18+ Days in AEF's Footsteps, Day 6: Belleau Wood battleground, Retreat? Hell, we just got here!

Memorial Plaque in center of Belleau Wood display of captured German armaments

"Retreat? Hell, we just got here!"

This famous American  response to an order to fall back was offered up at Belleau Wood by a Marine leading his men through this dense forest. Defended by combat-hardened Germans armed with machine guns, the terrain rolls and pitches.

While it is never my intent to recount military battles as I leave that to the experts on strategy, I will tell you that to go to Belleau Wood is to once again see landscape that clarifies a battle's necessity and to understand why so many soldiers...or in this case, Marines and Germans died in this particular battle.

We entered the woods through the entrance to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, often called Belleau Wood Cemetery. (The Aisne-Marne Campaign, so named for the rivers the AEF sought to capture control of, comprises a number of battles including that for Chateau-Thierry, a town a few miles away.)

Captured armaments

Here in this clearing with this memorial are a number of armaments, all German, all captured by the Americans, Marines and Army soldiers. The array of cannon and more is impressive. Other elements of the woods explain much of the battle.

The woods, I will tell you, are very dense. Even on the sunny and humid spring day that we were there, we could not see through the foliage. To fight here must have been an enormously difficult task for both armies.

We walked the pathways into the forest and at every step, you see foxholes, machine gun dugouts and trenches. One hundred years later it is and you marvel that men fought in these conditions.

Bullets remain in the trees.

Today, flowers bloom in the forest. They did before the battle, too. Many men note that in their memoirs. So do nurses. All contrast the beauty of the flowers with the devastation that occurred among the blossoms.

Along this hillside beneath the blue wild lilies, you see the remains of a trench.

At the edge of the forest, you come to a large wheat field. Here, in knee-high growth, the Marines and the Army soldiers advanced with only barrage for cover. The enormous courage a man must have summoned to to charge this field is much beyond my ability to imagine.

Looking toward Lucy Bocage from where the Americans advanced into the wood where this picture was taken.

Do return for the next post, a look at the Aisne-Marne Cemetery in Belleau Wood.

Finally, for those of you who prefer a video with solid historical synopsis and terrific original film footage, I recommend you go here to the Military Channel: http://military.discovery.com/battles-history/videos/world-war-1-videos.htm There are quite a few short films here, but one on the Battle for Belleau Wood.

(I will say one element of this monologue I did take issue with: The moderator claims this is the first battle of which the Germans remarked on Americans' tenacity. Hence the German name for the Marines who captured this wood: Teufel Hunden. Devil Dogs. Actually, it was the battle of Cantigny in which the First Division took that village where the Germans realized that the Americans might truly have the right stuff to wage significant warfare.)

18+ Days in AEF's footsteps, DAY 5: OISE-AISNE American Cemetery, France

     I had girded myself for months before this first venture into an American cemetery where Americans who served in the First World War are buried. I feared the worst: I feared I would sob.

     I knew I would clutch. But I told myself I would be fine. Just fine. After all, over the decades, I had visited Arlington National Cemetery, watched the Vietnam War Unknown Parade and Dedication in Washington. I had gone to sites like Gettysburg, Antietam, Valley Forge, Yorktown, Concord and Lexington and more. I had taken my children, too, and frankly the only other time I ever cried was the day I saw a re-enactment of General Pickett's ill-fated charge at the 130th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. 
       
     No, I was not related to anyone buried in France. I knew no one who knew anyone who had served and was laid to rest here. Furthermore, the topic of nurses who served in France in 1917-1919 had originally been simply a unique bit of American history I liked investigating. As a child I loved to hear my mother tell tales of her childhood and my father tell very salty tales of his. I predicted that walking the cemetaries of those who repose in France would not affect me.
     But the closer the day came to our departure, and the closer the hour arrived when my husband and I would walk into those grounds came sooner than we anticipated. Quite by accident, we drove a different route than planned from Compiegne to Chateau Thierry where we had reservations for a few nights at a B&B. As we sailed down one rolling hill in the Champagne, admiring the miles of forests with pink and white cherry blossoms and yellow flowers and well-tended fields of flax, suddenly there stood a sign, American Cemetery.
     We were stunned. 
     That was not on our map, we told each other. 
     Why and how did I miss that one, I asked myself, in all my detailed planning for this trip?
     My husband, chauffeur extraodinaire and kind fellow, said we'd better go back.
    We did.
     Here far off the main road where we saw that sign is the stunningly peaceful sight of Oise-Aisne Cemetery. With 6,012 of our men and women buried here in Fere-en-Tardenois, this cemetery is the third largest of those serving those who fought and died in The Great War. Named for the rivers the campaigns fought to retain for the Entente, this cemetery was originally a temporary one for the 42nd Division, or the Rainbow Division. While most resting here fought in that Division, many others lie here also, including nurses who served in hospitals and mobile facilities along the front lines.
     The grounds strike you for their pristine beauty. Carefully manicured and lovingly tended, each grave is marked by white marble cut to the exact measurements of every other. The linden trees are an exact square so that they grow in unison and provide a canopy and protection from the summer sun.
     When you go, do enter the reception area and introduce yourself to the director. Here at Oise-Aisne as at all the other  cemeteries we visited, each of the personnel was warm and welcoming. They are, too, a font of knowledge about those whose graves they care for. Do ask them. They love to share their insights and they recommend reading for you, too!
     None of my pictures can possibly portray the grandeur or the solemnity of this site. The vast number of graves shocks your breath from you. The peace, the birds chirping in the trees and the chimes on the hour and quarter hour belie what happened here nearly a century ago. I will simply tell you that you must go when next you go to France. You will feel confident and fulfilled to have paid these men and women your homage. 

     To walk among the graves is heart-wrenching. To read their names, their rank and their duties, reminds you of the variety and the breadth of what is required to prosecute a war. Their ages, their youth startles you, you who have lived so long and so well and they, who died so young to ensure you might endure longer than they.
     
Here are two of the nurses buried here. Both are Army Nursing Corps volunteers.

Gertrude O'Connor, Army Nurse Corps, Base Hospital 7
Massachusetts, February 8, 1919

Alice A. Ireland
Army Nurse Corps, Base Hospital 34
Pennsylvania, February 3, 1919

     Here are a few of their compatriots who aided them in their duties. Note the variety of duties—and the fact that working in medical services could be as hazardous as combat.

William F. Lacey, Private, Field Hospital 44
Rhode Island, March 1, 1919

Paul Farnum, Private, 101 Sanitary Train, 26 Div.
Massachusetts, March 18, 1918

William Carstensen, Wagoner, Camp Hospital
Iowa, July 3, 1919

Thomas E. Wilcox, Private 1st Class, 18 Evacuation Ambulance Company,
Pennsylvania, October 18, 1918

18+ days in AEF's footsteps: Day 4, Cantigny

Soldier of the First Division

One side of the hilltop of Cantigny, France

         Cantigny is a tiny village in the French countryside north of Paris. The tranquil village surrounds the mountain top. At most, twenty homes dot the crown. Most are farmhouses. One church stands amid them.

     In May 1918, just as the American Expeditionary Force was arriving in great numbers, the French faced a formidable attack by Germans. This offensive, part of huge drive by the German forces to win the war before the Americans could arrive in great numbers, was the first of many such efforts along the front lines.
     The First Division, or as it is now known the First Army or Big Red One, came from the south to push the German line back toward the north.
     While it is not my attempt here to describe the battle in any detail (I leave that to your own search of good military records), I will tell you that as the Americans joined the French in this hotly contested area this battle was the first fought by AEF and won by them. It is the first in which the German Army and their general staff took note of American strengths and strategies and it is the first in which the AEF's wounded were aided by the first of the medical teams to sail to France. (For a superb description of the battle, please go to this source: The First Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois, http://www.firstdivisionmuseum.org/museum/online/toward_the_front/battle_of_cantigny/default.aspx

One road atop the hill village of Cantigny.
Notice the blue sign!

The Avenue of the First Division, U.S.A.

     I can show you many pictures of this locale. But I can also tell you that for those who wish to see why a certain spot becomes a battleground, this town exemplifies the importance of that. As you stand on this hilltop and look 360 degrees into the surrounding valley south and north to the plain, you realize that this town afforded a great view of the distances in all directions. The roads lead to many strategic places, including the larger town nearby, Montdidier. Here is a picture of the valley across which AEF forces advanced uphill to take and hold the town.

Valley to south of Cantigny, peaceful today and a farm.

    The destroyed village of Cantigny exemplifies the devastation of these campaigns on the people who lived here.

USA, Army photo, Public Domain

    Commemorating the effort of the First Division is this bronze statue of an AEF soldier. An explanation of the battle is accompanied by a map. Please do download the picture to enlarge the type and read the explanation of the battle.

Description of battle.

Atop the hill are other monuments to the men who fought here. In a circle of shrubs and trees is this tall monument. You can see here the view of the church on the hill.

You can view easily the American eagles here on the sides of this monument.

Another view of the monument.

     At one end of this grove atop the hill is this cross and the memorial flowers.

     As we left the village to have lunch in Montdidier and to return to our B&B in Compiegne, we spotted this monument. At first, thinking it a French memorial, we passed it. Every French town has one or more of these obelisks to those of their own countrymen who fought and died in La Grande Guerre. But we thought we spotted an eagle on top of the memorial and so we our drove back to great reward! Here is another memorial to the First Division and their heroic efforts in the Spring Offensive of 1918.

Memorial to First Division in Battle of Cantigny, south of the hill town.

AEF Map, Public domain

18 Days+ in AEF's footsteps: DAY 3: Musee de la Grande Guerre in Meaux, France

Front entrance of musee, Copyright J. Power
http://www.museedelagrandeguerre.eu/en

     Boarding a train from Gare De L'est in Paris, riding for half an hour or so, then boarding a local bus at the Meaux train station is a journey you must take to visit Musee de la Grande Guerre.

     This new museum, opened last year in this charming tiny town northeast of Paris, is comprehensive in its multi-media exhibits and heart-rending to visit.
     What struck me?
     What comes to mind immediately as I write this, almost a month since I was there?

The entrance.
     Stark in its simplicity, the entrance is an opening in this long barricade. Yes, it is a cement barrier. If this is intentional and I suspect it is, this marks your departure from the "normal world" you know to this hell you are about to experience. And your welcome is the abrupt and shocking sound of cannon fire and shells exploding, an air raid siren and wails of others. Then as you move along the path, you hear men marching and a few songs of the period.

The trenches.
     Inside, the curators have built life-size trenches. Standing in the side-views or cut-aways enables you to see the dynamics of the soldiers' challenge.
     Climbing out of them, frightening enough to know you will be exposed and vulnerable, must have required enormous fortitude of mind. Or enormous dedication to the training you received.
     As a woman whose husband is a Vietnam War veteran, I have constantly asked him, over the decades, "What makes you climb over the wall? Or march forward? Or run out beyond cover?" His answer has always been, "Your response is drilled into you. They say, go, and you do. No questions asked."
     Now, long a student of World War One tactics and battlefield conditions, I stood before these trenches and felt my throat close and my heart race. Could I live here? Fight here? Die here?
     The French trenches are a mess. All dirt and barbed wire, these are holes in the ground. The British trench looks, dare I say, tidier. Is this my imagination? No, I examine the replica. It isn't. This has duckboard floors and hard-apacked earth walls. Then I look at the German trench. It is a fortification. Sided by brick-work and steel plates, this trench shows you readily why and how the Germans were able to hold their advance lines for four long years. They fortified their trenches, even dug under them, building some of the most sophisticated underground bunkers many of which still exist today especially in the Meuse area.

Secondly, the men of all the armies and all the countries who fought parade beside you.

Photo from http://www.museedelagrandeguerre.eu/en, Copyright held by Musee.

     Hundreds of life-size men "walk" beside you as you enter the main arena. Eerie, this sensation of striding in the footsteps of ghosts sets your mind to the task of understanding that these millions of men and women fought and died, believing their own cause just and attainable. The uniforms on the figurines seem real. If they are replicas, I did not note. No matter. The impression is that you are among them and you, like they, go to war.

The small items that tell you how these men lived, suffered and died made a mighty impression on me and my husband.
     As an author of fiction, I have known for decades that the way to craft a story is to create what we call in the profession, verisimilitude. A similarity to real life is a necessity to suspend the reader's suspension of disbelief and let him enjoy the story as it should be told from that period of time, that place, that culture.
     Here in Musee, a wealth of items brings that daily existence of these men home to you. What is there here?
     Ah.
     Utensils, broken and battered, to eat with.
     Small tins bowls for soup or stew.
     Chamber pots. Or at worst, wooden boxes with porcelain rims and removable pots beneath.
     A small sewing kit to repair torn uniforms or replace a button.
     Letters to and from men to those at home. Torn, worn, brown with dirt.
    A panorama of scenes depicting French medical care for soldiers:

French stretcher bearers removing wounded soldier from field

Recreation of French surgical team in operation on wounded

USA A.E.F. Surgical kit with Diagnostic Tag booklet

    Pictures of men abound with explanations of care for those with amputations, prosthetic devices (a new art of mechanical invention), and those who suffered wounds to the face and the care of them.

Prosthetics, a new medical specialty developed for those who survived amputations

Variety of prosthetic devices designed during war

Wounds to the head, face and neck could now be treated, but many men needed extensive reconstruction
and others required masks to return to their normal routines after service. This is the beginning of
what we now call plastic surgery.

    Since this is the first war in which medical advances had progressed to the point where many more men could be saved than in previous conflicts, we know there were a large number of men who survived amputation of limbs. Others who incurred facial wounds also survived. For these men, facial reconstruction was a primitive art. Skin grafting was rare and time-consuming, often failing. Masks were the answer for some so that they could resume a life after the war. (I will write of this again in later posts as this is a particular interest of mine.)

The small section of raw motion picture footage was superb.
I will put in a plug and tell you to seek this one out and wait until others have gone so that you may view these clips in their entirety. These clips are rare and I have never seen anything like them anywhere. They are of many different subjects. The ones I recommend are about stretcher bearers, burial teams and the animals in the war, dogs and horses especially.

Meaux is an appropriate setting for this Musee. Meaux was the town to which the Germans advanced farthest toward Paris in their September 1914 drive that we now call The First Battle of the Marne. (Do read my previous post about The Taxis of the Marne for more on this.)

Return for more as we go to Cantigny and begin travel along the A.E.F's front lines and the first Doughboys' victory alongside the British in April 1918.

Do visit the website http://www.museedelagrandeguerre.eu/en  and the Museum.

18+ Days in A.E.F's footsteps: DAY ONE, Part Two, the Invalides' 3 rooms devoted to World War One

Les Invalides, Paris Taxi of 1914, Copyright J. Power

     Les Invalides in Paris is one of the finest and largest museums devoted to exhibiting military equipment.  Spanning many centuries, their collection is awe-inspiring. And this is true of the three rooms devoted to telling the story of La Grande Guerre. (See http://www.musee-armee.fr/accueil.html )
     As you pass from through the multi-media exhibit, you begin to have that heart-rending emotion of sorrow for the tremendous suffering and enormous number of millions dead in this conflict. The exhibit, as you might expect, has a heavy emphasis on the French involvement. In fact, should you as a non-Frenchman ever doubt the degree to which the French soldier fought for victory, viewing the videos, photos, the cannons and the bombs, the medical accoutrement, the plates and spoons, will change your mind forever.

     Here again my photos are sparse and some not so good. Why? I was taking shots without a flash. But a few are stunningly fabulous. The two that stand out are of the Paris Taxi or as they are known in France, The Taxis of the Marne. In September 1914, as German troops advanced so rapidly that the French fell back all the way to Meaux, twenty miles from Paris, the French Army sent out a call for all French troops to report to battle lines along the the northern front. The only way to get there?
     Autos.
     Taxis.
     Parisian taxi drivers answered the call by giving French soldiers a free ride to the front line. Here then is a famous red Parisian taxi which helped to save the day. In long shot and shorter so that you can see the taxi meter (which did not run that day), you get an idea of how many men might have hitched a ride. I have not found a description of the number but just by looking at this car, I'd estimate 3-4 inside and a few hanging off the sides?

Les Invalides, Paris Taxi of 1914, Copyright J. Power

     Most touching were the items that spoke of the needs of men, spiritual and physical. Here we see a French priest's or chaplain's kit for administering the last rites and taking confessions. As I wrote before in this blog, a chaplain had a particularly dangerous and necessary task. He walked out into No Man's Land at night, searching for those who were wounded and who lay in extremis. He often went with a team of stretcher bearers and his job was to find those wounded who might be moved back of the line to receive medical care. For those who were so badly injured that they could not be moved, yet still lived, he administered last rites to them, took their tags and attempted to describe to advance teams back in the trenches where their bodies lay so that they could be returned at a later time for proper burial.

Les Invalides, Chaplain's case, Copyright J. Power

     Another case, startling in its small size, is that of a French field surgeon's. Here we see those items doctors took to the front lines, some even into the trenches, to aid their wounded soldiers.

Les Invalides, French surgeon's field kit, Copyright J. Power

     Less clear are the next few pictures, but I post them anyway for your edification. The startling array of gas masks illustrates in number alone the necessity of protecting oneself from deadly poison gas.  During the war, many types of gas were used by all sides. Each was deadly or debilitating, depending literally on which way the wind blew and how quickly. All soldiers—and yes, nurses and doctors back of the line—drilled daily on getting these ungainly masks on their heads. As opponents made the chemical composition of the gasses more lethal, the gas attacked exposed skin but also seeped through clothing. The gas worked not only by shutting down the function of the lungs by filling the air sacs with deadly fluid, but also created blisters on the skin and in the eyes.

     To Americans, the most famous gas attack on our forces occurred during the Battle of Belleau Wood, June 1917, when our Marines who had gained miles of ground from a German salient along the Marne,  suffered from a large cloud of gas drifting over their lines. For many, the only way out and the only saving grace was the wise move by their leaders to have one Marine, unblinded, instruct his men to stand in a line, one hand on the shoulder of the Marine in front of him, and march out of the Wood.

Les Invalides, Gas masks, Copyright J. Power

     Here in a very bad picture taken through glass is a model to scale of an A.E.F. sterilization truck. Used to sterilize all sorts of equipment and clothing and bedding, these trucks were the first of their kind  to be used in mobile warfare.

Les Invalides, A.E.F. sterilization truck, Copyright J. Power

     Return for Day Two of my 18+ day journey when we go to the newest museum devoted totally to La Grande Guerre in Meaux, France. Better yet, subscribe via RSS feed in the right hand column at top and you will receive my posts into your email box as soon as they go live here.
   Merci! Danke! Thank you.