December 23, 1918. Wyoming Guardsmen of the 148th Field Artillery at the Château-Thierry and beyond.

The DI of the 148th Field Artillery.  Many of the Wyoming Guardsmen who served as infantry on the border were reassigned to this Field Artillery unit made up of Rocky Mountain Region and Northwestern Guardsmen during World War One.

If you'd been wondering what became of the men of the Wyoming National Guard, whom we started following with their first muster into service with the Punitive Expedition, the Wyoming State Tribune gave us a clue.

As readers will recall, quite a few of those men were put in to the 148th Field Artillery.  None of them deployed as infantry, which is what they had been when first mustered for border service with Mexico and then again when first recalled for the Great War.  Not all of them ended up in the 148th, but quite a few did, which was a heavy artillery unit of the field artillery.  Indeed, a quite modern one as it used truck, rather than equine, transport.  

Here we learned that the 148th was at Château-Thierry.

Another version of the distinctive insignia for the unit with additional elements for the western nature of the composite elements.

To flesh it out just a bit, the 148th at that time was made up of elements of the 3d Rgt of the Wyoming National Guard, the 1st Separate Battalion Colorado Field Artillery, and the 1st Separate Troop (Cavalry) Oregon National Guard. They were part of the 66th FA Bde.  They'd arrived in France on February 10, 1918, just prior to the German's massive Spring 1918 Offensive.  They were equipped in France with 155 GPF Guns and Renault Artillery tractors.

155 GPF in use by American artillerymen.

They went to the front on July 4, 1918 and were emplaced directly sought of Château-Thierry and began firing missions on July 9.  After that engagement, they'd continue on to participate in the St. Mihiel Offensive and the Meuse Argonne Offensive.  By the wars end, they'd fired 67,590 shells.

American Army Renault EG Artillery tractor with a GPF in tow.  Note the wood blocks for chalks.

The unit went on to be part of the Army of Occupation in Germany following the war, a mission with which it was occupied until June 3, 1919, when it boarded the USS Peerless for New York.  It was mustered out of service at Camp Mills, New York, on June 19, 1919, with Wyoming's members sent on to Ft. D. A. Russell for discharge from their World War One service.

We'll pick this story up again as we reach those dates, but as we made a dedicated effort to follow these men early on, we didn't want to omit their story later.  Wyomingites reading the papers in 1918 learned of their service, accepting censored soldier mail, for the first time on this day in 1918.  While news reporting done by the U.S. and foreign press during World War One was often remarkably accurate, one set of details that was kept generally well hidden was the service, and even the fate, of individual American servicemen and units.  Wyomingites now learned what role many of their Guardsmen had played in the war for the first time.

And it was a significant one.

Countdown on the Great War. October 8, 1918: Sgt. Alvin York and the Battle of Hill 223. The Second Battle of Cambrai. A Scout Gets Through. The Desert Mounted Corps Takes Beirut. The Spanish Flu Closes Everything.

1.  On this day in 1918 Sgt. Alvin York preformed the deeds that would make him a household name in the United States and the most famous American veteran of WWI other than, perhaps, Gen. Pershing.

York was a from the Tennessee hill country and one of eleven children of a very poor family.  With virtually no education at all, he had been supporting his family for some time because of his father's early death.  A devout Evangelical Christian, York was a reformed drinker and fighter who had grown up in a family that depended upon hunting to put food on the table.  He was an extremely skilled woodsman and marksman at the time he reluctantly entered the Army due to conscription. He was also seeking conscientious objector status at that time, but reconsidered his position due to the urging of his military superiors.  He proved to be a good soldier and was assigned to the 82nd Division, seeing combat first in the St. Mihel Offensive.

On October 8 his battalion was assigned to capture Hill 223 north of  Chatel-Chéhéry, France.  During the battle Corporal York took on machinegun positions while the remainder of his party guarded captured prisoners.  York took those positions on first with his rifle, a M1917 Enfield, and then ended up killing six charging Germans with his M1911 pistol after his rifle was empty.  Ultimately a large party of Germans surrendered to York and York and seven other enlisted men marched to the rear with 132 German prisoners.  During the battle York killed 25 Germans.  His Medal of Honor citation reads:

After his platoon suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine gun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.

York would go on to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant before the war was over and he became the most decorated American soldier of World War One.  He was commissioned in the Signal Corps during World War Two and obtained the rank of Major, but his health had declined severely and he was used in a moral boosting role.  In spite of ill health he would remain in the Tennessee National Guard until 1951, retiring at the rank of Colonel.  He was famously the subject of a movie in which Gary Cooper portrayed him.

As noted, York was undoubtedly the most famous enlisted man of World War One, and he was truly heroic.  It's worth noting however that his accomplishments weren't entirely unique and there were several other instances of single American servicemen taking large numbers of prisoners under heroic circumstances, one of which we read about here just the other day.  In some ways the difference with York was that he was of very humble origin and not a career soldier, where as the actions by soldiers like Michael B. Ellis, whom we read about the other day, were accomplishments of men from the Regular Army.  These stories have a common aspect to them, however, in that they were undertaken by men who had extraordinary combat skill nearly singlehandedly, which was admirable but which also tends to show that the American Army was so green at the time that it proved to be necessary for extremely heroic men to undertake actions that were nearly suicidal in order to address the combat situation with which they were faced, rather than relying on coordinated unit actions.  In York's case, a lifetime in the woods had prepared him for battle in a unique way.

2.  On the same day that York's action earned the Medal of Honor, the same could be said of James Dozier.

Dozier started his military career in the South Carolina National Guard and had served on the Mexican boarder with that unit.  When it was called into service for World War One he was commissioned an officer and was a 1st Lieutenant on this day when he took over his company when its commander was wounded, even though he also was.  He commanded the unit over the next several hours, personally rushing one machinegun pit with the aid of a lieutenant.  The men under his command took 470 prisoners.

He stayed in the South Carolina National Guard becoming its AG in the 1920s and retired in 1959 as a Lieutenant General.

3.  On this day in 1918 British Empire forces launched a massive assault on the Germans near Cambrai.  In two days they captured the towns but the over matched Germans nonetheless slowed the advance to the point where it needed to be halted.

That says something about the tenacity of the Germans even at this late stage of the war.  The Germans had 180,000 men committed to the defense in this battle. The British Empire forces numbered 630,000. The British assault was a success, but the Germans none the less managed to require the British advance to halt.

Canadian troops on the Cambrai road, 1918.

4.  Pvt. Abraham Krotoshinsky made his way through enemy lines to inform the American Army of the situation concerning the "Lost Battalion".  He would lead troops back to the besieged soldiers.

Pvt. Krotoshinsky was a Polish Jew who had emigrated to the United States in 1912 to avoid service in the Imperial Russian Army. Following World War One he emigrated to Palestine but failed as a farmer and returned to the United States.  Like Michael Ellis, discussed the other day, he was rescued from unemployment by President Coolige who ordered that he be provided with a job in the United States Postal Service.

5.  The Desert Mounted Corps entered Beirut where they took 600 Ottoman troops without resistance.

6.  Laramie and Casper closed public meeting places of all types:

The 100 Days: The Meuse-Agronne Offensive. September 26, 1918-November 11, 1918. Phase I (September 26 through October 3, 1918).

On this day in 1918 the U.S. Army launched its most significant, and final, offensive of the Great War.  The action would last from this day until the last day of the war.

Troops of the 23d Infantry firing a 37 mm trench gun during the Meuse Argonne Offensive.

The stage had been set for the effort in the argument that Gen. Pershing and Field Marshall Foch had some weeks back, which we earlier detailed here.  At that time, Foch had wanted Pershing to abandon the planned assault on St. Mihiel in favor of an attack upon Metz.  Pershing had resisted as this would have made the U.S. Army subordinate to a French effort, but he did agree, and indeed developed, an alternative plan which called for a rapid redeployment of US forces in a new direction. That change in direction required the U.S. to redirect its forces at a right angle and cover 60 miles in short order, which was amazingly accomplished.  The resulting offensive was massive in scale, involving 1,200,000 men on the US side, including French and Siamese troops, and it remains the costliest battle in American history.

D Day for the offensive started with a massive artillery bombardment which expended more ordnance in three hours than the U.S. had expended during the entire Civil War.  The cost of the bombardment amounted to an expenditure of $1,000,000 per minute.   The ground assault commenced at 05:30 on this day with the V and III Corps making their objectives but the with those assigned to the 79th and 28th Divisions failing to meet theirs, and the 91st division being compelled to withdraw from Epionville.  On the following day, the 27th, most of the 1st Army was stalled, although the 79th did manage to capture its objective of Montfaucon d'Agronne.

On the 29th the Germans committed an additional six divisions and they staged a local counter attack.  The 35th Division was so strongly countered that it was effectively destroyed and had to be withdrawn from combat although certainly elements would be redeployed.  Adjacent French units also faced stiff opposition but managed to make greater gains, in part due to the terrain.

The U.S. 2nd Cavalry conducts a cavalry attack, September 13, 1918.

Insignia of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

On this day in 1918, the 2nd Cavalry conducted a cavalry attack as part of the offensive at St. Mihiel.

The details can be found on the excellent Road To The Great War blog here:

Roads to the Great War: The AEF's Sole Cavalry Attack: The 2nd Cavalry at St. Mihiel [Ed. Note: The men of the four American cavalry regiments that were sent to France usually found themselv...

The attack was a small scale one, conducted by Troop F of the 2nd Cavalry, and was somewhat in the nature of a running cavalry patrol.  Troop F. was lead by Captain Earnest Harmon, who would go on to be a figure in the post war occupation of Germany, and then be a notable World War Two armored officer.

The attack is sometimes considered to be the only one conducted by U.S. Cavalry during World War One, which is somewhat debatable.  Indeed, it's debatable if it was a true attack, in the charge sense, at all, but it was certainly a mounted advance.  It was not, however, the only one conducted by American cavalrymen during World War One.

The 2nd Cavalry was notable in and of itself for being one of the only U.S. Cavalry regiments, and some sources say the only U.S. Cavalry regiment, to deploy in its entirety to the France during World War One. Again, that claim is debatable.  The 2nd Cavalry also provided the first troops to land on French soil during the Great War as troopers from the 2nd escorted Gen. Pershing to France.

Roads to the Great War: 100 Years Ago: The St. Mihiel Offensive Is Launched

Roads to the Great War: 100 Years Ago: The St. Mihiel Offensive Is Launche...: American Troops Advancing Into the St. Mihiel Salient —Montsec in Distance Where: Southeast of Verdun When :  12-16 September...

The 100 Days: The American Army offensive at Saint Mihiel. September 12, 1918.

On this day in 1918 the United States launched its first full scale offensive operation as an American Army.  The U.S. First Army launched the St. Mihiel Offensive.

We've read about this a little bit already, in that the operation was the subject of an argument between Foch and Pershing. As we've noted, in our view, Pershing was wrong and Foch was right. . . the offensive that Pershing was planning had become obsolete.

The offensive that was launched was a compromise plan that Foch could accept and which left the U.S. First Army intact.  It involved an offensive operation in the original direction planned by Pershing but which featured a hard right turn thereafter, incorporating somewhat of the plan envisioned by Foch.  In some ways, the most remarkable aspect of the plan was the commitment to a massive redirection of forces following the offensive to which the Americans committed before it was commenced. The details for that action were the product of of the remarkable mind of George C. Marshall, then a staff officer on Pershing's staff.

American engineers during the St. Mihiel offensive.

On this day the U.S. First Army launched a threefold assault on the remaining part of the St. Mihiel Salient, which the Germans had already begun to plan to withdraw from and which they had in fact commenced to do the day prior to the assault.  The Germans had occupied the area since 1914 and had densely prepared defensive positions.  Attached to the U.S. Army were four French divisions in addition to fourteen American divisions. The US alone committed 550,000 men to the assault with the French contributing another 110,000. The Germans, who had already committed to withdraw from the salient, numbered only about 50,000 men in ten divisions, about half of whom would become causalities in the attack.

Colonel George C. Marshall in 1919.

Air support for the assault was massive, with 1,481 aircraft committed to it, about 40% of which were piloted by American airmen.  The remainder were British, French and Italian.

The assault, in part because of the massive disproportionate nature of the contesting forces, and in part because it caught the German army in the midst of a withdrawal, was instantly successful and exceeded expectations.  Having said that, the operation was also a well planned combined arms attack and it featured the highly aggressive nature of American arms in the war which was shocking at the time.  Objectives were achieved within the first two days at which it was halted in anticipation of the planned offensive at the Meuse Argonne.

The battle was the first one in which American forces fought in an American Army, rather than associated with an army of the other allies.

The Germans commence to withdraw from the St. Mihiel Salient. September 11, 1918.

It made strategic sense. The salient was a projection into the Allied lines.  Occupying it would have made sense as a toehold for an advancing army, but for one that was retreating and simply trying to hold its place, and some order, holding it no longer did and in fact exposed the 50,000 German troops in ten divisions to being cutoff.

The decision had been made a few days prior, and the Germans put the withdrawal in action on this day, commencing their plan to withdraw from the salient and shorten their lines.

The 100 Days Offensive: Pershing writes a letter. August 31, 1918.

General Pershing, following the events of yesterday, wrote Marshall Foch a lengthy memorandum on this day in 1918.

The memorandum was mostly a recap of the arguments that Pershing had set out the previous day in his face to face argument with Foch.  It contained, however, a concession.  Pershing thought the original planned offensive at St. Mihel could include a change in direction following its original objective without pausing.

That concession would prove key to breaking the impasse.