June 11, 1918 - Don Martin tells tale of two AEF engineers behind German line

Don Martin diary entry for Tuesday, June 11, 1918: 

With [Edwin] James [New York Times] motored to the First Division headquarters in the vicinity of Beauvais. Saw hundreds of French camions on the roads. Had luncheon with American machine gun officers – a fine lot of chaps. Got a good story. Returned to Meaux and wrote a cable story of 500 words on German prisoners. During the evening [Sam] Johnson, [Lincoln] Eyre [New York World] and several others came into my room to talk things over.

          Don Martin's story of the exploits of two AEF engineers, dated June 11, was cabled and published in the New York Herald on June 12, 1918.

MARINES FOILED BIG HUN DRIVE 
ON AMERICAN LINES

Maps on Prisoners Show Plan Given Up 
After Blow by Pershing Men.

TOO TOUGH TO TACKLE, IS GERMAN DECISION

Two Engineers, Thirty-Six Hours Behind Foe's Lines, Capture Truck, Fight Way Out.

By DON MARTIN.

Special Correspondent of the Herald with the American Army in France.

[Special Cable to the Herald.]

Herald Bureau, No. 49 Avenue de l’Opera, Paris Tuesday. [Jun 11]

                Two engineers connected with the marines returned to their own lines with a remarkable story of their experiences a mile inside the Hun lines. They were on night patrol when they lost their way and took the wrong alley.

                      They found themselves in strange surroundings when they struck the road and waited for an approaching train of camions thundering in the distance. Supposing that the train was American or French, they jumped out and then opened fire on the camions, when they discovered it was a German train.

                  The Huns were flabbergasted and the Americans killed only three men in the first camion. They then leaped to the ground and attacked the second camion, having decided to fight their way through, having an abundance of ammunition and no lack of courage. The Germans, apparently believing the attack came from a large force, shouted "Kamerade'' as the Americans took possession of the first truck, and ran it a half mile ahead. There they deserted it and took to the woods, where they hid. They heard the Germans prowling around during the night and the Americans waited ready to fire, at any moment if discovered.

            Daylight came, and the Americans heard the Germans beating the woods and crawled on their bellies to a clearing in a wheat field, where they lay in the middle of the field still as death all day. At dusk they took to the woods, where they found machine guns massed everywhere.

             Stealthily they found their way through the blackness, hearing a shot fired at random now and then by a sentry, who, no doubt, heard a suspicious sound. They crawled over the line into their own lines to the amazement of their colleagues, who had given them up as dead or captured. The Americans saw thousands of Germans camped near the moving camions and lived for thirty-six hours with death hovering around them constantly. The only injury they received was a severe hunger. They say the Germans use machine guns almost as freely as rifles.

             Prisoners captured in the latest drive say the Germans planned a gigantic attack against the Americans but changed their minds after learning in the fight with the marines, also the Twenty-third and Ninth infantry, that the Americans were a tough proposition.

                To-day I saw data taken from the dead after the fight with the marines. Several had maps showing where supposed weak spots existed in the allied lines. Blood spots blurred most of the maps.

          Two short reports by Don Martin were published in the Paris Herald on June 12. The first reports on marines in the battle at Belleau Wood.

AMEX MARINES HURL BACK FOE 

IN FIERCE HAND FIGHTING

Belleau Wood, Strong Point of Vital Importance to Enemy, Is Swept Clear in Dashing Assault—Olive-Drabs Advance a Kilomètre and Rout Defenders.

By DON MARTIN.

(SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE HERALD.)

WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY, Tuesday [June 11]

            Members of an American division northwest of Château-Thierry are now masters of the Bois de Belleau, which the Germans were very eager to hold.

                  Furthermore, the Americans have taken upward of 300 new German prisoners after fighting, which began shortly before daylight this morning and continued for several hours. The Americans also took possession of a large number of machine-guns which the Germans on previous occasions had used with much success against the Americans.

            The Marines figured largely in this newest blow against the Germans. They have now a big score against the Hun on this part of the front.

              The attack of the Marines early this morning was made after a very heavy barrage. The Americans went over to the Germans and had a vigorous hand-to-hand clash with them, defeating them, on all sides. They captured such parts of the wood as were still held by the Germans—a large part had already been wrested from them—and are now in full possession of it. They made the attack on a front of about a mile in width and pushed the Germans back more than a kilometre. The prisoners make a rather notable numerical addition to the captives already made by this division of Americans.

Marines pose with captured German Minenwerfer
St. Mihiel Trip-Wire, January 2018

          A story with news obtained from German prisoners was also published in the Paris Herald on June 12. 

GERMANS REALIZE ADVANCE

FOLLOWS WILL O'THE WISP

Prisoners Tell of Diminished Morale and Rampant Disease—Erzberger Threatens.

(By DON MARTIN)

WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY, Tuesday [June 11]

              I to-day visited, among other parts of the line, the sector held by the American division and heard most thrilling stories which came from prisoners captured by this unit, the first of the Americans to get in the big battle line. Most interesting details concerning the situation in Germany, in the Rhine towns which have been bombed by the British, and the morale in the German army, were furnished by the German prisoners. Inasmuch as several of the prisoners are officers and many of the others men well above the average of German intelligence, the data thus obtained is regarded as very important.

             To begin with, the Germans say the morale in the army is not good because of the growing belief among the soldiers that the French cannot be defeated, no matter how far back the line is pushed. The soldiers were told—it seems from the prisoners' information—that the present offensive would bring the war to an end by July 1, but the soldiers realize that this is impossible.

             All these things, the prisoners say, are causing dissatisfaction in Germany and are causing a bad spirit to develop among the German soldiers, who now feel that they are being "driven" in the present offensive and are being sacrificed regardless of all the cost to the rank and file of the army and the German working population.

Disease Rampant.

             Furthermore, the prisoners have stated—and it should be said that the statements I make here are based on the summarized statements of thirty four of the most enlightened German captives—that disease is becoming rampant in Germany, that hygienic conditions are execrable, that the death-rate of children and infants of less than ten years of age (this the prisoners say is true and documents found in their possession bear it out) is 68 per cent. This is alarming the country, the captives say; in fact, it has caused such an agitation that within the last two weeks there was a conference in Heidelberg of the leading professors of science and the most eminent physicians. They issued a protest against hygienic conditions and a warning against the dangers which hover over the nation if the physical standard of the people, brought to the lowest ebb by scant food, is not improved quickly.

                 Abscesses are one of the epidemics of the country. Under-feeding and reduced blood resistance are held responsible.

                     It is stated also by the prisoners, and supported by documents found on some of the officers, that the wheat rations on May 16 were reduced from 200 to 160 kilos a week and that there will be further reductions pending the arrival of the wheat crop from the Ukraine. Also it was stated that the people of Germany are disgusted with the treaty resulting from the Brest-Litovsk conferences and as a result are clamoring against the Chancellor. [Matthias] Erzberger [moderate politician in Catholic Centre Party] is stirring up agitation in many parts of the empire and is accumulating a new and very large following which is disgusted with the war and threatening to cause genuine trouble if a victory is not laid before the people late in the summer.

                    Information was obtained also as to the effect of the British air raids. It is said that bombs have practically destroyed the Cologne railway station and that recently a bomb fell on a train in the station, killing 120 German soldiers returning home on leave. People in the Rhine towns are panic stricken and are leaving the various cities in great lines, their household goods packed on carts, in the same manner that the French refugees transport their earthly belongings from the towns which the German hordes have been attacking during the last four years. Coblenz has been badly hurt. Near one large city an acid plant was destroyed.