enormous crowd witnessed and followed the march. But this crowd, unlike that of the 9th of March previous, was not composed of people rejoicing over a long-sought reunion. The same men, women and children who had been present on the 9th of March to welcome the soldiers returning from the Rio Grande were present and they were as proud as, or prouder than before. But faces that had been happy were fearful now and the gestures were of farewell. Wives and mothers looked at the bright ranks with smiling anguish. The 69th was marching to the ferry to cross the East River and entrain for Camp Albert L. Mills, near Mineola, New York. It was the first move toward the front, to win new battle-rings for the pole that saw Cold Harbor and Bloody Ford.
There were many new and strange experiences in store for the officers and men during the period of intensive training on Hempstead Plains. A carefully planned schedule provided for drill and instruction enough to fill nearly every minute of the day. Much of the work was repetition for those of the men who had seen service on the Border, but they entered into it in a way that showed they thoroughly appreciated its value. There was also training in those phases of offensive and defensive warfare which have been developed since August, 1914. This work came in for an especially large share of attention. It was no longer a mere drill; it was active preparation for the use of what is, in spite of trench mortar, cannon, bomb and machine, the most effective weapon of modern warfare. The Regiment was instructed in the use of the bayonet by reserve officers who had acquired their knowledge from men with actual experience at the front. Cold steel propelled by Irishmen was said to be what the Germans chiefly feared and every effort was made to make sure that the 69th should not, through lack of practice, be less skillful with the bayonet than were the Dublin Fusileers and the Connaught Rangers. Visitors to the camp who were so fortunate as to be present at the bayonet drill were greatly impressed by the dexterity which the soldiers had gained in a few weeks, and by the intense realism which pervaded the exercise.
And now the Regiment gained, from day to day, the increments necessary to bring it up to the prescribed war strength of 3500. The men from the 7th had already been assimilated as privates and non-commissioned officers; they had become an integral part of the 69th (for only on paper was the name 165th in use). The 23rd, 14th, 71st and 12th now sent their delegations.
In most cases, the selection of the men in the various armories was made with perfect fairness, the prescribed number of sergeants, corporals and privates being arbitrarily taken from the ranks. But in certain companies it was soon evident that the officers had yielded to the natural temptation to endeavor to retain in their commands their best trained non-coms. Here was, for instance, a corporal to be taken from Blank Company of the Dash Regiment. By strict adherence to the letter of the law, Corporal Smith, a soldier of stainless record, with three month’s Border service to his credit, should be the man to entrain for Camp Mills. But here was Private Jones, a recent recruit, not especially happy in the Dash Regiment and probably not likely to be homesick for it if sent away. Why not let him sew a couple of stripes on the sleeves of his new blouse, and go on his way rejoicing.
This is the way some Company Commanders reasoned. And as a result, the 69th Regiment found that among its new members were some Sergeants and Corporals whose military knowledge included little more than the manual of arms, and privates who were physically, morally, and mentally unfit for the service. It was not to be expected that these men would be received with overwhelming enthusiasm.
Many of the soldiers received from other regiments—most of them in fact, were valuable additions to the 69th and at once proved their usefulness by merging with the rest of the outfit and working for the soldierly perfection of the whole body. Of the others—well, some of them were reformed by thorough disciplinary action, and others were allowed to drift back into civilian life by means of liberal use of dependency and surgeon’s certificate of disability.
So many soldiers were lost of those acquired from other regiments that although the time for sailing was almost at hand it was considered advisable to institute another recruiting campaign. There was no difficulty in gaining the desired number of recruits; the prospect of immediate service in France with the most famous regiment in America brought to the Armory doors three times as many candidates as could be accepted.
Now the wives and mothers who thronged the dusty Company streets on Saturday and Sunday afternoons began to show stronger anxiety, to look with new intensity into the eyes of their soldiers as they bade them farewell and returned to the city. For the time for sailing was at hand—no one knew just when or just where the Regiment was going, but all felt it was a question only of days or hours.
Twice secret orders to sail were received at Regimental Headquarters, and twice these orders were hastily countermanded. The suspense began to tell on officers and men, to tell even more, perhaps on those to whom they had again and again to say good bye. At last, on the night of October 25th, Major Donovan led the first battalion through the dark camp and down the silent lanes to the long train that was to take them to Montreal.
And now there were no crowds, there was no music. It was a journey more momentous, greater in historical importance, than the Regiment’s triumphant return from the Border, than its flower and flag decked setting forth for Camp Mills. But it was not, like those memorable events, a time for music and pomp. The feeling of the officers and men was one of stern delight, of that strange religious exaltation with which men of Celtic race and faith go into battle, whether the arena be Vinegar Hill, Fontenoy, or Rouge Boquet. As the trainful of happy warriors steamed through the first leagues of the journey to the Front, Father Duffy, the Regiment’s beloved Chaplain, passed from car to car hearing confessions and giving absolution. Rosaries—the last dear gift of mothers and sweethearts—were taken out and by squads, platoons and companies the soldiers told their beads. There was little sleep on the 69th special for Montreal that night—officers and men were too excited, too exalted for that. They had entered at last on the adventure of their lives.
General O’Ryan had said that a soldier is a man who always wants to be elsewhere than where he is. This is not true of soldiers of the race to which General O’Ryan’s name indicates that he belongs. They want to be elsewhere—only when they are in some peaceful place. If the Regiment had been restless before, the second and third Battalions were doubly so after they had seen four companies of their comrades go away.
But they had not long to wait. On the night of October 29th, the America (formerly the Amerika of the Hamburg-American line) pulled out of New York Harbor. There was no khaki on her decks; the only figures to be seen were sailors and deck-hands. But as soon as the vessel was out of range of spying Teutonic eyes, soldiers poured out of every hatchway. And as they thronged the deck-space available and looked their last for a long time at the lights along the fast receding shore, they showed a contentment, a mirth that amazed the crew, long accustomed to transporting troops.
“What’s the matter with you fellows?” asked one sailor. “Ain’t you sorry to be leaving your homes? Didn’t you ever hear there was such things as submarines?” He had helped carry over all sort of soldiers, he said, Regulars, Marines and Guardsmen, but he had never before seen passengers so seemingly indifferent to the grief of leavetaking and the perils of the wartime sea. He couldn’t understand it.
He might have been able to understand it if he had read Chesteron’s “Ballad of the White Horse.” For in that wise poem is an explanation of the psychology of the 69th New York, an explanation of the singular phenomenon of soldiers leaving their dear ones and setting out over menacing seas to desperate battle in a strange land as merrily as if they were planning merely an evening at Coney Island. Chesterton wrote:
II
The First Battalion’s voyage to France was more interesting than that of the main body of the regiment or of Companies L and M, who followed them in a few days. Sailing from Montreal on the Tunisian at 8 on the morning of October 27th, they landed at Liverpool, England, on November 10. There they entrained for Southhampton, reaching that city late in the night. In the night of the 11th they crossed the English Channel to Havre, and after a few hours’ rest they were packed into open box-cars for their cold journey across France. They detrained at Sauvoy on November 15.
The voyage of the good ship America was made over a sea so glassy-smooth that sea-sickness was an impossibility. The boat-drills, the rules against smoking or showing lights on deck at night and the constant watch for submarines (a work which was put wholly in the hands of the 69th Regiment, and executed by them with unflagging devotion) served to remind the men that, peaceful as the blue water looked, they were actually in the war already.
The discomforts of a crowded ship could not daunt the spirits of the men of the 69th. The dark holes far below the water-level in which they were tightly packed rang with song and laughter every night until taps sounded. There were concerts on deck and in the mess-room every night, except when the ship’s course was through the danger zone and silence was enforced. If there is left in the Atlantic Ocean a mermaid who cannot now sing “Over There,” “Goodbye Broadway, Hello France,” “Mother Machree,” and “New York Town,” it is not the fault of the 69th New York.
And yet mirth was not the sole occupation of these soldiers, exhilarated as they were by the prospects of battle. During the day, one could find little groups gathered on hatchways and in corners, studying, from little manuals they had bought, such subjects as the new bayonet work and grenade throwing. The talk of the men was very seldom of the homes and friends they had left behind, it was nearly always of the prospect of battle. They talked of what front they might be expected to hold, with what troops they might be trained, and, above all, of how soon they were to go into action. They discussed such methods and instruments of modern warfare as they knew with the keen interest of those who are soldiers by their own choice.
Those who do not know the 69th Regiment would have been puzzled by the spectacle presented by the main deck amidships every afternoon and evening. There could be seen a line of soldiers, as long as the mess-line, waiting their turn to go to confession to the Regimental Chaplain, Father Francis P. Duffy. And every morning—not on Sundays alone—there was a crowd at the same spot, where, on an altar resting on two nail kegs, Father Duffy said Mass.
The voyage passed without any sight of hostile sea or aircraft, and after two weeks the America came to anchor in the beautiful harbor of Brest. That is, it seemed a beautiful harbor at first, with its long white quay and its miles of dark green shore picked out with venerable gray stone buildings. But as day succeeded day with nothing for the soldiers to do but tramp the decks and yearn for the feel of sod under their hobnails, the view began to lose some of its beauty. There were two weeks on the open sea—these soon passed. But the week in Brest Harbor, in tantalizing sight of land, separated by only half a mile of green evil-smelling stagnation from shops and cafes and homes—that was cruel and unusual punishment.
When, after six days a detail for the hard work of loading freight cars was formed, every man in the regiment volunteered—and this sort of a detail usually is eagerly avoided. The volunteers who were accepted had little to reward them except the pleasure of being upon comparatively dry land. They were given no chance to taste the delights of the seaside city. When their task of unloading and loading baggage was finished, they and the rest of their shipmates learned what “Hommes 36-40, Chevaux 8” meant. From 40 to 50 men entered the waiting box-cars, with hard tack and canned corn-beef (Corn Willie) to feed them, and their own blankets to protect them from the hardness of the floors and the cold blasts that swept in at the open sides.
Three days and three nights of such travelling as no soldier of the 69th can ever forget, and they were at the village of Sauvoy, in the Department of Meuse. From this point a hike of some two hours brought them to the tiny village of Naives-en-Blois. Here was to be the new home of Regimental Headquarters, Headquarters Company, Supply Company and Company B. The other companies (including those of the First Battalion, which had arrived in the district on the fifteenth of the month) were quartered in the nearby villages of Sauvoy, Bovée, Vacon, Broussey and Villeroi.
The Regiment was put not in barracks, but in billets. Now billets, to those of the men who had done guard duty in upper New York State during the previous Spring, meant comfortable bedrooms, buckwheat cakes with syrup for breakfast, and the society of good natured farming people. But billeting in the European sense of the term, meant something different, as they soon found out. It meant that certain householders, in return for the payment of a few sous per man per twenty-four hours, were obliged to allow soldiers to sleep in their stables, barns or other outhouses. They were not obliged to furnish any food, light or heat. They were not obliged even to mend the roofs or walls of the shelters. Straw for filling bedsacks was furnished to the soldiers, and they were fairly launched on their first winter in France.
It was a winter of unprecedented severity. A freezing wind blew through the great holes in the tumble-down sheds where the men slept, covering them, night after night, with snow. They learned many soldierly things. How to make blouse and overcoat supplement the thin army blankets, for instance. How to keep shoes from freezing in the night by sleeping on them. How to dress and undress in the dark—for lamps were unknown and candles forbidden.
These things the soldiers taught themselves, or were taught by circumstances during their stay in Naives-en-Blois and environs. Their work consisted of close order drill, guard duty, and the thorough and much needed policing of the ancient village street.
Now, Naives was near the front—so near that the guns could clearly be heard when the wind blew in the right direction. This was cheering for the men, but as there were indications of a strengthening of the German lines at this point, with a possible view to an offensive, it was necessary to use the district for troops whose training had been completed; and, according to the new European standards, that of the 69th had not yet begun. So it was necessary for the Regiment—indeed, for the whole 42nd Division, which then had its headquarters in the nearby city of Vaucouleurs—to give place to seasoned French troops. So the men made their packs, the wagons were loaded, and the Regiment changed station from the 4th to the 5th area.
After two days of hiking (very easy hiking it seemed, in the light of later experiences) the Regiment arrived, on December 13, in the historic town of Grand. Here, centuries before, the conquering Romans had encamped, one hundred thousand strong. The ruins of the mighty ampitheatre that they built still stands, and the tower of the great church was once part of a fort. It was Caesar himself who planned the broad roads on which our Regiment drilled, and Caesar’s soldiers who made them. In this venerable church Father Duffy said midnight Mass on Christmas, and all the town came to see these strange, gentle, brave, mirthful, pious American soldiers, who, coming from a new land to fight for France, practiced France’s ancient faith with such devotion. The Regimental colors were in the chancel, flanked by the tricolor. The 69th band was present, and some French soldier-violinists. A choir of French women sang hymns in their own language, the American soldiers sang a few in English, and French and American joined in the universal Latin of “Venite, Adoremus Dominum.” It was a memorable Midnight Mass—likely to be remembered longer even than that which Father Duffy had said on the Mexican Border just a year previous, which troops for fifty miles around had crossed the prairies to attend.
Now it was considered advisable for the Division to proceed to the 6th area. This meant a hike of some four days and nights. Accordingly, at 8 on the morning of December 26th, the Regiment passed through the main street of Grand and out over the ancient Roman road.
This hike has become so famous—or so infamous—because of the undeniable sufferings of those who took part in it that it needs no detailed description here. It must by any impartial historian be admitted that during it the men of the 69th Regiment were insufficiently fed and shod, that they endured great and unnecessary pains and privations. It must also be admitted that they bore these trials with a cheerfulness which amazed the French civilians through whose villages they passed, accustomed as were these people to soldiers of almost every human race. They would crush their bleeding feet into their frozen, broken-soled hobnails of a black morning, and breakfastless start out, with a song on their lips, to climb the foothills of the Vosges Mountains through the heart of a blizzard. At noon (shifting their feet about to keep the blood moving) they would (if it was one of the lucky days) have a slice of bread or two pieces of hardtack for noon mess. At night they would have a sleep instead of supper. But they were never dispirited; they were never too cold, too hungry or too weary to sing or to teach the innocent French villagers strange bits of New York slang.
No man in the 69th Regiment “fell out” during that terrible hike. But many fell down. That is, no one, because of heart-breaking weariness, or faintness or lameness went to the roadside and waited for the ambulance to pick him up. Those who finished the journey in ambulances or trucks did so because they had fallen senseless in the deep snow, unable to speak or move. And wherever the Regiment passed there were bloody tracks in the white roadway.
“That hike made Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow look like a Fifth Avenue parade,” said one of the medical officers serving during this period. And many an observer compared the Regiment to Washington’s foot-sore soldiers at Valley Forge. It was only the indomitable spirit of the Irish American fighting man that kept the Regiment afoot through those four tragic days.
The Regiment that arrived in Longeau on the afternoon of December 29th looked different from the Regiment that had left Grand four days before. To judge them by their gait and their faces, the men had aged twenty years. But their hearts were unchanged. As they stood in the deep snow, the ice-crusted packs still on their bruised shoulders, they had a laughing word for every pretty face at a Longeau window. The weary bandsmen started a defiant air, and the Regiment joined in with a roar. The song was “The Good Old Summertime.”
III
Longeau, which with the surrounding villages constituted the Regiment’s new home, is a small farming town in the Haute Marne District. Unlike those of Naives, its houses are strongly built and in excellent preservation, and the billets in which (awaiting the completion of barracks) the troops were stationed were dry, warm and comfortable. As soon as possible, the Regiment moved into the new barracks built in the outskirts of Longeau and nearby villages, and was thus more nearly consolidated than it had previously been since its arrival in France.
In Longeau, the 69th Regiment was destined to receive much more practical training for the trenches than it had received in Camp Mills, Naives or Grand. These last two towns had really been merely stopping places, Longeau was a training camp. The most important event of the stay in Longeau was the advent of Colonel John W. Barker. Colonel Hine was withdrawn from his post with the regiment early in January, in order that he might take part in the transportation work for which he was especially fitted. He was succeeded on January 12th by Colonel John W. Barker, National Army. Colonel Barker was an up-state New Yorker, who graduated from West Point in the class of ’09. He had served in the Regular Infantry ever since in Cuba, the Philippines and on the Mexican Border. He saw considerable active service against the Indians, after taking part in almost the last of the Indian fight at Leach Creek, Minnesota.
Four years ago, he was recommended by his arm of the service to represent the Infantry for one year’s duty with a French Infantry Regiment. He was in France on this duty when the great war broke out, and remained as a member of our military organization until the arrival of the American Expeditionary Forces. Then he joined the staff of the Commander in Chief as General Staff Officer, 5th Section. He served General Headquarters in this capacity until personally selected by the Commander in Chief to command the 165th Infantry.
Now the regiment began to take the form of a modern fighting organization. It was Colonel Barker’s task to bring it into conformation with the new Tables of Organization, and to this task the best energies of himself and his staff were immediately devoted.
The specialized platoons (pioneers, trench mortar, one pound cannon) were now organized and intensively trained. Competent enlisted men from these platoons were sent to the schools newly established by General Headquarters and given the advantage of instruction by officers who had gained their knowledge of the subjects in actual warfare conditions. Hand grenades were supplied, and every man taught their effective use. Steel helmets now replaced the historic felt campaign hats. To every man were issued two gas masks, one French gas mask and one English box respirator. By means of constant drill in the rapid adjustment of these masks, under the direction of an officer who had specialized in the subject, the men acquired a proficiency in their use which saved many a life in the Lunéville and Baccarat Sectors and during the weeks of desperate fighting on the banks of the Suippes and the Marne.
It was during the stay in Longeau that the 69th Regiment organized its Intelligence Section, the first in the 42nd Division. Under the direction of the Regimental Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Basil B. Elmer, U. S. R., there was organized and trained a group of scouts, observers, map-makers and snipers so expert in detecting and hindering the movements of the enemy that they were several times, in the course of the action that came later, asked to attach themselves permanently to the Headquarters of the 42nd Division, in order that they might serve as instructors to the other regimental intelligence sections.
There were several changes in the personnel of the Regiment’s administrative staff. Lieutenant Colonel Reed had been selected for Staff College, and the Regiment never got him back. Captain William Doyle, who had served as Regimental Adjutant in Camp Mills, had been relieved while the regiment was in Naives-en-Blois, and his place taken by Captain Alexander E. Anderson, long in command of Company E. Now Captain Anderson was relieved as Adjutant and placed in command of Headquarters Company. Its former commander, Captain Walter E. Powers, for several years Adjutant of the Regiment, went to the Headquarters of the 42nd Division, leaving an enviable record for absolute efficiency in company and regimental administration. His abilities were soon recognized by his commission as Major and appointment as Divisional Adjutant. Captain Doyle was attached to Brigade Headquarters. Captain Anderson’s work was taken over by Lieutenant William F. McKenna, who was appointed Acting Adjutant, an office which he had filled during part of the Border campaign.
The training of officers and men never flagged while the Regiment was stationed in Longeau. Battalion and company commanders, Lieutenants and enlisted men were sent for brief periods to the special schools instituted by General Headquarters for their benefit, and on their return imparted to others the knowledge they had gained. There were lectures and quizzes every evening in the barracks, supplementary to the instruction received every morning and afternoon in the drill field and on the range. A number of American officers who had seen service at the front were now attached to the Regiment, and their first hand information gave new actuality to the daily work.
The training of the Regiment for the action in which they were soon to take part received new and strong impetus during the month of February by the arrival in camp of the 32nd Battalion of Chasseurs. These famous French soldiers, who had been in violent action ever since 1914, proved to be the most useful instructors for the men of the 69th. On the range and during the long hours of grenade throwing and open and trench warfare practice, their instruction, example and companionship was a constant incentive to the American soldiers. And it was a proud day for the 69th Regiment when its soldiers perceived that in rifle marksmanship and in grenade throwing they had succeeded in proving their superiority to their veteran instructors.
From February 7th to February 13th the Regiment took part in manoeuvres in which it was opposed by the 166th Infantry. These manoeuvres took place in the hilly country around Longeau and had as their ultimate objective the seizure and holding of the town of Brennes. This difficult strategic task was eventually accomplished.
Now the desire of the men for immediate participation in the action, the lure of which had drawn them across the ocean, was so strong as to amount to an obsession. It was evident to any competent observer that the whole Division was ready to render valuable service, as thoroughly trained as any unit in the American contingent. This was evidently the opinion of those who directed the movement of American troops, for on February 16th, 17th and 18th the Regiment marched to Langres, under orders to entrain for the city of Lunéville, in the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, for training with French troops in the line—that is, for actual duty in the trenches.
Lunéville was the largest town in which the Regiment had been stationed since its arrival in France. Some of the companies were put in billets, and some in the Stanislas Barracks, a magnificent stone building in the center of the town. Regimental Headquarters was established in the Stanislas Palace, a building which had previously housed the Administrative staffs of some of the French regiments who since 1914 had done brilliant work in retarding the German advance.
Now the Regiment was placed under the tactical orders of the General commanding the 164th Division of the French Army, the Division then occupying what was known as the Lunéville Sector. On February 21st, the 1st and 2nd Battalions, Headquarters Company and Machine Gun Company paraded in the central square of Lunéville and were reviewed by Major General Bassilière, then commander of the 17th French Army Corps. A few days later, the Regiment was made happy by learning that orders to go to the front had been received. On February 27th and 28th respectively, Companies D and B marched to their posts in the front line trenches, relieving companies of the 15th Group of Chasseurs of the French Army.
And now came a chapter in the history of the 69th Regiment which blotted out from the minds of officers and men all the hard work of the Camp Mills training period, all the privations and discomforts of the ocean trip and the journey across blizzard-beleagured France. The 69th was actually in the fighting—it was called “a period of training in the trenches,” but it was no time of sham-battles and manoeuvres. It was, in fact, an initiation into battle, by way of what was (up to the time of the 42nd Division’s entry into it) a quiet sector.
A “quiet sector” is one in which the German and French lines are separated from each other by a considerable distance—sometimes as much as five kilometers—in which there is no immediate objective for which the troops on either side are striving, in which, finally, shots are seldom fired, the opposing forces being content merely to hold their trenches almost undisturbed. These are also termed “rest sectors,” and the task of holding them is given either to troops wearied by participation in great battles or to troops fresh from the drill field and lacking in experience in actual warfare.
Nothing could have been more idyllic than the Rouge-Bouquet-Chaussailles Subsector of the Lunéville Sector when Company D marched to its strong point before dawn on the morning of February 27th. The subsector is heavily wooded and almost clear of underbrush. As the company marched up the hill through groves of birch, pine, spruce, and fir, and saw to right and left little summer houses, benches, tables and dugout entrances elaborately decorated with rustic woodwork they were rather shocked by the idyllic beauty of what they saw. Not for service in such a recreation park had they crossed the seas. Where were the bursting shells, where was the liquid fire, where were the bayonets of the charging Boches? This series of outposts joined by little ditches seemed at first too much like Central Park to satisfy the battle-hungry soldiers of the 69th.
The impression of absolute peacefulness was further emphasized in the course of a thorough reconnaissance of the subsector made on the morning of the 27th by the Regimental Intelligence Section. They stepped across a ditch and learned that they had passed the front line trenches—had gone “over the top.” They wandered about what seemed to be a deserted pasture and learned that they were in No Man’s Land.
But this tranquillity was not long to endure. The “Fighting Irish” lived up to their reputation—they “started something” at once. Rifles were cracking merrily before Company D’s men had been at their posts for half an hour. And by dusk on the evening of the 27th, Corporal Arthur Trayer and Private John Lyons of Company D had earned the distinction of being the first soldiers of the Regiment to be wounded. A high explosive shell burst on striking the roof of a shack in which they were resting, and the fragments wounded them—not seriously, but enough to warrant sending them to a hospital for a few weeks and later awarding them the coveted wound chevrons.
By the night of the 27th the Chaussaille-Rouge Bouquet Subsector had lost much of its reputation for quietness. The Germans may not have known as yet that Americans were in the trenches opposite them, but they knew at any rate that some new and aggressive unit had taken over the line, and they felt in duty bound to show that they were not in the trenches entirely for a rest curé. So the fight was on.
Regimental Headquarters took over the Regimental Post of Command at Arbre Haut on March 3rd. Company A occupied Strong Point Rouge Bouquet from March 1st to March 7th, Company E from March 7th to 13th, Company L from March 13th to March 21st. Company B occupied Strong Point Chaussailles from March 1st to March 6th, Company H from March 6th to March 12th, Company K from March 12th to March 22nd. Company D occupied Strong Point Sorbiers from March 1st to March 5th, Company F from March 5th to March 11th, Company I from March 11th to March 17th, Company M from March 17th to March 22nd.
There were many minor casualties during the early part of this period, but nothing of a really tragic nature occurred until March 7th. Then came a calamity which would have broken the morale of any regiment less high-spirited than this, so sudden was it and so lamentable.
On that unforgettable Wednesday, all was quiet as if there were no war until exactly 3.20 in the afternoon. Then the enemy started a barrage of minnewerfer shells. Interspersed with 77s they fell steadily and thick for about an hour. One shell fell directly on the roof of a dugout in Rocroi—an old dugout, built by the French four years before. In it were 21 men and one officer—1st Lieutenant John A. Norman of Company E. All were buried in the broken earth and beams, and some were at once killed. Two men were sitting on the edge of the upper bunk in one of the rooms—a falling beam crushed the head of one and left the other uninjured.
At once a working party was organized and began to dig the soldiers from their living grave. There was bombardment after bombardment, but the men kept at work, and eventually they dug out two men alive and five dead. There were living men down in that pit—their voices could be heard, and they were struggling toward the light. Lieutenant Norman could be heard encouraging them and guiding the efforts of their bruised and weary hands and feet. Several times they were at the surface and willing hands were out-stretched to draw them to safety—when well-aimed shells plunged them down again into that place of death. At last, after almost superhuman efforts on the part of men from Company E and from the pioneer platoon of Headquarters Company, after deeds of heroism, brilliant but unavailing, the work was discontinued. The bodies of fourteen men and one officer still lay in that ruined dugout—it was unwise, in view of the constant bombardment of it, to risk the lives of more men in digging for them. So a tablet was engraved and erected above the mound, the last rites of the church were celebrated by Father Duffy, and the place where the men had fought and died became their grave.
After March 7th, no one called the Rouge Bouquet-Chaussailles Sector a rest park, no one complained that it was too peaceful to make them know they were at war. Not only the front line sector but the reserve position at Grand Taille and the road leading from the Battalion Post of Command at Rouge Bouquet to Regimental Headquarters at Arbre Haut were bombarded every day. But the Regiment held the line with undiminished zeal, and gave the enemy an experience novel in this sector in the shape of a Coup de Main on the night of March 20th. Of this adventure, the first of many of the kind in which the regiment was to take part, a brief, accurate account is to be found in the citation of its leader, 1st Lieutenant Henry A. Bootz, (later Captain of Company C), by the Seventh French Army Corps.
His citation reads: “In the course of a raid, led a combat group into the enemy’s lines, going beyond the objective assigned, and recommenced the same operation eight hours later, giving his men an example of the most audacious bravery. Returned to our lines carrying one of his men severely wounded.”
It is a matter of no military importance but of deep interest to everyone who sympathizes with the 69th Regiment and knows its history and traditions, that when the raiding party marched up past Regimental Headquarters on their way to the trenches, there fluttered from the bayonet of one of the men a flag—a green flag marked in gold with the harp that has for centuries been Ireland’s emblem—the harp without the crown—and inscribed “Erin Go Bragh!” This flag had been given to Sergeant Evers of the Band and by a stranger—an old woman who burst through the great crowd that lined the streets when the Regiment marched from the armory to the dock on their journey to Camp Mills and, crying and laughing at the same time, thrust it into his hands. The flag went “over the top” twice that night, and for memory’s sake the name “Rouge Bouquet” was embroidered on it. Later, the embroidered names became so numerous that the design of the flag almost disappeared. Who the woman was who gave the Regiment this appropriate tribute is unknown. Perhaps it was Kathleen in Houlihan herself.
It was natural that this brilliant and utterly unexpected Coup de Main should have the effect of irritating our country’s enemy. It did so, and the result was a dose of “Schrecklichkeit” which at first threatened to prove more serious than the fatal bombardment of the dugout in Rouge Bouquet. It came on the days of the raid—March 20th and March 21st. The French soldiers had been inclined to make light of the 69th Regiment’s elaborate precautions against gas-attacks, of the constant wearing of the French gas mask and the English box respirator at the alert position (the respirator bound across the soldier’s chest ready for immediate use) when in the trenches. The Germans, they said, could not send cloud or projector gas through Rocroi Woods, and their last gas shell attack had been made three years before. Why take such precautions against an improbable danger?
But the French officers and men saw the wisdom of the Regiment’s precautionary measures after March 20th and 21st. For on these dates occurred a gas attack of magnitude unprecedented in this sector, in which the French casualties far outnumbered those of the Americans. The gas sent over in shells that burst along the road from Arbre Haut to the Battalion Post of Command and along the trenches and outposts from Chaussailles to Rouge Bouquet were filled with mustard-gas, which blinded the men and bit into their flesh, and poisoned all blankets, clothing and food that was within the range of its baneful fumes. There were four hundred casualties in the Regiment on those two nightmare-like days—four hundred men, that is, who were taken, blind and suffering, from the fateful forest to the hospital in Lunéville and thence to Vittel and other larger centers for expert medical treatment. Most of these men were from Company K, others from Company M and Headquarters Company. But only two men were immediately killed by the gas, and of the four hundred who went to the hospital only three died—of broncho-pneumonia resulting from the action of the gas on their lungs. To their careful training in the use of the gas mask, the men owed the preservation of their lives in an attack which was intended to destroy all of the battalion then in the line.
A volume could be filled with a record of the heroism displayed by the officers and men of the 69th Regiment during these two days and nights of violent bombardment. The French authorities overwhelmed the Regiment with congratulations and awards. And surely the Croix de Guerre never shone upon breasts more worthy of it than those of First Lieutenant George F. Patton, of the Sanitary Detachment, who, standing in the center of a storm of mustard-gas, coolly removed his mask in order to give a wounded soldier the benefit of his medical attention, or that of First Lieutenant Thomas Martin of Company K, who, when every other officer of his company had been taken away to the hospital, took command of the unit and held the sector through forty-eight hours of almost incessant bombardments. The French Division commander bestowed the Croix de Guerre on Col. Barker, with the following citation:
“Commands a regiment noticeable for its discipline and fine conduct under fire. Has given his troops an example of constant activity and has distinguished himself especially on the 20th of March by going forward under a violent barrage fire to assure himself of the situation and of the state of morale of one of his detachments starting on a raid into the enemy’s lines.”