The troops all reached the position safely by about 4 o'clock. Our position lay along the edge of a rugged and steep ravine. The rain had stopped and the first faint pink of the early summer morning lighted the sky. Absolute silence hung over everything, broken only by the twittering of birds. Suddenly out of the stillness, without the warning of a preliminary shot, our artillery opened with a crash. All along the horizon, silhouetted against the pale pink of the early dawn, was the tufted smoke of high explosive shells, and the burst of shrapnel showed in flashes like the spitting of a broken electric wire in a hailstorm. After the bombardment had been going on for two or three minutes, D company, on the right, became impatient and wanted to attack, and I heard the men begin to call, "Let's go, let's go!" At 4.35 the infantry went over. The surprise was complete. Germans were killed in their dugouts half dressed. One of the units of the division captured a colonel and his staff still in his dugout. So rapid was the advance on the first day that the German advance batteries were taken. The French cavalry followed up our advance, looking for a break-through. By night all the objectives were taken and the troops bivouacked in the captured position. During the night Hun airplanes flew low over us dropping flares and throwing small bombs. Next morning the attack started again. We ran into much machine-gun fire. "Only those who have danced to its music can know what the mitrailleuse means." [Illustration: AN AIR RAID Drawn by Captain George Harding, A. E. F., August, 1918] The Germans now rushed up all the reserves they could to hold this threatened point. On the second day we took prisoners from four Hun divisions in front of the regiment. One prisoner told us he had marched twenty-four kilometers during the preceding night. For five days the advance continued, until the final objective was taken and we held the Château-Thierry-Soissons railroad and the Germans ordered a general retreat. I was not fortunate enough to see the last half of this battle, as I was wounded. I heard about it, however, from men who had been all through it. Our casualties were very heavy. At the end of the battle, companies in some cases came out commanded by corporals, and battalions by second lieutenants. In the battle the regiment lost most of the men that built it up.