3rd Division
3rd Division


IN THEIR OWN WORDS ...



Part Five



From the Second Marne thru St. Mihiel
     July - September 1918



Red Cross Nurse

NURSES AND DOCTORS BECOME INCREASINGLY
VITAL MEMBERS OF THE AEF



THE EPIC SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE FOLLOWS A MONTH AFTER BELLEAU WOOD

... Newly captured prisoners began to give real information - a grand offensive was to be made [where] the Marne was only about 50 yards wide ... We had 600 yards of [this] front all to ourselves ... [When it began] it seemed [the Germans] expected their artillery to eliminate all resistance ... French Officers attached to our Brigade stated positively there was never a bombardment to equal it at Verdun.

At 3:30am the general fire ceased and their creeping barrage started - behind which at 40 yards only, mind you, they came - with more machine guns than I thought the German Army owned ...

The enemy had to battle their way through the first platoon on the river bank - then they took on the second platoon on the forward edge of the railway where we had a thousand times the best of it - but the [Germans] gradually wiped it out. My third platoon [took] their place in desperate hand to hand fighting, in which some got through only to be picked up by the fourth platoon which was deployed simultaneously with the third ... By the time they struck the fourth platoon they were all in and easy prey.

It's God's truth that one Company of American soldiers beat and routed a full regiment of picked shock troops of the German Army ... At ten o'clock ... the Germans were carrying back wounded and dead [from] the river bank and we in our exhaustion let them do it - they carried back all but six hundred which we counted later and fifty-two machine guns ... We had started with 251 men and 5 lieutenants ... I had left 51 men and 2 second lieutenants ...

Capt. Jesse Woolridge

Capt. Jesse Woolridge,
3rd Division
Letter


The German View::

... All [German] divisions [along the Marne] achieved brilliant successes, with the exception of the one division on our right wing. This encountered American units! Here only did the Seventh Army, in the course of the first day of the offensive, confront serious difficulties. It met with the unexpectedly stubborn and active resistance of fresh American troops.

While the rest of the divisions of the Seventh Army succeeded in gaining ground and gaining tremendous booty, it proved impossible for us to move the right apex of our line, to the south of the Marne, into a position advantageous for the development of the ensuing fight. The check we thus received was one result of the stupendous fighting between our 10th Division of infantry and American troops ...

Erich von Ludendorff, Quartermaster General


I have never seen so many dead. I have never seen such a frightful spectacle of war. On the other bank the Americans, in close combat, had destroyed two of our companies. Lying down in the wheat, they had allowed our troops to approach and then annihilated them at a range of 30 to 50 yards. "The Americans kill everyone," was the cry of fear on July 15-a cry that caused our men to tremble for a long time.

Lieutenant Kurt Hesse, Adjutant, German 5th Grenadiers


THIS ACTION WAS THE LAST GERMAN OFFENSIVE OF WORLD WAR I




Advancing Under Fire

Immediately, the Allies with Nine American Divisions
Launch their First Great Counteroffensive


July 17th - Wednesday
There is a sudden calm all along the line in this sector. We have sent a 40 truck convoy to haul ammunition tonight to a point in sector and an allied offensive is about to start. It is thought that the force of the German drive, which has been in progress since two days ago is about spent. I believe right now that the Germans are at their high water mark.

Capt. Benjamin Agler, Supply Train, 4th Division
Diary



Well, Company C was in the first wave going over, or the first line in our great offensive which you are probably reading about now.

Well we drove them back so fast that our artillery and supplies could not keep up with us so we were hungry for a couple of days. We chased them for about 18 kilometers and then came back, and the other fellows are still chasing them back now. The French say we are wonderful fighters when we get going. We had them in the open, and we did'nt take any prisoners as they pulled off a few raw deals on us. Like bringing out a machine gun in a stretcher with Red-Cross men. We thought it O.K. but when they got a good position they layed the stretcher down and the Red Cross men took the cover off and played the machine gun on us. Lots of tricks like that so you see that we have to look out all the time when we were in the lines. They even had men chained and schackled to guns, and artillery, etc.

You probably had heard about the casualties before now. I lost my pal only 4 yards away from me crossing an open field in the face of a couple of machine guns. You have heard about him before now. But he died with his auto-rifle going on the enemy. He was with me as the other Sgt whom you all know well, from Newton Highlands, got scared, and just before "going over" he was missing and has not shown up as yet. But we have heard from him way back in the rear.

Letter, Sgt. Wesley Pease, Jr., 101st Inf., 26th Division


We reached the front line exhausted but, without slowing up went immediately into battle at daybreak. We reached the line just in time to go over the top at the zero hour.

... A division of Americans [2nd] and a division [1st] on the left flank in the [initial] drive, while a division of Moroccans was attacking in the center. Much airplane fighting was going on, and several [planes] got shot down ... We must have gained seven or eight miles that day, driving toward Rheims on the left flank of the Marne salient. That night we stood by our guns to hold the gain, but we were tired and hungry.

The morning of July 19, the second day of the battle and the third day without food, we formed our lines in a road through a cut or ravine and came out for a charge across a sugar beet field. The tanks were leading, with our lines right behind them. In trying to stop the charge, the Germans turned loose everything they had. It seemed to rain shells. One hit between me and the man on my left, Red Williams. It knocked a hole in the ground, half covered me with dirt, and left my hands and face powder-burned, but the shrapnel had missed [me]. Red was not quite so lucky and received his death wound. I left him writhing and groaning on the ground to continue the atttack. . .[A day later the regiment had been nearly annihilated]

The surviving marines who left the battle line were a terrible looking bunch of people. They looked more like animals ... Late in the evening we survivors got a meal of slumgullion ... There were so many wounded in the attack that the ambulance service broke down ... the boys were more despondent than I ever saw them after this battle.

Pvt. Carl Brannen, USMC, 2nd Division Posthumous Memoir OVER THERE, edited by his son J.P. Brannen



July 20th - Saturday - At the Front, Soissons Sector
. . .Casualties among [American] troops very heavy but Boche was driven back several miles. Many prisoners taken. Machine gunners found chained to guns. Two German women were taken prisoners. . .At noon our rendezvous was at dugout occupied by Germans in the morning. The ground was strewn with American, French and German dead. Everywhere is dea[th] and destruction. . .

Capt. Benjamin Agler, Supply Train, 4th Division
Diary



THE HARD LESSON LEARNED IN THE BATTLE FOR SOISSONS

No longer were masses of troops [to be] used in battle, for a few machine guns with well-directed fire would make short work of mass formations.

Pvt. Clarence Richmond, USMC, 2nd Division
War Diary




THE BATTLE IN THE AISNE-MARNE SECTOR CONTINUED FOR OVER A MONTH; TO THAT POINT IT WAS THE LARGEST BATTLE EVER FOUGHT BY AN AMERICAN ARMY

Soon after the beginning of an assault on strongly fortified heights overlooking the Ourcq River, Cpl. Manning took command of his platoon, which was near the center of the attacking line. Though himself severely wounded he led forward the 35 men remaining in the platoon and finally succeeded in gaining a foothold on the enemy's position, during which time he received more wounds and all but seven of his men had fallen. Directing the consolidation of the position, he held off a large body of the enemy only 50 yards away by fire from his automatic rifle. He declined to take cover until his line had been entirely consolidated with the line of the platoon on the front when he dragged himself to shelter, suffering from nine wounds in all parts of the body.

Corporal Sidney E. Manning, 42nd Division
Excerpt, Medal of Honor Citation



US Marne Memorial

Marne Memorial
Hill 204 Overlooking Nearby Battlefields






NOW IT WAS TIME FOR THE AMERICAN ARMY TO FIGHT AS AN INDEPENDENT UNIT; ITS FIRST MISSION WAS TO REDUCE THE ST. MIHIEL SALIENT

By 1916 the Germans had advanced from the Rhine to the town of St. Mihiel, about 140 miles due east of Paris. St. Mihiel was located along the base of a triangular front, which included considerable territory and which constituted a constant threat. Our objective was to throw the Germans back to the baseline of the triangle.

Dr. Wm. Hanson, 79th Division
Memoir, I WAS THERE



Thurs. Sept. 12th, 1918. Hiked through dark woods. No lights allowed; guided by holding on the pack of the man ahead. Stumbled through and under brush for about half-mile into an open field where we waited in a soaking rain until about 10 pm.

We then started on our hike to the St. Mihiel Front arriving on the crest of a hill about 1am. I saw a sight which I shall never forget. It was the zero hour. In one instant the entire front as far as the eye could reach in either direction was a sheet of flame while the heavy artillery made the earth quake. The barrage was so intense that for a time we could not make out whether the Americans or Germans were putting it over. After timing the interval between flash and report we knew that the heaviest artillery was less than a mile away and consequently it was ours.

Corporal Eugene Kennedy, 78th Division
Diary

Firing Gas Shells

Gas Shells Fired

Friday, Sept. 13th. A Great Day for the Americans. Our infantry is still pushing 'em back. Many prisoners are going by. We were at guns all morning, but had to stay in camp all afternoon. We are out of range and await orders to move up. Steady stream of men and material going up constantly. Two of our boys sneaked off and went up to the old Hun trenches and brought back lots of Hun souvenirs -- razors, glasses, pictures, equipment, etc.

Sgt. Edwin Gerth, 51st Artillery
Diary



I robbed every dead "Boche" I met where I thought I could get something, except at St. Mihiel where they were strewn like mown grass. I saw on this front without exaggeration, fifteen hundred on one field, also Yanks which were numberless. It was here we lost Paul J. Karney, our lieutenant of the second platoon, he was as fine a man as you could find in this A. E. F. He sure was a Prince, he was engaged to a Mount Holly girl, it sure did put a fighting spirit into us to see him get "picked off" . I helped to bury him under heavy shell fire and he lies buried in Vieville, 14 miles south of Metz. "Bump" O'Hara is buried here also. "Bump" was standing up straight and took off his helmet when a piece of shrapnel hit him across the forehead about one-half inch above his eyes. He never knew what hit him for he never regained consciousness.

Pvt. F. Rueppel, 311th Infantry, 78th Division
Letter

After the Battle



Souvenir Hunter Wearing
German Officer's
Dress Helmet




Or, visit any of the major sections of In Their Own Words...

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven
Before the War  Training   Arrival in 
France
Early Actions Second Marne/
St. Mihiel
Air War/
Meuse-
 Argonne 
End Game/
Armistice


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