Americans' Defense of Château-Thierry

United States troops, mostly inexperienced in actual warfare, on June 1 played a brilliant part in the defense of Château-Thierry. By their prompt and resolute support to the French they assisted in driving the Germans from the south bank of the Marne at that vital point, and were largely responsible for blocking the enemy's determined advance across the river toward Paris, thus preventing the development of a most serious situation for the Allies. The French official report of the incident was as follows:

American troops checked German advanced forces which were seeking to penetrate Neuilly Wood, and by a magnificent counterattack hurled back the Germans north this wood.

Further south the Germans were not able to make any gains. On the Marne front an enemy battalion which had crept across to the left bank of the river above Jaulgonne was counterattacked by French and American troops and hurled back to the other bank, after having suffered heavy losses. A footbridge which the enemy used was destroyed and 100 prisoners remained in our hands.

A BRITISH ACCOUNT

The Reuter correspondent under date of June 5 described the feat of the Americans at Château-Thierry in these words:

On May 31, when the Germans were already in the outskirts of Château-Thierry, an American machine-gun unit was hurried thither in motor lorries. Château-Thierry lies on both banks of the Marne, which is spanned by a big bridge. A little to the northward a canal runs parallel to the river and is crossed by a smaller bridge.

The Americans had scarcely reached their quarters when news was received that the Germans had broken into the northern part of Château-Thierry, having made their way through the gap they had driven in our lines to the left of the town and then pouring along the streets to the bridge, intending to establish themselves firmly on the south bank and capture the town.

The American machine gunners and French colonials were thrown into Château-Thierry together. The Americans immediately took over the defense of the river bank, especially the approaches to the bridge. Fighting with their habitual courage and using their guns with an accuracy which won the highest encomiums from the French, they brought the enemy to a standstill.

Already wavering under the American fire, the Germans were counterattacked by the French colonials and driven from the town. They returned to the attack the next night and under cover of darkness crept into the town along the river bank and began to work their way through the streets toward the main bridge. At the same moment a tremendous artillery bombardment was opened upon the southern half of the town.

BLOWING UP THE BRIDGE

When within range of the machine guns the Germans advanced under the cover of clouds of thick white smoke from smoke bombs, in order to baffle the aim of the American gunners. A surprise, however, was in store for them. They were already crossing the bridge, evidently believing themselves masters of both banks, when a thunderous explosion blew the centre of the bridge and a number of Germans with it into the river. Those who reached the southern bank were immediately captured.

In this battle in the streets, and again at night, the young American soldiers showed a courage and determination which aroused the admiration of their French colonial comrades. With their machine guns they covered the withdrawal of troops across the bridge before its destruction, and although under severe fire themselves, kept all the approaches to the bank under a rain of bullets which nullified all the subsequent efforts of the enemy to cross the river. Every attempt of the Germans to elude the vigilance of the Americans resulted in disaster.

During the last two days the enemy has renounced the occupation of the northern part of Château-Thierry, which the American machine guns have made untenable. It now belongs to No Man's Land, as, since the destruction of the bridges, it is not worth while for the French to garrison it.

Against their casualties the Americans can set a much greater loss inflicted by their bullets on the enemy. They have borne their full part in what a French staff officer well qualified to judge described as one of the finest feats of the war.

THE QUICK ADVANCE

The story of the quick advance of the American marines was related in detail by Wilbur Forrest in The New York Tribune as follows:

It is a narrative that stands for more, perhaps, than most of those written in American history books. It is literally another story of American minute men who abandoned the figurative plowshares of peaceful training camps and rushed to the scene of action. They met the enemy with weapons they knew how to handle.

On May 30 the enemy reached the Marne east of Château-Thierry and began a forceful advance along the north bank toward the city. The same day American machine gunners received orders 100 kilometers to the rear to jump into auto trucks and hurry into action.

They started almost immediately, and an all-night journey found the battalion at 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 31st on a hill overlooking Château-Thierry. All around them French batteries were firing full tilt. The enemy was advancing on the city.

Right here those American machine gunners got their first glimpse of real war. German shells crashed into villages within plain view and the little city below them was not being spared. The officers chose a small nearby village as headquarters and the marines waited for darkness before loading little black machine guns on their shoulders and marching into Château-Thierry.

GERMAN SHELLS RAKE CITY

German high explosives and shrapnel were raking the city, but the young Americans under fire for the first time coolly placed their guns in position on the south bank of the river. They saw heavy shells strike the railroad station and they saw it burn. They saw houses fall like packs of cards, and I have the word of a Frenchman, who was present, that they were "cool like American cucumbers."

During the night the Germans gradually filtered into the outskirts on the north side of the town. Roughly speaking, the American guns were so placed between the houses and in the gardens as to enfilade the approaches to the bridges and the streets on the opposite sides. All remained on the south bank of the river with the exception of a Lieutenant, (John T. Bissell,) a youthful Pittsburgher, who was one of West Point's latest graduates.

The Lieutenant with a dozen men and two guns was ordered to cross the river to prevent the enemy's advance along forked roads which merge to the right of the northern approach to the iron bridge. For convenience sake it is permissible to say that A Company was charged with holding the left part of the town on the south bank and the approaches to the larger bridges, while B Company's guns swept the opposite approaches to the iron bridge, and, therefore, held the right portion of the town.

Several hundred yards separated the two companies. The enemy's shelling was intensified during the night, but no Germans were yet in sight. The machine guns were quiet, although A Company's commander, O. F. Houghton of Portland, Me., was forced to abandon the headquarters he had chosen in a house on the bank of the river and change the position of some guns because of the enemy's precise fire.

It was a waiting game for Company A's guns. In the meantime Company B, at about 5 A. M., in broad daylight, saw two columns of the enemy of twelve men each, advancing across an open field toward the river to the right of their position. The Germans carried light machine guns and were blissfully ignorant that our men were here. One American gun swung its shy little nose around toward the Germans and waited. Behind it was an unpoetic youth named Must of Columbia, S. C., a Sergeant, who waited until he saw the whites of their eyes, and then let them have it, as he explained today.

AT CLOSE RANGE

"I got eight out of the bunch by a little surprise shooting," said the Sergeant with a considerable show of pride. "They flopped nicely. Then I turned on the other squad, but they were leary and I only got one. The rest of them got into the ditch and crawled back without showing themselves. Later in the day their Red Cross men came out to pick up the wounded. We've got orders not to fire on members of the Red Cross, so I let 'em work unmolested. But I kept tally all day when their Red Cross men came out. By my count they carried off nine and they weren't all wounded, either."

The Germans during the day of June 1 gained the hills overlooking the north bank of the river. Their machine guns and their artillery observers, therefore, were able to direct a galling fire on the south bank and portions of the north bank which still were held by French colonials and two machine guns under an American Lieutenant.

DEADLY MACHINE GUNS

The enemy's position thus made the north bank untenable and orders were given to retire to the south bank under cover of the darkness. At 9:30 P. M. the French, in accordance with these plans, retired to the south bank and blew up a stone bridge. The American machine gun companies during the retirement poured a galling fire from the flanks into the areas evacuated by the retiring troops.

The enemy was now shelling the south bank more heavily and the enemy machine-gun fire was multiplied. The commander of Company A was forced to change the position of his guns in order to secure a better field of fire. With the light Hotchkiss pieces on their shoulders he led his men into a wood further down the river. Here they were spotted by enemy observers and thirty high explosive shells crashed into the wood. The shelling ceased and the guns went into their positions.

The French were still retiring at 10:30 P. M. It was pitch dark, except for shell bursts and the streaky flame stabs from the machine guns on both sides—the Americans were in the wood and along the south bank of the river, the Germans on the crest of the hill on the other side.

Suddenly there was an immense detonation. It was the big bridge blowing up. Then there came out of the darkness across the river, as the firing lulled, the ghostly chant of the advancing enemy. It was one of those German mass attacks, where men, shoulder to shoulder, singing inguttural tones the praise of Germany and the Kaiser, blindly walk into death like fanatics.

The sort of creaky, shuffling sound their boots made as they trotted into the open road came across the river like the wailing of lost souls, converged toward the bridge and was heard by these young Americans, who strained their eyes across the river to get what machine-gun men call "the target." But it was in pitch darkness, and there was only the sound to tell them there were plenty of "targets." Every little black devil of a machine gun tore loose with hellfire. The Americans behind them, who saw their first glimpse of war about thirty hours before, fed in bullets as fast as human hands could work. And the bullets caught their "targets" on the opposite side.

The "target" came on again and again, but nothing could live in that leaden hail. The enemy waves melted in the darkness.

Now come the even more thrilling experiences of the little band of Americans under Lieutenant Bissell who had been cut off and surrounded by the enemy across the river. Even experienced soldiers could not be blamed if they had surrendered there.

At the beginning of the German mass attack a few French colonial soldiers, also cut off by the blown-up bridge, made the Lieutenant understand that then it was every man for himself. The north bank was becoming a seething mass of Germans. All other forces had retired across the river. Bullets were registering on every foot of the space approaching the bridges.

The Germans chant to keep up the courage of the advancing masses. They sometimes yell to disconcert their enemies. With this ghostly chanting drawing nearer to the Lieutenant and his men and the weird yells of the Germans occasionally splitting the night, there was no thought of surrender. Their orders were to retreat by the main bridge, and orders were orders.

SERIOUS PREDICAMENT

Picking up both guns, each man carrying his allotted piece in manoeuvres, the party of thirteen started along the river for the main bridge. Reaching the vicinity of the approach, they discovered their plight. The enemy was almost upon them. Still carrying their guns, they jumped down, taking cover under the stone parapets at the river's edge. Thus they worked their way down to the iron bridge, though the Germans on the very parapet above were marching into a hail of American machine guns from the south bank.

B Company did not know that a detachment had not escaped. The German attack remained at its height, and the enemy, despite its losses, kept sweeping toward the iron bridge. Bissell and his men attempted to cross under their own fire. Three were immediately wounded. They retired, picking up their wounded.

The Lieutenant knew that B Company's guns were across the bridge, and he approached as near as he dared and yelled repeatedly. B Company's officers finished the story, which was narrated and corroborated by the Lieutenant and others at the rest camp today.

The first B Company knew that Americans were opposite was when they heard a voice calling "Cobey! Cobey!" Cobey was the other Lieutenant.

This time the German attack melted. B Company's guns ceased fire long enough for Cobey to cross the bridge and lead the Lieutenant and the men to safety. Throughout the remainder of the night the enemy vented his rage by heavy shelling. The next day, June 2, the heavy shelling continued. The enemy had picked up his dead and wounded across the river under cover of darkness and could be seen occasionally flitting from house to house.

Sniping was continuous between the French and Germans. Machine guns were silent during the day in order not to give away their positions. Nightfall was so quiet that the Americans were not able to understand such warfare. They thought all war was noisy.

However, at 9 o'clock at night the enemy made a fierce rush for the iron bridge. Fifteen minutes of heavy machine-gun firing squelched the attack and the shelling was resumed. The heavy bombardment continued.

"GOT" WHOLE PLATOON

On June 3 the Sergeant in charge of one of our platoons at the iron bridge saw a German platoon of about fifty men forming on top of a hill. They made a beautiful target, according to the Sergeant's story today. He and his companions believe he got them all.

The enemy brought more artillery up by night and began a terrific shelling to culminate in what appeared to be an attempted attack. The French artillery sprinkled the opposite bank of the river with a barrage which the "novice" American fighters called beautiful. They thought it was less than a hundred yards away, and stood up to watch it, and there wasn't any attack.

The French engineers on this night laid a charge under the iron bridge while the American guns laid down a leaden protective barrage. When the charge was detonated the Germans rushed forward from the house to ascertain the cause of the explosion. It was here that a prearranged petrol flare lit up the vicinity like day, and again American machine gunners had what they insist on calling "targets."

"I was impressed by many things," a company's Captain said. "First of all, the coolness of every man, and especially of a young Georgia theological student who had been drafted, who on the third day complained because the boche shells kept mussing up his gun position. Second, the attitude of those wonderful French colonial troops with us. They gave us inspiration. They said we gave them inspiration; so it was a fifty-fifty exchange. Third, that beautiful French barrage and our wonderful 'targets.'"