HISTORY
of
THE 306th INFANTRY
By
Julius Ochs Adler
1935
Behind
the British Front
FROM the time of our arrival at Calais
until we left the British Sector, our work and our
emotions might be summed up in one
word-"Turmoil." We moved into the British rest
camp as soon as we arrived and here we found a new
language and certainly a new ration. For breakfast we had
jam and tea; for dinner-jam, tea and meat; for
supper-jam, tea, and cheese. We had expected bacon and
eggs for breakfast and similar dishes for dinner and
supper. We were not tea drinkers, and missed the good old
Mocha. Major Bulger, with his constant sense of humor,
was the only thing that saved the situation. However, the
French estaminets were running wide open and our
"dollar per" certainly came in handy in helping
out the meager menu.
We walked about the streets in Calais and at last
realized that we were part of an international army. We
encountered British, French, Belgians and Portuguese, all
members of the Allied forces with which we were to be
associated in this war. Some of us who were historically
inclined inspected the old forts built by the great
Cardinal Richelieu as a defense against the English.
Others sought the easily acquired dictionaries in an
attempt to learn a new language. A curious mistake
occurred among the French people on their first sight of
our officers. The insignia of rank on the overcoat sleeve
was taken for wound stripes and the officers became
heroes at once in the eyes of their French friends. Of
course the "Second Louie" was
"S.O.L.": he had no stripes.
The rest camp was a target for the German bombers on
their periodical trips to the coast and so often did they
drop their bombs that some sergeant in the Regiment
propounded the conundrum, "When is a rest camp not a
rest camp?"
Each day developed some new problem, designed, we were
sure, to bring about greater turmoil and confusion. We
drew the British gas masks and helmets, and then had to
turn in our trusty Springfields and take Lee-Enfields as
substitutes. There was a reason for this, but how we did
hate to give up the Springfields with which we had led
the Division at target practice at Camp Upton!
The 1st Battalion had left Calais before we arrived, and
on the 6th of May the remainder of the Regiment was
loaded in small French cars and after a short ride
detrained at Audricq. From there the Headquarters marched
to Bonningues, where it joined the 1st Battalion; the 2nd
Battalion went to Norbecourt, and the 3rd Battalion to
Landretham.
The 2nd Battalion was out of luck, for after getting
comfortably settled in its billets at Norbecourt, it was
moved to Licques, and after settling there, in less than
a week was moved again, to Audenfort.
Our training staff was from the British 39th Division,
and Brigadier General Wyeth was in immediate charge of
the training of our regiment. Schools were the rage.
Rifle schools, machine-gun schools, bayonet schools-and
each under a British instructor, to whose language we had
to become accustomed . . . "Carry on,"
"Cheerio," "Smartly now, smartly ... ..
Stand easy" ; but the one which seemed to fit the
situation, insofar as we were concerned, was "Fed
up." And there was rain, those downpours so typical
of "Sunny France." A demonstration platoon
showed us how to do everything, even to singing on the
march.
At night we could hear the rumble of cannon in the
vicinity of Kemmel Hill and "Wipers," and it
was not long before our friend, the Boche, was notified
of our arrival. His bombers first visited Division
Headquarters near Eperlecques and here occurred the first
eight casualties of the Division. A week later they
dropped a bomb in the yard of the chateau used as
Regimental Headquarters, but fortunately with no damage.
It was our first experience with the French billeting
system, and with "Monsieur Cootie" with whom we
were to become so intimately acquainted and who, insisted
on occupying our beds with us. Barns, cow-stalls, and
what we later guessed to be pigpens were used as billets.
However, this was all a part of what we had been told to
expect and I we were now beginning to find ourselves in
this constantly growing turmoil of war.
The British here were not quite as optimistic as the
major r we met in Folkestone, for here we were informed
that we "had come too late," and that
"they were only waiting to see what terms the
Germans would give them." This did I not sound good
to us, for we had come a long way to take part in this
great adventure and we could not see it come to an end
without getting in at least a lick or two.
Officers were sent in small parties to the British Front
to get a taste of what a real war was. They were taken I
as near the lines as possible in buses and when these
could I not proceed any farther, hiking was in order. On
one of these visits Captains Wolff and Johnson were
detailed to visit the front and were taken to the
trenches held by the New Zealanders in front of
Bois-les-Artois. At Division Headquarters they were wined
and dined in the usual Brit-ish manner. The next morning
they were taken to Regimental Headquarters and again here
they were treated most hospitably, and in company with
runners started for the front line trenches. While on
their way, they met another runner conducting a very
important-looking officer.
"Whom have we here?" he stopped to inquire.
"The American Army," replied Captain Wolff.
"What a shame, one gas shell and the American Army
would be annihilated !"
He was the Commanding General of the British Division
in that sector and had been making his daily round of the
front lines.
Our visiting officers found the Englishman would not give
up his tea habit and at four o'clock he stopped fighting.
He must have his tea! The Boche -was a most discourteous
fellow for interrupting this national custom.
There were maneuvers and long marches, but the prize of
them all was the "Battle of Watten." The
Regiment received its orders to march, but no one could
interpret them. Was it a permanent move, was it a
maneuver, or was it a temporary change of base? Not
knowing the answer, the only thing to do was to move
everything, and some of the men tried to move it all in
their packs. The march was about eighteen miles and we
were supposed to take over " the trenches"
immediately upon our arrival at our destination. It was
the hottest day in May. Flat feet began to show up, men
began to fall out, ambulances were busy and new
vocabularies were being invented every minute. The best
that can be said is that sometime during the night the
battalions were in place, the "trenches" were
taken over and a bogus counter-attack was repulsed.
Headquarters of the Regiment was, established in a small
bedroom on Ferme-du-Ham, where the furnishings consisted
of one bed, two chairs and a broken-legged table. A
telephone was installed to the front line, and maps were
spread out on the bed as the Colonel and his Adjutant,
Captain Thacher, prepared to order proper counter-attacks
against the assaults of the "enemy," which were
represented by squads of "Tommies" under a most
enterprising and energetic young Britisher.
Wires were kept hot with messages of bogus raids, machine-gun fire,
grenade attacks; and then, to cap the climax, every general within
twenty miles came in to inspect -the Division Commander, the Brigade
Commander, the Commanding General of the adjacent brigade, the Commanding General of the British 37th Division; and,
finally, when headquarters was beginning to congratulate
itself that these visits had ceased, in walked General
Plumer with his staff of glittering "Brass
Hats." The General asked the Colonel if there had
been many visits of inspection, to which the Colonel
replied, "Yes, sir-it has been raining Generals all
day." It took but a moment for the General to
understand, but it apparently was a hopeless task to
explain it to his staff. The General did not hear the
last of it until he left the shores of France.
It was on this march that Major Bulger suffered a serious
injury in a fall with his horse and was later evacuated.
He did not join us again till after the Armistice.
Captain Thacher was assigned to command E Company and,
later, the 2nd Battalion, and Captain Wolff was appointed
Adjutant.
We did not have an easy time during the entire period we
were in the British Sector, but the "Battle of
Watten" takes the prize for any three days during
our whole stay in Pas-de-Calais.
Rumors were rife. A move was in the air which on the 6th
of June became a reality. We bade good-by to our English
friends and marched south, passing through the little
towns of Wavrans, Lugy, Crepy, Mortringham, Lisbourg and
Elnes. There was nothing in these towns to buy. They had
been used for billets for three years and there was not a
chicken in sight. "CEufs" were not to be had.
On the 9th of June we entrained at Anvin in the famous
"40 hommes et 8 chevaux." As a rule, two partly
demolished passenger coaches were attached to these
trains for the officers, but it was not unusual to see
them vacating the coaches in a short time to take refuge
in the "40 and 8's."
On our last day's march before entraining at Anvin we
passed along the sunken road on the battlefield of
Agincourt, a battle fought on the 25th of October, 1415.
Here a young English officer who had made a study of this
battle described it to a party of our officers. The
English and French were drawn up in opposing lines about
three hundred yards apart in plain sight of each
other-archers, crossbow-men, knights in heavy armor,
dismounted men-at-arms, and battle-flags by the score.
Here was all the panoply of war. Fanfares were sounded
and war drums rolled, challenges were given and accepted
and both sides signified their readiness. Finally the
English, under Henry the Fifth, became weary of waiting
and moved to the attack. What chivalry ! What a spectacle
! And here we were in the twentieth century with every
modern convenience and weapon of war preparing to fight
from trenches and, from what the British had told us,
chivalry was entirely lacking.
On the morning of the 10th we were
awakened early and had our first taste of French
coffee-and-rum. That was all the hot food we had that
day; the rest of our meals came from
"airtights" carried in the cars. On the 13th,
Headquarters detrained at Hadigny, the 1st Battalion at
Rambervilliers, the 2nd Battalion at Chatel-Nomexy, and
the 3rd Battalion at Charmes. We had paralleled
practically the entire Allied battlefront-through
Saint-Pol, Doublens, Amiens, Clermont, Paris, Vitry,
Commercy and Toul.
After a three-day march from the small village of Romont,
through Fontenoy, Badminil, Vaxainville, Azerailles,
Gelacourt and Baccarat, Regimental Headquarters was
established on June 19th at Brouville, with the three
battalions in camp at Camp de Grand Voivre, which we
considered too good a name for what the men of the
Regiment termed "Camp Mud." We had arrived in
the Baccarat Sector, which had been used for the past
three years to rest up tired and worn-out divisions of
the Allied forces, and where we were to make our first
contact with the enemy. We knew we had arrived at our
destination, for the day following the establishment of
Regimental Headquarters a German plane came over and
dropped leaflets which read, "Good-by, 42nd
Division. Hello, 77th."
We had spent practically two months with the, British,
and at last we were in the trenches on the Western Front.