HISTORY
OF THE SEVENTY SEVENTH DIVISION
Phase V
From the Vesle To The Aisne
FROM THE VESLE TO
THE AISNE
THE Division
advanced. Almost four weeks on the stationary front along
the Vesle showed that the Division had only potentially
evidenced itself. Individual deeds of sacrifice, of
heroism, of courage, had been plainly manifested. It
remained only to coordinate these qualities in the
Division, to consolidate the powers of the parts into the
spirit of the whole, to fit the cogs of the wheels so
that all would contribute to the energy of the machine.
Major General Robert Alexander took command of the
Division at this stage. The well proved units of the
Division were, from this time on, moulded by him into an
uncrushable engine; its armor the unfailing resolve of
its enlisted personnel; its mechanism the courageous
leadership of its officers, and its pilot-the
Major-General. The advance was the first one in which the
Division had participated. It was hard going, but it was
satisfying work. Every man knew the Roche had been
hammered out of the Vesle, knew that he was now being
rewarded for the weeks of waiting, and rejoiced because
he was now tramping over the very ground from which the
enemy bad spit its iron hail at him a few hours before.
Every man took unto himself part of the glory, and
whispered to himself, " I have chased the Hun out of
here. " And so were born the pride and the
aggressive spirit of the Division.
A German Barrier
As early as
September 2d, American Observation Posts reported fires
and explosions in the enemy area, and vehicles and troops
bound north. The next day, Paars, Perles, Vauxcere and
Blanzy showed columns of smoke. The Boche was laying
waste to all as he slowly retired. The Infantry followed
him across the Vesle, bad a vigorous brush with him on
the steep heights above Haute-Maisons, where he had left
a rear-guard of machine-guns, and lost him on the table
land that stretched between the Vesle and the Aisne, so
fast did he move. French cavalry dashed ahead as far as
Vauxcere, where heavy fire prevented their going further.
The 77th moved more rapidly than the right and left
flanks, actually pulling the flanks along with it.
Further north, the pressure of General Mangin's army was
urging the German to withdraw his forces from the
inevitable pocket, which the 77th was fairly turning
inside out. Safe across the Aisne, and with outposts on
the narrow strip between the Aisne Canal and the river,
the enemy made another stand in front of the
fortifications running along the famous and many times
fought-over Chemin des Dames.
But it was not
without cost that the Boche left the Vesle, for a
harassing Artillery fire followed him closely. The ground
between the Vesle and the Aisne forms a table-land
covered with wheatfields, which falls off abruptly toward
the Vesle and completely dominates the area containing
Bazoches and Fismes. It is serrated with ravines running
up into it in a general north and south direction. Here
the Boche was greatly exposed during his withdrawal,
although some of his light pieces tried for a time to
hamper the American advance by shelling the Vesle Bridges
from the shelter of the ravines. His heavy pieces were
already across the Aisne, and were for a few days silent,
until they had been emplaced, when they sent a hail of
heavy shells over the entire plateau.
North of the Aisne,
where he had entrenched himself, he found the excellent
shelter of his former works, which had been improved, for
the purpose by his engineers. Here the terrain again
forms a plateau, which is a network of trenches and
strong-points cut into the soft sandstone. The Aisne
itself, at this point, has a breadth of 150 feet, and a
depth of about ten feet, and is bordered by flat meadows
and fields, which are inundated when the river is high.
On its south bank, at varying distances, runs a lateral
canal. Bridges cross the river at Pont Arcy,
Bourg-et-Comin and at Oeuilly.
The morning of
September 4th, the Division moved toward the Aisne. For
the first time, the troops saw what the constant fire
into Bazoches and Fismes had accomplished. Bazoches was a
ruin, and Fismes, while intact in some parts, was a mass
of tumbled stone in others. The men had been instructed
to be careful of traps and mines. At Bazoches, part of
the old Chateau Tower was still standing. Two Frenchmen
and an American were climbing through the mess of mortar
and rock, when a loud explosion occurred, throwing debris
high into the air. The Frenchmen were killed instantly,
but the American escaped injury. Near the scene of the
explosion lay some minenwerfer shells with the fuses in
them, intertwined with a tangle of wires. At Fismes, in a
cave, an officer found a 105 caliber shell under a table
covered with flowers, with a wire running to a sofa.
Engineers carefully took apart this trap, for the shell
had in it a fuse upon which a weight was ready to drop.
On the road between Blanzy and Fismes, a mine exploded
several days after the Infantry had passed over it.
The bridges over
the Vesle needed constant repair, as the infantry, the
heavy artillery and the transport wagons, camions and
combat trains rumbled over them. Shells fell closely
about the bridges, many times exploding in the bed of the
Vesle and throwing up huge geysers of water, mud and
stones. The enemy began a harassing fire upon Bazoches
the night of September 4th, which continued until the
Division left the geetor. Fismes was being heavily
shelled as the advancing columns crowded one another to
pass through. At Haute Maisons, an Artillery P. C. and a
Dressing Station were continually under enfilade
artillery fire, Owing to an exposed left flank.
At Fismes, a town
of considerable size, and a railroad center, the bridges
over the river had been destroyed. Artillery was halted
until the completion of a new one by the Engineers.
While, waiting in the main street, with the Third
Battalion, 306th Field Artillery, the Division Commander
expressed a wish to the Commander for Artillery support
for the Infantry, which had met with resistance further
on. Battery F was unlimbered, firing 79 rounds in half an
hour. Shortly after, the enemy shell-fire ceased. It is
not often that heavy artillery turns its cumbrous pieces
about on the road, to engage in desultory firing.
Fismes brought back
strong reminiscences of shattered Chateau Thierry. In
peace times, it was a beautiful town. Magnificent trees
had once lined the sides of its streets. Of these many
were blown to shreds, while others lay across the path,
cut to make an impediment to the American advance.
Troops continued to
crowd through the town. The 305th Artillery Regiment, and
the 154th Infantry Brigade established temporary
headquarters in the Hotel de Fismes, once the resort of
tourists, now the mark of shells. German dead lay about
the streets as evidence of the fighting through the town,
when the Boche held one end of it and the Americans the
other.
Division
Headquarters found that it must move from the Chateau
Bruyere. Yet the further forward one went, the greater
became the ruin and desolation. There seemed to be no
place suitable for the reception of the General Staff
officers and the lesser luminaries composing Division
Headquarters, to say nothing of the typewriter battalion,
without which it would have been impossible to win the
war. At length a place was selected, perhaps the
strangest Post of Command which Division Headquarters had
yet occupied.
On the road between
Chery-Chartreuve and Saint Thibaut was a place called the
Ferme des Filles, perhaps because there was once a farm
there. The only evidence upon which to base this
supposition was a shed consisting of a roof supported by
four uprights, with no sidewalls. From the road,
alongside which this shed stood, a narrow trail led tip
the steep side of the hill and ended in what will forever
be famous in the history of the Division as "The
Cave." The front part, to which there were several
entrances, was almost high enough to stand erect. From
this entrance chamber, narrow corridors cut from the soft
rock led back into the hill, branching and turning in
such a manner that it is doubtful whether anyone knew how
far the cave really extended or how large it was. This
portion of the cave was lower than the forward part, and
those who, for several weeks, lived and slept there
acquired an attitude almost simian.
Saint Thibaut
When the
installation of Division Headquarters was complete, the
cave was a cross between a menagerie and a madhouse. It
housed within its narrow limits the Stair, the
Intelligence Office, the Message Center, Field Artillery
Brigade Headquarters, a Telephone Central, a Radio
Station, six or eight telephones, always simultaneously
in use; a battalion of typewriters who every evening at
nine o'clock delivered a barrage which lasted almost till
dawn; to say nothing of an uncounted host of clerks,
orderlies, messengers and liaison officers. If ever one
doubted the American Army to be democratic, be needed
only to have looked into this cave-the Commanding General
snatching a few hours of sleep on his cot, with an
orderly stretched underneath it and a clerk nodding over
his typewriter only a few inches away. In the rear of the
cave was an indistinguishable mass of staff officers,
second lieutenants, buck privates and baggage. If it was
necessary to call anybody during the course of the night,
the orderlies started at the front end of the cave and
waked everybody, all the way back, until they got to the
right man.
The New Life Proved a Strain
During business
hours, which meant every hour in the twenty-four, the air
rang with shrill cries of " Qui est a L'appareil),
" " Stenographer! " " Message Center!
" and " Give me a 20,000 Chemin des
Dames!" punctuated by the sounds of 77's exploding
in the woods and valleys below and the raucous responses
of German prisoners, who were being interrogated.
The new life proved
a strain, and it is no small testimony to the iron nerve
and dauntless courage of the Division Staff that after
two weeks they emerged from this bedlam, not as gibbering
idiots, but still able to function intelligently and
successfully.
The enemy now
became still more active in the air than he had been, and
sent his platies over in groups of from four to a dozen.
Thirteen of his balloons were counted one, (lay, close
together on the Division sector. Ile had excellent
observation over the whole of the Vesle-Aisne plateau,
but from the, plateau itself, American observers were
enabled to spy far back into enemy territory.
No Man's Land
No movement that
took place by day in the towns of Bourg-et-Comin, Pont
Arcy, Ocuilly, Beaurieux, Pargnan, Moulins, Vendresse et
Tryon, and on the roads leading into those places escaped
the keen eyes of the men in the Observation Posts. It was
only beyond the range of the Artillery Brigade's 155's
that the Boche was at all daring. On the Vendresse et
Tryon Road, men and transports moved north continually in
broad daylight. A little further behind the Boche lines,
a wagon park offered a tempting artillery mark. But the
long-range rifles of the Corps Artillery had been
withdrawn for another sector, and the Division's
Artillerymen could only sit and fume because their gun
was short and stubby, and would shoot but a scant seven
miles! As a rule, not a German was to be seen in the rear
areas by day.
By September 5th,
the Division's line extended through the Bois de la
Vicomte, Bois des Genettes, Pierre ]a Roche, La Butte de
Bourmont, Revillon, and around the village of Glennes,
the latter being on the front of the
Division on the
right flank, which had not closed up. The enemy was then
entrenched strongly between the canal and the Aisne and
in the old French works behind La Petite Montagne, about
one kilometer south of the
canal and two
kilometers south of the river. A sniper gun is thought to
have fired from behind the mountain, close to the
Division front, but the fact was never established. The
mountain was subjected to intermittent barrages by
friendly artillery. In several places, furtherwest, the
infantry patrols crossed the Aisne.
To simplify
operations, the Division front was divided into the right
and. left sub-sectors. The 153d Brigade covered the left,
the 154th the right. By September 10th, the line of the
right sub sector was advanced to a point 400 yards west
of Revillon and to St. Pierre Fertile and the left
sub-sector bad reached the Aisne. The village of Glennes,
where the Germans had strongly established themselves,
now stood in the way of a flanking movement against the
formidable La Petite Montagne, and it was planned to take
the village. As this was not a 77th Division objective,
the Division offered to "go halves" with the
division on its right. The division on the right did not
think it could spare the men, so the 77th decided to bear
the burden alone.
The men, though
exuberant, were by this time fatigued by the rapidity of
the advance, although hot meals had been brought up
throughout. The fighting elements must have hot meals to
work efficiently, General Alexander had insisted, and, as
a result, ration parties could be seen, day and night,
making their way through the old French trench system
which lay north of Vauxcere, and extended north toward
the Aisne. Through the heaviest of shell-fire, these
carrying parties forwarded hot food as though there were
important messages in the pots instead of merely
"chow. "
While in a cave at
La Petitie Logette, where the Germans had placed a
leaking gas shell, General Evan M. Johnson was gassed and
evacuated to the rear. In this emergency, Major-General
Alexander sent for General Whittenmeyer, commanding the
153d Brigade. Late that night, through the driving rain,
and a piercing wind that swept across the plateau,
General Whittenmeyer rode from his Post of Command at
Vauxcere to The Cave. He appeared before the Major
General with the raindrops dripping from his silver-grey
hair, saluted, and waited in silence for his senior to
speak.
Major-General
Alexander explained that the 154th Brigade had
temporarily lost its commander;
"I want these
troops organized and ready to attack in the
morning," the Division Commander concluded.
General
Whittenmeyer, tall and broad-shouldered, heedless of the
water that ran in little rivulets from his cap to his
slicker and down his boots to the ground, saluted again,
saying with a voice that had in it the air of finality:
"Very well,
Sir."
Those three words were the General's signature. The next
morning, the Brigadier phoned that be was ready to
attack, as ordered.
The 77th Division
was to take part in this operation covering the left
flank of tile 62d French Division on its right, by
advancing its lines from the heights of Merval to La
Carriere, which was the western exit of Glennes. The
Artillery was to fire on Revillon, La Petite Montague,
Haut de Cuchery and Maizy. One battalion of the 154th
Brigade was to be used in attacking; its left to be
covered by a detachment which was to take La Carriere.
Machine guns were to fire on Revillon from the slopes
north of Merval, Serval and Barbonval.
On the 13th of
September, with all these preparations made, came the
order for a relief. The Italians were coming in to take
over the sector. General Garibaldi, a grandson of the
Italian Liberator, was in command of the relieving
division, every member of which wore a red silk
handkerchief in the upper right-hand pocket of his
uniform, the gift of an American woman. The Division was
well on its way out of the sector on the night of
September 13th, a Friday, with the Boche firing farewell
salutes over the whole plateau. The relief was a welcome
one for the Division, after over a month of continuous
fighting. The 77th bad entered the sector a recruit
Division. It left it a veteran one, prepared for any task
that was to fall to its lot.