CHAPTER IV.

AMERICAN VICTORY AT ST. MIHIEL

First Major Action by All American Army—­Stories to Folks at Home—­Huns Carry Off Captive Women—­Hell Has Cut Loose—­ Major Tells His Story—­Enormous Numbers of Guns and Tanks—­ Over the Top at 5:30 A. M.—­Texas and Oklahoma Troops Fight in True Ranger Style—­Our Colored Boys Win Credit.

The first major action by an all American army was that which began before the St. Mihiel salient September 11, 1918.  The Germans had occupied that salient almost four years, and had built it into what they believed to be an impregnable position.  The Americans, under direct command of General Pershing, reduced it in a three days’ advance.

The salient was a huge bulge, almost twenty miles in depth, turning southwest from Combres at the north base and Hattonville at the south and looping down around the towns of St. Mihiel and Ailly.  It was powerfully held by masses of enemy troops.

General Pershing’s army attacked from the west, south and east all the way from Bouzee to Norroy, and by September 13th had pushed it back to a straight line drawn from Combres to Hattonville.  The French attacked at Ailly, the apex of the salient as it was on September 11.

The entire operation was conducted with rapidity and with irresistible energy.  The dash and enthusiasm of the American soldiers astonished and delighted the French and British as completely as it staggered the Germans.

By September 13th the Americans had taken forty-seven towns and villages, reduced the German front from forty miles to twenty, captured the railway that connects Verdun with Commercy, opened the cities of Nancy and Toul to the allies, and with the French and British on the east, created a new battle front on a line running from Hattonville on the west to Pagny on the east—­Pagny being a town on the Moselle river, at the German border.

The importance of this victory could hardly be overestimated.  It opened the way to and was followed up by the demolition of the whole German line from the Swiss border to the North Sea, and hastened the great German retreat.  In the action itself, September 11 to 13, about 15, Germans were taken prisoner by the Americans.

STORIES TO THE FOLKS BACK HOME

Sidelight stories of what happened in the St. Mihiel fight, mostly in letters written home by men who were in it, go far toward showing how completely the Germans were taken off their guard.  Corp.  Ray Fick of the 103d Infantry wrote home in this wise: 

“We got into the woods and then kept on going until we reached a big city where there was a brewery, but they had set fire to the whole city before they left.  We got some beer and wine just the same.  It was a little stale, but it was fine.  The Huns’ warehouses were all fixed for the winter and the boys got cigars and cigarettes, but I was a little too late to get in on it.