A Blue Ridge memoir

Dedication

To the inspiring memory of that fearless soldier and splendid man, who fell leading his battalion against the enemy at St. Jiivin, France, on November first, nineteen hundred and eighteen, German Horton Hunt Emory, Major, Three Hundred and Tzvcntietli Infantry, this book is affectionately dedicated.

Edward C. Lukens.

"A BLUE RIDGE MEMOIR"

Introduction

The following narrative does not purport to be in any sense a battalion, company, or even a platoon history. It was written at odd times during the February and March following the Armistice, with the double purpose of killing some of the time that hung heavy on our hands during that dull period of waiting, and of preserving for personal and family records the writer's war experiences. It omits many of the most noteworthy things done by men of "I" Company and by other units simply because it is an eye-witness narrative — a mere expanded diary — and the writer did not happen to witness them. Its only excuse for publication is the fact that it does bring in partial accounts of some of the greatest events in which the 320th Infantry took part, and glimpses of the lives and deaths of some of our comrades whose lives and deaths are worthy of record.

Edward C. Lukens.

Contents

CiiAriioR. Page.

II Trench Life 25

III Ll FE I N THE BoiS 42

CHAPTER I We Meet Our Allies

THE long months of monotonous drilling drew slowly to a close, rumors grew more persistent until they culminated in orders, and a rainy night in May found our regiment actually on the march to our "point of embarkation." Passing the busy powder mills of Hopewell in the early dawn, we were rapidly loaded on to river boats at the historic landing of City Point, for a preliminary voyage to "an Atlantic port," as the censors have it, or more specifically, Newport News.

We remained in dock a full two days after embarking, during which time no one was allowed to leave the ship or to mention his location in a letter. On a fine Sunday afternoon we started off, almost without warning, and in spite of our impatience at the delay, it gave us quite a shock, a mixture of a thrill of excitement and a sinking sensation, to see America getting away from us. The sights of the harbor, a change indeed from the deadly barracks and sand of the past eight months, kept our thoughts busy, but there was not a man who did not look at that receding land at least once and wonder if he would see it again.

Our life on the converted German liner was on the whole pleasant, in spite of crowded holds, a few moderately rough days and the possibility of submarines. We read, pretended to study military manuals, talked, smoked and rehearsed our respective duties in case of a submarine attack. The first drill resulted in great confusion, shouting of conflicting orders, and not a little levity, but a severe "lecture" by the ship's commander resulted in a more serious attitude toward the submarines thereafter.

When we had cleared the Capes and were therefore open to the possihihty of submarine trouble, for the entire ocean was practically the "danger zone" at that time, a "watch" of soldiers was organized to supplement the navy watch. It fell to my lot to have charge of one of the four watches, and it was my duty to inspect about fifteen guards, posted in different places about the ship, looking constantly out over the water. On the occasion of my first climb to the foretop, I made a mental note that the Navy did not have such an easy time as we had assumed. The deck looked small and far away, and this was only the lower foretop, not the real "crow's nest," which was manned by sailors.

The view from the foretop well repaid the climb. The entire convoy of about a dozen transports, their hulls camouflaged with a kind of cubist painting that seemed to me to make them especially prominent, and on the fringes of the group several diminutive but speedy destroyers which were our body-guards.

No submarines were ever sighted, but as the watchers were required to report every object seen, no matter how innocuous, their monotony was broken by occasional ships, refuse from the ships ahead of us, and by whales and porpoises. One man would have reported a "sub," had he not been too excited to do so, when a whale popped up suddenly about one hundred yards from him. "My Gawd," he exclaimed afterwards, "I never seen such a big fish !" As he had never seen the ocean before, his statement was doubtless true.

No one seemed to worry much about submarines. This was not due to pure coolness, but rather to lack of imagination. So long as none appeared, it was hard to imagine a sudden change in the situation, and after the first day or two we practically took it for granted that fortune would favor us, though we never relaxed our vigilance.

One fine afternoon we sighted the lighthouse at Royan, at the mouth of the Gironde River. Our convoy of destroyers had already been increased, and now it was supplemented by a perfect mob of small harbor patrol craft, even converted launches, which tooted their shrill whistles in welcome.

IVe Meet Our Allies 11

Overhead a French dirigible and several planes sailed around, looking down into the water for possible "subs."

We anchored inside the nets, and knew the submarine peril was at an end. We had to await the turn of the tide before going on up tlie river, which we did the next morning. I shall never forget that first glimpse of France. The country was green and pretty, and the people along the banks waved their hands and cheered as we steamed slowly past.

About twilight we reached the dock, at the new American port a few miles below Bordeaux, a piece of America itself planted in France. There were big Baldwin locomotives, American flags flying, American soldiers, white and black, and civilian employees, mountains of supplies, and work moving busily on all sides. Mingled in the scene were French soldiers, French civilians, and a swarm of nondescript orientals known as "Annamites."

We debarked on Sunday evening, June 9th, and marched five miles to Camp Genicart, one of the receiving camps of the port. This was our first march on French soil, and our first glimpse of French people. Many of the boys had spent an hour or two over a dictionary while on the boat, and now was their chance to try out their newly-acquired knowledge. The result must have proved our insanity to the natives, for there was a chorus of "Oui, Oui's" wherever we passed a group of people, with hardly another French word distinguishable.

We also sang, and it seemed strange indeed to be marching along a road in France to the tune of "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here," although that well known ballad has been heard in hundreds of French hamlets by this time. It is even reported that in one village the people thought it was our national hymn and respectfully took off their hats while the troops passed, while a detachment of French soldiers stood at "present arms."

Our duties during our brief stay at Camp Genicart were not severe, and the officers and "non-coms" were allowed to go into Bordeaux with considerable freedom. From the village of Lormont, a little trolley car runs to the city, manned by two half grown boys. We did not have a sou of French money, but soon found that the people had no objection to American money provided they were allowed about fifty percent extra on the rate of exchange. The car stopped at the end of the magnificent bridge across the Gironde, and there we got a good view of the city with its cathedral spire and the shipping of all the allied nations anchored in the river. American M.P.'s directed traffic across the bridge.

The city was gay and the streets crowded in spite of the war. In the course of a few blocks one would see more different kinds of uniforms, more decorations and medals and more peculiar-looking people than would be imagined to exist. The cafes with their chairs and tables on the sidewalks were a great novelty to us, as that custom prevails in America only in the case of small town cigar stores. The public square was filled with rows upon rows of enormous wine barrels, leaving scarcely room to walk through between them. Bordeaux was far removed from the zone of air danger, and the streets were brilliantly lighted. An especially bright corner attracted vis into a theatre, where we found to our surprise that a medley of grand opera scenes was being played. Between acts the lights went on, and several distinguished looking Frenchmen in much-decorated uniforms and enormous whiskers got up, pulled out large field glasses, and calmly surveyed the audience. Their frankness was admirable. Never again, we decided, would we consider it necessary to glance furtively around us when we wanted to see someone in the audience. There was also in Bordeaux that evening another play, the title of which was "Oh, La, La," and this exclamation thenceforth was added to our vocabulary.

It was in Bordeaux that we made our first attempts at talking French. Few indeed were very successful at first, although we soon learned enough of the common words to get along in the stores and restaurants. Those who remembered a smattering of it from school courses had a little start, but the others quickly caught up and began speaking for themselves. It was a favorite amusement at first to engage a native in a conversation, and it gave one a great feeling of superiority to be able to make him understand a few words if someone else could not. These early dialogues were not highly intellectual. They ran something like this :

American : "Bon jour, monsieur,"

Frenchman : "Bon jour, monsieur."

American : "Beaucoup soldats ici."

Frenchman :"Oui, Oui," followed by several paragraphs in which the word "Boche" is distinguishable.

American : "Oui, Oui, Boche pas bon."

Frenchman : "Oui, Oui, Oui," followed by several more paragraphs at an accelerated rate, in which nothing is distinguishable.

American : "Oui, Oui ; bon soir, monsieur. Say aren't we getting away with it fine ?"

Gradually there has grown up a sort of "army French" that a great many of the men use with fair success. It consists of a fair sprinkling of common words and expressions, mixed with a few English words the French have picked up, used with no attempt at gender or tense changes, and supplemented by reversion to Indian sign language. For instance, in a store: Soldier: "Any tabac?" Native: "Pas tabac; fini yesterday." Soldier: "Chocolat?" Native: "Qiocolat fini." Soldier: "Well then, beaucoup comme ca," pointing at a box of crackers, "Combien?" Native, handing them out: "Deux francs." Like "check" in a chess game, either party is privileged at any time to say, "No compree," which, being neither English, French nor Italian, is understood by all three races to mean that the preceding remark has not gotten across.

Some French words have taken firm root as American slang, and will doubtless be heard at home for years to come, "Fini" for anything that is worn out, used up, or discarded is now "good American." "Bon" and "pas bon" are as common, and one often hears a soldier say that the weather or the food is "no damn bon." "Allez" with the French means not merely "go" but also "get up," and you can see a Yank mule skinner as well as a French artillery driver crack his whip and "Allez" his team. "Beaucoup," "tout suite," "tres bien" and "parti" are equally common.

Of the French soldiers, we saw little. Even after wc had been in the line, and had seen hundreds of them, we never really became acquainted with them. The language barrier is a great one when it comes to real acquaintance, and we seldom met a Frenchman who could speak any English. Our men at first looked on them more or less as curiosities — part of the foreign scenery. As the novelty wore off, it changed to an attitude of more or less tolerant amusement. We never actually fought side by side with them, although we would occasionally see their artillery in action, and our admiration for them was founded more on what we knew they had done than on what we saw in them, while those of our men who did not know what they had done, did not admire them at all. In our everyday life of passing them on the roads and in the villages, we admired their whiskers, laughed at their strange costumes, perhaps exchanged a limited greeting, or gave them a few cigarettes, and that was about all. We did not pretend to understand them and they were hardly a factor in our lives. It might have been different if we had been able to know a few of them by individual name and reputation. A Frenchman would point to a scar and say, "Blesse ; Verdun ;'' we would be interested in about the same way as though he had shown us a shell casing from Verdun. If we had been able to hear the whole story of his experiences there when he got wounded, it would have been a different matter.

After a week's stay at Camp Genicart, we entrained for Calais, where we were fitted out with British equipment in preparation for our period of training with them. A journey on a French troop train is a fearful and wonderful thing. The men are usually loaded into box cars with straw on the floors, "40 Hommes, 8 Chevaux," being the alternative capacity. Most of our men were more fortunate on this first trip and got third-class compartments, which at best were crowded, hard and very cold at night. The officers had first or second-class compartments, and were fairly comfortable. We would stop at frequent intervals, for no apparent reason, and excited railroad officials would run up and down the train shouting and arguing.

The country through which we traveled was green and beautiful in early June, and in spite of discomforts the trip was an interesting one to men who were in a foreign land for the first time.

The French Red Cross supplied hot coffee, of course without sugar, at occasional stops. Except for this, the rations consisted mostly of "canned Willie" and hardtack. The people who lived near the railroad must have known of our crackers from previous troop trains, for in almost every town that we passed through there would be lines of children along the railroad bank, crying out "Biscwee," biscwee," as plaintively as young robins squawking for worms. The men would throw them out of the windows and the children would pounce on them and eat them as though they had been the finest of candy. It gave us more of an appreciation of the shortage of food in the country than all the statistics we ever read.

It was in Calais that we made our first acquaintance with the British soldier and the process of becoming really acquainted was far more complex than the ordinary war correspondents allowed the public to believe. With them it is a mere "Howdy, Tommy," "Howdy, Yank," performance, and the job is done. Now in real life, friendships between men of different characteristics are not so easily completed. There was not a little misunderstanding, there was some amusement, doubtless on both sides of the fence, and there was a gradual and slow education of our men to an appreciation of what the British had been through, and of the British to a realization of what the Americans had in them, before the American and the British soldier could form a real friendship. At the time we were in the British sector, the Americans had yet to fight the battle of Chateau Thierry, l^t alone the final Meuse-Argonne drive. The British had been impatient and worried by what had seemed to them an undue period of waiting for our help ; when we did come, we were worst in some points such as march discipline and military courtesy, in which they were best.

On the other hand, we did not know what it was to have endured four years of war without seeing daylight ahead, in

16 ./ lUuc h'idt/c Memoir

other words, did not know what it was to Ijc "fed up," and it seemed to us at first as if the British were unduly inclined to "let the (lernians alone if they let us alone," and accept trencii life as a normal type of existence without a thought of ever ending the war. They thought we lacked discipline; we thought they lacked "pep." Douhtless in part hoth were true, hut in neither case was the fault as fatal or as inexcusahle as it seemed to the opposite temperament. Our faults of discipline were more due to unformed hahits and informality than to any real failure of respect or obedience; and their apparent lack of "pop" was amply explained by their severe jolt of the previous spring, and am])ly atoned for by their renewed exhibition of driving power the following fall. The British army's past was unknown to many of our men, who therefore did not apjM-eciate that we never even saw the best of it, which was destroyed before we got there ; the American army's future was as yet unrevealed, and not even guessed at by the British. They had fought so long they could hardly imagine the end of the war; we didn't yet know what fighting was. and couldn't imagine it lasting so very long. I told an English lieutenant in July that I expected the war to be over by Christmas ; he politely informed me that I would get over that after 1 had been disappointed one or two Christmases like he had. In short, we thought they were the worst pessimists we had ever seen, and. no doubt, they thought we were just too green to understand the Huns' strength, which in a way may have been true, without being any disadvantage.

Then, too, in more trivial matters of speech, dress, and social customs, they were just enough ditTerent from us to cause friction, while the much greater things in which we were alike were taken for granted and passed by unnoticed. Our men realized that the French soldiers would talk b^rench. but could not see why an Knglishman. unless he intended to be affected, should talk English instead of "American." People in America who alTect an English accent are generally fools, because any affectation is foolish ; therefore it took a little time before our men could sec that an Englishman's accent was not a discredit to his character.

Similarly, their daily "tea" was at first put down as a mark of etlfcminacy, simply because "afternoon tea" at home suggests a rather insipid kind of a "party" in which the fair sex predominates. When, however, we found that "tea" included something to eat, a smoke, and not infrequently more "Scotch" than tea, it was generally agreed that "four meals a day" was a great idea, and they were forgiven.

When a British officer in those days asked me how our men like the Tommies, I could hardly answer truthfully without disappointing him, nor do I think that many of them fully understood the reasons for the difficulty. Now, after we have known them for several months, been in the trenches with them and learned from our own experience what it must have been to have fought over four years, I can truly say that our men have learned to give them their just praise, and have largely forgotten their former prejudices, but we did not fall into each others' arms at first sight.

Our relations with the English officers afforded us much amusement, though the contact was personal and individual enough to enable us to like some and dislike others without blaming the few less agreeable ones on the race. I think some of them were rather shocked by our lack of dignity at the mess, and especially by our familiarity with the private who waited on the table. ITe was an obliging fellow and a good cook, so we tolerated his peculiarities while the British officers who ate with us doubtless thought we encouraged them. When any ol" the officers cracked a joke, there would be a loud guffaw from the waiter and an argument would not be complete until he had added his opinion to the rest. In contrast to the demeanor of the British "officers' servants" — they could never understand why we didn't use the word —it must have been startling. I have had many a laugh since then at one of my encounters with an English officer, who, I believe now, had not the slightest intention of being rude. I met him in a support trench on the occasion of my first visit to the front with a group of non-coms, and, thinking of the possible convenience of knowing his name, I started to introduce myself in the ordinary American way. "My name's Lukens," I began. "Indeed!"

I didn't have the remotest idea what to say next ; I was never more flabbergasted in my hfe. 1 suppose in England they don't introduce themselves just that way, and he didn't know why I should suddenly announce my name. At any rate, I never got particularly well acquainted with this officer, nor did he and I constitute a howling success in the "alliance between the two great English speaking races" line.

I cite these little instances just to show the real situation at that time, as a contrast to the ordinary oratory on the subject, and to show how badly we needed to get better acquainted, and what ridiculously small differences had been keeping us apart, in spite of our similarity in a thousand more important ways. After we had been in France for six months, and some of us got to London on a week's leave, we realized how nearly like home it seemed, and how unlike home hVance had been, and the simple pleasure of seeing people on the street who didn't look or talk foreign wiped out all petty prejudices that still remained. American friendship for France is idealistic and national ; for England it is commonplace and personal, and no more poetic than the friendship between Pennsylvanians and Californians might be.

The latter is the more difficult kind to effect, but to me, at least, it means a great deal more. The French are so different that we hardly know whether they have individual peculiarities or not, so we judge them by Joan of Arc, Lafayette and the defense of Verdun. The British are so nearly like us that we take it for granted, and think they should be exactly like us, and judge them as we judge the family next door, or as a Princetonian judges a Harvard man.

While at the Calais camp, we got our gas masks, traded in our American Eddy-^tone rifles for the British short Enfleld, and were instructed in the mechanism of the latter by some British sergeants. I recall one of them who made a significant as well as an amusing remark. He warned us about the cost to the Australians and Canadians, of their early lax discipline, evidently fearing that we would suffer from the same trait, but added that the English had learned some things from the "Colonials." He said, "You know we used to pray "God bless the squire and all his relations," Now we say, "The Squire! Huh! 'oo the 'ell's 'e?" So it looks as though after the war "the Squire," like everybody else, would be judged by what he did in the war, and not by what his ancestors did, and the Sergeant gave the "Colonials" the credit for the Englishman's change of attitude.

It was at Calais that part of our regiment experienced their first air raid. They were of frequent occurrence there, and seldom caused any casualties. Nevertheless, the Tommies stationed there had a wholesome respect for them, which our men had not yet learned, and they were an astonished bunch when they heard the Yanks call out "Mark five," "Remark seven," "Bull on number three," as though on a rifle range, when the "eggs" went off. However, when one finally landed a little closer than the rest, they proved that it was due to ignorance rather than excessive bravery by all falling over backwards in a heap.

Air raids were frequent during our stay in the "back areas," but were not as bad as often described. At least, this was true in our case; other outfits whose luck was different might estimate them dift'erently. While we were at Hesdin L'Abbe, a little village near Boulogne, they came over several times. It is a weird experience at first to hear the motors whirring overhead and try to figure which sounds are "Jerry" and which are British ; then to near the low boom of the "Antis" and the rattle of machine guns, punctuated by the heavy boom of the "eggs" themselves. A person is a little nervous, wondering how close they are going to drop, but the space we occupied was such a small proportion of the space available that we could hardly imagine our luck being bad enough to get them. After the first two or three fairly distant raids, most of the men would merely wake up, curse a little, and go back to sleep. Some of the statements written in home magazines about air raids have been worse than exaggerations — they have been lies. I read once that the Huns had made the nights so hideous that a soldier feels safer in the front line trenches than in a village within fifty miles of the line. The writer should have visited the front line sonic time, and seen whether he felt safer there than in the rest areas. I do not recall any case of an air bomb casualty in our battalion.

There was just one time when our company was thrown into a state of excitement by an airplane; and this incident will live forever in our annals as a joke on the entire outfit. We were lined up for retreat in an orchard dm^ing the early days of the summer, when several planes flew directly over us. They turned out to be British, but it is never easy to be certain at first glance. Suddenly one of them put off some kind of a smoke signal, the effect of which was a trailing ball of smoke falling directly on the company. Someone looked up and let out a yell, and the entire company cleared the orchard in two jumps. One little Italian got on his gas mask and tin hat and reached the fence as soon as the rest. He said he was taking no chances. The anti-climax of the tragedy, there being no explosion, started recriminations as to who had begun the scare. One officer was accused of giving the command : 'T Company, let's go !" and for weeks afterward the men of the other companies would yell that at us as we passed. Be it said in conclusion, however, that this motto which started as a jeer, became our battle cry, and many a time later, when to "go" meant to go forward in the face of enemy fire, I have heard the men sing out 'T Company, let's go" as w^e started onward.

J-Iesdin L'Abbe was the first of the many little villages in which we stayed for a short time. We never stayed long in any one place, and long ago lost count of the number of moves. We pitched our shelter tents in different orchards, so they would be less liable to possible daylight air raiders than if in an open field. The officers' mess was established in a little estaminet, where our own cook prepared the army rations on the iMX'nch lady's stove, and supplemented them by what he could buy from her garden. The one large building of the town was an old chateau — no French town is complete without one — and in this some of the officers got rooms, while the rest of us slept in tents in the backyard.

Altogether it was an ideal rural existence, and we were rather sorry when the order came to leave.

We advanced toward the front in several stages, or as one of the men put it, "each place was a little worse than the last." The moving itself was no small part of our burden, for it almost invariably involved some early rising and some night hiking. On this particular move, we got up at some unearthly hour, started before daylight and marched seven kilometers to the railroad station, only to wait there until the middle of the afternoon before the train was ready.

We had been given an exaggerated idea of the promptness with which we would be put into the line, and everyone thought when we left Hesdin L'Abbe that we were headed straight for the front. So, although we were actually dumped out a good twenty-five miles behind the line, we had all the mental experiences attendant upon going up to the line, and these were practically repeated at every move we made, both prior to our trench experiences and prior to our later "big drive." So, although each move got us nearer the reality, the "sensations" each time were less novel, and it was that gradual process of becoming accustomed to the idea that prevented us from being more nervous when the time came. As someone said a few days before our first attack, we had been "Just Before the Battle Mother" for so long that he couldn't stay excited to save his life.