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CHAPTER 28

SERVICE OF THE 369TH INFANTRY

Employment in Building Terminals at St. Nazaire, January, 1918-Experience of the Third Battalion in Guarding German Prisoners in Brittany-The Taking Over of a Sector in the Champagne District-Transference to the Line Below Minancourt in June-The Last German Drive, July 15-Participation in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of September 26

THE

HE main body of Negro troops were organized as a unit under the 92nd Division, the part of which in the war is stated in another chapter. But in addition to the service of this division, there were four Negro regiments which upon arriving in France were brigaded with French troops, and employed in various sectors of the battle-line from the Vosges Mountains in the east to the Belgian front in the west. These four regiments arrived in France earlier than the 92nd Division, and were occupying sectors of the battle-line during the severest and most discouraging stages of the war, when the Germans. were making their last and most desperate drives toward Paris. All of these regiments had taken some part in the war before the tide was turned in favor of the Allies in the last German drive of July 15, 1918.

The first of these regiments to arrive in France was the 369th Infantry, formerly a unit of the New York National Guard. After preliminary training at Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina, the regiment was ordered overseas and arrived at Brest, on December 28, 1917.

At this time there was pressing need of workmen to assist in the building of docks and railway terminals at St. Nazaire, where most of the American troops and supplies were hereafter to be landed. The regiment was therefore transferred to this port, and its first service was in constructing this terminal, and in unloading ships.

Early in January, 1918, the 3rd Battalion of this regiment was dispatched to Colquidan, in Brittany, to guard a German prison-camp. Three weeks later this battalion was ordered to join the rest of the regiment at Givry-en-Argonne. From this station batches of picked men of the regiment were sent to a French divisional training-school.

In May the regiment was sent to Main de Massiges, a part of the

French line, where small batches of the men accompanied French soldiers for practical training in trench warfare and raiding.

After about two weeks of this kind of training, the regiment was transferred to Bois d'Hause, Champagne district, where for the first time the regiment took over a sector. While the regiment was occupying this sector the Germans were pushing forward their great offensive initiated March 15.

By June I the drive toward Paris had been stopped at ChateauThierry with the aid of American troops, and on June 4, some counterattacks were launched, one of which in the sector held by the Americans, led to the capture of Belleau Woods.

The Negro 369th regiment took part in the fighting in Belleau Woods on June 6.

In expectation of another German drive, the 369th was transferred to the line below Minancourt, near Butte de Mesnil.

Lieutenant John Richards, a Northern man, in command of a machine-gun company of this regiment, gives an amusing account of a stampede of his men when they were going forward to occupy an advanced line of trenches.

"The battalion to which I was assigned," he says, "was in what is called the intermediate position, in trenches and dugouts, two kilometers behind another battalion which held the front-line trenches. . . .

"Aside from the shelling, which we avoided by staying in our dugouts and by wasting no time when moving in the trenches, my first real experience in this sector came a few days later, when we moved up to relieve the battalion in the front-line position. Making a relief in the trenches is always nervous work. In the regular trench parallels that stretch across the line of fire, there is good protection against hostile artillery; but in the long boyaus that lead toward the front, there is very little shelter. Moreover, the guns of the enemy are carefully registered on these communication trenches. All movement must be at night, and accomplished quietly; for if the Germans suspect that a relief is in progress, there will be slaughter among the long lines moving out or in, in single file.

"The night of this relief was clear and still; the German guns were silent for once. Rumor was afloat of a tunnel which the enemy were building toward our lines. There is something unpleasant about the idea of tunnels, suggesting sudden explosions of hidden mines. We were half a mile behind the front line, moving slowly up the boyau, or communication trench. I was in charge of a column of seventy-five

men, walking behind them, according to my orders, in case there should be stragglers. At the head of the column were a poilu guide whom the boys did not know and one of our own sergeants. We crawled along, each man bent on not losing sight of the man in front of him. . .

...

"We were half-way to the front lines when suddenly there was a shout, a rush; and I was knocked flat by my attachment moving to the rear at triple time. I have never seen living men move faster. They threw off their packs, they threw away their guns. I got up blaspheming, with my face full of mud, tried to stem the rush, and was borne back by it, wondering frantically if I ought to use my pistol. I pursued my small command and found it scattered over the country half a mile back. Knowing almost no names, and bewildered by the dark, I spent a nightmare half-hour, cursing and cajoling them to get into line again. This time I took care to go ahead, and we moved forward, picking up the guns and packs, relieving the troops in the front line two hours later than we should have.

"What had happened was this: the column had come to a gully with a bridge across it; the bridge had a roof. It looked like a dark hole. Some one at the head of the line had probably whispered, 'Ma Lawd, dat am de Boche tunnel!' then stampeded. The Germans had not fired a shell; the hole which they had seen was innocent of sound or movement—and these were seasoned troops! As for the blunder of having no officer at the head of the files, there was another lieutenant who should have been there, but who lost himself in the labyrinth of the trenches, showing up very wild-eyed next morning. . . .

"All this time we were in what might be called an average sector. There was plenty of healthy artillery activity and frequent raids, but no fighting of the intensity that characterized the sectors farther to the west. The raids were often unsuccessful. When we took a prisoner or two, we were very happy. As for losing prisoners, we never did. Several times our men were taken. Such, however, was their dread of what would happen to them behind the German lines, that their captors could never hold them. Agile as panthers, and with the same hairtrigger quality that caused my downfall the night that someone saw a Boche tunnel in a harmless bridge, they always broke away and got back to our lines. I believe it is true that this regiment has never had a single soldier taken and kept prisoner. Moreover, in these same trenches during the month of July they withstood successfully a terrific bombardment and a strong attack." 1

1"Some Experiences with Colored Soldiers," Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 1919.

The night before the German drive of July 15, some patrols of the 369th Infantry captured several German prisoners who gave to the Allies the information that the German army would begin its drive the next day.

"General Gouraud, who commanded the Fourth French Army, took his troops out of the front line trenches over a front of 50 kilometers, and when the attack occurred he had the 369th on one flank of a 50kilometer line, and the old 69th New York, a part of the Rainbow Division, on the other. When the German fire fell on these front line trenches for five hours and twenty minutes, the shells fell on empty trenches except for a few patrols left in reinforced trenches with signal rockets, gas shells, and a few machine guns. When the hour for the German infantry attack came, these patrols let off their gas bombs and signal rockets and the massed allied artillery let loose on the massed Germans, who were literally smashed and never got through to the second line of the 369th."2

After the German drive of July 15 had spent its force, the 369th was put on the line near Maison-en-Champagne. On August 12, while a unit of the 369th Infantry was occupying the trenches in this sector, a German raiding party rushed the trenches, and, after firing upon the men and assaulting them with trench knives and clubs, captured five privates and a lieutenant. When the victorious raiders were making their way back to their own trenches, Sergeant Bill Butler, from Salisbury, Maryland, belonging to Company L, happened to be occupying a forward post and saw that the party would have to pass near him. "The Negro sergeant waited until the Germans were close to his post, then opened fire upon them with his automatic rifle. He kept the stream of lead upon the raiders until ten of the number had been killed. Then he went forth and took the German lieutenant, who was slightly wounded, a prisoner, released the American lieutenant and five other prisoners, and returned to the American lines with his prisoner and the rescued party."

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When General Pershing launched his great Meuse-Argonne offensive of September 26, the 369th Regiment was transferred from the command of the 16th French Division to the 161st French Division and made the jump-off at the hour when the offensive started. The 369th was supported by the Moroccans on its left, and the French on its Scott, The American Negro in the Great War, p. 208. 'Ibid., p. 211,

right. During the first day's fighting in the Argonne, a unit of the 369th came to the edge of a swamp when the German machine-guns began to open fire, and, of the fifty-eight of the unit caught in the trap, only eight escaped being killed or wounded. Corporal Elmer Earl of Middletown, New York, belonging to Company K, made a number of trips to the swamp and brought back about a dozen wounded men.

Major L'Esperance says: "The heaviest fighting was on September 26, 1918, when we went into action with twenty officers and 700 men in our battalion in the morning, and at the close we had seven officers and 150 men left. Our boys advanced steadily like seasoned veterans, and never lost a foot of ground they had taken or let a prisoner escape." In spite of the heavy losses the 369th pressed on, following the general advance and driving the Germans back for a distance of seven kilometers.

Colonel Hayward, in a letter to Private Henry Johnson's wife, tells her how her husband and another private, Needham Roberts, won the French Croix de Guerre, for heroic conduct in a skirmish in no man's land:

"He and Private Needham Roberts were on guard together at a small outpost on the front line trench near the German lines, and during the night a strong raiding party of Germans numbering from twelve to twenty, judging by the weapons, clothing and paraphernalia they left behind and by their footprints, stole across no man's land and made a surprise attack in the dead of the night on our two brave soldiers.

“We had learned some time ago from captured German prisoners that the Germans had heard of the regiment of Black Americans in this sector, and the German officers had told their men how easy to combat and capture them it would be. So this raiding party came over, and, on the contrary, Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts attended very strictly to their duties. At the beginning of the attack the Germans fired a volley of bullets and grenades and both of the boys were wounded, your husband three times and Roberts twice, then the Germans rushed the post, expecting to make an easy capture. In spite of their wounds, the two boys waited coolly and courageously and when the Germans were within striking distance opened fire, your husband with his rifle and Private Roberts from his helpless position on the ground, with hand grenades. But the German raiding party came on Scott, op. cit., p. 278.

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