Early in October 1916, several units, among them the 2nd Company, were ordered to prepare plans for raiding the enemy to take prisoners. My Argonne experience showed me that this type of work was dangerous, difficult to organize, and usually resulted in a high casualty list and, for this reason, I held my boys in check as far as raids were concerned. Once ordered, I pitched in and started planning.
To begin with, in order to determine the feasibility of working into the enemy position, I went out on reconnaissance, accompanied by Staff Sergeants Buttler and Kollmar. We crept and crawled through the tall and fairly dense fir forest toward a French sentry post, established at the upper end of a forest path leading up toward the enemy. The path was overgrown with tall grass and weeds and we were most careful in crossing it some fifty yards from the enemy. Once across, we slipped into a ditch and wormed our way forward. Cutting through the mass of barbed wire with cutters was a back-breaking job requiring a maximum of caution. Night began to fall and we heard, but could not see, the French sentry move about his post. It was slow work getting through the wire, especially since we could only cut the lowest strand of wire. Eventually we reached the middle of the entanglement. At this point the French sentry exhibited a certain amount of restlessness and cleared his throat and coughed several times. Was he afraid or had he heard us? If he tossed a hand grenade into our ditch, it was curtains for the three of us. To make matters worse, we could not move, let alone defend ourselves. We held our breath and let the tense moments tick by. As soon as the sentry quieted down, I began to withdraw. By this time it was totally dark. In crawling back, we snapped a few twigs and this inadvertent act received immediate recognition. The enemy alerted his entire position and for minutes sprayed the entire landscape between positions with all varieties of small-arms fire. We hugged the ground and let them pass over us. When silence fell, we resumed our journey and returned without suffering any casualties. Our reconnaissance proved conclusively the difficulty of raiding in those wooded sectors.
Next day, I proceeded to examine the possibilities of getting into a hostile position called Pinetree Knob, and found the situation more favourable. Under cover of darkness, the position entanglements could be reached silently by moving up a grass-covered glade. However, the barriers consisted of three separate belts of wire requiring hours to cut. Only five hundred feet separated our trenches from those of the enemy. It took several days and nights of careful reconnaissance before we were able to determine the exact location of two sentry posts on Pinetree Knob. One was located in the centre of a glade in a concealed sentry box; the other was two hundred feet to the left on a rock ledge from which it was easy to cover the surrounding terrain with fire as well as with visual observation. Only on rare occasions did we receive machine-gun fire from this part of the sector.
Any operation in this direction moving over grassy terrain totally devoid of cover required a moonless night. During the next few days and nights we studied the details of the approaches into the Pinetree Knob position and observed the personal habits of the garrisons of both outposts. In doing so, we carefully avoided drawing our opponent's attention to the impending expedition.
I based my plans on the results obtained through our reconnaissance. This time I did not intend to sneak into the positions proper; I proposed to negotiate the wire field midway between the two posts, get in this trench and then strike them in flank or preferably in the rear. The raid required a force of twenty men, for we had to split up on arrival in the hostile trench. Also I had to plan to get my raiding parties out and I had to allow for a possible attack by the local trench garrison. A wire-cutting party was to be placed opposite each enemy outpost. They were to crawl up to the edge of the wire and remain there doing nothing until the raiders started cleaning out the trench with pistols and hand grenades or until signalled from within the captured outpost positions. Not until one or other happened were they to start cutting the wire and make a path for the raiders' escape. (Sketch 14)
I discussed the raid with the subordinate leaders, using sketches and pointing out the terrain from the trench. The various detachments started their preparations by holding rehearsals close behind our positions. October 4 was a cold and nasty day. A strong northwest wind drove clouds through our 3500 foot position. Toward evening the wind changed into a storm, and a rain of cloudburst proportions beat down. This was weather I had been praying for. By that time the French sentries had their heads deep in their coat collars and had taken refuge in the most sheltered corner of their sentry holes, thus reducing their efficiency as guards. In addition, the wind would drown out most of the noise occasioned by our approach and wire cutting. I reported to Major Sproesser my intention to carry out the raid during the coming night and received approval.
Three hours before midnight, in a pitch black, stormy and rainy night, I left our positions with my three detachments and crawled slowly toward the hostile position. Soon the wire-cutting detachments under Staff Sergeant Kollmar and Lance Corporal Stetter left us and moved off to the right and to the left. Lieutenant Schafferdt, Staff Sergeant Pfeiffer and I went with the assault detachment and crawled behind our wire-cutters. The other twenty soldiers followed in single file at three-pace intervals. We crawled noiselessly toward the enemy.
The wind howled and whipped rain into our faces, and soon soaked us to the skin. We listened anxiously into the night. Single shots rang out here and there and an occasional rocket flare flickered in the darkness, but the enemy remained quiet.
Sketch 14
The raid on Pinetree Knob.
The night was so dark that the silhouettes of the surrounding rocks were indistinguishable at more than sixteen feet.
We reached the first obstacle and the hard work began. One of our trio wrapped a rag around every strand before using the cutters. Another took the tension off the wires, and the third slowly cut the wire through. The ends of the cut wire were bent back carefully to prevent betrayal by the noise which would result were they allowed to fly back unimpeded. Every move had been tested beforehand.
We stopped work occasionally and listened intently into the night before starting our tiresome job again. In this manner, inch by inch, we cut our way through the high, wide and very finely laced French wire. We had to content ourselves with cutting a path through the lower strands only.
Those were hours of strenuous work! Occasionally, a wire cracked and we stopped work and strained our ears to listen into the night. By midnight we had cut our way through the second wire belt and we were a hundred feet from the enemy trench. Unfortunately the rain and the storm abated somewhat, and it had become a bit lighter. Ahead of us lay high and continuous chevaux-de-frise. Each separate framework was long and heavy and the innumerable wires were too heavy for our light wire cutters. We crawled a few yards to the right and tried to separate two of the chevaux-de-frise. This effort merely made a lot of noise, which sounded to us like a thunderclap. If the hostile sentries, now a hundred or so feet away, failed to hear us, they were surely asleep.
The next few minutes were not pleasant, but all remained quiet on the southern front. I gave up trying to separate the chevaux-de-fTise which were too firmly anchored and, after a brief search, we found a shell crater which gave us an opening. We wormed our way through and covered the few yards between us and the enemy position.
Another shower started. The three of us were between the wire and the enemy trench where the water trickled down the trench bottom over some stone steps and on into the valley. Cautiously, the leading men of the assault detachment squeezed under the chevaux-de-frise. The remainder were father back in the first and second wire belts. Suddenly we heard footsteps coming down the trench from our left. Several Frenchmen approached us coming downhill in the trench and their slow and even steps resounded in the night. They were unaware of our presence. I estimated their strength at three or four men. A trench patrol? What were we to do? Jump them or let them pass? The chances of jumping them without raising a ruckus were remote. It would be a man for man fight. Our own assault detachment could not take part for it was still out in the wire.
The raiding party in the French position.
We could have overpowered the trench patrol, but then the trench garrison would have gone into action and covered the barriers with fire. Our return would have cost us dearly and, under such conditions, we would have had little luck in bringing back a prisoner. I quickly weighed the pros and cons and decided to let the enemy pass unmolested.
My two companions, Schafferdt and Pfeiffer were informed and we took complete cover at the edge of the hostile trench for, above all, we had to hide our hands and faces. The chevaux-de-frise interfered with our crawling back. We would have been detected had the French patrol been on the job. In case they were, we got ready to jump them. With our dispositions made, we lay and waited. Their footsteps were regular and they conversed softly. Anxious seconds crawled by. Without hesitation, the French trench patrol came abreast of us and went on. While the sound of footsteps died away, we heaved a sigh of relief and waited a few minutes to see if they would return. Then, one after the other, we dropped into the trench. The rain had stopped and only the wind whistled over the bare slope. As the wary men entered the trench, bits of earth and rock broke loose from the trench wall and tumbled noisily down onto the stone steps. Again anxious minutes passed. Finally the whole assault detachment was in the trench.
We divided and Lieutenant Schafferdt, with ten men, went down the slope while Staff Sergeant Schropp and his ten went in the opposite direction. I went with Schropp. We felt our way carefully up the steep trench. Only a few steps separated us from our objective, the sentry post on the rock ledge. We wondered if the enemy had noticed anything. We stopped and listened. Suddenly over on the left something smacked into the barrier, followed immediately by an explosion on the trench parapet on the right. Hand grenades exploded with a roar. The leading man of the assault detachment reeled back, and the whole detachment became jammed in the trench. The next hand grenade salvo struck among us. It was a question of attacking immediately or surrendering. “Let 'em have it!” We rushed the enemy and managed to pass under his hand-grenade fire. Stierle, my groom, who had come up forward for this party only, was hit on the larynx by a Frenchman, and Sergeant Nothacker dispatched the man with his pistol. A short time afterward, two other men of the sentry detachment were overpowered. One Frenchman managed to escape to the rear.
With our flashlights, we made a hurried search for dugout entrances. We found one hole that was empty, but a second one was full of Frenchmen. With my pistol in my right hand and flashlight in my left, I crawled into the twenty-inch opening followed by Sergeant Quandte. Seven fully-armed Frenchmen sat along the wall, but they threw down their arms after a brief argument. The safest course was to take care of these lads with a grenade or two, but this was contrary to our orders, which specified that prisoners were to be brought back.
Lieutenant Schafferdt reported two prisoners with no losses in his unit. While we were occupied with the job at hand, the wire-cutting detachments had been working like beavers and the paths through the wire were ready.
Since the coup had accomplished its purpose, I gave the order to withdraw. We had to break away before French reserves got into action. Without further annoyance from the enemy, we regained our position with a bag of eleven prisoners. Particularly pleasing was the fact that we suffered no real casualties. Lance Corporal Stierle had a slight scratch from a hand-grenade fragment. Recognition by our superior officers for this fine operation was not long in coming.
Unfortunately the next day brought retribution, for a French sniper picked off Staff Sergeant Kollman in a quiet sector of the company trench. This lamented loss dampened our joy over the successful Pinetree Knob affair.
After this the days in the “Open Position” were numbered. The Supreme Army Command had other work for the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion. Toward the end of October we moved east.
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