3rd Division
3rd   Division


IN THEIR OWN WORDS ...



Part Six



Time Frame: Air War thru Meuse-Argonne,
      Fall 1918




LT. STUART EDGAR, 103rd AERO SQUADRON (Prev. Lafayette Escadrille)
KILLED DURING TRAINING, AUGUST 1918

OVERHEAD AN AIR WAR WAS RAGING

... Saw a German plane come right over our heads and go thru a machine gun barrage and shoot down an observation balloon nearby. When the balloon was in flames, he circled around and emptied his machine gun into the parachute which was drifting slowly to the ground with the observer. Don't know if observer was killed or not. Boche plane got away.

Sgt. Edwin Gerth, 51st Artillery Diary


... Eddie Rickenbacker came up to see if he could get confirmation from us for a plane he brought down. Luckily it was one our ground observer had seen fall. So we wrote out a confirmation, and I signed it. They don't get any credit for the German planes they shoot down, unless it is confirmed by two other planes or some ground observation post sees it actually hit the ground.

Lt. Birge Clark, Balloon Observation Corps
Unpublished manuscript, WORLD WAR I MEMOIRS



Dearest, Sweetest, Bravest Mother:
First let me tell you of the fight. I was leading a large patrol of our machines on July 31st, and gave battle to an equal number of German aeroplanes at an altitude of 18,000 feet. I picked out one man who hovered above the rest for my adversary. We fought for 15 minutes without touching each other with our machine guns. Suddenly a third machine swooped up from below, and before I could turn fully upon him he had opened fire and unluckily wounded me severely in the left arm. My engine was also put out of commission. Nevertheless, I had plenty of altitude to make France and started to glide. But my opponent wanted to make sure of [success] and followed, firing all the while. This caused me to zigzag and lose distance, in order to avoid his bullets.

Finally, I landed safely, Lord knows how, in a shell shot field, crawled out of my machine, saw strange uniforms on soldiers, and fainted. I was a lucky man to get down alive - [from] 18,000 ft. with one arm.

I don't remember much that passed in the next three days, until I found myself being well cared for in a German hospital. A little later I was moved further into Germany to this hospital. Here I am excellently cared for ... [Lt. Winslow's arm was later amputated.]

Lt. Alan Winslow, 94th Aero Squadron
Letter

Lt. Alan Winslow

Lt. Alan Winslow, 94th Aero Squadron


[In] Oct. I was lucky enough to bring down a Boche plane. We just received official confirmation today and will get the French War Cross, the 'Croix de Guerre.'

"We were over the German lines and had finished our mission and had started for home when 13 Boche jumped us. There were three planes in our flight, separated by several hundred yards. Five came after me. When one got in range, we put a stream of lead through his plane and he went down and burst into flames. A balloon observer saw it and sent in the confirmation.

1st. Lt. W. J. Chamberlain, 91st Aero Squadron
Letter


... It is very dreadful to see the young stricken down in their golden morning.

Theodore Roosevelt on the death of his aviator son,
Lt. Quentin Roosevelt, KIA July 1918,
THE ROOSEVELT FAMILY OF SAGAMORE HILL



BY FALL OF 1918 THE US AIR SERVICE INCLUDED 740 PLANES IN 49 SQUADRONS





THE ALLIES RECONSIDER THE YANKS

"[The Americans] former enthusiasm, somewhat curbed, has given way to a calm attentive serious attitude as they seek to perfect themselves in the tactics of modern war."

"The true qualities are emerging: intelligence, judgment, reflection, energy and tenacity."

"They've got what it takes to finish the war."

Official records and the article, THE AEF THROUGH FRENCH EYES, by Lee Kennett


INTO THE ARGONNE FOREST

On the very day the St. Mihiel salient fell, trucks driven by Indo-Chinese soldiers picked us up and drove us to a wooded area in the center of the [Verdun] salient, which was bounded by the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River ... I had never before heard of the town that would be one of OUR principal targets, but within a week the whole world was to hear of it. It was called Montfaucon.

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


... After a tiresome, weary march through shelled road, devastated villages and destroyed forests, we advanced to the Argonne Forest, arriving and relieving the French at about three in the morning of September 26, 1918.

... Boy! Oh boy! What a beautiful sight just about dawn. It was light enough so that you could see for a hundred yards or so and stretched along was our first wave as straight as possible, skirmish formation advancing steadily as if we were on parade. Sergeants led about 10 paces ahead and spaced every 20 feet, lieutenants and captains a few paces more advanced with their automatic pistols in one hand and pistols in the other.

Sgt. Joe Rizzi, 110th Engineers
Memoir, JOE'S WAR - MEMOIRS OF A DOUGHBOY


Advancing in the Argonne Forest

Advancing in the Argonne Forest


"Which way is the 157th Brigade PC?" I says. "General Nicholson's PC?" But they never said nothing [back] at all. Because they was -- doughboys going up in the lines, and when you hear somebody talk about doughboys singing when they're going to fight, you can tell him he's a damn liar and say I said so. Doughboys when they're going up in the lines they look straight in front of them and they swaller every third step and they don't say nothing.

PFC James M. Cain, 79th Division
Short story, THE TAKING OF MONTFAUCON



That evening, about dusk I saw an unforgettable sight ... I am lying down in the field ... In front of me to my left I see the Hill and the battered town and fortress of Montfaucon. An attack is in progress. Soldiers are advancing up the hill with rifles and fixed bayonets in hand. They are filtering through the ruins, slowly but steadily. Shells are falling and crashing among them. Smoke and flying debris dot the hill. It is a gripping scene, a dramatic war picture, and here I am actually seeing it.

Sgt. Maximilian Boll, 79th Division
Unpublished manuscript, FIRST JOURNEY

Tank in Argonne Village

Fighting in Argonne Village


Yesterday evening I started out with Captain Driscoll & Lt. Evans to set up an advance post -- but we found the former no man's land absolutely impassible except for foot and horseback, -- so we couldn't carry our equipment up. Roads were filled with supply and munitions trains which had the right of way.

Sgt. Sidney Adams, 91st Division
Unpublished manuscript, LETTERS TO MY FATHER, EPHRAIM D. ADAMS

Argonne Forest

Terrain in the Argonne





AS THE MEUSE-ARGONNE CAMPAIGN BOGS DOWN TEMPORARILY, OTHER AMERICAN UNITS ADVANCE WITH THE ALLIES IN FLANDERS WITH KING ALBERT AND IN THE SOMME SECTOR WITH THE BRITISH ARMY. IN THE CHAMPAGNE, ALONGSIDE THE FRENCH ARMY, THE 2ND AND 36TH AEF DIVISIONS WIN A DESPERATE, BUT FORGOTTEN BATTLE


. BLANC MONT RIDGE


..The greatest achievement of the 1918 Campaign.

Marshall Petain
Memoirs



The morning of October 3 [1918] came gray and misty. From midnight until dawn the front had been quiet at that point-- comparatively. Then all the French and American guns opened with one world-shaking crash. From the Essen Trench the ground fell away gently, then rose in a long slope, along which could be made out the zigzags of the German trenches. The Bois de Vipre was a bluish mangled wood, two kilometers north. Peering from their shelters, the battalion saw all this ground swept by a hurricane of shellfire ... [and] Red and green flames ...

Continued Below...

Zero Hour Approaches

Typical Advance Trench



Four infantry regiments [2 Army, 2 Marine] were thrust saw-wise northwest to northeast of Blanc Mont; all were isolated from each other and from the French, who had lagged behind the flanks ... The second-in-command was conscious of a strangely mounting sense of the unreality of the whole thing ... There was Lieutenant Connor, who took a shrapnel dud in his loins, and was opened horribly ... Then there was, oddly audible through the din, the unmistakable sound that a bullet makes when it strikes human flesh ... I saw a long, crumpled, formless thing on the ground turned to the sky [with] blind eyes in a crawling mask of red.

Continued Below...

German View from Blanc Mont

View From German Position Atop Blanc Mont


THE 2ND DIVISION, DECIMATED AND NEARLY SURROUNDED, SURVIVES

... After certain days, the division was relieved. The battalion marched out at night. The drumming thunder of the guns fell behind them and no man turned his face to look again on the baleful lights of the front. On the road they passed a regiment of the relieving division--full, strong companies of National Guardsmen [of the 36th Division]. They went up one side of the road; and in ragged column of twos, unsightly even in the dim and fitful light, the Marines plodded down the other side. They were utterly weary, with shuffling feet and hanging heads ... .And they were spent. If there was any idea in those hanging heads it was food and rest ...

Capt. John W. Thomason, USMC, 2nd Division
From semi-fictional memoir, FIX BAYONETS



... A hundred and thirty-four of us had come back from Blanc Mont ridge. We had gone up a full-strength battalion, a thousand strong.

Pvt. Elton Mackin, USMC, 2nd Division
Memoir, SUDDENLY WE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE




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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