223. Prussian Guards were on the ridge-tops across the
valley, and behind the Germans ran the Decauville Railroad--the artery
for supplies to a salient still further to the north which the Germans
were striving desperately to hold. The second phase of the Battle of the
Meuse-Argonne was on.
As the fog rose the American "jumped off" down the wooded slope and the
Germans opened fire from three directions. With artillery they pounded
the hillside. Machine guns savagely sprayed the trees under which the
Americans were moving. At one point, where the hill makes a steep
descent, the American line seemed to fade away as it attempted to pass.
This slope, it was found, was being swept by machine guns on the crest
of the hill to the left which faced down the valley. The Germans were
hastily "planting" other machine guns there.
The Americans showered that hill top with bullets, but the Germans were
entrenched.
The sun had now melted the mist and the sky was cloudless. From the pits
the Germans could see the Americans working their way through the
timber.
To find a place from which the Boche could be knocked away from those
death-dealing machine guns and to stop the digging of "fox holes" for
new nests, a non-commissioned officer and sixteen men went out from the
American line. All of them were expert rifle shots who came from the
support platoon of the assault troops on the left.
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