Meanwhile it became increasingly evident that something must be done to stop the flanking fire into our 3d Corps from across the Meuse where the 17th French Corps was calling for American divisions to assist in mastering the heights where the plentiful German artillery was in position. Bell's redoubtable 33d Division of Illinois National Guard had crossed the river from the left bank, after a most remarkable feat of bridge building under heavy fire, and had swung north as a part of a general attack against these heights. Here the fighting was to be equally as fierce and quite as thankless as on the main battle front; for here the Germans were in the area of their old Verdun offensive, and they were perfectly familiar with the ground and had at their backs all the roads and barracks which they had used in 1916. The main line of hills and ridges, and the covering positions of the lesser heights and slopes which they held, were already prepared with dugouts and cement pill boxes, while in place of Württembergers they brought in their best Prussian troops, with ample machine guns, to assist an artillery defense which had the sweep of a half-mile circle east and west of the Meuse, thus enabling them not only to concentrate at any point on our 3d Corps on the west bank of the Meuse, but upon the 17th French Corps on the east bank. Our approach to these defenses was through the ruined villages of the Verdun battle fields and along the roads which led us into the bottom of a cup, with its rim occupied by the enemy, through a ravine which was truly called "Death Valley." Morton's 29th, National Guard of New Jersey, which was to have its first important battle experience in conquering positions which would have baffled the skill of the most veteran of divisions, advanced on the right of the 33d. Later Edwards's 26th "Yankee" Division, which had known all the kinds of fighting which the American army had to offer, arrived from its drive in closing the Saint Mihiel salient for a period of a remorseless, grinding fighting which was in keeping with its experience. Against pill boxes, woods, and twisting ravines, across open spaces swept by machine-gun fire, repulsed by counterattacks and attacking again, the 33d (until it was relieved), the 29th for a long period, and the 26th had a battle of their own under the 17th French Corps. The Germans had even stronger reasons for not yielding the heights on the east of the Meuse than they had on the west of the Meuse. Once we had Belleu Wood and Pylon Observatory we looked down on a broad valley and were approaching the last of the hills which separated us from the plain of the Woevre and German soil. Indeed, this portion of the east bank of the Meuse was the very key to the positions where the Germans would have made their stand on a shorter line if they succeeded in withdrawing their army.