For the French, it’s the Battle of Verdun. For the British, the Somme. For the Americans, the Meuse-Argonne is the superlative battle. The largest battle in US history: 1.2 million American soldiers participated. The longest battle: lasting 47 days. The deadliest: 26,277 Americans killed.

The battle ended with the war, November 11, 1918. It began September 26. For the 137th Infantry Regiment, it began at the “V of Vauquois.” Private Potts, with Company M, was in the lead battalion.

Our battlefield journalists, Clair Kenamore and Carl Haterius, were there:

Kenamore: “At 5:30 a.m. [GMT+1] the infantry went over all along the line. There was no breakfast and little ceremony about it. The lieutenant or sergeant who was leading the platoon, when his watch told him the zero hour was but a few minutes off, would give the order: ‘Prepare to advance.’

“The men would crawl out of their foxholes, pick up their raincoats, look to their rifles, and wait. At ‘H’ hour the platoon leader would say: ‘All right, let’s go,’ and leading the way, he would set his face to the north and move out, his men following.” (90)

Haterius: “At 5:30 a.m. the signal hour broke, and as the barrage lifted, the commands were given, and the masses of olive drab forms, with helmets adjusted, gas masks in position, and rifle in hand, rose and scampered up over the top and started for the German positions across the way.” (145)

One century later, to the minute, we can place Private Benjamin Franklin Potts, with reasonable confidence, in the line between “Route Nationale No. 46” (left) and hilltop “253” (mid-sector), “approximately 500 meters from the enemy’s front line trenches…” (Haterius 139).

On this map, we can see where Private Potts would have been on any given day from September 26 through September 30, 1918.

The map, prepared by the American Battle Monuments Commission in 1937, shows the area through which the 35th Division advanced in the first days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The two red vertical lines mark the boundaries of the division sector, left and right. The ragged horizontal red lines show the front line at midnight on the date indicated.

From the battle plan, we know when the artillery’s rolling barrage began, as well as its rate of advance. We also know the infantry moved roughly 100 meters behind it. Therefore, up until 7:40 a.m. when the rolling barrage ceased, we can follow Private Potts’s movement across the battlefield.

At H-hour, the order is given: “Let’s go.” Private Potts crawls out of a shallow hole and heads into No Man’s Land. An exploding wall of dirt and debris, the artillery’s rolling barrage, precedes him. An orange flash, veiled by dense fog in the pre-dawn dark, reveals for an instant the man on his left and the man on his right and, to his front, grotesque forms in the disheveled land. The ground trembles. The blast pierces the ears. The soldier moves forward.

Haterius: “The effect of our six-hour barrage had been so thorough that the Boche front lines were pulverized beyond recognition. As the boys advanced, they found few if any Germans in the first line trenches; they had gone back into the second and reserve trenches. As the advance reached the second line trenches, the enemy commenced fire upon them, and soon a retaliatory fire of artillery, and machine-gun fire was in operation.” (145)

Private Potts’s first combat experience was here, west of Vauquois Hill, east of the town of Boureilles, at the “V of Vauquois.” Stretched across his path beyond the fog, four lines of trenches, named Balkans, Serpent, Constantinople, Enfer (pronounced on-fair).

Company M advances in staggered formation, never presenting a straight line shot of two men to the enemy trenches, with a few meters between each man, to minimize casualties from a single grenade or artillery blast. Ahead, in silhouette against the orange flashes, appears an earthen berm and mangled wire. Drawing no fire from the Balkans trench, the men pass cautiously.

Kenamore: “Once fairly in the field it became apparent that the going was to be very bad. The autumn frequently brings to that part of France a thick, clinging fog which only a bright sun or a strong wind can disperse. The heaviest fog of the season had descended on the valley of the Aire that morning. At first thought, it appeared that this might be of assistance to the Thirty-fifth, for it would conceal the advancing troops from the waiting machine gunners, but very soon it became apparent that the maintaining of liaison would be most difficult.

“Lieut. Bancon, flying over the sector, dropped a message at headquarters at 8:15 a.m., saying: “Impossible to find line. Our sector is a solid white snow-bank of clouds.” (91-92)

Any optimism rising in a soldier’s heart on passing the abandoned trench shatters in bursts of machine-gun fire from the next one. Platoon leaders shout orders, incoming artillery blasts the ground, dirt and mud rain down on the soldier, who moves forward in a crouch. Boom! A thrown grenade silences the machine gun. Rifles fire in the fog, Pop! Pop! Tat! Tat! Pop!

Serpent is littered with gray-clad bodies, still and bleeding. Through the trench the men must trudge. The stench of mud and blood and human waste assails the nose. Up the other side, the soldiers look to their left and right. Comrades in the fog, still thick, dull gray before dawn.

The blasts of the rolling barrage more distant, the order cuts through the mist, and Company M advances the line into the next burst of machine-gun fire. Adrenaline pumps in the veins. Legs move without thought. Tat! Tat! Pop! Boom!

Constantinople is cleared. Wounds are dressed. Prisoners escorted to the rear. The dead are marked with a rifle, fixed bayonet thrust in the ground; regimental band members bearing stretchers are to follow. Again the order, again the men advance.

By the time they cleared the last machine gun from their sector of Enfer (French for “Hell”), the boys of Company M were combat veterans, and the sun had not yet risen over the blanket of fog that covered the battlefield on that first of what would be five days of fighting.

Passing Enfer, Kenamore writes, “The leading battalion pressed forward, cleaned out the Aden strongpoint [“Ouvr. d’Aden” (illegible) on the map, south-east of Varennes in square 42], and in the hopeless fog, and with artillery fire which they had met from the first were stopped before the well constructed defenses of Varennes. Many machine guns opened, and there was no chance to look ahead into the gloom.” (127)

Meanwhile, on the right half of the division sector, the 138th Regiment, according to orders, avoided Vauquois Hill, moving around its east flank. This was done to prevent delay in the advancing line. The task of taking the fortified hill and Rossignol Wood behind it was assigned to a battalion of the support regiment.

As our Third Battalion, 137th Regiment, cleared the trenches of the “V of Vauquois,” the Second Battalion of the 139th Regiment, followed close behind. This battalion, once the leading elements had passed Vauquois Hill, veered to the right behind it to attack from the flank.

Kenamore: “Never before or afterward did the 35th find a place better defended than Vauquois. It was the result of four years intensive work by the Germans.” (94)

“A high French officer told me their losses there probably totaled 40,000. It was known to be thoroughly mined, to have excavations and tunnels of great length for quick communication and transferal of troops from one point to another.” (79)

Whether it was the lengthy bombardment prior to attack, the threat of being surrounded, the hill’s reduced strategic importance since the introduction of the airplane, or a combination thereof, when Second Battalion arrived, the Butte of Vauquois was scarcely defended.

Kenamore describes the action in a broad stroke: “…[Second Battalion] had methodically cleaned [the dugouts of Vauquois] of all enemy elements, killing or capturing all defenders.” 128

Hoyt gives more detail: “[Second Battalion] had found Vauqois (sic) Hill and Bois de Rossignol comparatively easy to handle. In some of the dugouts the moppers-up had found Germans, none of which had shown much fight. They had bombed and cleaned them out as they went along, endeavoring to overlook as few as possible in the fog of impenetrable thickness.” (74)

The 139th’s Second Battalion rejoined its regiment at 9:30 a.m. south of Verennes. The four-year Battle of Vauquois was over.

Battle of Vauquois, September 3, 1914 – September 26, 1918

Summit of the Butte of Vauquois, showing German trenches (foreground), mine craters (middleground), and the French monument to the combatants and the dead of Vauquois (background)

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Army Training at Camp Gordon

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

In his first ocean voyage, B. F. Potts crossed the submarine invested waters of the North Atlantic in a convoy of steamers escorted by a warship.

Enterprise, Tennessee: The Town That Died

Grandpa owned matched pairs of horses. Him and the boys [Ben and his brothers] cut and snaked logs out of the wood to the roads. He got a dollar a day plus fifty cents for the horses.

Rendezvous with the 35th Infantry Division

“Some of the guys disobeyed orders, went into the town, broke into a bakery, and stole all the bread and baked goods…”

In Reserve at Saint-Mihiel

The battle of Saint-Mihiel (September 12-15) would be Pershing’s first operation as army commander. He assigned the 35th to the strategic reserve, whose purpose is to replace a weakened unit or to fill any gap in the line created by the enemy.

Special Job for Private Potts

“Private Potts, how tall are you?”

The soldier, looking into a button of the captain’s coat, says, “Five foot three, sir.” The wide brim raises. 

A Potts Family Day of Thanks

On the front now, the 35th was in range of artillery fire, and enemy planes made nighttime bombing raids over the countryside.

Planning the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

On the left, the 137th would take the “V of Vauquois,” a formidable network of trenches, zig-zagging from the hill’s west flank to the village of Boureuilles, a mile away.

Prelude to Battle

The gun jumps, the earth shudders, a shock wave shatters the air and accompanies a roar that bursts between the ears. Powder fumes permeate the air. Explosions count seconds across unending darkness.

Next date:

September 26—The Fog of War

“Each infantryman carried his rifle, bayonet, steel helmet and gas mask. He had 250 rounds of rifle ammunition, carried in a belt, and two bandoliers, each one swung over one shoulder and under the other arm. On his back was his combat pack, in his pack carrier. This contained his raincoat, if he was not wearing it, his mess-kit and two days’ ‘iron ration,’ which usually was two cans of corned beef and six boxes of hard bread.” Kenamore 88

Gear issued and packed the afternoon before the battle, Private Potts had a “large hot meal” with his comrades of the 137th Infantry Regiment, crouched in the Hesse Forest.

“After dark, the infantry moved forward through the woods in approximately the formation they were to employ the following day. The men lay down among the big guns and tried to sleep. Each one, according to orders, first loaded and locked his rifle.” (88, emphasis mine)

The initial artillery fire began at 11:30 p.m. The guns were aimed east of the Meuse and west of the Argonne Forest, that is, either side of the next day’s objective. It was deceptive fire, intended to make the enemy believe the assault would target those points. Hopefully, he would shift his reserve forces there.

“At 2:30 a.m. [on the 26th] all the other artillery concentrated between the Meuse River and Argonne Forest went into action.

“All adjectives fail to give even a fair impression of the awful grandeur of such artillerying. No combination of words is effective. It seemed that for a while the lid of Hell had been pushed back a little space. The long line on either hand leaped into flame, the horizon was lit by the bursting shells, and from the trenches where the enemy had lain so long there rose the many colored rockets with which he appealed to his guns for succor. What each signal meant I do not know, but they plentifully told the tale of his distress.” (89)

A steel chamber holds a brass shell. Inside it, a pin ignites propellant. The confined explosion shoots a projectile and a gout of flame from the 75mm (3-inch) bore. The gun jumps, the earth shudders, a shock wave shatters the air and accompanies a roar that bursts between the ears. Spent, the brass shell slides to the ground with a hallow shing! Another round replaces it and, as soon, ignites. Powder fumes permeate the air. Explosions count seconds across unending darkness.

In this infernal night lies our young private, waiting, suspended in time, between sleep and prayer.

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Army Training at Camp Gordon

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

In his first ocean voyage, B. F. Potts crossed the submarine invested waters of the North Atlantic in a convoy of steamers escorted by a warship.

Enterprise, Tennessee: The Town That Died

Grandpa owned matched pairs of horses. Him and the boys [Ben and his brothers] cut and snaked logs out of the wood to the roads. He got a dollar a day plus fifty cents for the horses.

Rendezvous with the 35th Infantry Division

“Some of the guys disobeyed orders, went into the town, broke into a bakery, and stole all the bread and baked goods…”

In Reserve at Saint-Mihiel

The battle of Saint-Mihiel (September 12-15) would be Pershing’s first operation as army commander. He assigned the 35th to the strategic reserve, whose purpose is to replace a weakened unit or to fill any gap in the line created by the enemy.

Special Job for Private Potts

“Private Potts, how tall are you?”

The soldier, looking into a button of the captain’s coat, says, “Five foot three, sir.” The wide brim raises. 

A Potts Family Day of Thanks

On the front now, the 35th was in range of artillery fire, and enemy planes made nighttime bombing raids over the countryside.

Planning the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

On the left, the 137th would take the “V of Vauquois,” a formidable network of trenches, zig-zagging from the hill’s west flank to the village of Boureuilles, a mile away.

Next date:

September 26—Battle of Vauquois

Below, I’ll detail the battle plan where it concerns Private B. F. Potts of Company M, 137th Infantry Regiment. For the moment, I’ll rely on Kenamore, who ably describes the stakes in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which will begin in two days—a hundred years ago.

At the conference of allied leaders when the great general attack was planned, the French commander in chief asked:

“Where will the American army fight in this battle?”

“Wherever you wish it to fight,” Gen. Pershing replied.

Gen. Foch then indicated the line between the Meuse and the Argonne, and asked if they would take that part of the line. Gen. Pershing assented. It was the part of the line where the heaviest fighting undoubtedly would be if the battle plans worked out, and if the judgment of the military men proved true. Every officer present knew that. The allies were at a point in the operation where a continuation of their strokes would drive the enemy out of France, or he would suffer disaster, possibly annihilation of his armies in the field. To get his armies out, he must maintain his communications, the four-track railroad at Mezieres in front of us, and the business of the Americans was to threaten, and if possible to cut his communications.

It was a field where there was a certainty of the hardest fighting. It was probable that the Germans would bring their best battalions there to make the vital fight. As a consequence, there could be no spectacular gains on the American front. Every foot of ground would be contested bitterly, and those who advanced must pay the price. While on other fronts, large and glittering gains would be made in a day, it would be against a retreating foe, and he would be retreating all the more hurriedly because of the pressure the Americans were bringing on his vitals. The enemy could not retreat on our front. If he did, we would cut his railroads and the French and British to the west of us would capture his armies. It was with a full understanding of what was ahead that the American commander took this post of high honor, where hard blows were to be given and taken, and where there was little to gain.

From Vauquois Hill to Exermont 76-77

French General Foch’s plan to push the German Army out of his country; the American First Army is in the south near Verdun

Between the rivers Aisne and Meuse, the I, III, and V Corps of the American First Army were positioned across a 20-mile front. Each corps had three divisions on the line. I Corps’ 77th, 28th, and 35th Divisions held the left, from the Aisne to the Butte of Vauquois. At the foot of the butte, also called Vauquois Hill, the 35th was arrayed for battle.

The American Sector

Part of I Corps, the 35th Division is positioned east of the Argonne Forest

According to Pershing’s plan, the First Army’s nine in-line divisions were to advance at 5:30 a.m., following an artillery preparation. In industrial age battles, artillery fire is used to “prepare the terrain” prior to an infantry advance. Lasting from a few minutes to a few hours, an artillery barrage destroys fixed works and equipment, blows holes in barbed wire barriers, and disrupts enemy activity at intersections in his communication lines. Where it doesn’t injure or kill the enemy, it puts the fear of God into him.

At the time of attack, “H-hour”, the artillery shifts its fire to what’s called a “rolling barrage.” This is a line of devastation 100 meters (roughly 100 yards) in front of the advancing infantrymen, which, in this case, is supposed to move at 100 meters every four minutes. It’s rare that the artillery men can see the line. Therefore, the infantry is obliged to advance at the set pace. Too slow, and he loses the artillery’s shock advantage; too fast, and he becomes victim to it.

Having received the order from I Corps forty-eight hours prior, 35th Division Headquarters issued orders to regimental commanders in the afternoon of September 24, 1918. In his Reminiscences of the 137th U. S. Infantry, Carl E. Haterius reproduces the 35th Division’s “Secret Field Orders,” which detail the attack plan (127-144).

The 35th Division would attack in “column of brigades,” meaning each of its two brigades would span the division sector, one behind the other. The 69th Brigade would lead; the 70th would follow in support.

Within brigades, regiments were to advance “side by side, each with one battalion in the first line, one in support, and one in reserve.” (128) Therefore, the division sector was divided in two. The 69th’s 138th Regiment, on the right, would take Vauquois Hill. On the left, the 137th, headquartered at Buzemont, would take the “V of Vauquois,” a formidable network of trenches, zig-zagging from the hill’s west flank to the village of Boureuilles a mile away.

The 137th Regiment’s twelve companies were divided into three battalions. First Battalion, Companies A through D, was assigned to the brigade reserve. Second Battalion, Companies E through H, would support Third Battalion—Companies I through M, which would lead.

From the field orders: “Parallel of departure for leading battalions—a line approximately 500 meters from the enemy’s front line trenches…” (139)

In the sector, the stretch of wounded earth between opposing trenches, called “No Man’s Land,” was approximately 500 meters wide. Private B. F. Potts and his comrades of Company M were on its edge.

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Army Training at Camp Gordon

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

In his first ocean voyage, B. F. Potts crossed the submarine invested waters of the North Atlantic in a convoy of steamers escorted by a warship.

Enterprise, Tennessee: The Town That Died

Grandpa owned matched pairs of horses. Him and the boys [Ben and his brothers] cut and snaked logs out of the wood to the roads. He got a dollar a day plus fifty cents for the horses.

Rendezvous with the 35th Infantry Division

“Some of the guys disobeyed orders, went into the town, broke into a bakery, and stole all the bread and baked goods…”

In Reserve at Saint-Mihiel

The battle of Saint-Mihiel (September 12-15) would be Pershing’s first operation as army commander. He assigned the 35th to the strategic reserve, whose purpose is to replace a weakened unit or to fill any gap in the line created by the enemy.

Special Job for Private Potts

“Private Potts, how tall are you?”

The soldier, looking into a button of the captain’s coat, says, “Five foot three, sir.” The wide brim raises. 

A Potts Family Day of Thanks

On the front now, the 35th was in range of artillery fire, and enemy planes made nighttime bombing raids over the countryside.

 Next date:

September 25—Prelude to Battle

Reminiscences of the 137th U. S. Infantry Carl E. Haterius, Topeka, Kansas: Crane & Company, 1919

“One day they came upon a building during a rain storm, and the guys wanted to seek shelter there. The captain forbade them from entering, so they slept in the field that night about 100 yards away. In the middle of the night, the building was destroyed by an artillery shell, and Ben received a dent in his helmet from what he thought was a piece of wood.”—Bruce Potts

September 15, 1918, the 35th Infantry Division moved during the night, as all movement now must be kept secret from enemy surveillance, into the Charmentois area on “motorbuses.” Kenamore describes the vehicles as, “…those immense lumbering cars which were stripped from the streets of London and Paris at the beginning of the war, and which had rambled all over the North of France since, hauling soldiers to many threatened fields carrying wounded back and at times playing the part of trucks and taking supplies forward.” (72)

Maybe Benjamin Potts and his buddies made jokes and pretended to be tourists, tipping their helmets back, pointing out the windows, imagining a more lovely landscape beyond the darkness.

“My goodness, Henrietta, have you ever seen such beautiful scenery?” says one soldier.

Another replies in falsetto, “Never in my life, George. I’m so glad you convinced me to go on vacation in France!”

“Most folks prefer the south of France,” says another, “but I must say the north is more to my liking.”

And still another, “All this site-seeing makes a man thirsty—Garse-on, une beer, see-voo-play!”

Maybe they all had a good laugh. Maybe they slept.

“At this stopping place [Charmentois], which was also out of doors, the air bombs became more frequent.” (Kenamore 72)

From Charmentois, “The Sixty-ninth Brigade [including Private Potts’s 137th Regiment] moved up near Auzeville [oh-zay-veel] on the night of Sept. 19-20, and the next night the remainder of the division went to the neighborhood of Grace-le-Comte (sic) Farm and into the woods east of Beauchamp, where the division relieved the Seventy-third French Division in charge of the sector.” (Kenamore 72)

This movement was on foot. On the front now, the 35th was in range of artillery fire, and enemy planes made nighttime bombing raids over the countryside. The night of September 19 may be the earliest occasion for an officer’s order, a soldier’s discipline, and Private Potts’s steel helmet to take the dent in place of his skull.

I wonder, if it had happened differently, in what body would my soul now inhabit?

Portion of a map, La carte d’état major, 1866, showing the area around Auzéville, France, including Grange-le-Comte Farm (right) and Beauchamp (left)

In the following current satellite image, Auzéville, the farm, the woods, and Beauchamp appear unchanged; perhaps a destination for a future pilgrimage.

Current satellite image
Imagery ©2018 Google, DigitalGlobe, Map data ©2018 Google

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Army Training at Camp Gordon

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

In his first ocean voyage, B. F. Potts crossed the submarine invested waters of the North Atlantic in a convoy of steamers escorted by a warship.

Enterprise, Tennessee: The Town That Died

Grandpa owned matched pairs of horses. Him and the boys [Ben and his brothers] cut and snaked logs out of the wood to the roads. He got a dollar a day plus fifty cents for the horses.

Rendezvous with the 35th Infantry Division

“Some of the guys disobeyed orders, went into the town, broke into a bakery, and stole all the bread and baked goods…”

In Reserve at Saint-Mihiel

The battle of Saint-Mihiel (September 12-15) would be Pershing’s first operation as army commander. He assigned the 35th to the strategic reserve, whose purpose is to replace a weakened unit or to fill any gap in the line created by the enemy.

Special Job for Private Potts

“Private Potts, how tall are you?”

The soldier, looking into a button of the captain’s coat, says, “Five foot three, sir.” The wide brim raises. 

 Next date:

September 24—Planning the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

September 18, 1918, was a Wednesday. It was the day Benjamin Franklin Potts turned 24 years old. Any letters from home wishing him a happy birthday would have found him around Foucaucourt-sur-Thabas, six miles west of Les Charmentois, 16 miles south of the Butte of Vauquois.

Happy Birthday, Bennie.

It’s difficult to imagine the Grandpa I knew as a young man, in the prime of his youth, in the uniform of a World War I infantryman. But there he is.

Private Potts’s medium frame fills the olive drab wool service tunic, with narrow, standing collar, five buttons up the front, and dressed over matching breeches. Russet colored leather leggings wrap the calf, topping hobnailed brogan boots, also russet leather. The private’s rank is shown by the lack of insignia on his sleeve.

Unseen, a pair of aluminum tags hang around his neck on a cord, tucked beneath the tunic. Each, the size of a half dollar, is stamped with the soldier’s name, rank, serial number, and unit. In the event of his death, one of these tags stays with the body, while the other is used to record the casualty. This grim necklace would eventually be removed for the last time by Ben Potts, civilian.

The wide brim of a shallow-crowned steel helmet, fastened with a leather chin strap, shields blue eyes from the sun or, more often, from rain. When the soldier finds occasion to grin, his ears perk up, raising the brim.

Like the WWII and Vietnam-era “steel pot” helmet with which we’re familiar from so many movies, the WWI helmet, with its characteristic wide brim, wasn’t intended to stop bullets. It would protect the head from flying debris, including shrapnel, sometimes. Not until the introduction of the Kevlar helmet in 1983 could a soldier hope his headgear might keep high-velocity lead outside the brain pan.

It’s in company formation where Private B. F. Potts stands out. In the ranks, every man looks identical: standing at attention, heels together, arms to the sides, fingers curled, chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in, eyes front. Inspecting the troops prior to battle, a captain peers down at the top of a helmet.

“Private Potts, how tall are you?”

The soldier, looking into a button of the captain’s coat, says, “Five foot three, sir.” The wide brim raises.

In the maneuver warfare that would push the opponent from the field and, thereby, win the war, soldiers often meet the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. The rifle, bayonet fixed, becomes a spear and a club. This is a contest between “the quick and the dead.” It is a contest won by larger men.

Hand-to-hand combat training, Camp Gordon, c. 1917

Also in maneuver warfare, communication between commanders on the battlefield is key to victory. Orders are given and units move forward, engaging the enemy. As the battle develops, orders are changed; new orders must be given. Whereas wires link telephones in the trenches, no such luxury is afforded commanders of units on the move. These commanders write orders and messages on paper and rely on an agile—and often lucky—soldier to avoid artillery, bullets, and getting lost to deliver the missive.

The messenger was often called a “runner.” The soldier with a low profile makes a better runner.

“Fall out, Private Potts. I have a special job for you.”

The dialog above is fictional. In one of Grandpa’s oft-cited stories (which I’ll let my cousins Bruce and John tell in a future installment), the infantryman, wishing to visit his brother in a field hospital, gets permission from a certain artillery officer. In another story, the private is alone when he encounters an enemy soldier.

If we are to accept the man’s hundred-year-old stories as truth—and if we do not, we might as well have not set out on our present journey—then we may desire to render plausible the infantryman’s connection to the artillery officer, as well as the solo encounter with the enemy. I propose that Private Potts was selected to be a runner.

At my prompting, Bruce asked Uncle Jesse if Grandpa was a runner. The response was affirmative. Bruce writes, “…he was a messenger, traveling from camp to camp, often under fire when he was crawling through fields.”

Here, we are accepting the risk that, instead of prompting the recollection, we created a false memory with the question. In either case, that Private Potts was a runner is, as far as I’m aware, new information, albeit obtained second-hand and a hundred years after the fact. Skepticism on that point is justified. The anecdotes remain.

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Army Training at Camp Gordon

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

In his first ocean voyage, B. F. Potts crossed the submarine invested waters of the North Atlantic in a convoy of steamers escorted by a warship.

Enterprise, Tennessee: The Town That Died

Grandpa owned matched pairs of horses. Him and the boys [Ben and his brothers] cut and snaked logs out of the wood to the roads. He got a dollar a day plus fifty cents for the horses.

Rendezvous with the 35th Infantry Division

“Some of the guys disobeyed orders, went into the town, broke into a bakery, and stole all the bread and baked goods…”

In Reserve at Saint-Mihiel

The battle of Saint-Mihiel (September 12-15) would be Pershing’s first operation as army commander. He assigned the 35th to the strategic reserve, whose purpose is to replace a weakened unit or to fill any gap in the line created by the enemy.

 Next date:

September 19—A Potts Family Day of Thanks

Survey of U.S. Army Uniforms, Weapons and Accoutrements, David Cole

Prior to battle, musical instruments are confiscated and stored, and band members become guards, messengers, first-aid providers, and stretcher bearers. Carl E. Haterius played a horn in the 137th Regiment Band. While strictly forbidden in order to protect operational security, he kept a journal throughout his military service. After the war, he compiled the entries into a book Reminiscences of the 137th U. S. Infantry (Crane & Company 1919). In it, he records the ambiance of the wartime environment and provides insight into the soldier’s life.

While the 35th Division waited in reserve in the Haye Forest, Haterius made notes that became the following passage. Perhaps long-winded for our time, I cite its entirety. For it expresses a sentiment with which, I suspect, a soldier who has “passed through the inferno” can identify, and from which family members might gain understanding.

“Our life here in this forest was a dismal one, and in passing I might add, that often as we lay there in our little pup tents during some dark night listening to the patter of raindrops on our little canvas tents, our thoughts would often revert back over the miles of cruel distance, far back across the ocean, and out to where the ‘West begins.’ We were now learning the grimness of war and were commencing to realize that it was no child’s play. It called for men, big, strong, robust, vigorous, strong-hearted men. It was no place for a weakling. The ‘mind willing but the flesh weak’ did not harmonize in our picture. Many times when conditions were almost unbearable, we must needs urge ourselves onward, with little time for the thought of home or old environs, for to have given an absolute free rein to our thoughts and emotions would have proved a difficult handicap to overcome. The less we thought about it the better off we were. It was no use in becoming more miserable than we were at times. Many times, while sitting in some lowly billet or bivouacked in some dark, overshadowing wood, and while writing to loved ones at home, we would intentionally leave out much concerning our life at that particular time. Many stories sent back home were but half told. They must not know, as it would only cause their anxiety to increase. Those at home were fighting their battle, and sometimes I have been inclined to believe that theirs was the hardest battle. No one will ever know just what the fathers, mothers, wives and other loved ones suffered. They in turn bore their burdens in silence, and little was said or made known. The spirit of all was wonderful to behold. Even over there time after time that home feeling would creep into our souls like a thief in the night. We were but human after all. Those times were perhaps the hardest battles we had to fight. Only a soldier who has been over there and passed through the inferno can realize the meaning of these lines.” (118-119)

Reminiscences of the 137th U. S. Infantry by Carl E. Haterius, Topeka, Kansas: Crane & Company, 1919
On Amazon or Archive.org

“That first of September was a notable day, although it did not appear so at the time, for it was the last time the men were to sleep under cover for more than a month, and that month the most trying in their histories.” (Kenamore 69)

By the time Private B. F. Potts joined the 35th Infantry Division in the Rosières area, they had spent their last night indoors. By Kenamore’s account and others, rain fell on the region during much of September. In the hurried preparations for battle, sit-down meals, showers, and even a change of clothes were not to be had for the coming weeks.

Resting during the day, the 35th Division troops marched through the nights of September 10 and 11. In Heroes of the Argonne, a book about the 35th Division in the war, author Charles B. Hoyt describes the scene:

“There are no lights, for smoking is forbidden where there is danger of enemy planes swooping down at any minute. There are no noises, save for the jangling of accoutrement and the crunch of the hobnailed soldier. On such marches the soldiers do not talk much among themselves. They have rifles and seventy-pound packs to think about. What more could be asked to keep one’s mind occupied?

“The road is jammed with moving troops. The advance is made by paces. The men take the distance of a few yardsticks ahead; then stop, and stand in inactivity while a cold drizzle washes their faces and adds pounds to their packs.

“The men wear out as the night wears on. Their clothing is saturated; their packs weigh over the seventy pounds now; and shoulders are numbed. When the column halts, they halt in their tracks and slump into the mud.” (54)

 “Marching into reserve at St. Mihiel,” Hoyt 55

The photo shows the 140th Infantry Regiment, also of the 35th Division, on the morning of September 12. Private Potts, with the 137th Regiment, marched this road, or another nearby, the same morning

On the morning of September 12, the division moved into concealed bivouac in the Forest of Haye, west of Nancy.

Not three months before, Bennie Potts was a railroad man in the quiet hills of Tennessee. Now, Private Potts was an infantryman in France, a land ripped open by four years of war.

It must be an extraordinary sensation, to find yourself in a strange place, a foreign country, in a military environment where everything you do is an order, direct or implied. What’s more, it’s a hazardous place, where accidents maim and kill, where disease lurks, where the rain is often made in metal and brings explosive flowers that smell of poison gas.

Memories of home and family, childhood images, bright fields, shaded woods, his father cutting timber on a river bank, himself leading a workhorse, trailing logs between trees… All fade against the stark landscape. Slight hills fold into one another, long, low lines devoid of silhouettes. The trees, here, have lost leaves as well as branches, as if in a hellish storm.

Remembering his training, remembering the movements, the sequence of actions, forgetting the green Georgia woods where they were pressed into the mind, the soldier follows orders. He concentrates on the job at hand, does what must be done, right now. Of the past and of the future, he thinks not. He dares not, lest a moment’s distraction at a critical instant deprive him of all past memories and of any future whatsoever.

While the Americans had fought smaller engagements and played a significant role in the Aisne-Marne campaign in July and August, up to now the divisions, led by American generals, had fallen under the command of French and British corps commanders. One of General Pershing’s objectives as commander of the American Expeditionary Forces was to establish an independent American army, which he did on August 10, 1918.

By September, Pershing pointed the American First Army, over one million strong, at the Saint-Mihiel salient. A “salient,” in military terms, is a bulge in the front line. Because a salient’s defenders are exposed on three sides, the situation is tolerated only if the area contains strategic terrain.

“Resulting from a German offensive in September 1914, the St. Mihiel salient was a 200-square-mile triangle jutting fourteen miles into the Allied lines between the Moselle and Meuse rivers. Bounded by Pont-à-Mousson to the south, St. Mihiel to the west, and the Verdun area to the north, the terrain was mostly rolling plain, heavily wooded in spots. After three years of occupation, the Germans had turned the area into a fortress with heavy bands of barbed wire and strong artillery and machine-gun emplacements. Eight divisions defended the salient, with five more in reserve.”—American Military History Volume II 42

Map showing the Saint-Mihiel Offensive, Library of Congress, 1918

The 35th Division was in the Forest of Haye, west of Nancy, lower right, off the map

The battle of Saint-Mihiel (September 12-15) would be Pershing’s first operation as army commander. He assigned the 35th to the strategic reserve, whose purpose is to replace a weakened unit or to fill any gap in the line created by the enemy. The Germans learned details of the impending attack, including the size of the opposing force, which was much superior to their own. As the Americans launched the offensive, the German army was in retreat. The battle went so well against the disorganized enemy Pershing didn’t need the reserve. The 35th waited under rain.

The troops of the 35th would be “blooded” soon enough; the future was saving them for a greater fight. Eleven days after the battle of Saint-Mihiel, they would be in the line before the Butte of Vauquois, one of the most heavily defended points in the German line. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive would be the decisive battle of the Great War.

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Army Training at Camp Gordon

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

In his first ocean voyage, B. F. Potts crossed the submarine invested waters of the North Atlantic in a convoy of steamers escorted by a warship.

Enterprise, Tennessee: The Town That Died

Grandpa owned matched pairs of horses. Him and the boys [Ben and his brothers] cut and snaked logs out of the wood to the roads. He got a dollar a day plus fifty cents for the horses.

Rendezvous with the 35th Infantry Division

“Some of the guys disobeyed orders, went into the town, broke into a bakery, and stole all the bread and baked goods…”

 Next date:

September 16—Private Potts, Messenger

Heroes of the Argonne: An Authentic History of the Thirty-Fifth Division, Charles B. Hoyt, Kansas City, Missouri: Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1919.

American Military History Volume II: The United States Army in a Global Era, 1917-2008, Richard W. Stuart, ed., Washington, D. C.: Center of Military History United States Army 2010.

“Grandpa Ben told me about a time on a train in France. They had stopped for the night and were directed to stay on the train, which was on a track next to a small French town. Some of the guys disobeyed orders, went into the town, broke into a bakery, and stole all the bread and baked goods. When the baker discovered the theft in the morning, he complained to the officer in charge. Restitution was paid to the baker, and Grandpa said the [soldiers’] punishment was severe.”—Bruce Potts

American troops headed for the trenches, 1918
Photo from Spearhead of Logistics, King, et. al., 108

French rail cars were called “Forty-and-Eights,” after their carrying capacity, which was indicated on the side: “HOMMES 40 : CHEVAUX (en long) 8,” forty men or eight (long-wise) horses. 

I remember my great grandfather, whom my cousins, siblings, and I called “Grandpa” (accent on the first syllable) or “Grandpa Ben,” from family visits to the red brick house, where he and Granny lived their quiet years in Tennessee Ridge, Tennessee.

Already in his 70s and 80s when I knew him, he walked with a cane but stood straight. He was not a tall man, 5’3” in his youth, and now his frame was slight. He wore what I thought of as “old man’s pants,” wide-legged trousers that hung from the hips, held by suspenders. The trousers were dark, but his shirt, invariably a Christmas or birthday gift from one of his children or something Granny got for him at the Dollar General Store in Erin, was always colorful. His chin was stubbly, his eyes pale blue. When he grinned, which was often, his ears perked up. He spoke around a plug of tobacco, and his voice wheezed with age, rendering his speech inarticulate to my young ears.

The family sat in lawn chairs arrayed around the carport, out of the warm summer sun. Voices, chatting, echoed between brick and cement. Children wiggled in their chairs, flicking sweat bees from their arms, as they’d been taught, not swatting. Adults sipped Granny’s iced tea from plastic cups. A fragrant breeze blew from the rose garden, and someone asked about the war.

A tobacco-stained Folger’s can beside his chair, cane hooked on its arm, Grandpa obliged with a story or two. I was too young to understand the context, but I heard mentioned far away places with fantastical and unpronounceable names, like “Lay Voadge,” the “Muse,” and the “All-gone Forest.”

My cousin Bruce Potts listened more attentively than I. His recitation above and a few more stories collected by him are the only recorded memories, that I know of, concerning Grandpa Ben in the war. Over the next weeks, I’ll include the anecdotes with the events, as near as I can work out, during which they occurred.

I’ve found no official records concerning Benjamin Franklin Potts during his time in France. A fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, destroyed the service records of 18 million US Army and Air Force personnel discharged from 1912 to 1964.

The next chronological document I have is his return voyage from France in April 1919. So, if we are to continue the journey, we must turn to other sources.

His discharge paper shows B. F. Potts was a member of Company M, 137th Infantry Regiment. Some searching reveals the 137th was part of the 35th Infantry Division, which fought in les Vosges (pronounced with a soft “g”: lay vohzh), the Meuse (muz, sounds like “mud” with a z), and the Argonne Forest.

The 35th Infantry Division was composed of the Kansas and Missouri National Guard units. The division was organized into two brigades, each made up of two infantry regiments, plus support units. The 69th Infantry Brigade consisted of the 137th and 138th Regiments. The 70th Infantry Brigade, the 139th and 140th. Each regiment was further divided into twelve 250-man companies, identified by letters “A” through “M.” (Traditionally, there was no Company “J” because, in older type, the letter closely resembled an “I.”) The 137th Infantry Regiment, constituted entirely from proud Kansas National Guard units, was nicknamed the “All Kansas.”

Federalized on August 5, 1917, the 35th began training in September 1917 at Camp Doniphan, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. It left Hoboken, New Jersey, for Europe April 25, 1918. From Liverpool, across the English countryside to Southhampton, it crossed the Channel and arrived at Le Havre, France, 16 days later, on May 11.

The division’s first posting in the trenches was in the Vosges, south of Verdun. This was a “quiet sector,” that is, the line had to be held, but advancement by either side was of little strategic importance. Raw troops were sent there for practical training in the trench warfare environment.

Clair Kenamore, a war correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, followed the 35th Division throughout the war. He tells the stories of its officers and men in the book From Vauquois Hill to Exermont (Guard Publishing, 1919). Of their time in the Vosges, Kenamore writes:

“When the Americans came to the Vosges, the trenches were in the positions established more than three years before when the French invaded Alsace and dug in when stopped. The opposing armies had seemed to agree that the decision would be gained to the northwest, on other fields of fame, so they sent tired troops to the Vosges to rest or filled the line with territorials. A few shells were sent over each day, a few infrequent raids were made at night to learn what troops were opposite, wire was kept in good shape and trenches and dugouts were maintained in good repair, but little beyond this was done. The great war was allowed to rage elsewhere. No men were sacrificed in this part of the world.” (52)

After disembarking the Tunisian at Liverpool on September 4 (counting 11 days for the trans-Atlantic voyage), B. F. Potts would have entrained to England’s south coast, maybe at Southhampton, then crossed the English Channel to a French port, most likely at Le Havre, Cherbourg, or Calais (King 105). From the coast, another train, of Forty-and-Eights, would take him to meet his unit in the country’s northeast. The entire trip from Liverpool to the rendezvous with the 35th could have taken as little as three days, arriving by September 7.

The dates and places in the previous paragraph are conjecture on the author’s part, derived from similar (documented) journeys of AEF units. The intent is to arrive at the earliest date Private Potts could have joined the unit.

According to Kenamore, “…on the fourth, fifth and sixth [of September] the division entrained for what was known vaguely as the Rosiers area.” (69) The 35th remained in the area of Rosières-aux-Salines (rosy-air oh sal-een), a town north of the Vosges, until the night of September 10, when it marched northwest to the suburbs of Nancy. So, even if the trip from Liverpool took as long as six days, arriving September 10, Private Potts would have joined his unit at Rosières. Therefore, any stories I heard concerning “Lay Voadge” Grandpa must have been telling about his comrades.

Since there weren’t many, if any, train rides once he gained the front, the story Grandpa Ben told Bruce (at top) probably occurred during the transfer from the coast to the rendezvous point.

The Western Front and Railways

Crossing the English Channel by boat, Private Potts would have then proceeded by train across France to the area south of Verdun. (Look for “St. Mihiel” in small text.) The front at the time is marked on the map by plus “+” signs. Thin black lines are principle railroads. Secondary railways are unmarked.

“But we left about 100 of our men there in the foothills of the Alps [the Vosges]. They were killed in action, died of wounds or of disease or accident. I had not realized the number was so large until I came to count them up. It shows how heavy is the toll of war even in the quietest of sectors.” (Kenamore 65)

B. F. Potts replaced one of those hundred men.

Up to that time, only Company C of the 137th, had experienced combat, having executed a successful raid on German trenches in July. When he joined them in early September, Private Potts’s comrades in Company M, though hardened to field rations, going without a bath, and marching in mud, were as green as he was. We might imagine the Kansas boys gave the Tennessean a hard time anyway.

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Army Training at Camp Gordon

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

In his first ocean voyage, B. F. Potts crossed the submarine invested waters of the North Atlantic in a convoy of steamers escorted by a warship.

Enterprise, Tennessee: The Town That Died

Grandpa owned matched pairs of horses. Him and the boys [Ben and his brothers] cut and snaked logs out of the wood to the roads. He got a dollar a day plus fifty cents for the horses.

 Next date:

September 12—In Reserve at St. Mihiel

“The 1973 Fire,” National Personnel Records Center

From Vauquois Hill to Exermont: A History of the Thirty-Fifth Division of the United States Army by Clair Kenamore, St. Louis: Guard Publishing, 1919.

Spearhead of Logistics: A History of the United States Army Transportation Corps by Benjamin King, Richard C. Biggs, and Eric R. Criner, Washington D. C.: Center of Military History United States Army, 2001.