10/3/1918 - Solidifying the reputation their victorious brothers established as beasts in battle at Belleau Wood, the warriors of the United States 2nd Infantry Division (along with the never before bloodied elements of the Texas and Oklahoma National Guard from the U.S. 36th Infantry Division) are launched at the German positions along Blanc Mont Ridge in the Champagne region of France ... an area that has seen the slaughter of tens of thousands of French soldiers trying unsuccessfully for four years to take and hold the ridgeline. Now it is the American Expeditionary Force of General John J. Pershing that will get a chance to take the infamous heights.
Atop Blanc Mont Ridge
Finish line in sight for the war, in the late summer and autumn of 1918, the Allies launch an offensive to finally drive the German Army of General Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff from France. On the left of the line, the British successfully move forward, as does the right of General Pershing, pushing northward in the Meuse-Argonne sector to break the German's Hindenburg Line (named after the German commander, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg). Between the British and Americans however are the French, who bloodied by four years of back-and-forth for mere yards of advancement through the area have lost tens of thousands of men at locales like the Marne River, Reims Cathedral, the first and second battles of Champagne, Verdun, and three battles along the Aisne River to take the Chemin des Dames ridge that are now known to history as horrific, useless abattoirs. Fresh from their mutiny of 1917 and weary of the war, when the offensive begins the Poilus (a term dating back to the Napoleonic Wars meaning "hairy one") of France are again unable to take the defensive heights of Blanc Mont, and ask for support help from the freshest troops in the area not already committed to the offensive, elements of Pershing's AEF (in four years of combat, the French possess the heights once ... for 15 minutes). His left flank anchored on nothing but French air, Pershing reluctantly agrees to give the French his 2nd and 36th Infantry divisions, roughly 54,000 men ... 54,000 men that the French plan on plugging into various commands within the Fourth Army of General Henri Gouraud (a 51-year-old Paris-born soldier with a military resume that includes an education at the renowned Saint Cyr Military Academy, capturing French Sudan rebel, Samori Toure, colonial postings in Niger, Chad, Mauritania, and Morocco, and losing his arm leading the French Expeditionary Corps at Gallipoli before being given command of the 4th Army). However, the man chosen to lead the Americans, 51-year-old Louisianan Major General John Archer Lejeune, a man who will one day be called "Greatest of all Leathernecks" and "The Marine's Marine" while becoming the 13th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps has his own ideas how his men will be used in the coming campaign.
French Dead
Pershing
Gouraud
Lejeune
A Cajun born on the Old Hickory Plantation in the Pointe Coupee Parish of Louisiana on January 10, 1867, John Lejeune attends prep programs at LSU in Baton Rouge from September 1881 to April 1884 before becoming a midshipman in the Class of 1888 (of the thirty-two students in the class, Lejeune will graduate second). After the completion of his two-year cruise as a midshipman, Lejeune is appointed to Naval Engineering, but wanting a career in the Marines instead, uses his state senator and the Secretary of the Navy to get an appointment as a second lieutenant to the Corps. Beginning his military career, the youth receives ""indoctrination and instruction" at the Marine Barracks in Norfolk, Virginia, where he goes to sea for the first time in 1891 aboard the gunboat, USS Bennington (he is in command of the ship's protective contingent of Marines). Upward through the chain-of-command, Lejeune is aboard the cruiser, USS Cincinnati for the duration of the Spanish-American War (he leads a 30-man Marine landing party that extracts almost 100 sailors and civilians from Puerto Rico after the Battle of Fajardo in 1898), is promoted to captain and leads the guard team aboard the battleship, USS Massachusetts (1899 to 1900), rides a recruiting desk for five months in Boston, commands the Marine contingent at Pensacola, Florida, is on duty again at the Norfolk base in 1903, is transferred the same year to Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington, D.C. where he is promoted to major, is back at sea aboard the cruiser, USS Panther closing out 1903, is posted to the cruiser, USS Dixie, in 1904, commands the Marine battalion guarding the Panama Canal, then its back to Washington, D.C. in 1906, and from there, back to the Panama battalion, and from there, back to Marine headquarters before the close of the year. In 1907, his newest posting takes the major to the marine and naval base at Cavite in the Philippines where he takes command of the First Brigade of Marines in 1908 (matching his position, experience and qualifications he is promoted to Lt. Colonel in 1909). More schooling, Lejeune is sent to the U.S. Army War College in 1909 and graduates the following year. From there, Lejeune is posted to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, sent to Colon, Panama in 1912, then is sent back to Cuba.
In 1914, Lejeune is promoted to full colonel, and as the commander of the 2nd Advanced Base Regiment participates in the Tampico Affair in which the Marines will temporarily take possession of the Mexican port of Vera Cruz. Successfully achieving the missions he is tasked with, the Cajun colonel is sent back to Washington, D.C., where he is made second-in-command of the Corps and is promoted to brigadier general in 1916. American joining the bloody festivities of WWI in 1917 when Germany begins un-restricted submarine warfare again following the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania (a tragedy in which 1,198 passengers and crew lose their lives), Lejeune arrives in Brest, France in June of 1918 and is promoted to major general the following month and placed in charge of the 4th Marine Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division following the Battle of Soissons (over 500,000 soldiers from both sides will participate in the five day clash that adds 263,000 casualties to the war's butcher's bill), and by the end of July, Lejeune is in command of the division itself (only the second Marine to ever lead a U.S. Army division into combat) and successfully guides it to victory during the September 1918, Battle of Saint-Mihiel (a blood letting in which 700,000 soldiers participate, with 29,000 becoming casualties). Refitting after the victory, Lejeune is ticketed with helping the French and taking the German positions along Blanc Mont Ridge.
USS Bennington
The Flag Goes Up Over Vera Cruz
Saint-Mihiel
Refusing to let foreign officers command his men or for the men to be broken up into replacements for French field units, instead of getting a court-martial, just happy to get help, Gouraud lets Lejeune make his own plans on how best to use his men, and Pershing is just happy that some of his own people will soon be watching his left flank. Stressing unity, surprise, and all elements of the division supporting each other, Lejeune puts together a battle plan that departs from accepted military doctrine of the time ... instead of a prolonged bombardment of the German line prior to the Americans attacking, Lejeune will advance his men in coordination with the firing of his artillery, keeping his men just out of range of their own shells. For Blanc Mont Ridge, Lejeune's plan is to attack with two brigades converging on a point called Hill 210 ... on the left, elements of the 4th Marine Brigade (the 6th Marine Regiment, commanded by Colonel Harry Lee, a 20-year veteran of the Corps, will lead the attack, with the 5th Marine Regiment, commanded by Colonel Logan Feland, a 19-year veteran of the Corps and a winner of the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership during the Battle of Belleau Wood, following in support) on the right the assault will be led by the 3rd Infantry Brigade (with the 9th Infantry Regiment in front under the command of Colonel George W. Stuart, and the 23rd Infantry Regiment of Colonel Edward R. Stone behind), and supporting both advances (over a mile separates the two columns) are 120 light and 72 heavy guns of the 2nd Division, along with a battalion of French light tanks, 48 machines in all (on the 2nd's left flank are the men of the French 21st Infantry Division, and on the right are the soldiers of French 170th Division). Additionally the attack will be supported by the 5th and 6th Machine Gun Battalions of the 2nd Division. The offensive set to take place on October 2, but Lejeune convinces Gouraud to postpone the attack for 24-hours so that a series of trenches on his left known as the Essen Hook, can be cleared out, and to give his artillery and infantry commanders more time to coordinate their fire planning.
Lee & Feland
Stone
Jagers Moving Into Position On Blanc Mont
Blanc Mont Bunker
Scheduled to jump off at 6:00 in the morning (the day begins gray and misty), the artillery of Brigadier General Albert Bowley opens up on the German lines ten minutes before the scheduled advance is to begin, with guns targeting the ridge and others beginning the rolling bombardment screening the attackers as it moves towards the high ground in four minute increments. Surprise, shells, and the "esprit" of the men involved combined just as Leguene had planned, and before the afternoon is over, both wings of the attack are atop Blanc Mont Ridge (the French military hero, General Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Petain, before becoming one of the many traitorous WWII boot lickers of Adolf Hitler, will describe the attack as the greatest Allied accomplishment of 1918), all first day objectives have been taken, and the Americans have driven a three-mile deep salient into the German line. It is an accomplishment made possible by men like Chicago born 20-year-old Marine Private John Joseph Kelly, 22-year-old Marine Corporal John Henry Pruitt of Arkansas, 22-year-old South Carolina Marine 1st Lt. James P. Adams, Boston born Marine 2nd Lt. Edward C. Fowler, 17-year-old Tennessee Marine Private Julian Wesley Alsup, Sioux Falls Marine Private Richard Oakes Jordan, 21-year-old Private Roy H. Beird of Illinois, Marine Private Bruce H. Mills, Austria born 31-year-old Marine Private Samuel Glucksman, Marine Private Lambert Bos of Idaho, 21-year-old Marine 2nd Lt. Hugh Pratt Kidder of Minnesota, Marine Private Samuel Slokom Simmons of Pennsylvania, Marine Private Joe Nichols Viera of Nevada, Knoxville Marine Corporal Henry W. Philblad, 23-year-old Marine Sgt. Henry S. Bogan from Kentucky, 22-year-old Marine Pharmacist's Mate First Class John Henry Balch from Kansas City, and others of their ilk.
*Kelly, having promised companions that he will be the first to capture a machine-gun, in advance of his own line, runs over 100-yards through the falling shells of the 2nd's opening barrage and takes out a machine gun nest, killing one German with a grenade, another with a pistol, and then returning through the barrage with eight prisoners in hand ... a morning which wins him the Medal of Honor (before the war is over he will also win five silver stars and two Purple Hearts).
*Pruitt wins the Medal of Honor taking out two machine guns while killing two Jagers, then captures forty more Germans from a nearby bunkhouse (sadly, he is killed by an exploding shell during the following day's counterattacks by the Germans).
*Adams voluntarily leads four soldiers through falling shellfire to take out a machine gun enfilading his company's line, winning a Distinguished Service Cross.
*The evening before the attack, alone, Fowler helps clear the way for his men by crawling into no-man's-land removing a machine gun with grenade. the next morning, he leads his men forward, capturing 15 machine guns and 80 Germans, then to finish the day off, exposed to artillery fire, he snipes another machine gun nest out of existence.
*Their company stopped by enfilading machine gun fire, Alsup, Beird, Jordan, and Mills win Distinguished Service Crosses for volunteering to attack the enemy position, which they take out with grenades and rifle fire, killing three Germans and capturing twenty-five others crewing the defensive position.
*Without aid, Bogan takes out three machine gun nests, and though wounded in the process, takes thirty Germans prisoner, then escorts them to the rear by himself so as not to weaken the American line, gaining Oak Leaves for the Distinguished Service Cross he already possesses.
*Bos wins the Distinguished Service Cross eliminating a machine gun nest with two other volunteers, treats a wounded comrade, captures two more machine guns, captures fourteen men manning the position he is attacking, and then for good measure, captures forty more Jagers in a nearby dugout.
*Forcing a captive to lead him to the dugout the German came from, Glucksman captures twenty more men, returns them to the rear, and then despite wounds, returns to the front and continues the fight until he collapses from blood loss, actions that win him a Distinguished Service Cross.
*By himself, Philbad captures two machine gun nests, killing the position's Germans, then a few hours later he takes on another nest is killed by an explosion of shrapnel, winning a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross.
*The Distinguished Service Cross Simmons wins comes by way of helping wipe out a machine gun nest, capturing forty Germans from a dugout, and carrying three messages to the rear through a German artillery barrage.
*Viera's busy Distinguished Service Cross morning comes from helping capture three machine guns, and taking forty German prisoners out of a dugout.
*Balch receives a Medal of Honor for establishing an aid station for wounded Americans during a German artillery barrage.
*Losing his life, but winning a Distinguished Service Cross, Kidder in 24-hours helps capture six machine guns, take men prisoner from the multiple positions, aids two wounded Americans, and is killed trying to gain a better position during a German counterattack.
Unfortunately though for the Allied soldiers on the ridge, the French on both sides of the attack falter, and the rest of the day and evening, the men of the 2nd Division are peppered by German counterattacks and artillery fire as the French order the division to continue attacking northward. Ordered to advance by French XXI Corps commander, Major General Stanislaus Naulin, and take the village of Machault (six miles beyond the American lines), Lejeune balks and insists on going after a closer objective, being allowed to bring his artillery forward, and that his guns be fully resupplied with ammunition. Pleased that the ridge is finally out of the German's hands (though the area is full of bypassed strong points that still must be reduced), Naulin backs down and once again the Marine general is allowed to run his own operation which consists of an advance on the high ground about a mile south of the abandoned town of St. Etienne. Mauled moving forward from both flanks (at one point men will report being fired on from the north, south, east, west, and above as German fighters control the skies above Blanc Mont Ridge and more harm comes from one unit moving forward off schedule and without any artillery support), the attack gains many of its stated objectives, but without support from the still lagging French, by evening the Americans have been pushed back into their starting positions of the morning (a retreat called for by wounded Captain Dewitt Peck almost turns into a rout as units become mixed in the intense German gunfire and officers have to stop running to the rear men with their pistols ... the only known retreat of WWI by the Marine Corps), suffering more casualties than took place assaulting and taking the ridge (the day stands as the worst for the Marine Corps during WWI as Leguene's men suffer 1,889 casualties with one of the worst hit units being the 1st Battalion of the 6th Regiment which starts the day with 800 officers and men, and ends it with only 168 men answering evening roll call ... and among the dead are two previous Medal of Honor winners, 2nd Lt. Henry L. Hulbert and Sergeant Matej Kicak). Identifying one of the German's most worrisome positions being a series of strong machine gun nests to the west of Blanc Mont Ridge, his guns now moved forward and resupplied, Bowley's artillery spends the evening pummeling the positions, and when dawn breaks, the machine gun nests receive another dose that is backed up by a rolling barrage that covers the American attack ... an attack that shows off how successful Legeune tactics can be when applied properly as the Marines, without losing a single man, capture 200 Germans and 75 machine guns. On the right of the salient, unsupported by the French, the men of the 23rd Infantry Brigade remained stalled throughout the day.
Naulin
Peck
Bowley
Despite the obvious evidence of the difference preparation makes in success of an attack, Naulin keeps pressuring the American general to continue his advance the following day. After another heated debate, Legeune agrees to a compromise; the 5th of October will be used to bring separated units together and resupply them, and to clean out bypassed German strongpoints, with the northward advance to be renewed on the morning of the 6th. Starting at 5:30 in the morning as planned, General Bowley's guns drop artillery fire on the forward German positions for an hour, and then the American brigades move forward behind a rolling barrage. Three hours later both units have closed on the south side of the St. Etienne-Orfeuil Road. All goals and more accomplished but troops exhausted, Lejeune has the 142nd Infantry Regiment relieve the 4th Marine Brigade and the 141st Regiment relieve the 3rd Infantry Brigade, but leaves one battalion from each relieved brigade behind (along with most of his machine guns and mortars in place) to stiffen up the replacements. The Marine commander requests a couple of days to get his green troops ready for another attack, but Naulin is on him again demanding the forward attacks continue. Pattern repeated, Lejeune protests, Naulin insists, and so the Americans organize for another advance ... and the Germans are waiting, aggressively fighting back so that the rest of their line can retreat to a new line of defensive positions. On October 8th when the American guns fire on the German lines, prior to the attack beginning, counter-fire, including toxic gas rounds, are sent at the 141sst and 142nd, and the advance ends almost instantly, with only the veteran battalions experiencing any success as one unit digs in on the north side of the town of St. Etienne, allowing the 142nd to move up, while the other Marine battalion on the right, launching a fierce counter-attack into the German flank that pushes the American line north of the St. Etienne-Orfeuil Road, accomplishments that cost the 71st Infantry Brigade more than 1,300 causalities on the October 8th (4,821 casualties over the course of the battle ... by contrast, the bloody three-day Battle for Tarawa during WWII in the Pacific costs the Marine Corps 3,110 casualties).
Downtown St. Etiennie
The next two days find the Americans consolidating their line while ammunition and supplies are moved up, and exhausted troops are moved out, with the remainder of the 2nd Division's unrelieved soldiers finally pulled off the line. Key position in the line taken and held with the fall of Blanc Mont Ridge, on the 10th, the Germans begin a general withdrawal from the area to other defensive positions along the Aisne River. The Siegfried Line in the Champagne region broke, the 2nd's main contribution to winning the war completed (though no one knows it at the time) and Lejeune's command is pulled back to the Suippes-Somme-Suippes area for refitting and rest, before moving to the Triaucourt area and establishing it's headquarters at Conde-en-Barrios, where they are on November 11, 1918, when the war ends. The unit's accomplishment in taking the difficult position noted by the French, Germans, and Americans (echoing British King Henry V's speech prior to the Battle of Agincourt, Lejeune will state after the battle, "To be able to say when this war is finished, I belonged to the SECOND DIVISION, I fought with it at Blanc Mont Ridge, will be the highest honor that can come to any man.") after the war memorials and monuments go up on the battlefield that honor the bravery of the men that fought there over a hundred years ago, the largest being an ossuary of the remains of 10,000 soldiers that fought on the fields of Champagne honoring French and American troops, mounted by a huge statue created by artist Maxime Real del Sarte depicting French troop commander General Henri Joseph Eugene Gouraud (on his death in 1946, at his own personal request, Gouraud is buried in the structure with some of the men he once commanded), American airman and President Theodore Roosevelt's son, Second Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt (killed over dogfighting over Chamery at the age of 20), and del Sarte's brother, who is killed in the fighting around Champagne. And there is also a large memorial approved by the American Battle Monuments Commission on Blanc Mont Ridge honoring the Americans of the 2nd, 36rd, 42nd, and 93rd U.S. Divisions that fought alongside the French in the Champagne region.
Dedication
Atop The Ossuary
A hideous testing ground for the Marines, among those at Blanc Mont Ridge that survive the ordeal, Wendell Cushing Neville of the 4th Brigade will win a Medal-of-Honor at Vera Cruz and in 1930, becomes the new Commandant of the United States Marine Corps (he dies that same year at the age of 60), Logan Feland of the 5th Regiment will go on to win five silver stars for bravery and become a major general in charge of the Department of the Pacific before dying at the age off 66 in 1936), Henry Louis Larsen of the 3rd Battalion will serve in the Marine Corps until 1946, winning two Navy Crosses and three Silver Stars while becoming a Lieutenant General, and the military governor of America Samoa and Guam, while commanding over 215,000 personnel during WWII (he dies in Denver, Colorado in 1962 at the age of 71), Harry Lee of the 6th Regiment will go on to become a major general and command the Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia (he dies on the base in 1935 at the age of 62), and Littleton Waller Tazewell Waller, Jr. of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion will attain the rank of major general while serving as Marine Corps Director of Personnel during WWII (he dies in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania in 1967 at the age of 80).
The most famous participant in the battle though is of course, John Archer Lejeune, often referred to as "the greatest of all Leathernecks." A major general at the time of the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge, Lejeune will go on the serve eleven more years in the Marine Corps (in all, he spends 39-years as a Marine before retiring in 1929), rising to the rank lieutenant general, becoming the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps (1920 to 1929), and founding the United States Marine Corps League for veterans in 1926. After retiring from the Marine Corps, Lejeune becomes the 5th superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia (1929 to 1937). The message he sends to the Marine Corps in 1921, is now read annually on the Corps celebration of it's birthday on 11/10. There are statues of the man on the grounds of the Pointe Coupee Parish Courthouse in New Roads, Louisiana, outside of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, in the center of the traffic circle at the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, outside Lejeune Hall on the campus of the United States Naval Academy, outside of Lejeune Hall on the Quantico Marine Corps Base, and next to the United States destroyer USS Kidd in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the Louisiana War Memorial. Lejeune's name is also on a naval transport ship (AP-74), a hall on the campus of LSU, a high school in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and on Lodge No. 350 of the Ancient, Free, and Accepted Masons of Quantico, Virginia. Lejeune passes away at the Union Memorial Hospital of Baltimore, Maryland on November 20, 1942 at the age of 75. With full military honors, the Marine Corps general is interred at Arlington National Cemetery (Section Six, Grave 5682).
Lejeune will have a U.S. postal stamp issued in his honor in 2005.
New Roads, Louisiana
The United States Marine Corps' battle for Blanc Mont Ridge begins ... October 3, 1918
Medal of Honor Winner Kelly At Blanc Mont Ridge
- October 3, 1918
Members of the 2nd Division
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment