Kelly with his headquarters group, 1st Sergeant Joseph Blake, Sergeant John P. Mahon, Corporals Long and Finnegan, Harris and McLean and also Lieutenant Ogle had his post at the crest of the hill where he could watch the fortunes of his forward detachment. Finding them hard pressed he got two automatics from the Ohios, who had now crossed the river and were forming under the bank, and sent Long and Finnegan for reinforcements from his own Battalion. Colonel Anderson ordered them sent, and detachments from all three Companies proceeded through Bois Colas and started working forward to support the right flank of the F Company men. In this operation Company E lost Thomas Cullen, Philip Ford, Edward Fuld, Frank O’Meara, Louis Hazelton, Louis Cohen, John Costello, Michael Breen, Emmett Bingham, Corporal Gus Winter (hit carrying Cullen in), and Corporal John Cronin, the saint of the Company (who had gone as a volunteer), and whose body lay when I came to bury him the nearest to the enemy of any soldier of ours. Not far from Cronin’s body lay four men of Company H, John T. McCarthy, Patrick Reynolds, George Smith and Thomas Hayes. G Company lost John Conroy, Floyd Graham, and Edmund Reardon. Patrick Scanlan, whose brother Dan I had buried at Baccarat, was wounded this day, but stuck to his Company to meet his death the day following, as did James Higgins of the same Company. Of the two guides from Company F, Long was wounded and the heroic John Finnegan fought his last fight. It was evident to anybody that a further advance without careful artillery preparation was impossible. Like the 3rd Battalion on the other hill across this valley, they had reached the level approach to the strong defenses in the village and along the southern edge of the forest. It was an artillery job. And any infantry commander who would send his men across that open space would deserve a court martial. The difficulty for both battalions arose from the alacrity with which they had obeyed the orders from above which sent them across the Ourcq on a bayonet charge against a fleeing foe. They had followed the orders, and overcoming the first resistance of the enemy, they found themselves opposed to the main line of defense with practically nobody else, French or American, on their side of the river. Their flanks unsupported, to go forward would be to hand the Germans a couple of geese to pluck, and as there were no means of communication with the distant artillery except runners, that arm of the service could not act without grave danger of shooting up its own side.