Don Martin diary entry for Tuesday, June 4, 1918:
Waited
all day around Neufchateau for an auto to go to the Château Thierry sector.
Wrote three mail stories, one on how a city looks under bombardment; one on the
Red Cross women doing such noble work at Montmarail and one on France rallying
for her greatest test of all.
On June 4, Major General Bundy—commanding the 2nd Division—took command of the American sector of the front. Over the next two days, the Marines repelled the continuous German assaults. The 167th French Division arrived, giving Bundy a chance to consolidate his 2,000 yards of front.
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Don Martin wrote a story about the air war, which was published in the Paris Herald on June 5.
German Biplace Falls, Outfought,
to Lieut. Sewall
(Special Telegram to the Paris Herald)
American Front, Tuesday
Lieutenant Sewall, the American aviator, this morning brought down a German biplace observation machine inside our lines after a lively battle. The biplace was one of six German machines trying to take photographs of the American lines.
Four Americans attacked. Four of the German machines were monoplanes. All turned tail toward Germany and were pursued by our pilots, but escaped. Lieutenant Sewall picked out the biplace and attacked it. His adversary fired many rounds. Lieutenant Sewall maneuvered in such a manner as to keep out of range and waited until the German had exhausted his ammunition. Then he forced the biplace back over the French lines and sent a hail of bullets in its direction, forcing it to the ground. Don Martin
Don Martin's June 4 dispatch for Paris was published in
the Paris Herald on June 5.
AMEX PATROL IN CLASH
IN LUNEVILLE SECTOR.
(SPECIAL
TELEGRAM TO THE HERALD.)
AMERICAN
FRONT, Tuesday
In the Lunéville sector
last night an American patrol encountered a strong enemy patrol near the hamlet
of Ancerviller. The Americans endeavored to surround the enemy, but found
themselves being cut off by superior numbers and retired after a fight which
lasted more than half an hour. The American losses were slight; those of the
enemy are unknown.
Two more Germans in this sector have
deserted to the American lines on the Toul front. Ordinary patrol activity and artillery
activity were slightly increased.
DON MARTIN.
Don Martin wrote two mail stories, dated June 5, which were published in the June 30 Sunday edition of the New York Herald. In a thrilling (and very long) one, Don Martin told of watching American soldiers moving to the front, and of watching from
close by the shelling of Château-Thierry by the Germans and then by the French. Don Martin had finally gotten to where the action was and he was showing his talent for live reporting.
WITH THE HERALD CORRESPONDENT,
UNDER FIRE ON THE
MARNE
Don Martin
Watches Long Lines of Eager Americans
Tramp to Marne Battle
Herald Correspondent Sits Between the
Lines and Sees Struggle Along the Famous River and the Seizure of
Château-Thierry—The Flight
of Refugees
By Don Martin
Special Correspondent of the Herald
with the American Armies in France
[Special Cable to the Herald]
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN
FRANCE, June 5, 1918
A hundred miles of soldiers, marching,
packed in motor trucks, resting along the roadside, on horseback, mule back, on
ammunition wagons, artillery trucks!
Dragging a difficult way in the opposite
direction a steady stream of aged men, women and children, walking, riding on
jarring farm wagons, their all packed along with them; bedding, chairs, cooking
utensils – refugees making their second trip to land not threatened by the Hun.
It was a grim, sad, yet stirring picture of
war, of France rallying her mighty strength for another battle of the Marne;
her beautiful valleys just recovering from the devastation of 1914, again
within reach of the onrushing Hun, The allied line between Soissons and Rheims
and still further east has been attacked by the largest army Germany had
amassed during the four year struggle. It had bent. It had bulged dangerously.
The people of a hundred towns and a dozen small cities, recalling the terrors
and horrors which came with the first German invasion of this beautiful region,
were frightened. Dozens of villages were evacuated in a few hours.
In one
region I saw ten miles of small carts pulled by horses, oxen, goats and even
dogs trailing a picturesque way to the rear. On the faces of the old folks was
an expression of grim endurance. They had been through the ordeal before. Their
homes had been wrecked, their fields pillaged, and now after three and a half
years of upbuilding they were expecting to see a repetition of the destruction.
The children were pathetic pictures, snuggling close to their parents, or more
grandparents, or struggling along afoot, being half dragged through the clouds
of dust which at this time of the year literally sweep like sandstorms over
everything.
The Trade of Fighting Men
But while feeling the deepest sympathy for
the refugees—the greatest sufferers of the war perhaps—one could not help
turning his thoughts to the mighty line of hardy French, British, Americans,
who were rushing to the front to stop the tide of Germans that had for days
been sweeping over French villages and farms.
I saw the French poilu as it had never
before been my privilege to see him; hungry, dusty, tired, riding in ponderous
trucks (camions) which jolted and bumped along the roads, marching with full
equipment, head down, seeing nothing but the road directly in front of him, on
the way, probably, to death or injury, yet happy.
For ten hours in an automobile I passed this
picturesque stream of heroes and a thousand times received from poilus who were
stuffed in the trucks a hearty salute and a pleasant “Américaine.” Some were
fine looking young French boys whose red cheeks glowed beneath the dust which
whitened their ears and foreheads. Frequently they were singing some French
song the strains of which were strange to me.
I was told it was a college song and corresponds to this song in the
United States. “For it’s always fair weather when good fellows get together,”
etc.
Americans were in the line. One regiment was
marching side by side with some French soldiers, and it was a splendid thing to
see. The Americans, fresh, rugged, shoulders erect despite the pack of
seventy-five pounds; the French smaller, weather stained, scarred, too, from
four year’s experience. For it was one of the finest French regiments, and it
looked it.
Americans
were camped along the road. The boys in brown swarmed over wheat fields to rest
for an hour; they formed a terrace along two miles of road. Their guns were
stacked up in rows, their packs strewn about and many were writing letters.
British plodded along, artillery and infantry. Cingalese troops sprinkled
through the spectacular line, and French colonials from Africa added a touch of
color to the picture. At one point there is a straight stretch of road for
twenty-three miles with undulating hills. This stretch seemed a solid mass of
moving soldiers.
The Saviors of France
It was the army intended to save France.
Perhaps it should be said, rather, that it was part of the army which was to
save France from the last desperate attack of the desperate Hun, because along
other roads, all leading toward the same region, were similar lines of camions
and soldiers. And the railway lines as well were transporting their tens of
thousands in trains moving as rapidly as possible.
France was doing again what she did at the
first battle of the Marne. She was preparing to deal the Hun a crushing blow at
the point where his ambitions and his army were shattered in the first months
of the war. The difference was that now, instead of being practically alone,
she had the British with her in full strength, and in addition had the active
cooperation of a great army of virile, eager Americans, and furthermore she had
learned something of the methods of transporting troops by trucks and trains.
One inevitably wondered as he saw the tremendous
weight borne day and night—and in fact on a smaller scale for four years—over
these roads of France. It would be difficult to find in all the United States a
single road which could stand up for twenty-four hours under the strain put
upon the French roads during the last week or ten days, and the French roads
show but slight signs of wear. They are
practically solid concrete and even amid the stress of war are not neglected. I
saw Frenchmen, all old, with the exception of a few very small boys, waiting
beside the thoroughfares during the passage of the huge military trains to go
on with their work of repair.
All France was excited. She knew that the
crisis of the war had come, and, while no one doubted that the French would
find a way to check the flood of Germans in their sweep south and west, there
was uneasiness nevertheless.
In a city
about the size of White Plains [,New York,] the people went about the streets undecided
whether to move out or remain. They moved out in 1914 just in advance of the
Germans. The few who stayed still tell horrible tales of the inhumanity and
bestiality of the Huns.
Seeking the Americans
When the crucial period in the great battle
arrived I left the headquarters of the American army in the hope of getting a
view of the good side of the war but of the grim, heroic side as well.
Nearing the front I came across a regiment
of British artillery. It was in a small town waiting for orders. It had been
caught in the onrush of the Germans and was forced with the French and others
to withdraw.
“We’re in a hell of a shape,” said a brawny
lieutenant. “We’ve got our guns and nothing else. We wouldn’t have had them but
for a German prisoner we got. He told us the Germans were going to attack in
force at a certain hour, and we took him at his word and got out. If we hadn’t
we would have lost our guns, too.”
Another Briton had an interesting story to
tell about the capture of twenty-eight German trucks by the French. I learned
afterward the story was true. The trucks, loaded with Germans, stopped in front
of a wine cellar and the soldiers immediately filled up on strong wine, with
the result that they were found in the trucks dead drunk and were captured and
led back.
Every one everywhere was buttonholing every
one else for news of the offensive. Authentic news was not to be had. The
people knew only that the Germans were making their greatest offensive and that
a million men were being ruthlessly thrown into the conflict.
And everywhere
was the assurance from the Frenchmen:--
“It’s
all right. General Foch never failed yet. He won’t fail now. He’ll let them
come and when he is ready the Boche will be finished.”
All day and
night I was on the road, passing soldiers, trucks and refugees. A more
picturesque sight than tens of thousands of soldiers bivouacked along a
roadside, the embers of the evening fire showing deep red, with an occasional
soft chorus from a score or more voices, would be difficult to find. I stopped
for an hour with an American battalion which was camped for the night in a
wheat field. I found boys from practically every State.
Eager to be on the Job
“Some fight goin’ on,” said one.
“Yes, and probably you’ll be in it.”
“Thank the Lord for that! Fix
it up so we’ll be on the job tomorrow, can’t you?”
And that was
about the spirit of all the soldiers. None was more than twenty-five years of
age. Most of them were under twenty-three. All were in perfect health and in
high spirits. One lanky, powerful fellow volunteered the information that he
was from Winona, Minn., that he is a Norwegian; was for a time a deckhand
aboard a Dominion line vessel plying between Norfolk, Va., and New York City;
that he had enlisted in the British army in August 1914; that he had fought at
many places and when the United States entered the war got transferred to the
American army.
“Now,” he said, “I’m goin’ to do my first
fighting for Uncle Sam, and, take it from me, if I can lace into those Huns I’m
going to do it.”
The night I passed in a small town off the
main thoroughfares, which probably never in all its history saw more than a
dozen Americans. It is a quaint little place of three thousand inhabitants,
within twelve miles of where the Germans then were. The battle was raging at
the time on the front nearest to this place, and the people were naturally
somewhat excited, especially as the whirr of airplanes and constant cannonading
could be heard continually.
During the
night two full regiments detrained near this place and just after daybreak
marched in the village. Their line reached from one end of it to the other and
stretched out to the countryside. As the soldiers came in the people in the
town went to their windows; then, seeing an apparently endless line, dressed
and hurried to the street, where they stood half in awe and half in admiration
while the Americans marched by with steady, swinging step. The spectacle was
impressive. Waving from the ends of the guns of some of the soldiers were tiny
American flags. One man mounted on a mule had a tall stick, at the end of which
fluttered the Stars and Stripes, below it the flag of France and then the
British emblem.
A Singing Army
One company
came down the slope leading into the village, singing in perfect chorus all
through the village. First it sang the song which goes:
We’ve got artillery; we’ve got the infantry;
We’ve
got the cavalry;
And before we’re through we’ll all go to Germany!
To hell with Kaiser Bill!
They sang it
with real feeling and with more or less respect for the tune. Another song
which the boys sang and sang goes:
We’re here because we’re here
Because we’re going to
lick the Hun.
And take it straight from
Uncle Sam
We’ll stay until it’s done.
The simple
French people, mostly of the peasant class, were amazed at the number of
Americans. They cheered as the boys passed. Their favorite greeting was: --
“Beaucoup Americaine! Vive La
France! Vive L’Amerique!”
Americans
who had passed the day before through the region were already in the front line
near Château-Thierry, only a few miles away, and as the second contingent of
Americans stopped in the village, ambulances of a few Americans passed them.
The soldiers then manifested an even keener desire to hurry to the front. One
incident of touching character was seen in the streets of this village. A young
American soldier, with a badly wounded hand, was brought in a small automobile.
As he passed the colonel of the regiment he attempted to salute but was unable
to lift his shattered hand to the forehead. Instead he lifted it as high as he
could and bowed his head to meet it.
Moving to the Front
The soldiers moved out during the day. Later
they were trudging smartly along a roadway, every minute getting nearer and
nearer to the point where the French, with the Americans to aid, were preparing
to make another stand as the French did at Verdun --- with the motto on the
lips of all. They shall not pass.
From this place, I visited the region about
Château-Thierry, and finding the Germans were not yet in the city--it is a
beautiful place of about ten thousand people situated on the side of the Marne
with sloping hills on each side—crossed the river and spent a half hour in the
place with an American machine gun battalion. The Germans were about a mile and
a half from the place and were throwing shells into it. Many fell close to the
section where I stopped to talk with the machine gunners.
These boys were a merry lot. Like the others
I had talked to—regular army men—they were from no place in particular. They
came from all over. Most of them had lived once either in New York, Chicago,
Philadelphia or Boston, but the army is their home. Here they had a task which
promised much carnage—till they were killed or captured or all the Germans were
killed.
A ladylike assignment!
“Stick around,” said one of the soldiers. “You’ll see
something worth writing about maybe.”
“How long are you expected to stand your positions?”
“No particular orders—just stay. That’s all.”
“How much ammunition have you?”
“Enough to supply material for
a hell of a lot of Boche funerals.”
As it developed, these machine gunners never
had a chance to fire at Germans crossing the bridge, because the bridge was
blown up by the French and the Germans stopped in Château-Thierry. They were
waiting—just waiting.
The Germans came into Château-Thierry and
occupied several buildings, but the following morning a stunning surprise
awaited them. It was evidently assumed by them that the French had no guns with
which to shell the city, and in that assumption they were right on Saturday
night—the night of the day the city was entered. But it was not true the
following morning. In the same mysterious yet successful manner in which the
French accomplish so many things the French during the night massed a powerful
battery of heavy and small guns on the hills away back of Château-Thierry and
when daybreak came a veritable tornado of shells burst upon the city. The fire
was directed at certain points where the Germans were in hiding, or where
batteries were concealed.
On the road leading from Château-Thierry
south I saw two Germans severely wounded being marched ahead of two French
privates. The Germans were slightly weakened, apparently by their wounds and
wore bandages about their heads and arms. The Frenchmen permitted them to take
their time, and the French soldiers, as well as the Americans, who saw them
pass did not even look at them. A curious contrast to the German treatment of
French, British and American prisoners.
The following day on a journey which took in
a large part of the battle front as it then existed, the steady tramp, tramp of
allied soldiers to the front was heard. Thousands of the huge French cannons, which have done such marvelous service during the war, were travelling back
“somewhere,” and as I write they are no doubt rumbling along to the front again
jammed with French soldiers, who are without exception filled with the same old
“stay here or die” spirit which quickened the heroes who first turned back the
Huns at the Marne, the scene of the present and perhaps the vital battle of the
world war.
The shelling of a city does not present the
spectacular panorama the average person would expect. Through a chain of most
fortunate circumstances I was enabled to witness first the German and then the
French shelling of the beautiful town of Château-Thierry. German shells dropped
on it for six hours. No attempt was made by the Huns to hit any particular
spot. They fired at random, with the intention of forcing the French to
evacuate the town.
The French shelled it ferociously but with
discretion and excellent aim for twelve hours and at the end of both sieges it
was hard, even with strong glasses, to find a scar upon the town which seemed
secure and was magnificent in the sunshine.
There were scars, of course. There were no
doubt some very deep ones. There were many soldiers killed during the two
bombardments. Not a civilian remained when the shelling began. Men, women and
children, with all their portable personal and household effects, evacuated the
city a day before the Germans approached closely. Their homes were locked and
iron blinds, so common in France, were pulled tight. What the Germans did
during their occupancy can only be guessed. From the examples of barbarism they
have given in other places, it is probable that this city of handsome homes has
been sadly mutilated.
While the
Germans were shelling I was on the edge of the city. There was little to be
seen, though much to be heard. I could at most pick out the numbers on the
houses. Reasonably safe from anything but an unusual assault of some kind I
stood for four hours watching the proceedings. There was only scant German
firing at the time. The German batteries apparently had either been destroyed
or the gunners driven to shelter. Occasionally a gas shell came over our way,
falling with a dull spongy roar somewhere in the fields and spreading its
deadly vapors. Gas masks were ample protection against such a mild gas
bombardment. One big shell whistled over soon after the French batteries
started their furious bombardment, but the Hun gun was silent after that. The
one shell fell in a field, near nobody, and gouged a hole about ten feet in
diameter and three feet deep.
The Work of a Night
The shelling by the French no doubt caused
surprise as well as death and destruction among the Germans, who had from all
indications figured on a reasonably quiet occupation of the city. The French,
always doing the unexpected, performed what almost amounted to a miracle during
the night. They moved from somewhere a battery of large and small guns back of
the hills south of Thierry. They were mounted and ready for action at daybreak.
At the same time a score of French flyers were hovering about the line waiting
to attack any German observers who attempted to take photographs of or make
observations over the French lines. With these preparations and precautions the
French, just after daybreak, turned loose the furies of these powerful guns.
Some started with a terrific roar, others with a flat, staccato bang. The
shells went whistling on their errands of death; then others whistled after
them and still others, till in a half hour there was a continuous detonation
and an endless whirr and whine of the big shells.
No doubt it would have been well nigh
possible, had they desired, for the French to have practically leveled the
city, but it must be remembered that it is a French city; that it is a
beautiful city with an interesting history and is a beauty spot in the eyes of
all Frenchmen. So the shelling was done with the idea of driving out the
Germans and doing as little damage as possible.
A large mill
close to the edge of the city was the first target of the guns. I had my
glasses fixed on it when a shell struck near a window on the second story—it
was a three story stone building—leaving no record of its visit except a hole
which seemed to be about two feet across. Others struck near the base, which
was the apparent object of the gunners, doing little damage externally. A
hundred or more shrapnel shells burst just over the mill. The intention of the
gunners seemed to be to drive some one
from the mill, and it is very likely that such Germans as were in it found a
back way out and remained out.
Towns Hard to Burn
A few shells were dropped on a certain part
of the railway station and a piece of woods back of the mill was fairly deluged
with shells. It was almost wiped off the map before our eyes. Various points
back of the city and to the side of it were spotted and shells were rained upon
them. One struck in the city and started a fire, but the blaze was short lived.
French cities, being of stone, with practically no wooden structures at all, do
not burn readily. Shells were thrown into a tiny village about a kilometre from
Château-Thierry, doing little apparent harm.
When the French started shelling there were
trucks and soldiers in the roadways leading into the city. They quickly
disappeared. Two hours after the bombardment began I saw four German trucks
hurrying along a roadway. Instantly shells began falling in their vicinity.
They quickened speed. There was a cloud of dust and when it lifted I saw three
trucks scooting around a bend. What happened to the fourth can be readily
imagined.
I was about a kilometre from the village
while this shelling was going on. Nearby was a machine gun crew waiting for
anything that might develop. To get to the place I had taken a motor car to
within about three kilometres of it. Leaving the car in the shadow of some side
growths, I walked through a wheat field and to a thick woods. A path leads
through this woods. This, on a bright, sunshiny day, was midway between the
enemy lines, with shells whistling constantly overhead. Everything went like
clockwork. The gunners were constantly expecting to be shelled themselves, but
no shells came their way. The inference was that they had got the true range of
the enemy guns and had either destroyed them or shelled the regions so severely
as to make it necessary for the Germans to desert their posts and seek cover.
While
the bombardment was going on French airplanes were whirring constantly. Once
there were eleven over the city and the line. Away back over Château-Thierry a
German sausage observation balloon hung in the air, perhaps two thousand feet
above the ground. Several times our airmen started after it, but each time
turned back because of the fire of the German anti-aircraft guns.
In the second of the June 5 stories
mailed to New York Don Martin told of his visit to a hospital where
American nurses were doing what he termed “noble work.” One senses that Don
Martin’s view of war is hardening as he sees its ravages up close.
WHERE AMERICAN WOMEN
LABORED
TO AID WOUNDED
Five Hundred Men Brought
to Mrs.
Herbert G. Squires Hospital in One Night.
By Don Martin
Special Correspondent of the Herald
with the American Armies in France
[Special Cable to the Herald]
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN
FRANCE, June 5, 1918
In a French hospital close to the firing
line in the great battle of the Marne I saw a little group of American women
performing an heroic and noble task. Their names should be recorded, so here
they are:--Mrs. Herbert G. Squires, Miss Marian Hoyt Wyborg, Miss Susanne
Wills, Miss Mary Withers, Mrs. Mary Hammond, Miss Peyton and Miss Meunier.
And with them should be mentioned Captain
Sterling Beadsley, of Riverside Drive, New York, who is connected with the Red
Cross.
Mrs. Squires, whose husband was for many
years in the American diplomatic service, has been in hospital work for the
French government almost from the beginning of the war and has a remarkable
record. The women mentioned form her group of nurses and assistants. All are
women of prominence. Several of them are from New York City. The Misses Peyton
and Meunier are members of Miss Ann Morgan’s unit and, like their colleagues,
recently did what might well earn them a mark of distinction.
Their hospital is not a very large one. It
has never been overcrowded, but recently during the big German drive ambulances
by the score sped up to the yard and deposited dangerously wounded soldiers who
had been caught in a fierce bombardment from German guns. There was no
preparation for a great number of cases. The French nurses and physicians had
gone to another hospital far away, where there was a lack of help. No one
expected a flood of cases at the hospital where Mrs. Squires was. But the
ambulances kept coming. The Americans were in bad. The physicians were getting
ready for a night’s rest. In an instant all was activity.
500 Wounded in a Night
Between ten o’clock at night and daylight
500 wounded men were brought in. Many had legs and arms crushed, many had
terrible abdominal wounds and faces were shot away. There were French,
Cingalese, British and a few Americans. I saw a great room, once a dining room
in a convent, literally jammed with cots, on each of which lay a man suffering
with frightful wounds. These nurses handled them all. They worked without a
wink of sleep, and they worked all the next day and the next night without
rest. They saved many lives.
I visited the hospital in the midst of the
rush. American soldiers performing work for the Red Cross helped unload the
ambulances and carried the cots to the reception and operating rooms. A half
hour in this hospital this particular night would have furnished any one in the
world plenty of light on the horrors of war. The story is too ghastly to tell
in cold type. I should say that about every half hour during the night a cot
with a sheeted covering was quietly borne out the back way. With the
superintendent I walked through one of the wards.
“That man,” she said, pointing to a
Frenchman with his head completely swathed in bandages, “is terribly hurt. A
shell tore away practically three-quarters of his face, but he will live.”
Pointing to
another Frenchman, a man of almost heroic stature, who lay half naked, his
great, hairy chest heaving slowly, she said:--“An arm and a leg off—isn’t it
terrible, a great, healthy man like that?”
Pointing to
still another, a youth whose face was colorless, she said:--“Shot through the stomach—can
live but a few hours.”
Then, with a
touch of sorrow in her tones she indicated a young man, his eyes closed, who
seemed to be breathing peacefully.
“That’s our first American. He was hit by a
shell in a bombardment and a leg crushed so it had to be amputated. He was in
very bad shape but we feel sure now he will get well. He is a Brooklyn boy and
terribly brave. When he was told his leg would have to come off he said that
was all right, but he wanted to send a letter to his mother. He dictated it,
and all the poor boy said was that he thought he would come home, but if he
didn’t she must remember that he did his duty and was glad of it.”
And so it went. Four Americans came to the
hospital. All will get well.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Squires, “I have seen so
much of it all. I do hope now that the world has suffered so much it will be
willing to suffer some more—suffer until the German nation and the German
people have been punished for what they have brought upon the world. It all
seems to impress itself upon me so much more deeply now that I am seeing our
own fine boys brought in to the hospitals. It is inevitable, but it seems so
terrible, and they so far away from their loved ones. But the girls here take
fine care of them. They will want for nothing.”
Captain Beardsley, during the trying period
in the hospital, was everywhere where help was needed. Among other things he
helped with operations, though he is not a surgeon, and took farewell letters
in dictation from many of the English and Americans, afterward transcribing
them and adding a note of his own. The letters were all to the boy’s mothers,
and were practically in the same strain--just “I did my best, your loving son.”
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