"And they thought we wouldn't fight"Gibbons, Floyd Phillips
History
"And they thought we wouldn't fight"
Gibbons, Floyd Phillips
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
It was an American whirlwind of fighting fury that swept the Germans in
front of it early that morning. Aeroplanes had been assigned to hover
over the advance and make reports on all progress. A dense mist hanging
over the forest made it impossible for the aviators to locate the
Divisional Headquarters to which they were supposed to make the reports.
These dense clouds of vapour obscured the earth from the eyes of the
airmen, but with the rising sun the mists lifted.
Being but a month out of the hospital and having spent a rather
strenuous night, I was receiving medical attention at daybreak in front
of a dressing station not far from the headquarters of Major General
Harbord commanding the Second Division. As I lay there looking up
through the trees, I saw a dark speck diving from the sky. Almost
immediately I could hear the hum of its motors growing momentarily
louder as it neared the earth. I thought the plane was out of control
and expected to see it crash to the ground near me.
Several hundred feet above the tree tops, it flattened its wings and
went into an easy swoop so that its under-gear seemed barely to skim the
uppermost branches. The machine pursued a course immediately above one
of the roads. Something dropped from it. It was a metal cylinder that
glistened in the rays of the morning sun. Attached to it was a long
streamer of fluttering white material. It dropped easily to the ground
nearby. I saw an American signalman, who had been following its descent,
pick it up. He opened the metal container and extracted the message
containing the first aerial observations of the advance of the American
lines. It stated that large numbers of prisoners had been captured and
were bound for the rear.
Upon receipt of this information, Division Headquarters moved forward on
the jump. Long before noon General Harbord, close behind his advancing
troops, opened headquarters in the shattered farm buildings of Verte
Feuille, the first community centre that had been taken by our men that
morning. Prisoners were coming back in droves.
I encountered one column of disarmed Germans marching four abreast with
the typical attitude of a "Kamerad" procession. The first eight of the
prisoners carried on their shoulders two rudely constructed litters made
from logs and blankets. A wounded American was on one litter and a
wounded Frenchman on the other.
A number of German knapsacks had been used to elevate the shoulders of
both of the wounded men so that they occupied positions half sitting and
half reclining. Both of them were smoking cigarettes and chatting gaily
as they rode high and mighty on the shoulders of their captives, while
behind them stretched a regal retinue of eight hundred more.
As this column proceeded along one side of the road, the rest of the
roadway was filled with men, guns and equipment all moving forward.
Scottish troops in kilts swung by and returned the taunts which our men
laughingly directed at their kilts and bare knees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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