After gassing us and strafing us heavily a raid in considerable force was sent over by the Germans. It was repulsed with heavy loss, leaving a number of prisoners in our hands. A Company took the brunt of this, the platoon commanded by Lieutenant Andrews doing particularly well. Just after the repulse of the German attack I was up watching the right of the line, which was in trenches out in the open. The German machine guns and sharpshooters were very active. One of our men was lying behind the parapet. He had his helmet hooked on the end of his rifle and kept shoving it over the top. The Germans would fire at it. Then he would flag a miss for them by waving it to and fro in the same way the flag is waved for a miss when practice on the rifle range is going on. Our own losses were due in large part to the German artillery fire. In this operation a number of our most gallant old-timers were killed. Captain Frey, second in command of the battalion, was shot twice through the stomach while leading reënforcements to his front line. When the stretcher bearers carried him by me, he shook my hand, said "good-by," and was carried away to the rear. After they had moved him a short distance he lifted himself up, saluted, said in a loud voice, "Sergeant, dismiss the company," and died. Sergeant Dennis Sullivan, Sergeant O'Rourke, and Sergeant McCormick, not to mention many, many others, were killed or received mortal wounds at this time. The Cantigny operation was a success. We took and held the town, or rather the spot where the town had been, for it would be an exaggeration to say it was even a ruin. It was literally beaten flat. This piece of land had seen the German invaders for the last time. We learned a valuable lesson also, namely, not to make the disposition of the men too thick. In this operation we did, and this, and the fact that our objective was necessarily limited in depth, caused us casualties, as the enemy artillery was not reached and opened on us before we had time to dig in and consolidate the position we had taken. Not all our operations were necessarily as successful as the ones I have mentioned above. Raids were organized and drew blanks. At times orders would reach us so late that it was exceedingly difficult to attempt their execution with much chance of success. For example, one night a message reached me that a prisoner was wanted for identification purposes by morning.