Sergeant Bernard J. Finnerty and Corporal Thomas Fitzgerald of H saw a group of Germans who had ensconced themselves in an angle of the approach trench whence they were doing terrible damage with their potato mashers. Michael Tracy, a crack shot, who had done great work that day with his rifle, made a target of himself trying to find a better spot to shoot from, and got wounded. But they had to be dislodged. So Finnerty and Fitzgerald rushed down the trench, hurled over hand grenades into the party, and destroyed it—but at the cost of their own heroic selves. John F. O’Connor, Mechanic of Company O, jumped on the parapet to get a position to bomb out a machine gun crew which were sheltered in a hollow. He drove them into the open where our own machine guns settled them. The places of the wounded Lieutenants of H Company were taken by Sergeants Eugene Sweeney and Jerome and William O’Neill (two of “The three O’Neills of Company H”; the third, Daniel, being First Sergeant, was with Captain Finn). In Company F Sergeants Timothy McCrohan and Thomas Erb with Corporals James Brennan and John Finnegan led the fighting under Captain Kelly and Lieutenants Marsh and Smith. Bernard Finnegan and Matt Wynne refused to quit when badly wounded. William Cassidy, Company Clerk, who could not content himself with that work while the fight was on, and Corporal Michael Leonard, an elderly man who had volunteered when men with a better right to do so were satisfied to wave the flag—these too won great renown. They and the others routed the enemy out of the trenches, following them over the top and up the _boyaus_. Cassidy and Leonard were killed, and my old time friend, Sergeant Joe O’Rourke of H, and many another good man. Sergeant William O’Neill was wounded, but kept on fighting, till death claimed him in the heat of the fray. His brother, Jerome, still battled valiantly and he was always worth a hundred men.[3] Eugene Sweeney was twice wounded and refused to retire till the enemy was chased utterly from the field. When his wounds were dressed he insisted on returning to the lines.