THE LOST LEGION.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 June 1919, Page 4

THE LOST LEGION.

TRAPPED IN' THE ARGONNE. FIVE DAYS’ FIGHT WITH HUNS. How an American battalion in France was trapped by the Germans, and how the men fought for five days against hunger and overwhelming odds, is told by Colonel Whittlesley, the commander, and another officer, in the “ Weekly Mail.” It is described as'one of the m<>t amazing episodes of the war. A company of i Americans were entrusted with a mission to push ahead in the Ar- ! gonne Forest. They were lured into a trap laid amid its fastnesses by the cunning Hun ; they were surrounded j and cut off ; they were raked for five i days ar.d nights by machine gunners and snipers; they were reduced to eating tobacco and leaves ; they were asked to sun under, but threw the insult hack in the Germans’ teeth ; and at the end, having decided to do or die, they stormed their besiegers’ position, and came out —o:.e-tliiid. of ! them—starving but triumphant!

'• It was the time when Focli was dealing the Germans deadly thrusts every day, first in one salient, then another,” says Colonel Whittlesley, the Legion’s commander. “We got tlie order to push ori ahead, and started before the fresh provisions which had been brought up could be given arouud. Each man bearing 200 rounds of ammunition, we advanced all niglit, «Tllo following day mil’ course lay along a deep ravine, with hills about ■.OO "feet, high rising abruptly. On top of these hills the Germans planted machine-guns, which they used to cruel advantage. 1 sent. Company A ' ngaiust one hill, and almost all in officers and men were wiped out. The next day, leaving two companies Iv, cover our rear, we went, forward a short distance. A CUXXIA’ii A une-e \

“ Our rations nave out flic to*loving day. The men divided bremi •: lists, hard as mats, but soon timso v:- gone also. W’n occupied a strip ,!' ground peril g-s !O0 yards long, ill re was a, s-.vamji ba k ui ns. imU liai (■:! 1 , where iVU era W led 10l modd v waier a. ! ;.' l. Machine-gun millets sphslie I <mr face-.: while we T oil;. Li nfcrju i.* V', dm l.a. i U-'.m-

>.iiiv E, attacke i a. sir.mg t.imran

sm.-itioii on our right, wlicio machim - /uu nests and snipei’* w<-re picking our men off one after iiMitm*!’, hut his eriiinnand of 09 men wa • sunminded, and almost every one (lied. “At the end of tlio third d:y i! dawned upon us that we were surrounded and completely cutoff id mu our reinforcement.-'. The fad that the Hiins had led us into a. running wmbiiseado was particularly galling. Runners I bad sent out returned and reported that they bad been cut off. Now the men were eating chewing tobacco and leaves. It was a horrible ordeal. Before each attack the Germans fired treuch . mortars at us. Night aud day several thousand of them raked us with a withering machine-gun fire. Snipers fired at us from everywhere. Howling like thousands of wild devils tiie Germans approached to within ten yards and hurled hand grenades, which, we called ‘ potato mashers,’ causing gr at loss of life. “The fire from the Gorman trench mortars had smashed nine of the eleven machine-guns we had, and there were only five boxes of machinegun ammunition left. And nothing to eat for four days ! The men were so weak that they were scarcely able to stand on their feet. Then oti the fifth day there came a German blindfolded, and bearing a white flag, lie brought us a typewritten mes.-nge, which ran about as follows : ‘ We have beard the cries of your wounded. It is impossible for you to escape. Why do you not surrender in the name of humanity ? ’

“ We did not know that reinforcements were near at hand, and we thought we would all die of starvation. We had made up our minds never to surrender, but to die as men. So, when I yelled ‘ Go to h ! ’ all the men roared, ‘Righto! Stick, boys! Never say die!’ and gritted their teeth to face tlie death they felt was inevitable.”

And with an exulting rush and a shout of joy fellow Ameticans swept the enemy from their strongly entrenched position overlooking Whittlesley and his men. Of the 700 men originally in the battalion, not more than one-third was alive and nnwonnded, and even these few were so weak from living for four days on leaves and chewing tobacco that they collapsed.

JiOCUES AM. ACOL'XI’. At this point tlie siory is taken up by Lieutenant Arthur M. M‘Keough, one of tlie Legion. “Major Whittlesley,” lie said, “gave me fifteen or twenty men with grenades to wipe ont what he thought was a single machine-gun nest on tlie left. Wo cleaned out what we could of them with hand grenades, but it was a. tough 'job. Then along about evening another lieutenant with a detail of men joined my party and told me that .Major Whittlesley said 1 should take a couple of men, make my way back to headquarters and tell the colonel, if I got there, ft,hat the battalion was surrounded. 1 picked out a fellow Ifirschkowitz and another lad named .lack" Munson, and we started off through the darkness, going by compass

“There were Bodies ail around, livery few yards we could see (hem or hear them, and it was a miracle that we weren’t caught. We were headed due south, hut so thick was the undergrowth that we frequently had to go due north around a thicket before wc could gel our right direction. At dawn we reached the edge of a little clearing. We heard talk in German, and then saw two Boeho oflicers talking together. We were lying down, and 1. rested my automatic on a log and called on them to surrender Jint they weren’t ‘ kamerading.’ One of them let go at me just as I let lly at him. I aimed at hi.s mouth, and plugged him between the eyes. His

bullet caught me in the right wrist — just a nick, but enough to give me my wound stripe. Through all the day Lieutenant M‘Keough and his two dauntless companions, Indian-like, lay low. Not once did they move from their dense thicket. At nightfall the three set out again on their mission, which meant life and death to 700 comrades.

“ About 8 o’clock the second night,” 1 he continued, “it wasn’t long before 1 we ran into another German funk-hole ! line, and a heavy voice called ‘ Bist du 1 Deutsch ? ’ (Are you German?) I gave the word to the boys to beat it, and they did 1 started to run and < fell right into a funk-hole on top of two Germans. We were all three so amazed that we didn’t know what to J do. I used the only German words ( I knew, ‘ Was ist los ’ (which 1 didn’t j know till afterwards meant “ What’s ( the matter ? ”), and the Boche I fell most directly on answered, “ Was ist los ? ’ DASH TOR RESCUE. “I was across his shoulder, and had my automatic in my hand, and I let him have two bullets in the spine, and he shivered and went down. The other fellow was facing me and standing up, so I let him have one fhrough the breast. The first fellow sort of quivered again, so I let him have a third shot. There was an uproar for hours, so I lay where I was until things quieted, then crawled into the brush. A dozen times sentries almost walked over me. At midnight it started to lain, and f could travel more freely. Several hours after I ran into an American sentry, who was so startled at seeing me that he almost dropped his rifle. I don’t, wonder, f had blackened my face with mud and camouflaged my head with houghs of trees. I must have beau a fine-looking sight. “‘For God’s sake say something (o ■no in A t.ac; iou.il : [haven't heard anything but 1! ’eke fa rI wo days.’ A Iter lie recovered from bis surprise he said; ‘ LuuUu-int, ,‘m't I help you to the roar?’ !. reached headquarters about 7.:i() and started to report to t. ho colonel. He was eating hot cakes. Thu first thing he asked me ’ was : ‘ Wild, did you nil last?’ 1 J told ;!iiui : ‘ Two days ago. sir.’ lie s,.id, ‘Sit right down find eit those : k 1. tried to get. the news off ’iiy chest, hut lie made me eat fii'st. ■.'ileii ho set the ivx aio work in n o:i.