During the night before the attack, the men had been digging until a late hour on a system of trench defense. This entailed a lack of sleep which, together with the continued wearing of the gas mask and the exposure endured immediately after the barrage, weakened their resistance to such an extent as to make them easy victims to the poisonous gases. Seventy-nine men were forced to the hospital by the effects of the combined phosgene and mustard. Among them were our first sergeant, supply and mess sergeants, all but one of our cooks, and both mechanics, which left us decidedly crippled. The shadow of our losses was deepened when we heard that Cook George Alberts, always popular, had died from gas inhaled while trying to prepare the company breakfast in a gas-filled kitchen. He was our first loss by death. [Illustration: _U. S. Official Photo_ _Shell-Proof Dugout--A Shelter in St. Maurice_] An immediate result of our losses was the extra work shouldered by those who had escaped any of the serious effects. The men left in St. Maurice remained on constant guard until the Company was relieved several days later. During the short rest period that followed, a reorganization of the Company was accomplished and we again entered the lines in July, taking over P. C.'s Hameau and Montreux, as before. The Daylight Raid On Sunday, July 21st, a patrol of fifty-two men from our Company, accompanied by two medical first-aid men, engaged in a raid on the German trenches at two-thirty in the afternoon. The party advanced on the enemy lines in single file, divided in four groups which were respectively commanded by Sergeant Todd, Captain Barrett, Sergeant Bromback and Lieutenant Mohlke. The intent was to surprise the enemy with a daylight raid and thereby obtain information thru capture and observation. But either thru knowledge or by chance, the Germans had prepared against this maneuver and the surprise was reversed. Waiting until our patrol was fairly within their lines, and then partially surrounding them, the enemy centered upon our men a deadly fire of rifles, machine guns, and grenades. The raiders fought valiantly in return but were outnumbered four to one. After an hour's fighting, seventeen of our party, including Captain Barrett, lay dead, and sixteen were captured. Of the twenty-one who returned, thirteen were wounded. We were informed by two German prisoners captured a few days later that seventeen Germans had been killed.