cc
to another edition of History Sandwiched In at the Wisconsin
Historical Museum.
fortunate to have a talk about Today, we're especially
that came out of World War I, "The Lost Battalion," which
has a true Wisconsin connection.
of the battalion There are at least three members
And we are lucky enough today to have Robert J. Laplander
come and bring 1/16,
of his collection of items no doubt the best 16th,
from World War I, from France. from an archaeological dig,
please welcome Robert Laplander to the Wisconsin Historical
Museum. ( applause )
Thanks for coming.
the 2001 movie on A&E? How many of you saw
How many thought it was good? Okay, forget all that.
Because that's not what happened.
It's Hollywood's version. It's a very entertaining movie.
I watch it myself on a frequent basis, because that's what we
have. The truth is, like most events,
much worse. The fact is that the Argonne
Defensive, during which the episode of Lost Battalion
happened, was the bloodiest battle America has ever
been involved in. Iwo Jima is number two.
We were in Argonne for 47 days. We fought.
We lost 550 men on average
Over 125,000 casualties in this one battle alone.
And that makes it something that should be remembered,
but to this day is not. During that battle, one of the
greatest events of American participation in the first
World War, the Lost Battalion happened.
The truth of the story is a lot more graphic than has always
been illustrated in the legend. In 1938, Thomas Johnson and
Fletcher Pratt, a reporter
military historian, got together from the Chicago Sun-Times and a
called "The Lost Battalion." and wrote a book
the benchmark against which Aneverybody has measureden
what they know about the story. If this is the 1920s and 1930s,
you'd all know the story. It was huge.
It was a massive story. Even before these men walked out
of what became known as the pocket, they were heroes.
As early as October 5,
articles written about them thehere in the states.aper
The event went from October 2 to October 7.
They walked out on the afternoon
And at the same time, on October 7, the day that they
were relieved from the pocket,
but that afternoon somebody thanamed Sergeant Alvin York,ed,
who was a Corporal at the time
was doing his little deed seveto win the war.rth,
Everybody remembers Sergeant York, right?
You all saw the movie that came out, "1941"?
That's a great movie, isn't it? Forget it, it never happened.
That's not how it happened. But it's Hollywood's
version of that.
that we know about these things, And it's through Hollywood
and you showed up here that we can grasp these things,
Like I said, to see the truth.
On the evening of October 2, the truth is much worse.
a New York lawyer who was born 1918, Charles Whittlesey,
led about 700 men into the Charlevoix Ravine.
He did not do this in a burst of glory to try to win medals
for himself.
under competent and direct military orders.
He was following his orders.
followed their orders as well. Trouble was, a nobody else
without regard He was told, you will advance
This sounds like a really harsh military principle, but in truth
it's what they did. Do we have any veterans here?
How many veterans?
two. We've got one...
just for today? AnThe truth of the matterran
is that military service
Military service is not about isaving your partner's life.e.
Military service is about obtaining the objective.
And obtaining the objective at just about any cost.
Charles Whittlesey
He was a graduate of the was exceptionally good at this.
Training Camps. Now Plattsburgh Officer Training
Camps were the brainchild of General Leonard Wood,
before the war. As early as 1913, Leonard Wood
realized that we lacked militarily.
By the time we got into the war in April of 1917, we had
a standing army of 250,000
and Marine Corps troops. regular, National Guard
The Germans at that time 250,000.
in France. had 2 million men in the field
General Leonard Wood had seen Wsomething like this coming
and decided a long time ago that
Officer Cadre to lead what we'a Draft Army.eed is an
Now those of you who know anything about the service
know that regular army troops-- at the end of the war there is
not a lot of regular army troops
There's a reason for this. still standing.
there to win the war, regular army troops are there
to hold the line until
and draft army can be gotten the national army troops
Consequently, regular army together to win the war.
rate. Now, to get this whole thing
started, we were going to need
So we started 60-day officer officers.
In 1916, Charles Whittlesey trainwent.amps.
It was the fashionable thing
The best and the brightest in the society were going to be
officers. So he went and he served
his 60 days.
his capabilities, and find out The Army got a chance to assess
And when the war was declared in 1917, Charles Whittlesey
was called back and he was made an officer.
He was given the rank of Captain
Headquarters Company and was put in charge of the
The 308th Infantry is part of the New 308th Infantry.
The 77th Division is raised from the Lower East Side
of New York, primarily. There's a lot of street
peddlers, a lot of immigrants.
that the beginning Because remember, this is
There's a lot of immigrants. of the 20th century.
draft law that was passed Anin May of 1917, was thathe
you didn't have to be a citizen to be a soldier.
All you had to do is live here. And a lot of these guys who were
immigrants would come over
they did not want to serve from Europe, because
And they served in the 77th Division.
The 77th is a true melting pot. It really shows what America was
at the turn of the century. And all the guys in charge of it
were the best and brightest of New York society.
They send these guys to France
After receiving the full in April of 1918.
program at the time. 16-week military training
going to happen again, This is something that's not
that will come in. for the replacement troops
in the -- sector, which is a quiet sector.
The server with the French. They serve with the British.
They're gaining a little experience.
They take a few casualties. They're starting to swagger
a little bit. They really think
they're something else. And then they pull them out
and they send them to the Valley of the Vel River.
And any of the 77th Division
the same thing, before was a pushing match.
And we got into the Vel,
The summer of 1918 that was a real fist fight.
The Germans used a lot of gas in the Valley of the Vel River.
There was not a lot of fresh water available.
Everything had to be
This is where the 77th learned hand carried up.
and how to dig in, funk holes, about the artillery fire,
of World War II's fox hole. This is where they learned
what shells sounded like. This is also where they learned
you didn't sleep one in a hole. That was suicide.
You didn't sleep two in a hole. You'd wake up to find your
buddy's throat cut. You slept three in a hole.
Two awake and one asleep. You rotated shifts
every two hours.
77th was as well, you had Ba lot of immigrants in there,e
like I said, Germans were putting on American uniforms
and slipping in to American chow lines
listening to what was going on. Nobody realized that they were
not part of the Division. Everybody had an accent
in that Division. And then they would eat
good American food, and go back to the other side of the lines
and tell what they saw. They were slipping into
the lines everywhere. And the 77th really began
to take a lot of casualties.
what the war was about. TAnd primarily, the Thirdn
Battalion of the 308th took a heavy amount of casualties.
Now, a Division in the First
a Division in the Second. WIt was a lot bigger.e
There was 27,000 men
There were four in theInfantry Regiments.isions.
In the case of the 77th,
and 308th infantry regiments. you haWe also had attached307th,
machine gun units.
supply units. We alHuge, huge units.units,
And each one of those regiments,
was broken down into three battalions.
Each battalion
And the company hhad 244 men each..
So a battalion could raise about
By the time they got into the 1200 Argonne Forest aftergth.
the Vel River, they were down.
Most of the 244 men companies had less than 200 men in them.
So they had to bring in replacements.
Now replacements and the First
at the end of Second World War, were a little bit differents
than the men
And in the case of the 77th wDivision, these replacements
came from the 40th Division,
Division in France. which becDepot Divisionee Depot
meaning replacement division. Most of the men in the
40th Division were draftees from the summer of 1918,
late spring and early summer
from the Midwest. Most of these men had received
their draft notices in May of 1918,
and shipped out in June.
they were in combat. And by September 26,
The first guy we're going to Just to show you something.
Wisconsin connection is a fellow talk about today that has a
exactly what I'm talking about. This is Eugene Michael McGrath.
Eugene Michael McGrath was
And he received his draft notice born in New London, Wisconsin.
He shipped out in early June, ofor Camp Louis.
in Washington state.
at Camp Louis in Washington Hgetting his inoculations,wo
learning who to salute, when to salute, how to salute
and where to salute,
before he was sent and how to wear his uniform
in July. to Camp Kearney in California
from Camp Kearney In to Camp Mills in New York,ut
where he arrived in August. He spends two weeks in
quarantine
By the time he gets over getting overseas shots.
By August 25, he is in France. to France.
in early June. Now remember, he shipped out
and it's August 25. He's been in the military
69 days.
19 days in training. Of those 69, days he has spent
and quarantine time. The rest of it is traveling time
He has a brand new rifle 19 days.
He has never fired. He has never seen a gas mask.
He doesn't know what a hand grenade is.
What they're telling these guys is don't worry about your basic
training, you don't need it.
infantry training in France. What you need is advanced
By the time they got to France, Then however, the need formbat.
replacements in the combat
military had decided they've divisions was so great, that the
they don't need alradvanced combat training,ng,
send them to the front. The men were arriving at the
front without full equipment, with absolutely no training.
Not all the men,
Eugene Michael McGrath but some of them.
He arrived September 23, was one of them.
and is attached to just outside the Argonne Forest
Company C is really, Company C of the 308th infantry.
They received 75 replacements to bring them up to 240 men.
They only have two officers instead of the full complement
of five.
on September 26, 1918. And they go into combat
in the Argonne Forest, Now, when they went into combat
expect, because the guns had they didn't really know what to
And in fact, more artillery was bfired into the Argonne Forests.
in the first 24 hours of battle than was fired
by the entire Union Army
That's a lot of firepower. during the entire Civil War.
some devastation. What we really didn't know
was what it was doing to the Germans.
The Germans, in fact, had pulled back.
They suspected what was going on
Now, the Argonne Forest-- how many of you have been
to Nicolet National Forest? Just about everybody.
I think it's pretty thick in some spots.
That's nothing. The Argonne Forest is terrible.
For centuries, armies had fought
It's the largest woodland aroexpanse between theest.
Mediterranean and the North Sea.
In the way that it is constructed by nature.
You could take two steps on solid ground, and the next step
without realizing, would sink up to your knees in slop.
In some places, you can't see more than two or three meters
in any direction. The Germans had been in this
forest for four years.
city inside this forest. And they had built a veritable
upon trench lines, There were trench lines,
protected by barbed wire. There was, in some places,
eight and ten feet thick
You couldn't see through it, and over a man's head.
had grown through it. They would stretch barbwire nets
between two trees.
it, you'd get caught in the wire And as you tried to push through
on the other side. and there be a machine gun
scattered through this forest. Hundreds of machine guns were
of the line. It was a quiet section
It's where they sent It was a rest area.
and so did the French. their troops to rest,
in this mess, because everybody Nobodyrested there. fight
The Germans really were there for the long haul.
And they set up beer gardens, and bowling alleys,
and chalets,
They had hot and cold and nicerunning water,plexes.
electricity.
Roads went everywhere. a modern telephone system.
connected everything. They had two full-size
concrete swimming pools.
All that stuff They're still there.
And they were there is stfor the long haul.est.
But these were military replacements that were divided
into three major lines. And to attack through
those lines, you had to get through the sub-positions
in the front. The first sub-position extended
for about three kilometers. And it was where
the classic devastation of the First World War was.
This is where everything
Beyond that, the farther was all torn up by shellfire.
the less devastation there was. And as you pushed forward
into this, the Germans
and all their artillery htrained on those areas.ns
The 308th bursts forward
Gets out into the forest into this in a tremendous fog.
Units disintegrate. Cohesion between units
disintegrates.
for them to tie up loose ends. It takes three days
are pulling back to a main line. Luckily, the Germans
the onslaught. They realize they can't stop
German defense tactic, This is a really good
It gets pulled back cand then reorganized,.
and then head forward again.
Whittlesey and his men So they're pulling back.
on the far left of the line. are driving forward
They get separated on the right from the Second Battalion.
Whittlesey is in charge of the First Battalion.
He's driving forward. Off to his left
is the 368th Infantry,
The 368th has not been able to keep up on that flank.
Neither has the Second Battalion
been able to keep up. This is in direct violation,
of the orders to attack regardless of flanks.
And ground once taken must not given up.
Two sound military principles.
to your flank, and the guy If you attack without regard
without regard to his flanks, and the guy next to him
does the same thing,
are moving forward, correct? all the units
are naturally covered. And your flanks
happens in combat, Well, that's not what really
The Second Battalion quite frequently.
Instead of maintaining couldn't keep up.
they fall back, breaking orders theirand giving up ground. fire,
Whittlesey finds himself on the evening of September 28, 1918,
on the north side of this hill
It's raining and it's dark. And he doesn't want to risk
sending his men out on either flank to make connection,
so he keeps them in.
will likely catch up, And he sawe'll be okay.e flanks
This is a bad military decision.
one reason and one reason alone. It's a bad military decision for
a combat commander. Remember, he was in charge of
the 308th Headquarters Company. It's not a combat unit.
He was a paper pusher.
when they're in the Valley of Bthe Vel, the First Battalion
commander was hit and wounded and goes down.
He comes back.
His replacement comes up, His hit and killed..
Now they're looking for somebody
Whittlesey was next in line. to fill the shoes.
but he was next in line. He didn't have combat experience
Plattsburgh that they decide, you know what, he can do it.
Give him the majority and put him in there.
They make him a Major.
is to drive into His first combat assignment
The worst battle the Argonne Forest.
He manages his affairs we're going to face.
And it's at that time that they rempull up at this hillside.ime.
And Charles Whittlesey, from Florence, Wisconsin,
brings his men up and says
tomorrow we're going to hold out tonight,
But the flanks don't catch up. the flanks with catch up.
Whittlesey and his men And for the next day and half,
by the German troops, who they are surrounded on all four sides
It's a rearguard action. don't realize are pulling back.
what a little prize they had If the Germans had realized
they could have annihilated Whittlesey and the 450
approximate men he had with him.
And by the evening of September 30, they had pulled
out from around Whittlesey. Whittlesey's flanks catch up
with him. For the first time, since
the beginning of the battle they have a solid line.
And on October 1, they begin
the north/south ravine, deeper into the Argonne Forest.
The Second Battalion is following up behind him
with a new battalion commander
George McMurtry was one of George McMurtry.
And he was also Tedda Plattsburgh graduate.ers.
And I have a lot of sympathy
because George McMurtry fwas 42 years old.y,
They had been in this battle
and it was a bad battle. for almost a week now,
Nobody was eating. Nobody was sleeping.
It rained almost every day. I'm 42, and I wouldn't
want to do that.
So I have a lot of sympathy for George McMurtry.
Whittlesey is driving forward up this ravine.
Now, his orders are to take a road, take a position along
a road that is farther up the ravine, that he is going up
the north/south ravine, cross an east/west ravine
called the Charlevoix Ravine, with the Charlevoix Brook
down at the bottom, and go
If you look close in this halfwpicture you'll see, road.
and afterwards you can come up
there's a white line. This white line is the roadside.
The wall behind the road. The road is cut as a shelf
into the side of the hill.
that's exposed when they cut the road in there.
Whittlesey is to take up his
on the Charlevoix. position along the road
way over to the Charlevoix Mill, Extend his left flank all the
about 800 meters to his left. Extend his right flank over
to the 307th, make liaison, form a solid line.
Farther over his left,
Hill 205 is a bad, bad hill with a lot of Germans on it.
The French are supposed to
Whittlesey is supposed attack aon the other side.
They'll meet at the Charlevoix
hill, and pinch the hill off, Mnobody has to deal with it.e
Well, it doesn't quite
On the afternoon of October 2, work out that way.
behind, under orders, Whito draw fire from Hill 205es
while he takes the rest of First and Second Battalion
over the top of the hill
They manage to make it across on hithe Charlevoix Ravine 198.
and take up their position. But Whittlesey is learning.
Whittlesey's learning.
on the roadside just hang out Hand wait till the next day
we're going to get annihilated
fire, because he also knows he's about three-quarters of
a mile behind the enemy lines.
have not kept up on his left. HHe sends his message backh
nevertheless, by that evening,
has reach its objective. that the 308th
road, they dig into the hillside And instead of standing on the
At the bottom of the ravine is another wagon road.
Next to the wagon road
Charlevoix Brook. We've got water.
We've got a good position dug into a hillside
protected from artillery fire.
wait through tonight, flanks with catch up tomorrow,
everything will be okay.
big mistake in the Argonne. He does not send a connecting
line back to the rear on his left, to connect up
with the two companies he left
Legend always has it that the French didn't hold up their side
so that the Germans snaked in behind Whittlesey from the left,
through that hole the French left.
That's not true.
behind on Hill 205, to draw fire The two companies he had left
and F, and they are connected from Hiwith the French.anies D
The hole exists between them
And the hole is left there and Whittlesey.
because he doesn't realize by Charles Whittlesey,
And he won't realize this until the next day.
During the night, however,
tries to come up on his right and make a connecting line back.
But only one company makes it,
of the 307th. aAnd it's commandedK
by Nelson Holderman.
is from California. He's a National Guard soldier
and he loves to fight.
97 men, they fall in under He brings his company in,
By 10:00 a.m. on October 3, WhiWhittlesey realizes,k.
we're trapped.
They did not have the kind The runner line back is cut.
in the First World War, they didn't have those
kind of communications
There was no two-way that we have today.
That didn't exist. voice radio.
There was telephone. That wouldn't exist until 1921.
you had to have a wire. ButAnd the wire would be cutward
by artillery fire right away, and it required these big
heavy batteries, which you
Whittlesey did not have a field phone with him.
So they kept contact
Write a message, through a runner line.
The guy would run to position about a hundred meters behind,
hand to another guy, and
all the way back. anAnd to get a message back,,
the order was reversed. It took a lot of time, but it
also had the advantage
was doing this. There was another thing left
to them, and that was pigeons.
Write the message, give it Carrier pigeons.
And it's a good idea. to And it usually worked.p.
However for some
the birds sometimes didn't do what they're supposed to, and
just went about their business. In that case, you were pretty
much left to your own designs.
trust the birds, so he was Whittlesey didn't altogether
double and triple strength really heavy into putting
In this instance however, the Germans had snaked in
off of his left flank and around his right flank,
and connected up on the hill
broken the runner line, killed or captured a couple of
the runners, and that was it. By noon, Whittlesey is issuing
an order out to the men in the ravine, about 687 men.
We don't really know
Not even Whittlesey knew how many men were in there.
The battle had been tremendous how many men he had.
they had behind them. There had been massive
dispersion, massive casualties. Even the casualty lists
in Washington D.C., to this day, don't really tell
how many men were in the ravine.
The gentleman sitting over here is a Charles Whittlesey expert.
And he's got some information that I really want
after the lecture here, talking about a guy from Green Bay
that was supposed to have been
which I was unaware of. So this is fortuitous for me.
As far as I know, there was only the three men.
And the third one we're going to get to in a moment here.
So Whittlesey is trapped in this ravine with about 687 men.
And he's issuing orders out that afternoon,
our position is here. We're going to hold here.
Those are the orders. Here.
And if there's one thing
he is dedicated youto following his orders.y,
He knows they punched a hole
Now if they just stay there, in the German line.
the flanks have no choice but to come up to them again,
just as it has happened two days before.
If they stay there, they hold on.
They'll have it made. That afternoon the Germans
hit them on all four sides
hand grenades and machine guns. And 308th begins to fight back.
And they fight back hard. They take a lot of casualties.
By the morning of the fourth, the first day that it didn't
rain since September 18,
Everybody thinks things are going to be good, the flanks
are going to catch up.
again that morning. TheThey hit them pretty hard.nd
By noon, Whittlesey has taken almost 48% casualties.
Almost half of his force
They're out of ammunition, is killed or wounded.
They're totally out almof medical supplies.n.
They're out food. The only water supply,
the Charlevoix Brook, they can't get to it.
The Germans had machine guns
on the entire thing. and snipers trained
down there is killed. EveThey're running out. go
And they're running out of time and patience.
But that afternoon, happens probably the worst thing.
At about 2:30 that afternoon, they start to hear artillery
coming over.
hillside behind them, Hill 198. It creeps across the bottom
of the brook, and settles directly on their own position.
It's American artillery.
One artillery officer Thin the pocket with him.n.
His name is J.P. Teekmaller.
Company Battery D Hof the 305th Field Artillery.,
He has sent back a message
with wrong coordinates. Whether through inexperience
or exhaustion, we're not really sure, Teekmaller transposed two
numbers in the map coordinates
Those map coordinates place the line of artillery fire
about 200 meters
Right on the main American line, behind Whittlesey's position.
Those men call back and say hey, lift your fire.
You're not dropping it
you're dropping it on us. The 305th lengthens their fire,
believing that they're firing an artillery barrage around
Whittlesey for protection,
of protection actually falls now the far line of that circle
For half an hour, they take fire on Whittlesey's position.
They're losing men. There's no place they can go.
They're surrounded. And the Germans gleefully
throw in as many trench mortar
ammunition they're throwing in shells as they can, as much
And they're losing men. Whittlesey grabs his pigeoneer,
Omar Richards and writes a message.
We are along the road parallel 276.4.
Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us.
For heaven's sake stop it,
And he sends it up and the Whittlesey.
And he flies up in the air, and lands in a tree.
Well, he's not stupid.
and I ain't going anywhere. And he looks down and sticks
his tongue out. Whittlesey says, can't you
do something, to Richardson.
under fire, artillery shells Richardson, swearing, jumps out,
and climbs the tree, bursting around him
And finally the bird takes off. The little pigeon takes off,
is hit and falls to the ground. And a hundred faces
fall with it. But what they don't see
is that the bird gets back up and continues on,
22 minutes after he's let loose,
at mobile pigeon loft No. 9. the bird lands
He's lost a leg. They read the message.
is just hanging there, And that little tube
He's been shot in the breast just barely hanging there.
but he lives. He lives into June 1919.
He goes on a bond tour. He's retired
to the old pigeon's home. Yes, it's a real place.
And today, he's stuffed and on display
in Washington D.C.
when they read this message Howevesays uh-oh,llery,
we better lift our fire.
lifting their fire. TSomebody elsey
had already alerted them. This is an artillery spotter
that was coming back, who had spotted the smoke columns, and
was going to report back to his battery, yep, you're on target,
this is where you want to be, when the operations officer
of the 308th, Bradley Delhaney, actually talks to him and says,
where's your line of fire,
and they both run to the phone. and hBecause that's map
where Whittlesey is.
they get plastered For two and a half hours,
Finally, the artillery fire lifts, but they've already lost
30 dead, approximately 30 dead, and 80 more wounded
to their own fire.
by the afternoon of the fourth Now Whittlesey's casualty totals
On the fifth, they're out of everything.
They have three medics left.
to bury the bodies anymore. TheThe hillside is beginningugh
to look like a slaughterhouse.
of German corpses, There are pieces
and it smells terribly. Down at the bottom of the hill
in a long, low trench,
They're taking the bandages they're laoff the dead wounded.
to use on the current wounded.
across that hillside Whittlesey, however, walks
during the entire event, bolt upright
to get out convinced that they're going
They're holding on, and because he's holding on.en.
October 5 is also the first day that Whittlesey does not shave,
there's not enough water. On the sixth, a strange thing
happens, an airplane flies over and drops a package.
It lands in the German hands, but that airplane thinks
that they see a signal panel
In the First World War, to tell the airplanes what you wanted,
you laid out white panels of various designs and shapes
in different designs
And they've got a small battalion panel laid out under
a tree, and one of those guys thinks that he sees that.
But the plane is so shot up when they get back, that they
have to borrow another plane. They're going to go out and
look for this, but they realize we really don't know what we're
looking for with these guys.
they are, we can pinpoint Howeverwhere they're not. where
If we fly back and forth
let the German shoot at us, we can mark the hot spots
on the map. Then we know where they're not.
Ergo, where they're not is where they are.
The pilot is a guy
He's from Chicago. named Harold Gaylor.
named Irwin Bleckly. In the back seat is a fellow
They take off that afternoon. They make about four passes.
Gaylor takes a machine gun
Bleckly is killed in the ensuing bullet to the head.
to mark down enough information cron there to let the 50thd
Squadron know exactly where to drop the packages.
However, what does
It looks like a forest. What do you suppose a forest
looks like from the air?
And if you're a guy in that Pforest, what do you look like?.
You look like the forest. Especially, if you can be seen
from an airplane, you can be
Who's on the high ground? seen frThe Germans.ground.
These guys don't want to be seen.
So they have dug deep into the hillside.
Therefore, all the packages of the first attempted aerial
re-supply in history
Nothing reaches falWhittlesey's men.ds.
By the evening of the sixth,
The Germans are on the midst something else happens.
This is the only spot on the line that has held out.
And the unit that's surrounding Whittlesey is the 254th Infantry
Regiment of the German Army.
record is that Whittlesey pierced their line with hisr
little band of men, and they
to wipe him out. haven't been able
storm trooper units to come in. And that afternoon they receive
some storm troopers,
And they send flame throwers a few, with flame throwers.
for the first time. in agThey come incket
off of the far right flank. And during the attack,
as the troops, German troops
over the road and down are pouring down the hillside
this man from Viola, Wisconsin, private Arthur Raymond Looker,
takes a German rifle butt to the head.
He wakes up two days later, two days later in a hospital.
Arthur Ray Looker, from Viola,
of the Lost battalion. is one of the survivors
if you go to Viola, to the wonderful veterans walk,
Arthur Ray Looker's name
Ray Looker had a long history with the 308th Infantry.
He actually came in early.
September 14, when they were He was a replacement on
And he was in both pockets. He survived through the small
pocket with Whittlesey. And he survived that drive
all the way up that ravine
And he survived all the way ito October 6,.
when he takes a shot to the head
Ray Looker, after the war, with a German rifle butt.
about the Lost Battalion will give several talks
he moves down to Missouri all aron a farmstead. before
And from that point on, he refuses talk about the war.
If you go down to, I believe
I'm pretty sure that's what it is, in one of the VFW halls
down there, Ray Looker's uniform
the boots he wore in the pocket. is on display, including
about 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m., The morning of the sixth,
slip out. They saw one of those packages
fall in the brush over there. They don't think the Germans
got it, so they're going
They slip out to pick up this package.
And they're ambushed. Five are killed,
four are captured.
from Mt. Sterling, Ohio, One, Private Lowell Hollingsted
officer of the 254th Regiment is chato take a messageligence
back to Whittlesey
This is their suggelast ditch attempt.nder.
The 254th has orders
If they don't wipe these guys toout now, if they don't.
get rid of them now, they have
The only black mark a black that they got.record.
So their intelligence officer,
who lived in Washington state for 12 years, suggests okay,
if we give them the opportunity to surrender, they've already
put up a good stand, okay,
If we give them the opportunity nto surrender, maybe they will.
That afternoon, about 4:00, Hollingsted who had been shot in
the knee, comes limping back
waving a white flag with a message for the Major.
And they take the message to the Major.
The Major reads it. And according to legend,
Major Whittlesey is supposed to have turned to the German lines,
and being surrounded, one wonders exactly
what direction that would be, shook his fist
and yelled, "Go to hell!" Well, it didn't happen.
What he did tell everybody was, you better get ready, because
we're going to get hit bad now. And everybody got back to their
positions and fixed bayonets, and loaded up what little
ammunition was left.
the German slammed into them And about 6:00 that evening,
Flame throwers, trench mortars, hand grenades, machine guns,
sniper fire, direct frontal assaults on all sides.
And Whittlesey's men fought like cornered badgers.
Now they were all the same. Didn't matter if you were
a New York guy
It didn't matter if you were original to the unit.
You'd all seen the same thing for the last five days.
They were all hungry. They were all tired.
They were all down to the end.
They were not going to take this hillside.
Not today.
When that surrender letter Not ever.
And the air was blue had come, it incensed the men.
with the curses-- over thaYou want us, Ravine
well then you come and get us.
come on down here. You think you got the guts,
them with everything they had. The Germans attacked, and hit
got up out of their holes Anand gave chase.men
Pushed those Germans back over the road, pushed them
back across the ravine. Killed everybody that came
after them with a flame thrower.
about quarter to seven, they collapsed where they sat.
The could hear the Germans
around them. moving around in the forest
There was 12 seconds worth Nobody had any ammo left.
remaining machine guns of ammo left for the two
that they had brought in. That was it.
Outpost men had brought their bayonets, and were sharpening
them on rocks, with tears streaming down their face,
because they knew that if the Germans came
and hit them again it was over. They were going to walk
right over that pocket. They had fought for five
hard days to drive them off,
for nothing. and now they were going to die
weren't going to attack. But the Germans
They couldn't do it. The Germans were pulling out.
And they pulled back farther The 254th gave up.
that night, the first soldiers behind and at about 7:00 p.m.
broke through on the right of Company B 307th
They said they could smell them toa quarter of a mile away.on.
The next day, the full, hard truth hit.
Of his 687 approximate men
194 were able to walk out. that went in,
of nearly 72%. They took causalities
walked into legend. WhCharles Whittleseyen
became the first man
to earn the Medal of Honor in the First World War
His second-in-command, for this event.
won the Medal of honor. The man in charge
of the right flank, Capt. Nelson Holderman
of Company K 307th, Medal of Honor.
Two men behind, Archie Peck and Benjamin Coffman,
fighting to get them out, Medal of Honor each.
Harold Gaylor, Irwin Bleckly, who died from the 50th
Aerial Squadron to find them, Medal of Honor.
Seven Medals of Honor handed out for one event.
More than any other event until the raids in 1943.
And they walked into legend.
But he couldn't deal with it. He'd been gassed on the Vel.
Was most likely suffering from
and gas related tuberculosis. post-trHis brother Elijahorder,
had driven a truck
He had been gassed. for tHe was watching Elijah1917.
die of gas-related tuberculosis,
In 1921, just after aThanksgiving that year,.
Whittlesey boarded a steamer
ostensibly for a vacation. on his way to Cuba,
he sat drinking with another The first night of the voyage
About 11:30, he excused himself, passenger in the saloon.
and leapt gover the side of the ship.
His body was never found. Today, they're legend.
And they're represented by
One small piece of the the items that we have up here.
have spent 11 years collecputting together. and I
We have two books written on it now, and two more to follow.
And in October of this year between October 2
and October 8,
90 years on I from when they were.t,
And we will be dedicating a new storyboard in France
that tells what happened
paid for by the families on that site,
For those of you of the men that were there.
we do have the books who are interested,
You can come on up here out fand take a looklobby.
at all these nice artifacts.
to answer all the questions I'll that you have.appy
The most of all, thank you
Sandwiched In series. fThank you for listening.
God bless. ( applause )