Company K also suffered further disaster while in reserve, and Sergeants Peter Crotty and Bernard McElroy, who had done prodigious deeds in action, received mortal wounds; and also William Bergen, who did more work as a stretcher bearer than any other man I have ever seen in a battle. Louis Gilbert and Everett Seymour of Company L were killed in the same bombardment and Sam Klosenberg fatally wounded. In fact, the town of Villers sur Fere was throughout the action a part of the battlefield. Its church square at the northern end was not more than a thousand yards from the place of actual conflict. The front line forces were at times too near each other to allow artillery fire from either side, as each side had to avoid the danger of shelling its own infantry—an event which is always most disastrous to the morale of troops. But the approaches to Villers sur Fere lay under the eyes of the enemy, and they could see a constant stream of liaison men, litter bearers, hobbling wounded, and food and ammunition carriers going in by the entrance to its one street. They knew it to be the center of our web so they very wisely concentrated most of their fire upon it and especially on the square which opened out after the short narrow northern entrance of Dead Man’s Curve. Even before dawn they had been raking its streets as a natural mode of approach of an oncoming enemy, killing and wounding a large number of men. Indeed nearly one-third of those who lost their lives in this action received their death wounds from shell fire in and around Villers sur Fere.