The Heroic Gangster_The Story of Monk Eastman, From the Streets of New York to the Battlefields of Europe and Back

by Neil Hanson

  On the night of August 22, the Second Battalion of the 106th marched back to the front lines. There were further casualties as they moved up. One man was wounded in a bizarre incident, accidentally shot when cartridges among a pile of blazing rubbish exploded, and the following night, August 23, Corporal John A. Kiernan of Company G was killed by shell fire as, rejoined by Monk, they reentered the lines at Dickebusch Lake.24 The British 6th Division withdrew that night, leaving the American 27th Division on its own on the front lines for the first time. If it was in part a reflection of the exhaustion of British troops involved in near-continuous fighting since March, it was also an acknowledgment of the growing confidence and competence of the “doughboys” who were shouldering the burden. The relief was completed by 10:40 that night, with the First and Third Battalions of the 106th in support in concealed trenches and the Second Battalion in reserve at Micmac and Hecla farms.

  The German forces under the command of Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria were expected to launch an assault at any moment, aiming to smash through the Allied lines and seize the Channel ports through which virtually all British men and war matériel were shipped. It was felt that the battered and depleted British troops holding the front line would be unable to withstand the shock of such an assault, and the 27th Division had been drafted in to hold the line at all costs, fighting in “this God-forsaken ground of shell holes and churned up earth, with its putrescent odors of death.”25 The men rested by day, but between 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. each night they worked to repair and improve the defenses along the Dickebusch Lake–Scherpenberg Line.

  With their comrades from the 27th Division, the 106th Infantry held the position for the next nine days despite heavy shelling with high explosive and mustard gas, which caused sixty-five casualties from burns.26 On August 24, Private Thomas F. Flood had his right arm blown off by an enemy incendiary bomb, losing a large quantity of blood, but his life was saved when one of his comrades in Company G—unnamed in accounts of the incident—volunteered to give two pints of his blood for a transfusion.

  A succession of particularly virulent gas attacks was launched on successive mornings on August 26 and 27, and as the 106th Infantry’s shelters were under enemy observation, they were unable to evacuate them. In one attack gas shells fell directly into the trench, catching the men by surprise, and some severe burns were suffered when mustard oil splashed on their thin clothing. Another group of a dozen men were also burned after walking through long grass and falling in a shell hole contaminated with mustard gas. To neutralize the gas residue, the shell holes were filled with earth and the contaminated ground and the clothing and skin of men affected by the gas were sprinkled with chloride of lime.27

  After the German forces suffered a defeat farther south, at Château-Thierry, information from prisoners and captured documents revealed that plans for the drive to the sea to seize the Channel ports had now been abandoned and the threat of a major German attack had evaporated. Plans for the 27th Division were accordingly changed and it was now tasked with capturing Mount Kemmel, the scene of some of the bloodiest battles of the war, which had seen it change hands numerous times. British veterans were astonished that the task of attacking it should have been assigned to such a “green” and untried unit.28

  During their training for the assault, the men of the 106th Infantry were issued a document titled “Principles and Methods to Govern Offensive Action.”29 It included the surprising claim that “when immediate contact is obtained, the enemy will surrender. The best investigation the Division Commander [O’Ryan] has been able to make is that this statement is correct.” It went on to cite the experience of the U.S. Marine Corps at Château-Thierry, where it was claimed that the losses they suffered were the result of poor precautions against gas attacks and poor tactics when crossing open ground to engage German troops; “when they got within fifty yards of enemy troops, the latter surrendered without fighting.” It is impossible to say how Monk and his fellows weighed that optimistic view against the contradictory information that was also circulated among them stating that, in an earlier battle, the German machine gunners “appear to have been chained to their positions.” The implication of that was clear: the Germans would be unable to withdraw or run away and would therefore fight to the death to save their own lives.

  15

  MORE THAN BROTHERS

  After a week in the reserve trenches, the 106th Infantry began to move forward into the firing line on the evening of August 30, ready for the attack to be launched the next morning. They passed over shell-torn roads, jammed with vehicles and columns of men heading for the front lines, while streams of bedraggled, hollow-eyed men shuffled in the opposite direction. German aircraft bombed the advancing troops and long-range guns continued to rain down shells around them, but the 106th moved on, past Indus Farm and around the bend of the lake, where the “murky sheet of water seemed as silent as death itself.1 Not even a bullfrog croaked from its depths.” They passed an advanced dressing station at Trappest Farm and a casualty clearing station at Esquellec, both reminders of the fate that awaited some of the men moving forward on that late summer night.

  On this, the last night before their first taste of an actual attack, despite all his previous “battlefield” experience on the streets of New York, even Monk must have felt the same mixture of curiosity, excitement, fear, and regret as his comrades, together with the closeness, sometimes beyond even that shared with their families, that men felt toward their buddies in the face of war and death. As one of his fellows in that polyglot division wrote that night,

  Tonight we are more than brothers, for tomorrow may see things, and we know that shrapnel and bullets are absolutely unconscious of ancestry or creed, occupation or nationality.2 Among others we have Greek, Slav, Spanish, English, Swiss, the ever-present and irrepressible Irish, Italian and a descendant of an American Indian. We have Episcopalian, Methodist, Jew, Catholic, &c, but I feel sure we have tonight no atheist—nor will have until this is over.

  A contact patrol of six riflemen and one Lewis-gun team of six men was sent out at once to locate the enemy. Before going out, they were stripped of all personal papers, letters, identity discs, regimental buttons, and numbers. They were also checked to ensure that there was nothing loose on them that might make a noise, because the least sound in No Man’s Land—even as faint as the scrape of a belt buckle against a gun barrel or the tinny rattle of a strand of barbed wire against a bayonet—could be fatal. The patrols, usually consisting of an NCO and five men, had been taught not to lift their heads, but just to keep one eye looking ahead as they crawled forward a few yards apart, keeping their heads as close to the ground as possible and using their toes, knees, and elbows to push themselves along. Moving virtually inch by inch, they took advantage of any gunfire or other noises from the trenches to cover the sounds of their movement, and at times, fearing detection, they remained motionless for minutes on end.

  If the Germans put up a single Very light, the patrol would remain motionless until it had burned out and then move on again. More than one light put up close to the patrol was usually a sign that the Germans had heard a noise or seen some suspicious movement. The advice then was to keep quiet for half an hour before moving ahead again. Even if standing upright when a Very light was fired, patrol members ran virtually no risk of discovery if they turned their faces away from the light and stood perfectly still. They were told that they could lie down if they wished, but it wasn’t necessary, and might prove fatal if the movement caught the eye of a German sniper or machine gunner.3

  Company I had been ordered to move up behind the patrol and occupy Macaw Trench, but were forced to withdraw again almost at once when a breakdown in communications led their own artillery to target the trench for more than two hours.4 This also provoked heavy return fire from the enemy, which fell on the same trench. The shelling caused carnage among Company I—a lieutenant and thirty men became casualties—but what was left of the company still manage
d to form a defensive line and advanced by degrees during the night to reoccupy Macaw Trench, with Company G ranged alongside them on their right.

  The Germans had been expected to fight to the death to defend Mount Kemmel, but the returning patrols reported that they had detected no signs of the enemy, and frontline companies also reported unusual quiet from the German lines during the night. This backed up intelligence from prisoners and intercepted communications suggesting that the Germans had suspected American forces were being massed and had begun withdrawing their forces to a more defensible line at Wytschaete Ridge. The fires burning all the way from Armentières to within six miles of Lille and in the Bertincourt region, between Bapaume and the Hindenburg Line, were further confirmation, as the Germans destroyed stores they could not take with them, a certain indication of an imminent retreat.5

  The Germans left machine-gun crews and snipers behind to hold the ground as long as possible. A prisoner interrogated early on August 31 believed that Kemmel Hill was already evacuated except by these screens of machine guns, and the whole terrain also remained subject to relentless German artillery fire.6 The machine-gun nests and sniping posts had tunnels leading to them and were camouflaged with turf and tall grass. The snipers wore different camouflage suits to blend with their surroundings, and concealed themselves in different hides. One sniper was spotted using a small pit hidden by some weeds, where he would drop after firing; another was hidden in the branches of a stunted willow.

  American company commanders were informed of the German withdrawal and told to be ready to move forward at a moment’s notice. Strong combat patrols were sent out to make and maintain contact with the enemy, taking with them men specially trained to seek out mines and booby traps. The main advance began at 11:30 that morning—perhaps in the hope of confusing the enemy, used to attacks launched at first light—but the Allied barrage was answered at once by the German artillery, which poured a torrent of gas and high-explosive shells onto the entire length of the front line, following it with trench mortars and machine-gun fire. In the face of this barrage, the 105th Infantry suffered heavy casualties but silenced a number of enemy heavy machine guns and advanced up the lower slope in bitter hand-to-hand fighting.

  The 106th then took up the assault. The Third Battalion led the way, with the First Battalion in support, and although the Second Battalion was held in reserve, Monk’s Company G was sent forward with the First Battalion in place of Company A, which had been heavily gassed, suffering such extensive casualties that it was too depleted to fulfill its part in the advance. Tasked with occupying Vierstraat Switch, the men of the 106th battled their way toward enemy machine guns sited in heavy brush about two hundred yards in front of them.7 Aided by Company G, the First Battalion reached their objective on the left of the advance, but the right flank was held up for some time by fierce fire from concealed machine-gun nests near Siege Farm, west of Vierstraat Switch, in which a further 15 men were killed, 53 wounded, and 106 gassed. However, the enemy machine guns were eventually eliminated with bombs and grenades, and the American troops then moved forward, crossing Cheapside and York roads. Although the intermediate ground still held many machine-gun nests and snipers, by five o’clock that afternoon the Americans were consolidating their lines along Vierstraat Ridge. They had suffered many casualties, but inflicted far more on the enemy.

  At seven the next morning, September 1, 1918, the American attack resumed, with the 106th in the van, pushing forward past Dead Dog Farm as they attempted to force the enemy rearguard back from its last positions on the eastern slopes of Vierstraat Ridge and Mount Kemmel. The main body of German troops was meanwhile completing the retreat to Wytschaete Ridge, dominating the valley and the lower slopes over which the American troops would have to advance. They moved from shell hole to shell hole and across abandoned trenches, but concealed nests of enemy snipers and machine guns still studded the valley floor and lower slopes, and there was great confusion on the left flank as two battalions of the 106th became badly mixed up.8

  When the regimental commander, Colonel Taylor, went forward to investigate, he reported that Major Hildreth, commanding the Third Battalion, had “entirely lost control and seemed at a loss as to what to do.”9 He relieved Hildreth of his command at once. Astonishingly, Hildreth was merely reprimanded and was restored to his position as battalion commander a few days later, though this must have been a reflection more of the regiment’s desperate and rapidly worsening shortage of officers than of any confidence in his abilities.

  At nightfall, the commanding officer of Company G reported that his men had suffered heavy casualties during the day, including the loss of nearly all their NCOs. He added that his men were “worn out and unfit for further service.”10 Nonetheless, they were required to resume the advance the next morning. Reports were also received that a number of patrols were still out in front. Their locations were unknown, and as a result, it was impossible to put down a further barrage for fear of hitting them. During the night, replacement supplies of water, food, and ammunition were brought forward to the troops, much of the food carried in burlap bags, but the firing line remained restless, and at 4:00 a.m., when the 105th Infantry began to move forward on the left flank of the 106th, a heavy German barrage came down on the whole line.

  During that night of September 1 through 2, Major Sidney G. de Kay, newly assigned to the 106th, had taken over command of the Second Battalion from its temporary commander, Captain Hetzel. As he took stock of the four companies under his new command, he found a somewhat dispiriting picture. Company E was somewhere on the south flank of the advance, though its exact location was unknown. Company G was in a trench, Company F was in shell holes, and the men of Company H were bringing up rations and ammunition.

  De Kay eventually located Company E in a section of trench. They were under constant machine-gun and sniper fire, had been so heavily shelled that they had lost many of their noncommissioned officers, and had wounded men with them whom they were unable to evacuate. De Kay’s orders were still to advance but, owing to the exhaustion of these and the other men under his command, and the heavy shell, shell-gas, machine-gun, and sniper fire, he resolved to continue the advance in small combat groups with automatic rifles and hand grenades, along each side of the sunken Vierstraat road toward the railroad track, where he could attempt to reorganize his men.

  At 6:00 a.m. on September 2, Major de Kay met the commander of H Company, First Lieutenant Lennox C. Brennan, on the firing line and ordered him to go over the top and push forward with his company for a thousand yards to the railroad track, then pause and reorganize before advancing a further eight hundred yards to their objective, a line from Purgatory to Northern Brickstack on the shoulder of Wytschaete Ridge. When Brennan asked upon whose authority de Kay was issuing these orders, he was told that the battalion had been “sorted out” and de Kay had been placed in command.11

  There had been no artillery preparation, nor was any covering barrage planned, and when Brennan told de Kay that a creeping barrage was essential if their men were to achieve their objectives, he was waved away: de Kay told him that there would be no barrage and no request for covering fire; they were late and had to push forward at once. The exhausted 106th resumed their advance alongside the 105th, but suffered losses as soon as they went over. Although they had advanced some way up Chinese Trench by 11:30 that morning, they were halted by heavy machine-gun fire. The enemy positions were too strongly held for them to advance farther. While his men dug in, Brennan moved forward to survey the ground between them and their objective. He concluded that there was no good line of defense at the designated objective and tried to impress upon Major de Kay the folly of moving the line from a defensible position into a valley where there was no field of fire and where they would be a sitting target for the German machine guns.12 This argument took place not in some debating chamber, but in a frontline trench with shell, shot, and shrapnel filling the air around them.

  Brennan was s
ent back to brief officers at regimental headquarters, where he discovered that the Third Battalion had also been “sorted out,” with Captain Sullivan taking over command at 8:50 that morning. The regimental commander phoned the brigade commander at noon requesting permission to dig in on the line of the first objective and await relief there, but permission was refused.13 Ordered to advance, his men finally occupied part of Chinese Trench and even advanced a little beyond it.

  De Kay and Captain Sullivan were now both claiming that it would be impossible to reach the objective; their units were seriously depleted by casualties, and the remaining men were exhausted and desperate for water and rations. However, Brennan, who had previously been urging caution, now told the regimental commander that with thorough artillery preparation and support he could reach and consolidate the objective line and clean up the intervening terrain.14 He was promptly given direct command of all that remained of the Second and Third Battalions and told to justify his claims.

  At zero hour—five o’clock that afternoon—a barrage was to be laid along the entire regimental front, with particularly intense fire on the Purgatory–Northern Brickstack section.15 Five minutes later the barrage would lift and creep forward, allowing the troops to advance. The barrage would continue on the enemy positions for a further hour, by which time the objective should have been taken and consolidated. Monk and his comrades in G Company were to engage and destroy the machine guns in the Purgatory–Northern Brickstack pocket while the remaining companies advanced on the objective.

  The men were all in their start positions at 4:45 p.m. Zero hour passed without any sign of the promised barrage; instead, at 5:15 p.m., a German barrage of high explosive and gas fell on them, so heavy it was almost impossible to move forward. Led by Lieutenant Archer, the men of Company G made progress during lulls in the shelling. Although “the rattle of the gang fighter’s automatic is only the faintest echo of the roar of battle,” Monk reveled in the fighting and close combat, setting the lead for his company as he had once done for his gang.16 “Crouched in a dugout while the barrage thundered above or creeping forward under machine gun fire,” Monk was “always cool and courageous.”