Tag: 111th Engineer Regiment

“Yes, we’re still here”

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

“When Old Sol’s face does not appear/ Sometimes for most a half a year/

Go right on and grin and bear it/ When you’re home you can narrate/

How you adore, Old. Sunny. France.”

Private Barney Stacy, of Headquarters Company, 142nd Infantry wrote about conditions in northeast France while stationed near Flogny-la-Chapelle. His poem, “Old Sunny France” appeared in the April 4, 1919 edition of The Arrow Head. Now in their fifth month at the Sixteenth Training Area, men of the 36th Infantry Division were anxious to get home. The climate was not agreeable to the Southwesterners. In addition, the French were ready to get on with their peacetime lives. American soldiers frequently heard “pas comprend” (don’t understand) to routine requests they knew were understood by the French. Another thing that irked the Americans was that the price of things like bread, wine and cognac were higher for them. To top it off, the 78th Division, neighbors to the 36th, had just received orders to go home and were packing.

Letter from O.K. Farrell to Gladys Loper

“Play Ball”

“Now that the spring of the year is almost in flower, the thoughts of young dough-boys turn to the one and only sport – baseball.” The Arrow Head, April 4, 1919

After the loss to the 89th Division in the American Expeditionary Forces Football championships, baseball promised to lift the men’s spirits. The number of baseball teams across the division outnumbered all other sports teams combined. For example, the 142nd Infantry Regiment had 70 teams. The gridiron laid out at Tonnerre was expertly repurposed into a diamond by two landscapers in the division, and a schedule was drawn up.

Not to be left out, the 36th Division as a whole had an All-Star team that was ready for the best in the AEF. Its players came from semi-pro leagues and collegiate programs from the Southwest and boasted a pitcher from the Chicago White Sox organization. The team was managed by Lieutenant Eddy Palmer, formerly of the Texas League, who also played second base.

Although many divisions had already shipped out of France by springtime, the 36th Arrow Heads did play the 6th Infantry Division in Tonnerre on April 16th, 1919 and won, 3-1. More changes in the AEF meant an end to Arrow Heads baseball after just one game, but the team had promise. (More about baseball in the AEF is found here.)

Know the drill

Another avenue to healthy competition in the AEF was in military skills. This was the Army, after all. Turning skills such as military drill, marksmanship, horsemanship, and maneuver into a sport did increase the participation of the soldiers. As a result, men of the 36th entered the arena with gusto. Company A, 142nd Infantry Regiment won the Close-Quarter Drill competition at the I Corps Military Tournament in Tonnerre. 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry Regiment advanced to First Army Tournament in the Battalion Maneuver competition and came in second. Private Carl S. Kennedy of the 141st Infantry Regiment placed 10th in the entire AEF in marksmanship with his rifle. A two-man team from the 111th Engineer Regiment took first prize for horsemanship in wagon driving at First Army.

Baseball team of the 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division in Germany, 1919

Literally old school

The most effective program in the AEF for soldiers waiting to go home was the schools program. It seems unbelievable today, but enlisted Americans in Europe attended Oxford University and the Sorbonne. Classes were established at nearly every level of command. For example, vocational skills such as welding and boilermaking were offered. Languages, literature and history were also popular subjects. Soldiers, sailors and marines attended at campuses from Ireland to Italy. With the added incentive of less work detail for students, schools in the AEF did a great deal to engage the men overseas. Schools also prepared them for the future at home as civilians.

A surprise visit

The most memorable event for men of the 36th Division was on April 9, 1919. The entire division assembled in a field in Melisey with field gear and shiny bayonets to be inspected by General Pershing. The Commander-in-Chief, AEF and his staff gave a characteristically thorough inspection, lasting several hours. A number of the men received their Distinguished Service Cross that day. In addition, the flags of the individual units were festooned with campaign ribbons by the general. The whole event took five hours.

General Pershing decorating a soldier of the 36th Division with the Distinguished Service Cross

While many of the men remembered the April chill and the rain of that afternoon in France, their time was worth the trouble. As with every division inspected, news came down from AEF Headquarters the next day that the 36th Division was to turn in their gear. They had orders to report to Le Mans for embarkation to the United States. The Arrow Heads were going home.

T-patchers

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1918, saw the first troops of the 36th Infantry Division arrive at their new home. The 16th Training Area in the Departement of Yonne was centered in the town of Tonnerre. There was no fort or army base, just towns and villages, a railroad, and a highway. The American Expeditionary Forces had organized twenty-one training areas behind its front line in the Meuse-Argonne area. Before and after deployment at the front, the AEF stationed its Infantry divisions in a training area nearby.

The training area around Tonnerre was a lot like the other twenty training areas. It was mostly rural, with villages separated by lots of farmland, and with very little for a soldier to do. However, when the 36th Division first arrived at the Sixteenth Training Area, there was much to do. Accommodations were subpar and winter was about to come. The whole division was put to work improving or building from scratch the basic necessities of army camp living.

O.K. Farrell’s billet, office and, um, Best Girl in Flogny-la-Chapelle

Return of the Engineers

Joining the 36th Division at this time was its engineer regiment, the 111th Engineers. The 111th had just earned an enviable record as the I Corps Engineer unit, working nonstop in the only two large American offensive operations of the war. They had been in harm’s way for over sixty days, nearly three times as long as the rest of the 36th division. During that time, they’d been bombed, shelled, strafed by German planes and shot at by German machine gunners.

During combat the 111th Engineers followed closely behind front-line troops to build and repair roads for ammunition, ambulances and supplies to reach the front. In the constant rain and mud of France in autumn, it was backbreaking work. Since the Armistice on November 11th, the 111th Engineers had been marching from the front line to rejoin its division. (Read more about the 111th Engineers here and here.)

U.S. Army Engineers in France, 1918

Unfortunately for the Engineers, their first order of duty was to repair all the local roads. The wet fall season meant roads were rutted and flooded. The engineers spread across the Sixteenth Training Area to restore the roads which brought food and supplies to the division. The onset of winter did not help matters, and soon infantrymen were detailed to go help the engineers. As the season wore on, the engineers opened some rock quarries for paving the roads. Soldiers of the 36th spent time away from their normal duties breaking rocks for building roads.

Home Improvement

Men of the 142nd Infantry were quartered in and around the town of Flogny-la-Chapelle. Facilities available to the soldiers varied a great deal. Living arrangements in Flogny itself were considered “excellent” by AEF standards. But some accommodations nearby were “possibly the worst found during the stay of the American Expeditionary Forces”. Although the Sixteenth Training Area had been in use since the previous spring, facilities were incomplete or missing. There were not enough beds or bathing facilities. Latrines were primitive. Sanitation was a problem. In addition, cooking facilities were outdoors and unsheltered.

Before the 36th division could fully move in, they had to make a home for themselves. Beds were moved off the ground or floor. Mess halls were built. Moreover, kitchens were enclosed or moved into buildings. Sanitation was improved and latrines were built. Most importantly, the soldiers’ beds were separated from each other using curtains or wood panels. These measures reduced the spread of disease.

Arrowhead Patch in WWI configuration

Arrowheads

Around this time the AEF command ordered each division in France to submit a design for shoulder insignia. In the fifteen months of its existence, the 36th Infantry Division was known as the Panther Division, the Lone Star Division, the Tex-oma Division, and others. “Arrowhead” was probably the least associated name, but by December 1918 the Arrowhead insignia was submitted to AEF headquarters.

The design was a light blue knapped flint arrowhead, representing Oklahoma. Inside the arrowhead was a tan capital “T” for Texas. Native Americans in the 36th didn’t like to wear it because the arrowhead pointed downward, a symbol for defeat in their culture. Nevertheless, the “T-patch” has represented the 36th for one hundred years and counting.

Otho Farrell’s T-patch from WWI

Football comes to the AEF

In December 1918, the Southwesterners were able to spare a little time, at long last, to football. A lot of football was played back in Texas at Camp Bowie. Some road trips were organized for games at other army camps in Texas during 1917-1918. For example, with around two million U.S. servicemen now in France, the opportunities for gridiron action seemed endless. Some games within and between large units were quickly scheduled, and by the end of the month the 36th divisional team was headed to the First Army championships. That game was played in Tonnerre on New Year’s Eve, 1918. The 36th Division eleven won First Army by beating the 80th Division 20-0.

On January 19, 1919, an unofficial game near Paris pitted the 36th Division against Services of Supply-Saint Nazaire football teams. This was considered the match of the two best lines in the AEF. SOS-Saint Nazaire beat the 36th Division 12-0, but football in the AEF was far from over.

Brave and True, part 2

Peter Larsen1 Comment

The 111th Engineer Regiment was part of a National Guard Division, the 36th Infantry, that was sent to France in July 1918. Six weeks after they got there, the 111th Engineers were sent to the front without the 36th Division. For the rest of the war they served as the Engineers of I Corps, First Army. Their job was to follow closely behind the leading division of the First Army and clear obstacles, defuse landmines, build roads and string telephone wire along the front. Their job would have been difficult even if it were not in the combat zone. Clearing mines and building roads so the wounded could be transported to hospitals saved a lot of lives, but the job was dangerous.

September 23, 1918 found the 111th near Les Islettes in the Argonne Forest. They were close to the front line and still with I Corps, American First Army. They had spent the last seven days on the march to get to the Argonne Forest, where the largest American operation of the war was about to begin. As usual, it was raining. The men found shelter wherever they could. The area was full of American and French forces moving forward, preparing for the coming fight.

111th Engineers Band
111th Engineers Band

Meuse-Argonne

On September 25th, the 111th Engineers were on the move again, marching at night once more. Around midnight hundreds of American and French cannon begin firing at the Germans and the battle is begun. By 5 a.m. on the 26th, the Engineers are on the road again marching through Clermont-en-Argonne and Neuvilly-en-Argonne in heavy rain. German artillery hit their position in Neuvilly at 10 a.m. and they spent the day repairing the road. The next day the 111th is at work further up the road between Boureuilles and Cheppy. German prisoners and wounded men on their way from the front fill the road. German artillery continues to fall, but Americans are still advancing.

The 111th arrives in Varennes-en-Argonne on the 28th to find the town demolished by the fighting. German aircraft once again are bombing at night. Artillery projectiles are falling all around, in one instance killing a number of soldiers near the 111th Engineers. On the 29th, Company D enters Vauqois, a small village that was the front line on the first day of the battle. It had been a battleground for four years. No living thing remained in Vauqois; artillery and tunnel mines from both sides cratered the countryside.

Company D, 111th Engineers, 36th Division near Bourruilles, France Sept. 26, 1918

Stalled

By October 1, the gains of the first days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive stalled. German forces had reorganized a defense further down the line, and the advances stopped. The 111th Engineers were in an unfamiliar situation: they hadn’t spent two nights in the same place for twenty days. The regiment was located near Varennes-en-Argonne at this time and there was plenty to be done. There were more roads to repair and since there was a bottleneck they were always crowded. The Engineers got to work and built a new road around Varennes to ease the traffic.

While American forces were making slow progress just ahead, German planes still ruled the air. On October 9th they bombed the 111th Engineers, killing one. They were also still in range of German artillery, which would send over shells for a few minutes and then go silent. On October 11th part of the regiment moved ahead fifteen kilometers to just south of Marcq and Grandpré repairing roads. It was raining there, too.

Route of the 111th Engineers in France

Doubling Down

With the advance stalled, American General John J. Pershing reorganized forces and sent new divisions to the front. The 111th were still near Varennes and trying to keep up. Rain was a constant, roads were turning into mud flats, and the increase of soldiers and supplies going up, wounded going down, kept the roads clogged. The engineers got in the habit of using rubble from ruined buildings in making roads, but more was needed. They found a quarry and soon were hauling rock for their highways. They also cleared mines and improvised explosives buried in the roads by the Germans.

Through October the men of the 111th steadily built and rebuilt roads for I Corps north from Varennes. They even built a narrow-gauge railroad from their quarry in Chatel-Chéhéry. Through that month the American front line straightened and forces were better deployed at the front. By this point the First Army has overrun three German defensive lines in the Argonne region. German resistance was organized and determined. Their aircraft make frequent bomb sorties over the 111th, which make them a little nervous since some of them are encamped across the road from an ammunition dump.

111th Engineer Regiment on parade in Dallas, June 14, 1919
111th Engineer Regiment on parade in Dallas, June 14, 1919

November 1918

Just after midnight on November 1st, the 111th Engineers were on the move. At 3 a.m. they witnessed an artillery barrage that lit up the sky. “(T)alk about being able to read a newspaper at night,” one engineer wrote, “you sure could then.” One American Division, the 2nd Infantry, advances six miles the first day. The gains are costly and engineers encounter carnage on the battlefield as they make their way forward. The men are hard at work clearing the way for reinforcements. Once more, there are German prisoners streaming away from the fighting. In seven days the 111th had advanced twelve miles.

The retreating Germans blew up bridges, shell holes dotted the roads. As the 111th repaired them, they saw abandoned trucks and artillery pieces. The enemy retreat was beginning to look hasty. The American advance brings the engineers further north. They are busy as ever, repairing roads, when Germany signs the Armistice on November 11th.

The men are hungry and exhausted. The 111th Engineer Regiment served 62 days in the combat zone, about three times as long as the rest of the 36th Division. On November 11th they began yet another long march, this time away from the front. Eventually they rejoined the 36th Division and waited until their transport back home. When they returned to the United States, they paraded in their hometowns of Tulsa and Dallas before the men mustered out of the Army at Camp Bowie in June, 1919.

After the war a motto was chosen for the 111th Engineers, Fortis et Fidelis. And that remains true of them to this day.

(You can read the account of Corporal Walter G. Sanders, Company B, 111th Engineers in Judy Duke’s post to WWI Texas History here.)

Brave and True, part 1

Peter Larsen1 Comment

Company A, Texas Engineers was a National Guard unit formed in the spring of 1916 in Port Arthur. In addition, Company B formed in Dallas later that spring. Because of the Border Crisis, the two companies were Federalized for service along the U.S. – Mexico border in the summer of 1916. The Engineers served, along with the rest of the Texas National Guard, until March 21, 1917. However, sixteen days later the United States was at war with Germany and these citizen-soldiers were again activated for duty. Company B traveled in June to San Antonio to build Camp Travis, future home of the 90th “Texas-Oklahoma” Division. Company A reported to Camp Bowie in August 1917.

The Texas Engineers were enlarged with the addition of Company C from Sweetwater in West Texas. The companies joined together for the first time in August at Camp Bowie as the First Battalion, Texas Engineers. Joining the Texans was the First Battalion, Oklahoma Engineers, who were recruited in 1917. Together they formed the 111th Engineer Regiment, the Engineers of the 36th Infantry Division. In addition, the two battalions gained a Headquarters detachment, a Medical detachment and the 111th Engineer Train. They helped the U.S. Army Cantonment Division construct the camp and took over responsibility for completing it when the Cantonment Division left Camp Bowie in November, 1917. Their home stations were as follows:

1st  Battalion, 111th Engineers

  • Company A: Port Arthur, Texas;
  • Company B: Dallas, Texas;
  • Company C: Sweetwater, Texas

2nd Battalion, 111th Engineers

  • Company D: Tulsa, Oklahoma;
  • Company E: Ardmore, Oklahoma;
  • Company F: Oklahoma City

Part of the 111th Engineers at Camp Bowie, Texas

Training in France

On August 5th, 1918 the 111th Engineer Regiment arrived in Bar-sur-Aube, France with the 36th Infantry Division. The 36th was stationed there for final training. Headquarters for the 111th was in Spoy, a small village eight miles from Bar-sur-Aube. As the division engineers, the 111th was busy improving local roads, building rifle ranges and a grenade training area. They also dug model trenches for training and mapped the area as practice for the front. A U.S. Engineer Regiment in France normally had 1,750 members. However, the 111th had about 1,500 officers and men at this time.

Company D, 111th Engineers at Camp Bowie, Fort Worth
Company D, 111th Engineers at Camp Bowie

Moved to the Front

On September 9th, 1918 the 111th Engineer Regiment was ordered to leave the 36th Infantry Division and report to I Corps, First U.S. Army at Frouard, one hundred miles away. The Texas – Oklahoma Engineers were going to war. The Engineers left Bar-sur-Aube on September 10th and 11th for the 10-hour train trip. Once the regiment arrived at Frouard, they unloaded their equipment and rested. On the morning of September 11, the regiment marched toward the front line past Griscourt, a nine-to-twelve mile journey. Consequently, the march took the regiment nine hours.

The first American-led attack of army-size in the war, the St. Mihiel offensive reduced a German bulge in the front line. The German Army had seized the area early in the war, in September 1914, and had eliminated French Army resistance inside the bulge by May 1915. The bulge stuck out over a dozen miles into France from the rest of the front, ending at the town of Saint-Mihiel. Busting the bulge would move the Germans back to the 1914 line. As a result, it would enable the Americans and French to send troops and equipment more easily by rail to their next objective, the Argonne Forest region.

French postcard featuring illustration of an American soldier, St. Mihiel

Saint-Mihiel operation

The 111th Engineer Regiment made camp for the night in a forest just north of Griscourt at 6 p.m. At ten o’clock, the sky lit up and trees shook as American and French artillery opened up along the front. Seven American infantry divisions went across the front line near the 111th early on the morning of September 12. As a result, the regiment was on the road again by 8 a.m. By three o’clock the next morning, the 111th reached Regniéville-en-Haye, a village so badly ruined by war that it does not exist today. At Regniéville the regiment built a road through the ruined village for army trucks and artillery to aid combat troops just ahead.

It was at Regniéville that the 111th took its first fire from the Germans. Artillery shells were a real danger for Engineer troops working just behind the front line. The first shells on September 13 killed some horses. German planes would fly over at night and drop bombs on the engineers. On the 14th, the regiment continued to build roads over captured trenches and shell craters. After that, they made their way another six miles to Thiaucourt, where they met newly-liberated French civilians.

After repairing the roads around Thiaucourt, the 111th Engineers started their march from the front at 3 p.m. on September 15. Away from the front, but not from danger. On the evening of the 16th, they were shelled near the village of Blénod and three men were wounded. The next night, gas shells hit near their camp at Dieulouard. After six days in the St. Mihiel salient, Texas-Oklahoma engineers had tested their mettle.

Company E, 111th Engineers in Le Mans after the Armistice.
Company E, 111th Engineers in Le Mans after the Armistice.

Meuse-Argonne

With the St. Mihiel pocket reduced, it was now time to prepare for what became the largest offensive of the war. Over one million American soldiers and marines would participate in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The French-American plan was to push through the Argonne Forest to the Meuse river and seize the fortress city of Sedan. If the Germans lost Sedan and Metz to the southeast, they would lose rail transport networks and their famous Hindenburg line of defenses. As a result, they would have little option but to retire back to Germany.

On the march

The front lines in the Argonne Forest were sixty-five miles away. To get there, the 111th Engineers would have to walk once again. They left Dieulouard on September 17th at 7 p.m. and marched all night. Along the way they passed a line of captured German artillery two miles long. The next morning they camped just past Sanzey, sixteen miles away. The regiment would march at night on their way to the Argonne Forest, which kept them safe from German artillery. By 5 a.m. on September 19 they had possibly reached Sampigny, 20 miles from Sanzey.

Two days later the Texas-Oklahoma Engineers were in Èvres, 26 miles away. By this point the roads are clogged with soldiers on their way to the front, and the going is slow. In addition, some of the men were coming down with influenza and had to be hospitalized. Americans in France all remembered the near constant rain. It had rained for much of the time the 111th was on the move.

By September 23rd the regiment was in Les Islettes, 15 miles from Èvres. In seven nights of marching the 111th had gone about 77 miles though northeast France.

(Read about the experience of Corporal Walter G. Sanders, Company B, 111th Engineers in France in Judy Duke’s post to WWI Texas History here.)

AEF Engineers stringing telephone wire near the front, 1918
AEF Engineers stringing telephone wire near the front, 1918