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Asbury Park Sunday Press (The Shore Press), September 10, 1933
Gunner
Manasquan Hero, Possessor of 11 Citations, Recalls Adventures with the Fourth Marines
By Elias S. Longstreet
The brawny chest of that hardboiled ex-Marine
As a warrant officer with the rank of Marine gunner, equivalent to the rating of second lientenant [sic],
Te [sic] latest decoration of
Some of the exploits of
The Second played an heroic part in five pitched battles, or series of engagements, all successful, and won the right to have emblazoned upon its banners the names of its brilliant victories at Chateau Thierry, Soissons, St Mihiel salient, Blanc Mont and Argonne-Meuse Its casualties tell the grim story of the fighting. They totaled 732 officers and 23,653 men, or 24,385 in all. This was abou 10 percent of the total casualties in the entire American Expeditionary Force. It captured 12,026 prisoners, over a fourth of the total taken by the A.E.F., and took 343 cannon, about a quarter of the whole number taken by the Americans.
But the big show is all over now for
Off to Port au Prince, Haiti, the command was rushed when that island republic was a wild, wicked, seething center of savage revolt Also there was service in Santo Domingo, and when the United States had its little trouble with Mexico he was with the force that went to Vera Cruz, that time when Smedley Butler, the Marine firebrand, went to Mexico City disguised as a Chinaman. When American battleships made their famous world tour at the command of President Theodore Roosevelt
Born in Philadelphia Nov 18, 1882,
When the
Then the South Carolina set sail for Philadelphia and after a short time there the lads boarded the DeKalb, an interned German liner, a thoroly [sic] disgruntled gang because they believed they were being sent back to Haiti. Actually they were embarking upon their greatest adventure, one from which many bever returned. They set sail June 14, 1917, but were almost stopped before they began. On June 22 enemy submarines attacked the group of vessels in which the DeKalb was included. One torpedo passed across the bow of the vessel and another across the stern. Guns five, seven and nine on the
[photo, caption:
DeKalb, of which
The DeKalb arrived at St Nazaire June 26, the Fifth regiment being the first unit of what ultimately became the Second division to land in France A part of the Fourth brigade, it remained in the Bourmont training area until March 14, 1918, when it commenced movements into the sub-sectors on the Verdun front. After that it had a division sector of its own in the region of Les Eparges, where it held the line for two months. The distant roar of cannon was deadly close. The first real baptism of fire was received when the Second was sent in as support for the Frist at Cantigny.
Then the hell of Chateau Thierry broke in its awful devastation, threatening Paris as it had not been threatened since the dark days of 1914. Straddled across the Metz highway, with no artillery support the first day and with nothing but emergency rations, the Fifth and Sixth regiments stopped the onrushing Germans at Belleau Woods. Into the thick of the fight went
"The woods were alive with machine guns," said
"There was poor Sergt. Jerry Finnegan, one of my pals, who haggled a precious can of salmon open with his bayonet and had been told by a lieutenant to 'damn well fix that bayonet and get on with the war.' Two hours later Jerry lay dead across a Maxim gun, his bayonet thru the body of the gunner. There was Hill 142 there and the Germans wanted it desperately. They sent wave after wave over and their dead were piled all about it. We ourselves, the 49th, lost 62 percent of our company. We let Red Cross workers among the Germans pick up their dead and wounded until the wind lifted the cover on one stretcher and showed the snout of a machine gun. Then we let them have it. As one German wrote, "The Americans are savages. They kill everything that moves.'
"But God, how the boys suffered in taking Bouresches. Lieutenant Robertson got there with 20 men out of some hundreds who had started. Whole platoons were shot down. The whole Bois de Blelleau was a machine gun nest. But the Americans took it and here the Germans, who had rolled up tired French divisions all the way from the Chemin des Dames, were stopped good and plenty. And later in French general orders the woods were named "Bois de la Brigade de Marines,' after us.
"Then we bumped into the Aisne-Marne offensive at Soissons next, in Foch's drive in July 1918, when he [sic] whole western front moved. But I forgot to tell you that we paraded in Paris on the Fourth of July after Belleau Woods and you never saw a wilder welcome than the French gave the boys. Well, on July 18, 1918, all the guns in the world opened up for a five-minute barrage and we charged with the Senegalese. And remember, we hadn't had food for two days and had gone three nights without sleep. That's where I lost my orderly, little Tritt. We found him dead under the branches of a fallen tree.
"While there I was sent out on patrol one night to locate the enemy. We found them all right and they found us. We had 56 men. The Germans cut us off from our battalion and there was a lively scrap in which we sustained 37 casualties. The rest of us managed to fight our way back. We were cited in both French and American orders for that scrap and the day's work in general.
"I was hit in the right forearm, but it was only a flesh wound and I stayed with the company. We had advanced over six miles, captured over 3,000 prisoners, 11 batteries of artillery, over 100 machine guns and the like. Some of those guns were turned on the retreating enemy.
"We were under the command of General Foch. As a mater [sic] of fact the Second was his command of shock troops and he sent us wherever hell was popping. That was how we came to get a crack at the fighting in the St. Mihiel offensive in September, 1918. There was one machine gun nest that bothered us like the devil there and I and four men were sent out to silence it. It was a hot crawl to get close enough to heave hand grenades, but we did it and killed eight gunners. After that we had a little relief. The French thought enough of the incident to give us citations."
Then came the Champagne offensive and its battle of Blanc Mont, the taking of which Marshal Petain hailed as "the greatest single achievement of the 1918 campaign - the Battle of Liberation." The Marines were in it, you might be sure. The old Second by now had suffered tremendous losses of the old timers who had first composed it, but sturdy replacements had taken their places and it was now held as the special reserve of Gouraud's 4th French army. Four years of shell fire had made the region a desolation. All of it was dominated by Blanc Mont ridge, apparently impregnable, held by the Germans.
The Second, with the Sixth regiment in the forefront, took Blanc Mont that day but the field of death over which they charged was muddy with the blood of comrade and foe. That was a memorable Oct. 3. The victory freed Rheims and forced the entire Germay army between that city and the Argonne forest to retreat to the Aisne, a distance of 30 kilometers. There were some units of Marines who went beyond their objective and as a result were subjected to terrific flanking fire. They fell back to the Paris-Metz highway, but with many men missing.
"Hell, I didn't want to leave; I felt well enough to stay," grinned
For venturing back into that inferno and trying to save his lost comrades
"Yellow hell," snorted
"Well," persisted Connor, "I've got a hunch I'm not coming back."
"Ah snap out of it," joshed
"But poor Chuck was right," said
And then dropping wearily into a shell hole where his
captain had established himself,
That was where
After a short time to rest and reequip, the division was ordered to join the First American army and then into the Argonne forest it went and over the top in the great offensive of Nov. 1, the victorious Second taking its objective in one day whereas three days had been allowed. The Second had the post of honor, leading the advance. It drove thru the enemy's fortified lines to a depth of over nine kilometers, seized the heights of Bayonville and destroyed the German divisions on its front.
On Nov. 3 it hurled itself forward to Fosse and captured the heights of Vaux. Those were days and nights of terrific endeavor. At night it pressed forward thru the forest of Belval by a single road and occupied the ridge near Beaumont. And all America followed the advance of its great armies with bated breath. On the night of the 4th it again attacked and advanced its lines to the Meuse. And finally, on the night of the 10th it forced its way across the river and occupied a commanding position on the eastern bank.
But that forcing of the river will ever remain an exploit of outstanding endeavor even in a war that teemed with [missing text] human exploits. An order of the Second division, dated [missing text] 1918, describes the historic crossing on the night before [missing text] became operative. It reads:
[missing text] the night of Nov. 10 heroic deeds were done by [missing text] In the face of a heavy artillery and withering machine gun fire, the Second engineers threw two foot bridges across the Meuse and the first and second battalions of the Fifth Marines crossed resolutely and unflinchingly to the east bank and carried out their mission.
In the last battle of the
"We were ordered to take the heights upon the other side," said
On Nov. 17, 1918, the Second commenced its march to the Rhine, passing thru Belgium and Luxembourg. The German frontier was reached Nov. 25, crossed Dec. 1 and the Rhine was crossed Dec. 13. Thereafter the Leathernecks led an uneventful existence until they were ordered home, sailing March 3, 1919 and arriving in Hoboken March 11.
The Marines were the only organization in the Second division to be nicknamed by the Germans, to whom the Americans came to be known as the "Devil Dogs." The Germans honored their foes with only three such nicknames. The Scots were dubbed "Ladies of Hell" and the French Alpine chasseurs were knowsn as "Blue Devils."
"You can bet your bottom dollar that we were glad to get back to 'God's country' again," said
Once more a civilian after many years in the Marine corps,
"Yes, a bank job's pretty tame after years in the Marine corps, "