The evening world. Newspaper, September 8, 1919, Page 14

Turning Out Fighting Men = First Division's Record; = Supplied Its Own Generals, Gave Other Divisions Many «Division Furnished Moral Encouragement That = Stiffened Spine of France—Made Reputation © for Holding Whatever It Was Given to Hold and for Getting Whatever It Went After in a « a we. Battle. \ og in Pieardy. ° PE CRIERE GUNES ARNT GRETNA BM ny a ePN A a J By Martin Green Copyright, 1019, by The Press Publishing Co, (The New York Evening World). ELL, here goes, even if my triends in the 24 Division, 3d Division, 6th Division, 26th Division, 27th Division, 28th Division, 424 Division, 77th Division and other divisions sentence me to be shot at sunrise, A wr! form takes about Une trench sticking his head over the parapet. Yes, 1 think the ist Division was the best division im the American thought so. 1st Division. Shoot! Perhaps my belief is influenced by sentiment. Ist Division was On the occasion of 1918, the Ist Infantry Brigade of the 1st Division was a the sector southeast of Si. Mihiel under the ans of Mont Sec. I |, aiwent into the trenches for the first time under the escort of Major Griffith the 1st Division, who was killed four monthe ‘later, almost under my bee) My first close-up of no man's land "Rt night was taken from the firing of a front line trench held by of the 18th Infantry, of the Ist for Iwasa Division when I the first time the whine of gun bullets whizzing over For confirmation of this statement I refer to any officer or enlisted man, active or retired, in the iter per‘orming as 1 am cbout to per- the sarse chance as a soldier in a front Expeditionary Force. I have always The the first unit I ever saw in action, my first visit to the front, in January, MAJ. GEN. W. LL. SIBERT FIRST COMMANDER OF Bivision. &@ French 155 or a French 75, the lat- ter having by that time achieved the reputation of being the handiest, quickest and most effective piece of light artillery ever turned out. SPEED IN GRASPING INSTRUC- frain from comparisons, nor shall I attempt to give a history of the ist Division's activities in the war. The record of the division has been writ- ten many times and will appear in print many times in the next few TION AMAZES FRENCH. days, But I feel that-there is some-| The quickness with which the off- thing kbout the 1st ‘Division that can-|cers and enlisted men of tpe artillery not be written too many times nor/learned how to operate the strange too often im; upon the public.| guns was a revelation to the French It is the battle casualty report, inétruction officers. It is permissibte, Mnlisted | think, to say here that the Ist Poo aes] Division Artillery soon became a 19,699) CTAck organization and was highly ag| considered by the French artillery 1,060] 2uthorities long before any other American unit got into action. It was not until January, 1918, that I made my acquaintance with the ers, of whom 165 were officers. Division. The correspondents supplied its own general officers and| Were quartered in a little valley town furnished. to other’ commands one|!n the Vosges called Neufchateau, |, army commander, three corps com-pWhich had been selected for us be-> mandera, four division comtwanders| Cause it was the only town in that and various brigade commanders and| Part of France convenient to general Killed and died of woun: By MARTIN. GREEN Evening World’s Special War Correspondent Attached to the First Division MAJOR GEN. WILLIAM L, SIBERT, June 5, 1917, to Dec. 12, A917. MAJOR GEN. ROBERT L, BULLARD, Dec. 13, 1917, to June 30, 1918, and from July 7, 1918, to July 15, 1918. MAJOR GEN. CHARLES P. SUMMERALL, July 1, 1918, to July 6, 1918, and from July 16, 1918, to Oct. 11, 1918, BRIG. GEN, FRANK E. BAMFORD, Oct. 12, 1918, to Qcet. 417, 1918. BRIG. GEN, FRANK PARKER, Oct, 17, 1918, to Nov. 17, 1918. "MAJOR GEN, E. F. M’GLACHLIN JR., Nov. 18, 1918, to date, Living Insignia of Division Generals Who Commanded the First Division xa \ bad RESENT MANDEM almost every night, and one of those patrols landed the first German pris- oner of the war. The surviving offi- cers and men who were engagag in that incident talk about it to this. day. GIVING THE GERMANS A TASTE OF ACTION, It appears that there existed be- tween the German commands and the French commands on certain sectors an understanding that the regular ‘War was a long way off. In these sectors the soldiers on both sides lived without thought-of combat. The |_Frengh saved amrhunition and so did the Germans, Ours had been one of those districts until the Americans came in, Charles P, Summerall, then a Brig- adier General, was in command of the three artillery regiments of the division, He was afterward, as a Ma-| Jor General, Commander of the en-| tire division, If there is anything Gen. Charles P. Summerall hates it is in- | been chiefs of staff, It was a fighting divi- headquarters ate¢Chaumont and our action BAMFORD ‘head and first felt the shock of ‘explosion of & big shell close by. a time I was attached by orders headquarters to the 7th Field u of the ist the iat’ Division. =| Division go into opposite Montdidier and Can- Y, and was with the Ist Division Ale advance :on teau-Thierry the S§dissons- road = when launched ‘the big offen- in Jujy, 191 of the which marked the end of the war. 1 the ist Division grow from a organization of amateur sol- into @ superb, self reliant, re- and irresistible fighting ma- Jove the Ist Division. jes of the days I spent with it, Hing courtesy and cheer- \ 6 officers und men, of the id and the wet and the mud and BXOGhe dlictering sunshine, Closing my Wives now 1 conjvte up a vision of balloons overhead, and black shrapnel the blue of the sky, and 1| throbbing of the big guns, Plop-plop-plop of the m of rifles and the ‘the un oft erack of hand grenades. the T love the ot bursts sion and a reservoir of commanding| area’ of occupation, which hdd tele- graph facilities. Noufchateau lies almost due south we can get dowd to what I want to|of Toul, one of the most picturesque And due sion. Of course, everybody knows by | was in the trencheg, holding a sector this time that he 1st Division went to| that had béen as quiet as a Phila- delphia Sunday for thred years. Conditions in France at that tme4 some of the correspondents were live were chaotic, No concrete plans for]ing with the lat Division. The rest, the reception of the American forces | ving in Neufchateau, visited the di- Hot ben ae. een er ate vision every day, taking the long ride and starts the division was trans- pny ge Nd Sarpiened "Ue. the ported into the interior, coming to rest nN J ina training sector in the vicinity of} After getting my credentials filed Dijon. There the division remained |! tained permission from the Mill- to take over, with French co-opera-|@94@ went to the front for the first tion, @ trench sector to the eastward| time on a’ cold, rainy Sunday. ot Luneville, f: companion on this occasion was The division went abroad, travelling | “Skipper” Williams of the New York light in every sense of the word. It|Times. Neither of Us had ever been had no artillery, no horses, inadequate|on an American front before, al transport trains, There was a pro-| though Williams had been at the nounced scarcity of everything but| British front in Flanders. spirit and determination, The French] We planned to go up to headquar- equipped the Sth Field Artillery with | ters, get acquainted and obtain per- | 355 mm. howitsers and the 6th and| mission to go into the trenches and | th Field Artillery with 75 mm. field|jearn what life at the extreme front guns. None of our artillerymen,|was like. Brig. Gen. George B, Dun- outside @ few officers, had ever ween) can was then in command of tho Ist | Infantry Brigade, which was holding the front line. Williams and I were riding along the road through the vill- | age of Meni-la-Tour when we saw) Gen. Duncan, coming out of a field hospital. We introduced ourselves and told! the General we yearned to’ go out | and mingle with the soldiers in the | trenches and dugouts, Gen. Duncan | is @ big man and hg looked down at us quizsigally, “Why do you want to go to the front?” he asked. “To get material for news Je! ticles,” we replied. “You may get more than that," re- marked the Generhl, “but I will give you permission to go to-night.” VisiT TO A FRONT HELD By THE FIRST, "The sudden decision and permis-| sion gave me a feeling as if some! one had spiiled a bucket of ico water | down my back. We had hot figures | on such quick action, But we ac- cepted the s.tuation and the Gen- eral instructed us to call at his head- quarters at § o'clock that night, when he would furnish us with a guide to battalion headquarters where Major . until October, when it received orders | ‘#Ty Intelligeuce to visit the division | My) Nancy where we spent the aftgrnoon Addressing nicture post cards to rela- tives and friends| We reached Gen. Duncan's headquarters at 8 o'clock (and I experienced for the first time in my life the sensation of being in 4n open country where it was feally | dark at night, | We’ had to put out the lamps on our car soon after we left Toul and we edged’ up the road past and by cars and motorcycles that crept along the road like mechanical ghosts. At Gen, Duncan's headquarters the win- | dows were 80 covered that fo trace | of light could be seen from the out- j side. There I got my first taste of war at the front. "The sky was studded with stars, but progress along the ground might be compared to the progress of Jonah as he explored the interior of the whale. | Gen, Duncan got out some maps and | told us where we were going. He called his alde and we started off in | one of his cars for Beaumoat, which | Was the headquarters of the artillery, | From Beaumont we went to the back line of the trenches on foot. It seemed to me as we approached the entrance to the trenches we must have been iumined like an actor in the spot- light. ‘The sky was dotted with flares sent up by both sides and the horizon was a vista of white and red flashes, each flash indicating the discharge of a gun. | When we returned at 3 o'clock in| the morning Gen, Duncan was wait- ing for us. Some of our artillery of-| ficers had annoyed the Germans that| night by sending over a quantity of} high explosive shells. The Germans had discovered that an American unit) was in line in front of them and they| were putting over a “strafe." The} telephone bells in headquarters were | continually jingling. Inside that old farm bullding the oMcers were work- ing, for hours of the night to them were as flours of the day. The “quiet” sector has been trans- | formed into @ combat sector, Our And what he did to the Ger-| mans back of Mont See during :h period of occupation by the 1st Divi~ sion was plenty. French artillery of-4 ficers threw up their hands in dis- may when Gen. Summerall would tovs over in one day more shells than the French had gent in that direction of the enemy in a year, There is no doubt that the artillery activities of the 1st and the other divisions which succeeded it in the occupation ef that sector had its effect when, in Septem- ber, 1918, the 1st, back on its own ground, played a prominent part in cleaning up the St. Mihiel salient, The ist Division had a long session under Mont sec and was resting di- rectly back of that position when the Germans started in March the attack which they hoped would enable then to split the British and French armies in Northern France, place the British with their backs to the North Sea and open the way to Paris, It was just before the Ist Division went iftto the rest area, by the way, that Lieut, commanding officers sent out patrols Ist Only A. E. F. Division Cited in General Orders FOLLOWING I8 THE CITATION: 1, The Commander in Chief desires to make of record in the General Orders of the American expeditionary forces his extreme satisfaction with the. conduct of the officers and soldiers of the Ist Division in its advance west of the Meuse between Oct, 4 and 11, 1918, During this period the division gained a distance of seven kilometers over a country which presented not only rémarkable facilities for enemy defense but also gréat difficulties of terrain for the operation of our troops, Z 2. The division met with resistance from elements of eight hos- tile divisions, most of which were first-class troops and some of which were completely rested, The enemy chose to defend its posi- tion to the death, and the fighting was always of the most desperate kind. "Throughout the operations the officers and men of the divi- sion displayed the highest type of courage, fortitude and self-sacri- ficing devotion to duty, In addition to many enemy killed, the divi- sion’ captured 1,407 of the enemy, thirteen 77mm. field gung, ten trench mortars and numerous machine guns and stores, 8, The success of the division in driving a deep advance into the ehemy’s territory enabled an assault to be made on the left by ‘he neighboring division against the northeastern portion of the Forest of Argonne and enabled the Ist Divisien to advance to the right and outflank the enemy's position in front of the division on that flank. 4, The Commander in Chief has noted in this division a spe- cial pride of service and a high state of morale, never Broken, by hardship or battle, 6, This order will be read to all organizations at the first assem- bly formation after its receipt. Jefferson Feigi, a son of Col, Fred Feigi of this city, was killed by a | German high explosive shell. He was attached to the 7th Field Artillery and was the first artillery officer of the Ist Division killed in the war, In the little town where he is buried the people keep his grave decorated with flowers and plants with the proceeds | of tunds left behind by his fellow offi- cers, which leads me to interject the statement that the French people are wonderfully sympathetic in respect of | caring for the graves of soldiers who | fall in battle, and mothers at home | who may be disposed to worry about the remains of their boys who died in France may rest assured that no war- rior’s grave is ndglected. The March German advqnce was a menace to the welfare of the world. In our sector down in Southeastern France we felt only the echoes, but on the British front and on part of tho French front the Germans had been supremely aggressive and ‘high- ly successful. There was a point abput Amiens which was a. ticklish and tender defense and Gen, Douglas Haig—at that time Marshal Foch had not been given the high command— | called on Gen. Pershing for assist- | ance. Gen. Pershing did not hesitate a minute in choosing @ division to go jf vp into Picardy and act as a stop at ; the polnt—abous Montdidier—at which the Germans were expected to ry to | make their initial piercing movement, | He pleked the Ist Division, ‘in order te tnsure absolute MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1919 Had .26,332 Casualties, 654 of Them Officers; Took 6,661 Prisoners, {§ - Gave Enemy Only 38 ! In Five Days, in One Action Southwest of Soissons, the Division Suffered 7,000 Casualties, Among Them 60 Per Cent. of Its Infantry Officers— But It Held to the Attack Until Relieved. about this movement the Intelli- gence Department assigned all the correspondents to units of the 1st Division with strict orders that they were to be. under the control of the commanding ofigers of the units to which they were attached. We were al) ordered to Paris to awalt orders and on a certain day word was sent to us that we were to proceed to/ various Piéardy towns and report to the commanding officers of units to which we had been assigned. We had to get out to thé area of concentration of the Ist Division as best we could, but it was not far from Paris and we all made it by noon of the day on which we had ordered to report. James Hopper of Collier’s and 1 assigned to the 7th Field Artillery and ordered to a ‘bustling metropolis of about 5,000 inhabitants called Gisors—pronounced Geezor. I don’t think ‘the Ist Division did anything in France more inspiring to the French people than first ap- pearing on the stage in various the- atres of war. The men of the Ist gave their lives and their limbs and suffered agonies of hunger and thirst and wounds, but the French soldiers had been doing the same thing. What France needed at that time’ was moral encburagemént and it fel to the lot of the 1st Division to furnish just that when it was most effective. ‘There was not a more depressed re- gion in Wrance than Picardy—hard by graze, and the animals were in fair shape when the orders came to hike to the front and occupy the Mont- didier sector. GAVE THE ALLIES A THRILL AT Gy CANTIGNY. e 1st Division gave France and, Great Britain their first great thrill’ about American participation when it took Cuntigny in open attack. ‘The’ taking of Cantigny was not such a big job, because it had all been care- fully mapped out in advance and we* had valuable French assistance in‘ artillery and’ flame throwing units, But the 1st Division HELD Can« tigny. That was the big thing—holding Cantigny, ‘The Germans literally pul- verized the town, Travellers who go to France to view the battlefields should not miss the ruins of Can- tigny, where the ist Division estab- lished for the first time that Ameri- can soldiers, once they attain an ob- Jective, cannot be dislodged from ft. Between the Picardy campaign and the stirring events of July I lost per-' sonal touch with the 1st Division, but! I was not surprised when on the morning of the 18th of July the cor-) respondents were told that the 1st! and 24 Divisions had attacked the! Germans at daybreak southwest of Solssons and that there was somex' Paris—when the old 1st got up there. Day and night in our training area | the air reverberated with the boom- ing of big guns. Night after night | we ‘cpuld see, to the south, the fingers of the searchlight of the| Paris, fortifications and defenses searching the skies for German air | | raiders, But the peoplesof the*town and the countrysige became alert and hopeful when into their lives came the 1st Division, grim, muddy, khaki- clad—the first notice to that part of France that the Americans had ar rived. The field of action turned over to the 1st’ was ap close to Paris. that the news naturally reached the capi- tal and from there filtered out into the Nation, Censorship can do much in the way of hiding military ope- rations, but word of mouth remains, and always will be a source of com- munication that cannot be balked or hindered, For instance, for a time ‘during our occupation of the Mont- didier sector our press headquarters, Red Cross headquarters and supply base were at Beauvais, and Beauvais, by. express train—of which there was none in operation on that railroad line tn 1918—was only forty-five min- utes from Paris, ‘The 1st was not in good shape as to equipment when it went into Picardy, The artillery, with the ex- ception of the Sth Field, for which Majér Sands had procured geod stock, had about the poorest lot of horses ever assembled. The forage did not come up, and the confmanding officers were put to thelr wits’ ‘end to obtain feed, But there was con- siderable open pasturage, and the peo- ple were so glad to see us that they allowed the horses and mules to jan Mas get: wSoane thing doing up in that direction. I got into the 1st Division on the morn. ing of the 19th. ‘The division was go- ing ahead. Col. Holbrook of the old 7th had been made brigade command~ er ofthe division artitlery and what with captured German guns which were being operated by bis men and other units which had been brought in he had command of thé largest’ American artillery unit which bad’ been enfkaged in the war up to that time. On that day the 26th Infantry lost Col. Smith and Lieut. Col, Hiliett killed, two Majors—including Major Theodore Roosevelt—and all the senior Captains killed or wounded, The 16th and 18th had lost all their field officers except the Colonels, The 2éth was in command of a junter Captain. And when, on July 23, the division was relleved by the 16tts Scotch Division of the British Army, it had suffered 17,000 casualties and 60 per cent. of its infantry officers had been killed or wounded. When I read this over, about ¢ |turn it into the printer, I am op | pressed with the fear that I may be also condemned to be shot at sunrise by the 1st Division, because it is such inadequate "recital of what wanted to say. But I will wind wp as follows: BOMB DIVIBION! «16 4!) ‘ i 4 4