This is a written statement by Lt Ralph P. Buell, the commander of Company C, 107th Infantry, 27th Infantry Division, concerning the attack on the Hindenburg line on September 29, 1918. My father was a corporal, a machine gun squad leader, in Company C during this attack. This shows what it was like in World War I, an I think it's appropriate to post it on Veterans Day. I don't think this statement has ever been published before.
"On the 29th of September 1918, I was in command of "C" Company, 107th Infantry, A.E.F. and was th only officer present with the Company, my platoons being each commanded by a Sergeant.
Pusuuant to orders of the Battalion Commander, my Company was to take off at 5:30 A.M., as the left flank company of the first wave, cover a front of four hundred yards and connecting with "B" Company of our battalion on the right. "C" Company was therefore the left flank company of the regiment and of the 2d Corps, A.E.F.
By like orders, I formed my Company for the atack as follows: 2 platoons in first line, a single line of skirmishers at intervals of about 9 yards and two platoons in line of combat groups in support, and at a distance of 25 yards from the first line: company headquartrers in centre of the comapny, 10 yards in the rear of the first line.
The direction fo the attack was given as 85 degrees magnetic. The commanding officer of "B" Company. (1st Lt Samuel Crump, Jr. KIA on Sept 29th. The other two offiers of B Company were wounded. Cyrano) was directed to have a detail march on his right flank with a compass to keep this bearing and I was directed to have a similiar detail on my left flank. "B" Company was directed to guide right and "C" Company to guide left.
My information was that a liaison company from the 54th Brigade, B.E.F. was to advance, keeping in touch with my left and that several tanks were to advance on my left as further support. As a result of reconnaissance made by the Commanding Office of "B" Cpmpany and myself on the 28th, and a discussion ofthe situation, we reached the conclusion that this liaison company would not make contact with me; that the tanks might not get up and that therefore my compan would sag off to the left leaving a gap between 'B'" and "C" , which it was particularly important to avoid by reason fo the obstacles in our front. (He was right, the tanks did not arrivge and a three mile gap opened between the A.E.F and the B.E.F. Due to heavy smoke, this gap was not percieved by the enemy. Cyrano).
We accordingly agreed that his left support platoon would take care of such a gap, my right support platoon would watch my center which would strike the worst part of the 'knoll" (a topographical feature that was one of their objectives. Cyrano) and my left support platoon would watch my left flank and fill in the line if it thinned out too much or form a defensive flank if necessary.
As I expected to have to go to the left to keep things moving there, I instructed my non-coms not to guide on me in any event or to stop if I stopped, but to follow the order I had given to guide left on the general line. We jumped off the tape at zero hour and went at a fast walk to catch up with the barrage which came down about 1,000 yards ahead of us. After we had gone about 200 yards, I ran into two Germans in a sunken road, took them prisoners and sent them to the rear. As I had to threaten to shoot one of them, who showed fight, I necessarily stopped for perhaps a minute and then I noticed that the men in my vicinity, regardless fo my instructions, were stopping too and that the line was regulatinge its pace on me. This bcame apparent because when I started forward, they started as well. After another short advance, I stopped to look around aht the same thing happened. I then realized that in order to keep the line going ahead, I would have to lead it, so I turned over my company headquarters to the ist Sergeant, telling him to keep them in the designated position and went out ahead of the Company, waving them to come on. We went on in this way for several hundred years, meeting some opposition, which quickly dissipated as we opened fire on them. We then struck a barbed wire entanglement and probably because I struck it in the part where it was cut up, I managed to work through more quickly than the men in my immediate vicinity and go out perhaps thirty yards ahead of the line. We were going up a gradual rise and the ground was very rough at that point. All of a sudden I saw in fromt of me a trench manned by three Germans with a machine gun, perhaps forty yards away, and back of them, in an angle in the trench, a group of about fifteen more Germans with what appeared to be two machine guns. The ground between us was being heaviuly swept by machine gun fire from the left and the one gun in front of me was just commencing to fire to my left.
The Germans apparently had not seen me as there was some haze. My first impulse was to drop down, let the line come up and flank this position, but I was afraid that my men might stop if I did, all along the line, and might also mistake my motive, lose their confidence in me and with it much of their morale. So I decided that the best thing to do was to go right at it, hoping that if I could get through the enfilading fire the Germans would be disturbed by the show of force and quit. It took perhaps half a minute to come to this conclusion, and I started to run towards the trench. Just at this time, one of my men yelled to me:"Look out, Lieutenant, it's a trap!" The Germans apparently heard this, becase they turned in my direction. The man with the machien gun swept it around toward me and one of his companions covered me with his rifle. Seeing that I had no chance to get the post myself, I shouted to the men nearest me "Tell them to charge". The Germans were apparently confused and and no effort to fire until I had gone within twenty feet of them, whn they opened up on me. I did not want to shoot until I was closer, but I found I would have to , so I took a shot at the man with the rifle and put him out of action. I later saw him dead in the trench. Just at this moment I was hit in the shoulder and nearly knocked off my feet. I did not realize that I was badly hit and tried to keep on going, taking several steps and bringing me probably ten feet away from the machine gun which was spitting all the time, but for some unknown reason not hitting me. I tried to shoot the gunner but had apparently exhausted the clip in my autromatic for it would not go off, and as I was vomiting blood and apparently about to go down I tried to throw my automatic at the man, hoping to put him out of business. My dim recollection is that just as I got my arm back, I spun around and went down on my back. I do oto remember anything more until I came to a few minutes later, luing there with a very vigorous fight going on over me. In a few minues my men managed to clean the position out and went on. My First Sergeant (1st Sergeant Gerald K. Dieterlin. Cyrano), Signal Coporal, runner and one or two other men were killed at this point and some six men, including myself, were wounded. There were apparently some fifteen Germans killed and I do not know how many wounded."
Lt Buell survived having taken a machine gun bullet in the lung at close range; he is listed as a Major in the National Guard in 1925. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for this action. He bacame a successful business man in New York and died in 1946. He was 68 years old.
"On the 29th of September 1918, I was in command of "C" Company, 107th Infantry, A.E.F. and was th only officer present with the Company, my platoons being each commanded by a Sergeant.
Pusuuant to orders of the Battalion Commander, my Company was to take off at 5:30 A.M., as the left flank company of the first wave, cover a front of four hundred yards and connecting with "B" Company of our battalion on the right. "C" Company was therefore the left flank company of the regiment and of the 2d Corps, A.E.F.
By like orders, I formed my Company for the atack as follows: 2 platoons in first line, a single line of skirmishers at intervals of about 9 yards and two platoons in line of combat groups in support, and at a distance of 25 yards from the first line: company headquartrers in centre of the comapny, 10 yards in the rear of the first line.
The direction fo the attack was given as 85 degrees magnetic. The commanding officer of "B" Company. (1st Lt Samuel Crump, Jr. KIA on Sept 29th. The other two offiers of B Company were wounded. Cyrano) was directed to have a detail march on his right flank with a compass to keep this bearing and I was directed to have a similiar detail on my left flank. "B" Company was directed to guide right and "C" Company to guide left.
My information was that a liaison company from the 54th Brigade, B.E.F. was to advance, keeping in touch with my left and that several tanks were to advance on my left as further support. As a result of reconnaissance made by the Commanding Office of "B" Cpmpany and myself on the 28th, and a discussion ofthe situation, we reached the conclusion that this liaison company would not make contact with me; that the tanks might not get up and that therefore my compan would sag off to the left leaving a gap between 'B'" and "C" , which it was particularly important to avoid by reason fo the obstacles in our front. (He was right, the tanks did not arrivge and a three mile gap opened between the A.E.F and the B.E.F. Due to heavy smoke, this gap was not percieved by the enemy. Cyrano).
We accordingly agreed that his left support platoon would take care of such a gap, my right support platoon would watch my center which would strike the worst part of the 'knoll" (a topographical feature that was one of their objectives. Cyrano) and my left support platoon would watch my left flank and fill in the line if it thinned out too much or form a defensive flank if necessary.
As I expected to have to go to the left to keep things moving there, I instructed my non-coms not to guide on me in any event or to stop if I stopped, but to follow the order I had given to guide left on the general line. We jumped off the tape at zero hour and went at a fast walk to catch up with the barrage which came down about 1,000 yards ahead of us. After we had gone about 200 yards, I ran into two Germans in a sunken road, took them prisoners and sent them to the rear. As I had to threaten to shoot one of them, who showed fight, I necessarily stopped for perhaps a minute and then I noticed that the men in my vicinity, regardless fo my instructions, were stopping too and that the line was regulatinge its pace on me. This bcame apparent because when I started forward, they started as well. After another short advance, I stopped to look around aht the same thing happened. I then realized that in order to keep the line going ahead, I would have to lead it, so I turned over my company headquarters to the ist Sergeant, telling him to keep them in the designated position and went out ahead of the Company, waving them to come on. We went on in this way for several hundred years, meeting some opposition, which quickly dissipated as we opened fire on them. We then struck a barbed wire entanglement and probably because I struck it in the part where it was cut up, I managed to work through more quickly than the men in my immediate vicinity and go out perhaps thirty yards ahead of the line. We were going up a gradual rise and the ground was very rough at that point. All of a sudden I saw in fromt of me a trench manned by three Germans with a machine gun, perhaps forty yards away, and back of them, in an angle in the trench, a group of about fifteen more Germans with what appeared to be two machine guns. The ground between us was being heaviuly swept by machine gun fire from the left and the one gun in front of me was just commencing to fire to my left.
The Germans apparently had not seen me as there was some haze. My first impulse was to drop down, let the line come up and flank this position, but I was afraid that my men might stop if I did, all along the line, and might also mistake my motive, lose their confidence in me and with it much of their morale. So I decided that the best thing to do was to go right at it, hoping that if I could get through the enfilading fire the Germans would be disturbed by the show of force and quit. It took perhaps half a minute to come to this conclusion, and I started to run towards the trench. Just at this time, one of my men yelled to me:"Look out, Lieutenant, it's a trap!" The Germans apparently heard this, becase they turned in my direction. The man with the machien gun swept it around toward me and one of his companions covered me with his rifle. Seeing that I had no chance to get the post myself, I shouted to the men nearest me "Tell them to charge". The Germans were apparently confused and and no effort to fire until I had gone within twenty feet of them, whn they opened up on me. I did not want to shoot until I was closer, but I found I would have to , so I took a shot at the man with the rifle and put him out of action. I later saw him dead in the trench. Just at this moment I was hit in the shoulder and nearly knocked off my feet. I did not realize that I was badly hit and tried to keep on going, taking several steps and bringing me probably ten feet away from the machine gun which was spitting all the time, but for some unknown reason not hitting me. I tried to shoot the gunner but had apparently exhausted the clip in my autromatic for it would not go off, and as I was vomiting blood and apparently about to go down I tried to throw my automatic at the man, hoping to put him out of business. My dim recollection is that just as I got my arm back, I spun around and went down on my back. I do oto remember anything more until I came to a few minutes later, luing there with a very vigorous fight going on over me. In a few minues my men managed to clean the position out and went on. My First Sergeant (1st Sergeant Gerald K. Dieterlin. Cyrano), Signal Coporal, runner and one or two other men were killed at this point and some six men, including myself, were wounded. There were apparently some fifteen Germans killed and I do not know how many wounded."
Lt Buell survived having taken a machine gun bullet in the lung at close range; he is listed as a Major in the National Guard in 1925. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for this action. He bacame a successful business man in New York and died in 1946. He was 68 years old.
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