Waggoners Gap

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

0610 Hours

October 8, 1918

Argonne Forest

Near the DeCauville Railroad Junction

G Company, 328th Infantry Regiment,

82nd Infantry Division, American Expeditionary Force

While Marta Genero was in labor in Carlisle, Phillip was in France. He stood in a quiet glade in the Argonne Forest, preparing his squad for an assault on a well-defended German position, known to G Company as Hill 223.

G Company’s mission was part of a larger attack against substantial German defenses in the Meuse-Argonne Sector. The staff officers had done a good job coordinating the offensive. So far, all had gone well.

This morning, elements of the 328th Infantry Regiment would sweep from their defensive positions, move over the top of Hill 223, and then infiltrate through a series of small valleys beyond. They intended to capture the vital railroad junction near DeCauville by the end of the day.

Cutting the rail line would deprive the Huns of a logistics link and make it difficult to resupply their forces. Unfortunately, nothing ever went as planned.

A corporal for only a week and nervous about leading men into battle for the first time, Phillip suppressed his nagging fear and kept busy attending to the pre-attack details of a new non-com. Responsible for 11 men, he worried every issue to ensure that they were prepared and ready.

Genero hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d been thinking about Marta. He wondered if the baby would be a boy or girl, though it didn’t matter as long as the child was healthy. Earlier in the morning, he’d said a final prayer for his wife and baby. Then, Phillip put them out of his mind. He concentrated on his duties so that he wouldn’t leave Marta a widow and the new baby an orphan.

Normally affable and considerate, today he was all business. The soldiers in his squad understood. With a battle looming, they stowed their griping and complaining.

“Hey, Corporal!” jibed Private Koronopolis, a young Greek-American boy from New York. “Are we going to see the Kaiser this morning? I’ve come all the way from White Plains to this stinking forest. The least that son-of-a-b***h could do is serve us a little coffee and strudel on this chilly morning.”

“Settle down, Steph,” Phillip replied. “Save your energy. It’ll be a long, difficult day. We’ll need all of our wits about us.”

The G Company commander decided that Genero would play a special role in the attack formation. Phillip would have a simple—but crucial—task.

After the artillery preparation, G Company would jump off and drive north. Genero would anchor the left flank of the lead platoon, as it moved out in skirmish formation looking for contact. As the last rifleman in that first line, he’d ensure that the Germans didn’t turn G Company’s left flank, by a surprise attack, enfilade, or ambush.

The captain had picked the right man for the assignment, since Genero had proved to be a steady and dependable man in combat. Sergeant Early, the platoon sergeant, thought highly of Genero’s ability. The G Company platoon leaders agreed about the left.

Sgt. Early would take the center of the lead platoon in the company’s three-platoon echelon. Corporal York would command the right squad. F Company would be to the right, beyond York.

Though well-trained and tested in earlier actions, the Yanks lacked the Germans’ extensive combat experience. Undeterred, and sensing an end to the war, the Americans spoiled for this fight, so that they could defeat the Hun and go home. Imbued with a staunch fighting spirit, the feisty Americans prepared their equipment, hearts, and minds for the grim tasks that would lead them to victory.

Cpl. Alvin York was the unknown quantity in Early’s lead platoon. Just over 30 and older than most of the other enlisted men in G Company, Alvin posed a troubling enigma. During his training, he’d established himself as the best shot in the regiment, maybe the entire All-American Division. Despite his age, he possessed a strong, wiry, and tough physique. With one glaring exception, he personified the ideal soldier.

York had changed his rowdy ways and found religion after a mysterious and traumatic event. By the time he joined the regiment, he was no longer a hard-drinking brawler. Sincere about his faith, he tried to live up to the teachings of a very strict, Christian sect.

No one in the 82nd Infantry Division quibbled with his religious views. Most of the professional officers and non-commissioned officers of that era belonged to established churches. But the commanders worried about York’s earlier flirtation with claiming an exemption from combat as a conscientious objector.

York had argued that his religious beliefs precluded killing another person. This tenet created a serious problem for an infantryman, whose primary duty was to kill the enemy. No one at Camp Gordon doubted York’s commitment to his religion or his courage, but some officers admitted that they were leery about trusting him. They wondered how he would react when he found himself in the unforgiving crucible of combat.

Hesitation in combat could spell disaster and death, not only for York, but also for his fellow soldiers. In the All-American Division, each man treated his buddy like his life depended on it, because it actually did. After a personal epiphany, York recanted and made a commitment to his unit, but his company commander confessed a vestigial doubt. One never knew how it would go with someone as conflicted as York, when he had to make the decision to kill another man. Some soldiers had no problem. Others could never cut it. Most did their difficult duty, the best they could.

An experienced hunter with uncanny intuition, York learned his field craft as a boy in the mountains of South Tennessee. If G Company were hunting deer, elk, or turkey, York would have been the first choice for the left flank.

This morning the regiment hunted men—veteran German combatants. In light of the danger, the G Company commander felt better about Genero watching the left.

Everyone in the company knew that Genero had a beautiful wife in Pennsylvania. She had a baby on the way. Desperate to survive and see his family, Phillip would do whatever it took to get home alive. No one doubted that Genero would pull the trigger.

Though unmarried, York claimed to have a girlfriend back home. A girlfriend wasn’t the same thing as a wife.

At 0600, when the planned artillery preparation did not materialize, the commander postponed the attack. At 0610, and without one howitzer round downrange, Genero’s platoon moved forward into the assault.

At first everything fared well—better than the staffers at division anticipated. Although the enemy fired sporadically at the Americans, G Company made good progress for the first few hours.

The Americans took Hill 223 in short order. That objective secured, they poured into the valleys between Hill 223 and their ultimate objective, the railroad junction at DeCauville.

Once the Americans moved beyond the hill, the situation deteriorated. German machine gun and rifle fire increased in volume and accuracy. American casualties increased dramatically. The Boche were everywhere.

Early’s platoon lost five men as the German bullets snapped through the trees and brush like a swarm of angry bees, cutting small branches, tearing leaves from the hardwoods, and ending the lives of brave American boys. The worried sergeant noted that the enemy concentrated his fire on the platoon’s center and the right flank squad commanded by York.

“Alvin, watch your flank! Don’t let those Heinie bastards get between us and F Company,” Early barked at York.

Blessedly, Genero’s squad seemed far enough to the left to be out of the enemy’s range.

With the increased German resistance, the 328th Infantry Regiment found itself in trouble. Short of the DeCauville junction, it encountered a steep hill to its front, with a strong German defensive position, comprising a series of trenches, bunkers, and several heavy machine gun emplacements. Hundreds of veteran German soldiers manned the fortifications.

The Germans maintained intense defensive fire, and American casualties continued to rise. Without reinforcements from division, the regiment could not conduct a frontal attack on the German emplacements. The colonel would never countenance such folly, no matter how many American reinforcements arrived.

In order to break out of the deadly bowl, the G Company Commander ordered Sgt. Early to take 16 men, including Cpl. York and Cpl. Genero, around the left flank. He wanted Early’s force to circle around the fortified hill and to approach the enemy defenses from their rear.

Genero, at the far left of the line, became the point man for the group. Pvt. Koronopolis moved in four yards behind Genero and a yard to his right. Koronopolis comprised the one-man support element of the point team. He’d use hand signals to relay data from the point man to Sgt. Early.

The rest of the men formed up behind the point element in a skirmish formation of two lines with Sgt. Early and Cpl. York in the center and between the two lines. York commanded the first skirmish line, which was to stay 30 yards behind the point element.

Early commanded the second line 20 yards further back. By design, he’d be able to see and control the whole force.

Sgt. Early directed Genero to move out and loop to the left in a long, wide arc. This track took the point element through a series of small ravines and rises, out of sight of the top of the fortified hill, where the Germans had established their right flank squad.

The men, except Sgt. Early who had a Colt .45, carried the 1903 Springfield, a .30 caliber, five-shot, bolt-action rifle. As a precaution, in the densely wooded battlefield, the men fixed bayonets.

After Genero and Koronopolis had traversed 500 yards, and moved safely past the right of the German lines, they stopped and waited for Sgt. Early and the other 14 men to advance. When they assembled, Sgt. Early held a brief council.

“Genero,” Early began hastily. “Two hundred yards back, one of York’s men spotted two Fritzes on the right. He shot at them but missed, damn it! Now, the enemy has to know that we’re out here. They could send a large force down that damned hill and overwhelm us. We need to immediately reform, pivot right, and probe up the hill. At least we’ll be facing them if they come down this way in force.”

“Sarge, we’ve got less than twenty men. We’re too few if we hit them on their flank. We’ll do much better if we can get behind them. Maybe they’ll think they’re cut off. If we go up the hill now, most of us won’t come back,” Genero advised.

“Maybe you’re right. The hill looks too steep anyway,” Early conceded.

“Sarge, if we expose our position before we get to the top of the hill, we’ll be under their guns, and defenseless. Our only hope is to infiltrate their rear in a surprise attack,” Genero added.

“OK, we’ll do it your way. Genero, take the point again. Let’s move out another six hundred yards then swing right hard. Let’s see where that gets us,” Early directed. “York, move your people out, same as before.”

It was a gamble, but worth the risk. If they surprised the Huns, they had a chance of success. If they failed, the enemy would cut them off and slaughter them. No help could reach them so far behind the German lines.

After the council, Genero again took the point and moved forward 600 yards. He and Koronopolis made another wide swing, first to the left then sharply to the right. At this point in their maneuver, they made good use of the heavy cover and concealment. Genero could barely see ten yards ahead.

After 15 minutes, Genero approached the rear of the fortified hill on which the Germans had placed the machine guns blocking the advance of the 328th. He heard the guns firing from the far side of the German position. Phillip knelt down behind a row of bushes to listen for enemy activity. He signaled the Greek boy to stop behind him.

There were Germans directly in front on the other side of a small brook, but because the forest was so thick, Phillip couldn’t see where they were. His anxiety rising, Genero fought to keep control as he looked back, past Koronopolis. Somehow, he and the Greek had advanced too far ahead of Early’s force. Genero could not see the first line of skirmishers under Cpl. York.