[Page]had obliterated a trench in which a squad from of the Machine Gun Co. was stationed, killing and burying Sergeant Dourier and seven men. During the day a high explosive shell killed Serg't. Carrick. He was the first one of my pals from the Third Officers' Training camp to make the supreme sacrifice. Later we heard that Lt. Coburn, another good friend of mine, was killed while trying to hold back the German advance. Shells kept on coming intermittently. Jesse Johnston and I dug a better hole to sleep in. We used an old French lance to hold support the earth over us. A battery of French mortars (six inch) moved in along the hill to the right of us. They kept up almost continuous bombardment until one of the guns burst killing one of the French gunners. ⟨Here we saw a real air battle. A dozen allied planes engaged a similar force of Germans. An Allied plane was seen to come down far behind the German lines. Later we found out⟩ that it was that of Quentin Roosevelt.
On the Offensive About the second day it became apparent the Germans had failed in breaking thru [through]. On the 18th they withdrew across the Marne. In the evening of this day we moved out of this sector travelling westward to the south of Chateau-Thierry in big circle to Charly. We were to support the new American-French offensive near Soissons. We arrived at Charly toward evening the next day and put up for the night in a barricaded wood. Water was scarce. We found a farm nearby with a water hole[Page]in the barnyard, a thing very common in France. We took our thirsty horses there to drink the dirty water. One horse, seeing the water, broke away and ran top speed into {hole} which proved to be a deep pool of mud. He began to sink. The more he struggled the more he sank. He was soon exhausted and drowned, despite our efforts to pull him out. The men were exhausted from the long hike, and rather than require several of these to stand watch, where they needed rest so badly, I did the guarding myself. Early [T]the next morning early we moved on. Now we went eastward and passed {thru} the region where some of the fiercest fighting had taken place, when the Germans drove toward Paris in June. Woods were nothing but splintered stumps and the ground was all torn up. We passed thru Vaux. There was very little left{this} village but a few {wall} of houses. They Next we came to Chateau-Thierry from which the Germans had now retreated. This fine town along the Marne had certainly had seen better days. Here we saw many dead Germans, some of partly buried. Frequently, a hand or a foot stuck out of the shallow grave of dirt thrown, hastily over their bodies. The concrete bridge over the river was wrecked and the engineers had hastily had built a[Page]pontoon bridge across the stream. We crossed this southward and moved eastward until evening when we came to St. Eugene very near the place where we had been a few days before, holding back the German advance. Now we were on the advance. We arrived at St. Eugene in a pouring rain at nightfall. We had received no rations or feed for the horses. The beasts were nearly worn out and famished. Our men went over to an oat field and pulled up armfuls of the green oats to feed them. To keep dry that night was impossible. We were very hungry.
Moving up. Early the next morning we started toward the Marne. We were still wet and hungry. A pile of boxes and cartons in a clump of bushes looked interesting. We investigated and found a pile of bread, "dog {buscuits}" (hard crackers), butter and canned beef. We asked no questions as to whose it was, but broke open the boxes and helped ourselves to all we could carry and ate it as we moved along. Our food problem for the moment was solved. We crossed on a pontoon and started upon steep and extremely muddy roads toward the Foret de Fere. We stopped in a thick forest and received rations and feed for horses. During the night of July 28th our infantry companies relieved the French in the first lines. This was our regiment's (as a whole) first real action. Immediate