The 37 mm. guns, commonly known as the one-pounders did excellent work, the small platoon paying a heavy price in losses. On July 28th, three members of the crew were killed with one shell in the village square as they were advancing with their gun—Cornelius Grauer, Joseph Becker, Frank Guida—Grauer, a youngster of seventeen, being a particular favorite with everybody that knew him. On July 30th the platoon took part in the attack on Meurcy Farm. During the operations the crew were caught in a box barrage by the enemy artillery and serious wounds were sustained by Sergeant Willemin, who was in command, and Privates Monohan, B. J. McLaughlin, John Seifried and John Kelly. Although the crew was almost entirely wiped out, the gun was kept in action by Corporal Charlie Lester and Private Berry. Another gun crew under command of Lieutenant Joseph O’Donohue was kept going all morning and did great execution. Of this crew John C. McLaughlin was killed while firing his gun. The members of the Company whose duties detained them in the village worked for the interest of the whole regiment in positions almost equally exposed with those in the front line. Captain Walsh, a soldier of many campaigns, knew what the men in line needed was not encouragement (he took it for granted that every man had courage) nor sympathy (his own feeling was one of envy of them), but ammunition and food. His own company kitchen worked night and day to feed everybody who came into town on any business. Mess Sergeant Louis Goldstein and Cooks John Wilker and Leo Maher, moved by his example, set up their kitchen under an arch just off the square and fed 800 men a day while the engagement lasted. That square was an interesting sight throughout the battle. Men drifted in, singly or in twos or in parties, fresh from scenes of death. Liaison men, ammunition details, litter bearers carrying stretchers dripping blood. They were fresh from the field where bullets were flying. They had been forced to drop on their faces as they crossed the valley under fire. They had scurried around Dead Man’s Curve and they were still only about 1,000 yards from the fighting, with shells still screaming in the air above their heads and enemy planes forcing them to scuttle out of sight, but they were not breathless or anxious or excited. They borrowed the “makings,” or got a cup of coffee from John Wilker and stole a few minutes to gossip about the fight or to relate something that struck them as interesting. A year ago if one lone maniac had been lying in Central Park taking pot shots at passers-by going along Fifth Avenue they would have run down a side street calling for the Police, would have gotten home excited and out of breath, and would have stood outside of the church the next Sunday after ten o’clock Mass to tell all their friends what an adventure they had had.