Voices of 1918; Captain Harry S. Truman’s Combat Experience in World War I - Part 2 of 5

D-Day for the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

(To understand the geography and proximity please see the map below.  Look to the left of the US First Army sector.)

In the build-up to the big push, cover and concealment was extensively used to mask the operation and it was thought that the enemy might leave them alone.

US artillery in the Argonne Forrest , 26 Sep., 1918

As it was, the Germans did give it a good go.  High explosive rounds did land in their rear hitting their bivouac area, blowing up a battalion ammunition dump and putting holes through their kitchen mess equipment.  Their own battery position was hit with fire on either side but none of it did any significant damage.  As they do, the men were most concerned about the food preparation.  Truman wrote that, “I promptly moved the kitchen on the urgent request of the cook.”  (Truman, 23 Nov., 1918)


Battery D was sent up to the front lines, “The real front this time, west of Verdun and just alongside the Argonne Forrest.”  (Truman, 23 Nov., 1918)

On 26 September, 1918, at the outset of the offensive, the three regiments of the division's artillery brigade, the 60th Field Artillery, fired over 40,000 rounds during the opening bombardment.  Truman's mission during this was to saturate the defense in an immediate adjacent to Boureilles and then shift his guns to the east where he would fire a rolling barrage ahead of the infantry to the Cheppy area.

US Armor in WWI

In comments on the batteries contribution to the opening salvo, CPT Truman wrote, “I began firing a barrage that lasted until 7:20.  My guns were so hot that they would boil wet gunny sacks we put on them to keep them cool and I was as deaf as a post from the noise.  It looked as though every gun in France was turned loose and I guess that is what happened.” (Truman, Nov, 1918)

The ammunition column to sustain this effort stretched about eight miles or so to the rear every night of the build-up.

Meuse-Argonne map 26 Sep. to 11 Nov., 1918

After the rolling barrage reached the Cheppy-Varennes line, the 60th Brigade's two 75mm regiments, the 128th and 129th, hitched up and moved out, close on the rear elements of the infantry regiments and ahead of the expected traffic jams with Truman's battery leading the 129th column.

Truman's battery was detailed to provide fire support for Gen. George S. Patton's tank brigade during the Meuse-Argonne offensive.  As such they had to be in the lead.  To effectively support the armor, they had to engage the enemy as far forward as possible.  As such, they moved as far forward as possible as fast as possible and were at times, located directly on the forward edge of the battle area. 

Column movement had been steady but came to a sudden halt at the first line of German defenses where retreating forces had blasted huge craters in the road - the Route National. 

While the rest of the 129th turned around to cross no man’s land, Truman's battery dug in as he and the 2nd Battalion commander, Major Gates, forded the Aire River and scouted the area looking for any remnant of the armor brigade that they could link up with and to liaise (become trail party of.)  Eventually they found they were overlooking Varennes and decided to turn back. 

Truman and his battery followed the rest of his regiment across no man's land.  They often forced to pull the guns one at a time by double teaming each with12 horses, not the usual six in order to get them through the muddy, shell-torn terrain. There was no visibility, it was raining, and it was 2200 that night before the exhausted battery reached the regiment's bivouac area.

The next morning the 2nd BN moved north through the main defensive line to establish itself northeast of Varennes.  Truman was, as usual, sent forward to observe and direct fire.  The mission called for him to support the assault on Carpentry.  He was meant to link up with the infantry’s command but no one was spotted.  Truman did, however, have a visual on an unsupported tank assault into the German reverse-slope positions and from his vantage point he was able to watch the fighting around the village.

Meuse-Argonne US artillery forward observer

In the noise of combat, intense smoke, confusion and incoming fire, the infantry Truman was meant to support had actually shifted their battle line.  Truman was so intent on calling in fire missions that he ended up about 200 yards inside what were technically the German lines.  He had an exciting few moments where his immediate future and longevity were both somewhat uncertain.  Truman admitted that he lived a “charmed” existence and he was able to scurry back to the relative security of his own lines.  (Truman, 30 Oct., 1918)

The First Army had known that with the exception of a small number of batteries with specific missions, their divisional artillery would be out of action after about 0745 on 26 September as it moved forward, but they planned that most units would be ready on 27 September. What they did not anticipate was how massively clogged the roads would become, further delaying units that didn't get off to the immediate start of the 60th Brigade's 75mm artillery regiments.  Furthermore, there was no possible way they could have foreseen the rather extraordinary and peculiar series of events centered on some of the 28th's senior artillery officers.  They, together with the road congestion, prevented the use of its artillery for nearly three full days.  (Giangreco, 2002.)

It must also be noted that corps artillery, who was at this point in the offensive, operated under the restriction that it could fire on targets no closer than four miles in front of the infantry's lines.  Even division art’y was ordered to fire only at targets within their own sectors.  (Under the stress of battle, the Army has always seemed to have a propensity to issue confusing and ill thought-out orders.)
This change of events allowed the Germans to slip under the  coverage of 1st Army’s guns and move in 16 of their own batteries, raining down a conflagration of fire against the US 28th and 35th, with much of this fire coming from behind the 35th’s lines.

The Main Events at the Orchard at Cheppy

In moving into the Orchard at Cheppy, they were again on the forward edge of the battle.  They were so close to their targets that they were basically bore sighting their guns and firing on a flat trajectory.   As Mr. Wooden said, “There was a valley down there and then a slope up, and this slope was lined with machine guns in pillboxes. The old boys would just look down the barrel and give a yank. If they didn't get him with the first shot, on the next shot you'd see him go up in the air.” 

Remains of a damaged German artillery

Truman, at his OP was primarily observing his division front and the approaches down Route National.  That evening, Truman noticed an American aircraft just to the west of his position.  Turning his attention to the area, he saw a German battery setting up less than a thousand yards away.  In a text book response to the situation, Truman kept calm, alerted his battery to a fire mission and calculated the distance and position.  Moe importantly, he held his fire.  He waited until the Germans set up and moved their horses well away from the battery so there was no hope of them being able to move.  Then he called for fire.  He walked the rounds in, fired for effect and destroyed the entire battery.  He calmly destroyed a significant portion of the German weaponry that was having so much of a lethal effect on the Americans.

When it became too dark to see, CPT Truman and his few men at the OP returned to the battery’s firing position and immediately repositioned to the south.

Only the words of the men from Battery D can properly describe what happened next:

“While he was out there, we were strafed by a couple of German planes.  When Truman came back to the battery he gave orders to hitch up and pull out. We got up the road probably a hundred yards and where we had just left, boy, the shells were just raining in there. We would have been caught but we were a hundred yards away by that time -- just intuition on his part that we got out of there. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here talking to you.”  (Mr McKim) 

WWI heavy artillery

“I think that Truman realized that that airplane had probably notified the German artillery of our position. They, of course, knew the locale and so forth, and they just gave that location the business. I think that act on the part of Truman in moving our location probably saved a lot of lives.” (Mr Ricketts)

Meuse-Argonne offensive

And finally, Mr Wooden said, it was “just a little before sundown when a German plane came right over, right over our position. By God, you know what Harry did? He moved us back about 100 yards, and to our right about 200 yards, right in a little cut in the road, a chat road.  It wasn't fifteen minutes until they just shot that orchard all to hell. If he hadn't done that there might not have been a one of us left.”


In this regard, Truman had an uncanny ability to stay one move ahead of the Germans.  In referring to an earlier moment Truman had said, “Got up about 3 in the afternoon and picked out another place to put my cot which was very lucky for me because that night my first choice was unmercifully shelled and I'd be in small pieces now as would half my battery and my LTs if I'd stayed there.”  (Truman, 23 Nov., 1918)

Americans in the remnants of the Argonne forest, 1918

Before dawn on 28 September, (the third morning of the operation) CPT Truman again moved out and set up another OP and immediately began transmitting firing information.  At about 0900 he inadvertently viewed a German OP being set up and immediately called in fire and destroyed it.  About 1100 he observed another German battery, but this one was hitching up to move out.  Truman directly called in fire data with a fire for effect and forced the enemy to flee and leave behind their guns.  He later wrote to Bess, “I shot up a German battery in position one morning out and a German O.P.” and “I'm the only commander in the 129th who ever saw what he fired at and I think that is some distinction.”  (Truman, 23 Nov., 1918)

Come back tomorrow for Voices of 1918; part 3 of 5