The history of Company B, 311th infantry, in the world war

Introduction

You, my comrades of the past two years, for whom this history is written, know that I have but small gift of expression at any time, and least of all for the things closest to my heart. At your request, however, made when we parted for the last time, I am writing the story of our company. I shall do my best to put down everything as it occurred, so far as my knowledge and memory will serve; and I trust that if the matter is true, you will overlook crudeness in the form.

"Company B, 311th Infantry" — Only a letter and a number? Only one company out of the hundreds in the National Army? Yes, to outsiders; but to me, and I trust and believe to you. Company B was a living and vital being, composed of part of what was best in each of us. Its official life was twenty months; in that time it was born, grew to full strength, was trained, travelled some 7 500 miles, fulfilled its destiny — fought, suffered, lost; and finally returned to its birthplace and was mustered out. But the spirit of B Company is still with each of us, and not a man but has carried away more than he gave.

Relatively, B Company was a very small part of the army. But to us, it was the army; just as we shall always think of the war in terms of St. Mihiel and the Argonne. We have heard of the Marne, Ypres, Verdun, Chateau Thierry; but every man sees the war through his own eyes.

For this reason, I am writing in the first person. The best I can do is to relate things as I saw them so I shall not take refuge behind an artificial impersonality. Probably a good many things were pulled off that I did not know anything about. And then you may discover that I knew more about some little matters than you thought I did.

Chapter I Madison Barracils

On May 5, 1917, I reported for duty at the Officers' Training Camp at Madison Barracks, New York, with a commission as Second Lieutenant of Infantrj- in the Reserve Corps. My call to active duty had cut short my law course at Columbia Universitj- two months before I was to take my degree.

Having graduated three years before from the Virginia Military Institute, and served there a year as sub-professor of German and tactics, I had some idea of the fundamental principles of military training; but, like almost all the other reserve officers, army paper work and administration was a closed book to me.

A few days later I was told off to report to Capt. Haynes Odom, U. S. R., commanding Co. 5 of the 2d Provisional Training Regt. Capt. Odom was already conspicuous among the batch of reserve officers for his efficiency and tireless energy and industry. The tall, upstanding figure, with the mark of the regular army man indelibly stamped upon him; the head carried well back; the weather-worn, sun-wrinkled face, the hooked nose, cool hazel eyes; the smile that accompanied alike a friendly greeting or a merciless balling out; the soft Southern accent indescribably harshened by thousands of commands given — do you recognize the Major, boys?

The three long, hot, arduous months of training at Madison Barracks can be passed over briefly. My cot in the long frame barrack was next to that of a tall, lithe, black haired lad from Rochester, X. Y., with the merriest, keenest, black eyes I ever saw. Before a week went by he stood out above the average candidate. He was young, just twenty-one — I was at the venerable age of twenty-two. But he had the keenest, quickest, practical mind I have ever met, and the gift of natural leadership, which is compounded of courage, intelligence, unselfish sympathy, and a sense of humor. He had graduated from Cornell in 1916. Later you knew him as 1st Lieut. Louis Sinclair Foulkes, the best officer in "B" Company; the best officer it was my fortune to come in contact with during the war.

One of the training companies was organized as a cavalry troop. We saw them now and then being led in physical drill by a handsome, muscular young chap, so alive and vibrant with nervous energy that it was good to watch him work. He was Roy A. Schuyler, of Schenectady, a graduate of Union College, and a descendant of that General Schuyler whose record in the Revolutionary War makes so bright a page in American history. Brilliant, impulsive, generous, full of the joj' of life, passionately eager to serve; he was a worthy descendant of a long line of fighting patriots.

In Co. 9 was an earnest, dignified, hard working reserve first lieutenant, one of the most capable of the reserve officers on the post. He was a prominent lawyer of Utica, N. Y., and one of the leaders in the Plattsburg movement. Though well over the draft age, he had given up his large practice and had gone into the service at the first call. This was Russell H. Brennan, the first commander of "B" Company.

At last our course drew to a close; the commissions were announced, and we departed for ten days' leave before reporting to Camp Dix for duty. Will we ever forget those ten. golden August days? The world was ours, and life was sweet. No one knew what lay ahead, but we all made the most of our last taste of the old life for some time.

Chapter II Ca3ip DIX

Most of you saw it for the first time when you rolled into the long train shed, and hiked up to your barracks through a mile or more of company streets, in a city of forty thousand men, the hundreds of large barracks already weatherbeaten with the snows and rains of winter.

We, however, after changing trains several times, finally rolled up to what was apparently a piano box in a lumber yard, and were there assured by the conductor that this was Camp Dix. We tumbled off, and trudged away through six inches of New Jersey dust toward the only building in sight with a roof on it — camp headquarters. Our bags became heavier and heavier; our new uniforms were fearfully hot; our new shoes and puttees, with which we had been dazzling admiring womenfolks and causing menfolk to grunt with assumed indifference, were abominably tight and pinchy.

Finally we straggled in to headquarters, to indulge for a couple of hours in that amusement so familiar to every man in the army^ — standing in line for an hour to do two minutes of red tape. When our turn was over, we went over to a partially completed barracks, where we were each allowed to appropriate 1 cot, iron. This was the limit of our accommodation — those who couldn't get away to some nearby town slept on the soft side of a piece of bristol board. We walked to the other side of camp for all our meals — about two miles, if you didn't lose your way.

The next morning we attended a rollcall at 9 A. M. There we met Col. Marcus B. Stokes, the commanding officer; and Lt. Col. Edgar Myer, second in command. We found that the officers from Madison

Barracks, Cos. 5 and 6, with half of the Troop formed the nucleus of the new regiment.

Capt. Odom was Regimental Adjutant and o my horror I was at once made Regimental Supply Officer. The following officers were assigned to "B" company:

Capt. Russell H. Brennan, commanding company,

2d Lt. Roy A. Schuyler,

2d Lt. Fred S. Fish,

2d Lt. Wm. D. Ashmore.

For a month the regiment went through the agonies of organization. Supplies came in by driblets; transportation there was none, save for two hopelessly over-worked motor truck companies, which put in half their time trying to separate their trucks from the sacred soil of Jersey. A great swarm of civilian workmen were toiling feverishly to get up the barracks. The regiment was moved four times in as many weeks. The roads were six inches deep in mud or dust.

The first enlisted men in the regiment were three former candidates at Madison Barracks, who, through no fault of their own, had not received commissions, but who wouldn't leave the bunch, and enlisted in the regiment,^ — Dave Gardenier, Art McCann, and Jimmie Hooker. McCann and Gardenier were made regimental sergeants major, and Hooker was my regimental supply sergeant.

In about a week a number of men came in from various Regular Army regiments, to form a nucleus of N. C. O.'s. "B" company received Ertwine, Robbins, and J. M. Newell. These men were shortly afterward made corporals on recommendation of Capt. Brennan.

From Sept. 19th to Sept. 22d, the men of the first draft came in. As Supply Officer, my own troubles kept me pretty busy during those strenuous days. I knew "B" company, however, as a good outfit. Capt. Brennan's steady, methodical, tireless work, and the energy and devotion of his three lieutenants showed results from the first. Lt. Fish, a former National Guard officer, was an old hand and steadied the younger oflicers.

After two months of hard work, the companies began to round out into some sort of shape. The non-commissioned officers were selected, with as much care as was possible in the limited time allowed for observation of the new men. The first top sergeant of "B" Co. was Eilert, a sturdy and sterling product of the first draft, who had been a foreman in a large factory. The "top" is, absolutely, the most essential man in a company. His position is such that he has to see to the carrying out of all the disagreeable orders, and making the details for all the dirty jobs, while at the same time he is not protected by any barrier of rank. He is usually cordially detested and thoroughly respected by the men, and is about as useful to the officers as a right hand. We never had a top in "B" Co. who was not absolutelj^ loyal to the service and to the company commander; never one who shrank from the most disagreeable duty, nor who gave a thought to his personal popularity. They were human, of course, and made mistakes like the rest of us; and sometimes they couldn't help being placed in a bad light to the men. But you men — some of you, even, who beefed most against the tops — if you only knew how many times that same top came to the company commander or other oflicers to help out this fellow or that, to suggest some way of making things easier for the whole company; if you knew how hard and thankless a job they held; possibly you would have been a little more lenient in your judgments.

James McC. Newell was the first supply sergeant, and got away with everything not nailed down. Samuel Tritapoe was Mess Sgt. until Lt. Wagner recognized his ability and took him for a regimental supply sergeant, and Warren Sculthorpe succeeded to this thankless but highly important job. The other sergeants, as well as I remember, were Ertwine, Perry, Anness and Robbins. Joe Levy was soon drafted by Newell to make the accounts balance; Harold Sculthorpe started on his culinary career; Sweeney, Rogers, Tom Viracola, Howard Lehy, Hayden and Long Bill Reid were corporals. Sutton and Weber were detailed at the regimental exchange where they were a great factor in making it the best in the division. And last, but not least, deBruin was man of all work and plumber-in-chief. Red Sheridan also started his lurid career with "B" Co., and helped deBruin and "Bugs" Wardell io dispose of the vanilla extract rations.

Toward the middle of October, Lt. Foulkes arrived from Cambridge, Mass., where he had been sent for a special course in trench warfare. He was assigned to B Co., and remained as second in command until he was made battalion adjutant in July 1918.

Now started in the era of transfers. New drafts were constantly coming in; and as soon as we would get them uniformed and able to negotiate a "Squads Right" without losing each other, they would be drawn away to fill up some other division destined for overseas duty before the 78th. Not once, but a dozen times between September and May did this happen, leaving the company with its oflBcers and a skeleton of N. C. O.'s, cooks and orderlies.

On December 6th, Capt. Brennan and I were interchanged, he taking over the Supply Company and I, "B" Co.

The winter wore on, and spring was upon us, and we seemed no nearer France than before. Changes took place in officers as well as enlisted men. Lt. Ashmore went to "A" Co.; Lt. Fish to the Supply Co.; 2d Lts. Dunn and Merrill and 1st Lt. Vanderbilt took their places with "B" Co. The time was tilled with training and equipping the ever changing quotas of recruits and drilling them in fundamentals; for the training cadre of officers and N. C. O.'s there were special courses in bayonet fighting, bombing, trench digging — how many cold and weary hours were swallowed up in that trench system east of the regimental area! — and ever and always wind, mud and show, or wind, sun and dust.

When the March drafts came in, rumors took a new lease on life. The 7 7th division was being equipped to leave Camp Upton; our turn would probably come next. The transfers went out now to fill up, not other divisions, but our own artillery regiments across the parade ground. Work on the target range was increased. Ah, the joys of being routed out of the hay long before daybreak, snatching a hasty breakfast, and hiking off through the cold dawa, five miles through the barrens to that wind-swept waste with the long rows of targets.

1st Sgt. Eilert and Supply Sgt. Newell had been selected to attend the officers' training school. Sgt. Ertwine, who had shown exceptional ability while in charge of the recruits' barracks, was made 1st Sgt., and Joe Levy, of course, became Supply Sgt.

It was not all work and no play, though. At night there were movies at the "Y" huts; the Post Exchange for those who had something left from insurance, allotments and other ornaments of the pay roll, — or who were gifted enough to fill a full house or roll a "natural" consistently. And on Saturday afternoon and Sunday the lucky 25% would be off for a few precious hours at home or in the city, while the camp would be filled with visitors to the less fortunate.

April passed, and May arrived with green trees and warm days. We bought baseball equipment, and each company had a team (I wonder who got hold of all that stuff finally?). The April drafts had brought the companies above normal strength. Tents were put up in the company streets to accommodate the overflow.

These were busy days for Supply Sgt. Levy and Cpl. Jimmie Jones, Company Clerk. There was a continuous procession in and out the door of the squad room where Levy had established his headquarters; recruits going in with blissful visions of emerging in the likeness of a magazine ad. soldier; departing with murder in their hearts because their trousers bagged at the knees. And Joe, who remembered last September when recruits would bum around for a month before getting a sign of a uniform, had scant sympathy with them.

This was also an era of reports. Reports on how many men we had; how many shirts each man had; how many extra shoe-laces were in our possession; how many men had W. R. insurance; how many were yet to be inoculated and how many times. Twice a day did I have to report for officers' meeting; twice a day would the Colonel hold forth on the reports the general wanted, which company commanders would prepare at once, personally, in writing; then the adjutant would begin on the reports the colonel wanted; then the supply officer would chime in with a few more that he had to have by six o'clock at the latest. Life was a veritable nightmare of typewritten figures. The supply sergeant of "L" company actually lost his mind under the strain. Drill was carried on in the intervals of lining up for another check or Inspection. And the men, quite naturally, looked upon the officers as a set of lunatics who didn't know their own minds for ten minutes at a time.

About May 1st, an advance party of some 2 5 officers and men left the regiment, so we knew we were soon to follow. Lts. Schuyler and Merrill were in this party. They attended the A. E. F. Schools at Chatillon-sur-Seine, and rejoined us about July 1st.

At last the company was filled up to war strength, and equipped down to the last shoe lace. On Friday, May 17th, all visitors were excluded from camp. That evening I assembled the company and put the proposition up to every man in it whether he wanted to go to France or not, offering to leave any one behind who wished to remain. I am proud to say that not a man applied to be left.

Saturday was a hectic day of last preparations. The barracks were stripped down to their last mattress and swept out. The typewriters clicked busily until the last minute. Tom Viracola, one of our best sergeants, who had been tripped on a slight disability by the medicos at the last minute and was nearly heartbroken, was to be left in charge of barracks.

About nine o'clock the company was formed for the last time at its old home. Packs were heavy with the regulation equipment, tobacco, and gifts from home. As I was signing some last papers under the arc light, "C" company moved out silently. I gave "Squads left, march," the company wheeled out and we were off for the station.

The road was lined with soldiers from the Depot Brigade as we passed. Here and there we saw a familiar face, and though the movement was to be kept as quiet as possible, there was many a husky "so long, fellows" and "good-bye, 311, good luck," to cheer us on our way.

Packs were heavier every step, and what with the extra rations, typewriter, etc., we were glad to have a half hour's rest at the station. Then the word came to fall in again — how many times were we to hear those weary words, "Fall in" — and the company filed along to the day coaches awaiting them. Equipment was removed, and all made themselves as comfortable as they could for the night.

Early in the morning the train pulled out. As dawn broke, we made out the names of some of the New Jersey towns we passed through. Many a lad saw his home town for the last time as we rolled through it in the chill of that May morning.

At Jersey City we detrained and passed through the station to the ferry. Several civilians asked us where we were going; but the men realized the importance of secrecy, and all the curious ones got was a gruff invitation to "put on a uniform and find out."

Then we were jammed on a ferry boat. It was some jam, too, leaving those who hadn't been trained on the subway gasping.

Down to the street, on between the great warehouses, and into a spacious covered pier. Here was the point of embarkation, where we had been told every service record was examined, every man inspected; the focus of all the red tape that had been driving us insane for the past two months. To our very agreeable surprise, however, the loading was handled by two or three business like men in civvies, who merely checked each company on the boat by the passenger lists as fast as the men could hike up the gangplank.

We were met by Lt. Gibbs, battalion adjutant, who led us below, pointed out three decks each about the size of our Camp Dix orderly room, and announced that these were B Co.'s palatial quarters. I gasped, and remarked that we were much obliged, but suppose some one should want to turn around, where would he be, and howinell was Geoghegan going to get in one of those little canvas napkins they called hammocks, anyhow? He replied that I ought to see "C" company's place, and melted away in a fashion peculiar to Bn. Adjts. when leaving Co. Cmdrs. S. O. L. A few moments later we heard him consoling Capt. O'Brien on the deck above by telling him that he ought to see "B" Co.'s place.

Chapter III The Cruise Of The "nestor"

By the time the space and hammocks were assigned to platoons and squads, the ship was under way. Orders were to keep below decks until out of the harbor; and for many, their last look at America was a glimpse of the harbor front through a port hole.

At this point Lt. Gibbs reappeared, with the cheerful order that life preservers would be donned at once, and kept on for the rest of the voyage. For the next ten days all waddled about feeling like motherly hens. The apparatus I drew seemed particularly dirty, and most unbecoming to my figure, which is built close to the ground anyway.

Breakfast had been nothing more than a cracker and bully beef, snatched at odd moments. The good ship hadn't started to roll much yet, so all looked forward to dinner with a robust interest. Then it evolved that this was an Australian transport, the "Nestor;" and as such, sailed under the British flag; and hence and therefore, the next meal would te tea at 5 o'clock. Eternity passed, and about half an hour thereafter the steward came around, and in queer, clipped cockney English introduced us to "dixies" and "flats." Another half hour, and the first messes to be served saw their hash-grabbing detail returning, bearing through aisles of famished Yanks — bread and cheese and tea! A planked steak v/ould have been more to the point, we felt, and a towering, raw-boned countryman in a corner, — Lory Price, I imagine — opined dismally that we were being mistaken for an orphan asylum. However, what there was aroused the boys sufficiently to take a less morbid view of life, and as the officers departed to the cabin, cards and books appeared, and the mystic words were softly chanted: "Natural, bones" — "Read 'em and weep."

But there was not what you might call a festive air to that first evening; nor to many thereafter. Of course, for some fellows who had no one dependent on them, who were setting out foot loose for a great adventure, there was nothing to interfere with the thrill of the unknown before them. But the majority of these men had been taken out of their civilian life but two or three weeks before; they were among strangers, and in an absolutely foreign environment; their new uniforms still uncomfortable and scratchy, and army regulations and discipline an incomprehensible set of shibboleths. Far down in each heart the love of their country burned, steadily enough for the most part; white hot in some; in others, but recently kindled. All hid it diligently, of course, from the general view. They had been so fed up with windy orators, with politicians waving the flag with one hand and keeping the other on exemption certificates, that the real thing was jealously concealed.

As I made my final inspection that night, looking out from the companionway over the rows of close slung hammocks, I wondered what their occupants were thinking; what forms of dear ones were present to their minds; to what homes their thoughts went back — a Harlem flat, a Jersey farm house, a great hotel, a tiny pair of rooms in Jersey City; comfortable, well-off American homes; tenements in the foreign districts — each one dear for its memories, each one the home to fight for. Would we have time to train these men into a fighting machine, or would we be thrown in at once to stop the great Hun drive in Flanders, then at its height? How many of us would see these homes, these dear ones again? — But a company commander has little time to indulge in reflections; and thoughts of the morning report, and how to distribute the chow more evenly, and a large budget of orders I had to read, soon chased away everything else.

The NESTOR carried the 1st and 2d Bns. and Headquarters Co. of the 311th Inf., a Machine Gun battalion, and Brig. Gen. Dean, our brigade commander, and his staff. Our colonel was in command of the troops on board, such things being below the dignity of general officers. He was in his element; he had an officers' meeting the first thing, and dished out about 4 square acres of orders to be read and put into effect at once.

Now no one knows better than I how many orders you men received, and how it was often beyond human power to obey all of them. But I call any company commander to witness that we got them coming and going. The Co.

Gmdr. is the one man who can't pass the buck on responsibility. We had to take the bushels of orders we received, eliminate those utterly impossible, select from those remaining what seemed essential and what we thought the Major and Colonel would deem essential, and then get those things done by the company — that is, issue orders to the 1st Sgt. for details. Supply Sgt. for supplies. Mess Sgt. for mess, officers for drill and instruction, company clerk for paper work, and then see to it that the whole is carried out. And then one usuaUy amasses a balling out for something or other that he has left out.

One of these orders was the censorship order, of which we had heard so much. Instead of having all letters censored at post offices by clerks, some genius had decided to follow the British plan of having officers censor their own men's mail. Thus at one brilliant stroke a situation was created which embarrassed men and officers alike, imposed an irksome and continual task on over-burdened officers, delayed the mail, and was in every way sweet incense in the nostrils of the little tin gods of the red tape; the exponents of the theory of How Not to Do It.

The principal morning sport on the trip was the ship's inspection. The holds of that old tub received such a scrubbing and cleaning as they had never had before. In spite of the close quarters, everything was kept quite fresh and clean. It gave me a vast respect for the women who do such work all day for paltry wages. At 10:00 A. M. the caJl would be sounded, and all except the day's orderlies would be massed on decks in their boat drill stations, and a merry little crush it was. Then the lords of the earth would solemnly parade along in single file, preceded by a bugler, who blew a seasick "Attention" at each deck. Everybody would then step on everyone else's feet, and make a little lane for the procession. The adjutant, the ship's captain, the colonel, the ship supply officer — poor old Gibbs was the goat for that job — would play "follow my leader," and look into corners, and sniff importantly, and everything would be very formal and terrible, and grand.

The rest of the day would be taken up with physical drills — one company using the deck at a time — and fire and boat drills. It was given out at first that four long blasts of the boat's whistle would be the signal for "Abandon ship." This was changed later by the ship's captain, but somewhere along the line there was a hitch, and the information never got down to the company commanders. About five nights out, at about 10:30 P. M., the whistle began to toot, once — twice — heads began to appear over the hammocks; thrice — the hammocks began to be agitated; four times — two hundred and thirty odd hearts gave a leap, four hundred and sixty feet hit the floor, and B Company started up the gangway, with three sergeants, who shall be nameless, leading the way to victory. Lt. Foulkes, who was on fire watch, judged hastily that it must be all a mistake somehow, and calmed the riot with his .4 5 and a few choice remarks in the vernacular.

Then the chow- — oh, the chow; oh, the Gawd-forsaken chow. It was doled out as breakfast, dinner, and tea. It was ^one too much in quantity. There were here and there newly made n. c. o.'s iVho were not above holding out more than their share. And our American stomachs were several times abruptly introduced to strange dishes. First it was a weird looking mess that tasted like an explosion of mustard gas. How did we know it was currie? Few had sufficient faith in human nature to down their portion. Then one day a ghastly odor tainted the noonday air, and we were introduced to tripe. The latter was finally buried with military honors, and I arrived on the scene just in time to save the ship's cooks from being the star actors in a similar ceremony.

"Tea" was bread and cheese and tea. We thought of the days of plenty at Camp Dix and reflected that the culinary end of this war business was hardly a success so far.