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For the 
Men on the Ground

Erwin Bleckley & Harold Goettler
and the

 Lost Battalion of WWI 

Like the knights of old, the new Knights of the Skies were fiercely independent, notably courageous, and admirably chivalrous.  Such chivalry was evident in their respect for the greatest among them, whether friend or foe.  The impressive military funeral the British, French and American fliers gave their most dangerous enemy, the infamous Red Baron, illustrates that these men respected the qualities of skill, cunning, courage and aerial ability in even those they sought daily to battle with and destroy.

Also like the knights of old, these Knights of the Skies served with great empathy for the less fortunate, ever standing ready to defend them against all odds.  It was to become a tradition that would mark the valiant service of American aviators, as well as those of other nations, through many wars to follow over the next century.

By the twentieth century, dragons were known to be mythological, but modern weapons had advanced to the point that the ancient Knights of the Roundtable might have easily confused the big guns of the artillery or large tanks belching streams of deadly fire as a new breed of fire-breathing dragon.  Damsels in distress may have been a rarity on the battlefields of the Western Front, but as pilots took off from their aerodromes each day to fly over the trenches in search of enemy planes, it did not take them long to realize that there was no shortage of distress.  Perhaps one of the best glimpses of the impact the sight of ground warfare had upon the minds of an aviator, can be found in an account of 27th Aero Squadron Commander Major Harold Hartney's visit to the front lines with soon-to-be Ace of Aces, Frank Luke.

In the days after the August 1 air battle that cost Hartney six planes out of an 18-plane patrol, he assumed his dubious task of visiting the front lines to search for survivors or salvageable aircraft from the battle.  In his subsequent book Up and at 'Em, he described some of the events of that trip:

The first time I really took much of an interest in him (Lieutenant Frank Luke) was about three days after I had lost six of my officers and Don Hudson had shot down two Rumplers carrying four men on Aug. 1, 1918.  I had already been up to the lines to see if I could find any of my boys.  That first day I could not get any farther than Villers Cotterets, not far from our small advance airdrome, although farther north, and had to return by foot and freight train via Paris. A couple of days later Luke came to my tent and said, "Major, Lt. Clapp (Luke's flight commander) says it's all right for me to go up with you this morning if you can take me." I shall never forget that journey.  Frank, one enlisted man and I went along in my Packard. On this trip he talked freely of his days on the plains back home, of incidents of his training, of his ambition to be an outstanding flier.  He was extremely serious always. Walking to the top of a hill we found the two German planes Hudson had brought down.  The two pilots and their observers were still there, their faces black, the summer sun getting in its rapid work.  One of them had on very light patent leather low shoes.  This impressed Luke.  "Wonder where he was the night before,"  he murmured.  Rumor had it among the ground troops that one of the Germans was a girl, but this was not true. Three hundred yards farther we came to the top of another knoll and looked down the other side, a smooth space of about a hundred acres.  Never have my eyes rested on such a sight.  May they never again behold one like it.  The hill was literally covered with dead men, side by side, head to head, little or no space between, practically all of them American doughboys.  They had died in droves charging German machine gun nests left behind to cover the retreat.  Right in front of us were a German and an American who had actually pierced each other with their bayonets and neither bayonet had been withdrawn. Frank stooped over and picked up some unmailed postal cards fallen from a pocket of one of the dead boys.  The one on top was addressed to his mother out in Iowa. "Leave them there," I said.  "That American padre over there is busy picking up such things to send back to the next of kin." Carefully and reverently, Luke replaced the cards in the pocket of the dead Yankee.   "Boy!" he exclaimed.  "I'm glad I'm not in the infantry.  They haven't a chance, have they Major."

 

No one can say for certain what impact Frank Luke's visit to the front lines had on his subsequent rise to become America's Ace of Aces.  Luke certainly would have become the great Balloon Buster had he NOT seen that battlefield early on, driven to attack them by the sheer fact that they were the greatest challenge to any airman.  But perhaps to some degree, upon seeing the devastation wreaked upon soldiers of the ground, and in the knowledge that observation balloons contributed materially to such carnage, it gave him an added determination.  We do know that, during his brief stint as the Balloon Buster, he became a friend and hero to the infantrymen on the ground.

Of a truth, ground combat was no more dangerous than aerial combat.  One of the best ways for a young man to become a combat casualty was to become an airman.  But when the dogfight was over and the tracers had ended, the victorious pilot could fly back to his aerodrome to eat in a mess hall and sleep in tent, while the infantryman struggled to sleep through a miserable night in a rain-soaked trench or "funk hole".

The sheer brutality of combat in World War I is perhaps most evident in the casualties sustained.  During World War II some 16 million Americans served, suffering more than 1 million casualties, 408,306 of which were battle deaths over four years.  During the three year Korean War nearly 55,000 Americans were killed in action, and during the 14 years of American combat action in Vietnam, more than 58,000 Americans were killed in action.

While the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) arrived in Europe in June 1917, there was little combat action for the doughboys until the German offensive in the spring of 1918.  From the closing days of May until the Armistice on November 11th, U.S. Forces suffered more than 100,000 battle deaths, and more than 200,000 wounded in action.  That translates into more than 300,000 casualties among a force of 1.2 million soldiers, in a period of only six months.  

After decisive victories at Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry and the Belleau Wood to halt the Spring Offensive and push the German forces backwards, the 1st US Army under General John J. Blackjack Pershing launched the St. Mihiel offensive on September 12.  Within 24 hours the German salient on the right bank of the Meuse River fell, eliminating a long-standing threat to the Allied line.  More than a half-million American soldiers and airmen participated in the encounter.  At the cost of 7,000 casualties they captured 16,000 Germans, 443 artillery pieces, and created a new threat to the enemy stronghold at Metz.

The results of these four major actions as well as British, Australian and French ground fighting primarily in the north of France, had pushed the Germans all the way back to their first line of defense.  In the north this virtually impregnable system of trenches, bunkers, and barbed wire barricades was known as the Hindenburg Line.  Built in 1916-17 under Paul von Hindenburg and his quartermaster general Erich von Ludendorff, the well-fortified line stretched from Arras in the north to St. Quentin, and eastward into Belgium.  This line of defense was further extended by the dense Argonne Forest that lay between the Aisne and Meuse Rivers.

The Meuse-Argonne Campaign

Though labeled a "forest", the Argonne could probably be more appropriately called a "jungle".  Stretching from the Belgian frontier to Verdun, it comprises a region of northern France about 44 miles long and with an average width of 10 miles.  Elevations average over 1,000 feet, but this average is difficult to compute because the area is ruggedly laid out in a series of deep valleys and sheer cliffs that rise to become high mountains.  The entire region is heavily forested over a blanket of dense brush.

Throughout three years of warfare, German forces had supplemented the natural barrier of the Argonne with elaborate concrete and steel bunkers, some so advanced as to contain electricity and modern furnishings.  Machine gun emplacements had been built up with concrete and timber to withstand the most formidable of assaults, then carefully camouflaged to enable them to catch any advancing foe by surprise.  The valleys and ravines were strewn with barbed wire, logs, and other man-made obstacles.  When the Spring Offensive failed, the German forces were able to retreat to an area into which only a foolish enemy would dare to advance.

On September 22, following the highly successful St. Mihiel Offensive, General Pershing reluctantly moved his 1st Army into the Argonne sector.  Four days later the American line, consisting of the Ist, IIId, and Vth Corps, stretched nearly 20 miles from Regneville-Sur-Meuse to La Harazee in the Argonne Forest above the Biesme River.  Nine divisions formed the front line with three held in reserve.  West of the Aisne River and on to the East of the doughboys were French troops, now under U.S. Command, poised to attack the German fortress.  Opposing them was  the German Fifth Army with eight divisions, part of the German Third Army, and enemy commanders had at least eight divisions in reserve.

With British and Australian forces attacking the Hindenburg line in the north while French forces assaulted the middle, the AEF was divided between the two sectors.  Pershing wasn't happy to have more than one million doughboys involved on two lines separated by some 60 miles, but followed orders to poise the forces under his command to enter the Argonne Forest.  Allied military planners hoped that this Autumn offensive would continue to push the Germans, still reeling from their earlier losses, out of their sanctuary before winter set it.  If that could be accomplished, the Allies would mount their own Spring Offensive the following year and hopefully bring the war to an end.  Even the most optimistic tacticians would never have dreamed that in six weeks the campaign would be so successful as to result in Armistice on November 11.

Phase One

The great Allied offensive that ultimately ended the war within six weeks began on the morning of September 26, and was actually conducted in three phases.  The first phase (September 26 - October 1) drove a salient about 7 miles deep into enemy positions in front of the Hindenburg line.  The one blemish on the first four days of advance was along the Argonne region, where the 1st Army struggled not only against the German forces, but against the rugged terrain and inhospitable weather.

On the left flank of the 1st Army's front along the Argonne was the 77th Infantry Division, better known as New York's Own.  Organized at Camp Upton, Yaphank, New York on August 25, 1917, most of its 23,000 men were citizens-turned-soldier as a result of the Selective Service Act of the same year.  Ultimately, the Draft would call to service 2.5 million men between the ages of 18 and 30 during World War I.  As such, the men who were holding the left flank of the American assault on the Argonne Forest were former Manhattan taxi drivers, Bronx tailors, Brooklyn factory workers, Wall Street executives, and first generation immigrants.

The bright blue patch bearing the image of New York Harbor's most famous lady, the Statue of Liberty, earned the division another nickname that would endure through World War II.  The 77th Infantry became known as the Liberty Division, and was the first Army division to arrive in France in the quest to shine the light of the torch of liberty in war-torn Europe.

While the Liberty Division held the left flank of the First Army's assault, its component 308th Infantry Regiment held the left flank of the Division.  First Battalion, 308th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division was commanded by 33-year-old Major Charles Whittlesey, a most unlikely citizen-soldier.

Born in Florence, Wisconsin, the be-speckled Whittlesey graduated from high school in Pittsfield, Massachusetts where his classmates voted him "the third brightest man in the Class of 1905".  After high school young Charles attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1908.  Whittlesey was practicing law in New York when he was called to active duty in August 1917 and ordered to report to Camp Upton.   After three months of training and an OCS (Officers' Candidate School) commission, he was sent to Europe where he first served with Headquarters Company of the 308th.  When a three-hour artillery barrage signaled the start of the Meuse-Argonne offensive at 2:30 a.m. on September 26, Major Whittlesey prepared to lead his battalion of citizen soldiers into the German lair.  In the process the 1st Battalion, 308th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division would lose its official identity to become forever, and erroneously labeled:

 The Lost Battalion of World War I 

 

THE FIRST POCKET

At 5:45 a.m. the 308th Infantry began the ground assault in their area of the Argonne region near the town of Binarville.  To their right was the rest of the 77th Division and the bulk of Pershing's 1st Army.  On the left flank was the 38th French Corps and the 368th Infantry of the 92nd (Rainbow) Division.  During the first day's advance the 1st and 2nd Battalions crossed a large number of enemy trench systems.  For the most part, resistance was light except for Company A which encountered an enemy force about a mile southwest of Binarville, resulting in 8 Americans killed, 23 wounded.  As night fell, the men of the 308th dug in and tried to keep warm against the oncoming chill of winter.  To facilitate the advance into the Argonne, the infantrymen had been ordered to travel light, leaving behind their winter garments and wool coats.

Of that first night of the offensive Major Whittlesey later wrote, "we found mineral water in bottles in the German dugouts, so it might have been worse."  The 308th had advanced a quarter-mile during the day, achieving the Corps objective, a marshy area north of the German third line of trenches.  Unknown to them during their advance, as they had moved dangerously into enemy territory, their own left flank had been unprotected.  The 368th Infantry had been withdrawn, and further flanking cover was would fall to the French.

The advance resumed at 1 p.m. on September 27 with Whittlesey's First Battalion leading the way.  Company A again ran into a deadly hail of fire that decimated their ranks, resulting in twelve men killed, eighteen wounded, and four missing.  In the first two days of fighting, the 205-man company was reduced to 144 doughboys led by a single surviving officer.  Casualties mounted among the other companies as well, and 2nd Battalion under Major Ken Budd was rushed to the front of the American lines. 

At regimental headquarters during that day, Colonel Prescott was relieved and command of the 808th Infantry Regiment was transferred to Lieutenant Colonel Fred E. Smith, a likable leader who had entered the service from Bartlett, North Dakota.  Smith had previously ingratiated himself to the men of the regiment by smuggling in a quantity of grape marmalade, which he sold to the men at cost to provide some dessert for their otherwise bland died of field rations.

By nightfall, despite increased enemy resistance, the 308th had advanced nearly a quarter of a mile further into enemy territory, with orders to continue at 5:30 a.m. the following morning.

Despite the orders to continue the advance, September 29th dawned with some good news.  The first field rations in two days arrived, even as some units were moving out.  As the half-starved men turned to welcome the needed breakfast, German observers noted the activity and opened fire in what the veterans of the regiment later called the "Cruller Barrage".  The commander of Company B recorded in his official report:  "Bacon, butter, bread, and a one pound cannon barrage from the Germans, which wounds Corporal Spahr."  Despite the irony of being shelled upon receiving their first ration detail in two days, the day would only get worse.

Moving into ever more-dense forest, the advance companies found themselves frequently separated and confused.  Enemy trench mortars halted the advance of the assault for hours, and Company A suffered two more soldiers killed, eleven wounded, and one man missing.  Company D had been reduced to but two fighting platoons, and enemy resistance throughout the region had wreaked such a toll on the 308th in the first three days that beyond the three battalion commanders and Major Whittlesey's adjutant, no battalion officers remained.  Non-coms were forced to lead entire companies of infantrymen, now devoid of company-grade officers, and every unit was suffering from being under strength to the task at hand. 

By nightfall, the 1st and 2nd Battalions realized that their exposed left flank had been filled by the Germans, and communications had been cut off to Headquarters.  Major Budd of the 2nd Battalion watched as elements of B and E company came under fire in an exposed ravine from an enemy machine gun, and ordered their withdrawal while covering the retreat with his pistol.  Most of his doughboys settled in near a railway in the valley to dig funk holes to try and survive the night.

Companies A, C, F, and H had advanced under Major Whittlesey to an area only a half-mile southeast of Binerville before digging in for the night.  Despite the chill, the men welcomed the rain that came that night.  Many of them having gone without a proper ration of drinking water for nearly four days.  By daybreak the rain had become a curse, filling the funk holes and turning the trenches into a field of mud.

From the night of September 28 until October 1, most of the First and Second Battalions were well ahead of the rest of the advance, dug in to find shelter from the now heavy enemy fire, and suffering from a lack of rations and ammunition.  To make matters worse, their runner lines were cut off by the German infiltration, requiring them to communicate with headquarters by carrier pigeon.  Though the subsequent isolation of October 3-7 would mark them the Lost Battalion and their tenuous position labeled The Pocket, survivors later spoke of The First Pocket (the position from September 29 - October 1) and The Second Pocket, the later incident.  History has often confused the two separate incidents.

Runner Lines and Carrier Pigeons As in any war, communication was essential to the advances of any unit during World War I.  Before the advent of radio communication, transmissions of tactical information between headquarters units was left to telegraphed messages, or even more rudimentary means.  Military units on the advance, as was the case with the leading battalions of the 308th Infantry, could not reasonably establish telegraph lines back to headquarters, so messages were normally passed through RUNNER LINES. As the infantry commander moved his front lines forward, runner posts were established at intervals to relay messages from the commanders at the front to the headquarters in the rear, much as a track team passes the baton in a relay race.  It was an effective means of two-way communications unless, as happened during the night of September 28, the enemy was able to surround the advance element and break the runner line. Even more rudimentary was the back-up method of communication, sending messages by carrier pigeon.  An advancing unit during World War I often carried some of these small birds, trained to fly back to their coop upon release.  When a message couldn't be sent by runner line, the field commander would write his message, fold it neatly into a small canister attached to the leg of one of his pigeons, and release the bird to fly home. Back at the pigeon's coop an intricate system of wires were rigged to sound a buzzer any time a bird returned home.  The coop-keeper would remove the message from the canister, then pass it on by messenger or telegraph, to the appropriate headquarters. On the morning of September 29 Major Budd and Major Whittlesey sent four such carrier pigeons with messages to headquarters.  One of them summed up the situation: "Our line of communication with the rear still cut at 12:30 p.m. by machine guns.  We are going to clean out one of these guns now.  From a wounded German officer prisoner, we learned that there is a German Company of 70 men operating in our rear, to close up the gap we made yesterday.  We can of course clean up this country to the rear, by working our companies over the ground we charged.  But we understand our mission is to advance, and to maintain our strength here.  It is very slow trying to clean up this rear area from here by small details when this trickling back of machine guns can be used by the enemy.  Can a line of communication not be kept open from the rear?  We have been unable to send back detail for rations and ammunition, both of which we need very badly."

Back at headquarters Lieutenant Colonel Smith read the message from Whittlesey and Budd with mixed emotions:  concern for their tenuous situation - surrounded by enemy forces, and admiration at their determination to comply with orders to continue the advance and trust the reserve elements to mop up their now enemy infested rear.  Quickly he assembled a small detachment of ten men, two officers, and some runners to carry messages.  With them the element carried ammunition to resupply the beleaguered forward battalions, and the regimental commander himself led them to the anticipated rescue.

The soldier acting as a guide for Smith's squad-sized relief force believed he was leading the element directly into the forward element's position, when in fact he became confused and wandered deep into the enemy-infested left flank.  The first sign of trouble came when a German machine gun opened up from a distance of only 50 yards.

Shouting for his men to take cover, Lieutenant Colonel Smith ordered his men to fall back and take cover, while boldly drawing his pistol to fire on the enemy gun crew.  Hot lead opened a hole in the regimental commander's side and he staggered for a moment, severely wounded, then regained his footing.  Despite the pain, he continued to fire at the enemy position until most of his party had reached safety.

Realizing the hidden enemy gun posed a dangerous threat to his command, Lieutenant Colonel Smith refused first aid for his wounds.  Working his way to a hand grenade dump he armed himself, then returned in full view of the enemy to single-handedly attack the menacing position.  Before he could locate it, enemy fire again tore into his body.  For his courageous leadership that day, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Smith was subsequently awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, the first of five for the men of the 308th Infantry Regiment, and the second to be earned by a member of the Liberty Division.  (Farther north in the attack on the Hindenburg Line, nine other American soldiers earned Medals of Honor on this day.  To the south of where Lieutenant Colonel Smith's body lay, an eleventh Medal of Honor was earned in support of the offensive into the Argonne Forest when Lieutenant Frank Luke destroyed three enemy balloons before vanishing into history.)

Back in The First Pocket, Majors Budd and Whittlesey struggled to maintain the morale of their now starving battalions in the face of almost certain doom.  One of their company commanders refused to let the situation ruin his own sense of humor.  Captain George McMurtry enticed his men with suggestions of:  "How would you like to have a good thick rare steak smothered in onions and some French fried potatoes?"

One month shy of his 41st birthday at the advent of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Captain George McMurtry could well be described as an "old war horse".  Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was a Harvard graduate. At the age of 22 he enlisted in the Army at New York to serve in Troop D of Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt's famous Rough Riders, with whom he made the legendary charge on San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War.  As a young enlisted man, McMurtry became a career soldier who worked his way up through the ranks, then obtained a commission when the Army established its first Officer Candidate Schools in May of 1917.  Described as a big, burly, Irish-American with a ruddy face who seemed to always be of good cheer, McMurtry was one of the most experienced officers of the 308th Infantry Regiment who easily acquiesced to the orders of those above him despite his greater degree of military experience.

Captain McMurtry's sense of humor and overt optimism was sorely needed during the three days of survival in The First Pocket.  Relief finally arrived on the afternoon of September 30.  Captain Delehanty and Lieutenant Conn guided Company K through down a narrow path to bring supplies to the beleaguered forward elements of Major Whittlesey and Major Budd.  It was the same day that Major Budd departed for the General Staff College at Langres, and Captain McMurtry was assigned to command 2nd Battalion, 308th Infantry.  Major Whittlesey later wrote:

"Lt. Taylor came up with a lot of rations and a big carrying detail.  (It) looked 'practically O.K.,' as George McMurtry put it.  And everybody ate!  That night I went back to Regl. Advance Hdqrs.-which had been moved forward in the woods.  It was the blackest night I've ever seen and I had to be passed on from reserve post to post holding the hand of each successive guide.  And I'll never forget going into the Hqrs. dugout and getting warm for the first time, and seeing Frank Weld's genial face.  Cocoa, cigars.  Then back to the Bn. again, which I found with great difficulty in the darkness.

"Orders were to advance at daybreak."

Advance they did, directly into enemy fire and more tragedy.  Lieutenant Scott led his Company A in one assault, becoming one of nine men killed this day.  By nightfall, no living officer remained to command the company, and of the 205 men who had comprised Company A when the assault began on September 26, only 106 remained.

Phase Two

The first phase of the offensive against the German lines in the Western Front closed on a highly successful note.  In heavy fighting the British, Australians, French and American soldiers in Northern France had breached the foreboding Hindenburg line and stood poised to break it completely.  The only dismal reports reaching Allied headquarters seemed to be those coming from the Argonne region.  Phase Two (October 4 - 16), was set to begin.  General Robert Alexander, commander of the 77th Infantry Division had decided it would begin with his doughboys already turning the tide in the enemy-infested forest.  He ordered a three-prong assault directly into the middle of the Argonne, with the 308th Infantry Regiment pushing through a gap in the German lines on the left flank of the American front.  "My orders were quite positive and precise," he wrote in his official record of the Argonne-Meuse operations for the 77th Division.  "The objective was to be gained without regard to losses and without regard to the exposed condition of the flanks.  I considered it most important that this advance should be made and accepted the responsibility and the risk involved in the execution of the orders given."

At 10 a.m. on October 2 Major Whittlesey received his orders.  Together with McMurtry's 2nd Battalion, he was to proceed through the gap in the German defensive line towards the ravine along the Charlevaux Creek and take up a position below the east-west La Viergette-Moulin de Charlevaux road and the railroad track that paralleled it.  Orders were precise, the objective was to be taken that day, regardless of casualties, and regardless of whether or not the anticipated protection on the left flank by the French forces materialized.  Remembering the earlier tragedy when flank support broke down and his doughboys were trapped for three days in The First Pocket, Major Whittlesey protested:

    "Well, I don't know if you'll hear from us again."    

 
Help From Above:

The 50th Aero Squadron

Not all of the pilots of World War I aviation were flamboyant, one-man fighting forces.  The glamour boys were certainly the men who took to the clouds to dogfight with enemy airplanes, record a tally of victories, and claim the title "Ace".  Of no lesser importance however, despite the rather mundane nature of their work, were the pilots who flew to watch friendly troop movements, observe and report on enemy positions, and map terrain for those planning the tactics of ground warfare.

One of these observation units was the 50th Aero Squadron.  Mustered at Kelly Field on August 6, 1917, the squadron was working under the 130th Field Artillery and flying out of its aerodrome at Remicourt near Verdun.  The squadron adopted the image of a Dutch girl, painting it on the sides of their DH-4 airplanes.

The squadron conducted its missions from two-seat bi-planes designed by British Captain Geoffrey de Haviland and designated as the DH-4.  The American version was a hardy airplane, well constructed behind a powerful 400-hp Liberty engine with a top speed of 128 miles per hour.  Two forward firing, synchronized Marlin machine guns and two swivel mounted Lewis machine guns provided both offensive and defensive fire power.  The pilot flew in the forward cockpit with his observer behind.  Between the two open cockpits, directly in the line of fire from attacking airplanes or ground fire, lay the fuel tank.  It was perhaps, the only major design flaw in the sturdy airplane, but so fatal a flaw that the DH-4 was labeled the Flaming Coffin by the men who flew it.

The tenuous situation of the Lost Battalion resulted in requests for support from the 50th Aero Squadron.  Initially the aircraft flew observation or dropped messages, but on the morning of October 6 the squadron's DH-4 engines warmed for something previously unheard of in military aviation.  On this day pilots of the 50th Aero Squadron would attempt the first air-drop in the history of U.S. military aviation, in efforts to resupply the battered and starving men tucked helplessly into a pocket of the slope above Charlevaux Creek.

 

Lt. Harold Goettler
and
Lt. Erwin Bleckley

 

First Lieutenant Harold Goettler banked the wings of his DH-4 and pointed it towards the foreboding terrain of the Argonne Forest.  The 28-year old Chicago native had enlisted in the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army fourteen months earlier, earning his wings and joining the 50th Aero Squadron in France less than two months earlier.  Behind him sat Second Lieutenant Erwin Bleckley.  During the same month in 1917 that Goettler had enlisted in the Army, Bleckley had been commissioned a second lieutenant in the National Guard of his own home state of Kansas.  

Lieutenant Bleckley had arrived in France in March of 1918 as a member of the 130th Field Artillery.  When the new US Army Air Service sent out a call for artillery officers willing to volunteer for observer's school at Tours, Bleckley had raised his hand, earned the single right wing of an aircraft observer, and joined the 50th Aero Squadron on August 14th.

Goettler had piloted his first combat mission during the opening of the St. Mihiel Offensive on September 12th with Bleckley seated behind him.  Over the following weeks, the two men operated as a team in the air, performing their usually mundane observation missions in the region.  Today, things were different.  The DH-4 carried a number of small, tightly bound parcels.  The mission was to fly into the enemy's lair within the Argonne forest, drop low across the ravine bisected by Charlevaux Creek, and drop the badly needed supplies to the waiting arms of a lost battalion of doughboys below.

From the heights of the heavens, the rugged mountains and valleys of the Argonne Forest began to loom ahead.   Goettler eased up on the stick and dropped the nose of his airplane to descend lower.  Soon small white clouds could be seen coming from the trees as the enemy turned his weapons on the advancing DH-4.  With a sharp eye, Goettler located the ravine through which the Charlevaux Creek wended its way, parallel a dirt road and railroad track.  Enemy bullets swarmed past his head and tore through the canvas and plywood body of his airplane, but Lieutenant Goettler ignored the danger to reduce airspeed as he dropped even lower into the Argonne.  Behind him Lieutenant Bleckley scanned the broken forest for some sign of the Lost Battalion.

Though the general location of Whittlesey's pocket was known because of the messages sent out by carrier pigeon, the forest and the terrain hid the desperate doughboys from view.  In moments the DH-4 was climbing out the other side of the ravine, and no sign of the American force had been noted.

Glancing to either side, Goettler noted the torn canvas of his airplane's wings.  He had taken a brutal beating on the first pass, but the sturdy de Haviland had weathered the storm, and no rounds had found the airplane's Achilles heel between the two cockpits.  Determined to deliver the badly needed food and ammunition, the intrepid pilot banked for a second pass.  Coming in even lower this time, he was dangerously exposed to not only ground fire below, but to ground fire from the high sides of the ravine towering above him.  He was virtually caught in a deadly cross fire from three directions: from both sides of the ravine as well as from overhead.  Still he ignored the threat, reducing airspeed and flying at nearly tree-top level while Lieutenant Bleckley leaned from his exposed rear cockpit to drop the neatly tied parcels in the general vicinity of the dirt road, where they knew Whittlesey's men waited.

The first pass of Goettler's DH-4 had been five hundred feet above the valley floor.  On the second pass he had dropped to a dangerous 300 feet, while enemy fire literally ripped his airplane to shreds.  Having dropped parcels but not having located Whittlesey's pocket, he banked for a third pass, this time skimming tree-tops at less than two hundred feet.  Bleckley continued to drop parcels until the last of them had fallen into what he hoped was the range of Whittlesey's men.  With wind whipping through the thin wires that held their DH-4 together, the two men returned to the aerodrome.  There were more than 40 holes in the airplane, two of them large gashes ripped by large pieces of enemy shrapnel.  While mechanics worked feverishly to repair the aircraft, other pilots of the 50th Aero Squadron flew out on similar missions.

Throughout the afternoon the ravine was filled with the roar of the big 400-hp Liberty engines and the crash of small arms and machinegun fire.  Fourteen missions were flown before the afternoon was spent.  Two DH-4s were shot down and crashed in no-man's land, and a third limped back to the aerodrome with its bloody pilot struggling to keep his airplane aloft long enough to reach safety.  As shadows began to creep across the eastern horizon, dozens of small bundles lay scattered across the ravine, but no pilot had as yet made visual contact with the Lost Battalion.  They could only hope that their best guesses had placed the bundles near enough that some could be recovered.

The mechanics had finished making temporary repairs to the battered DH-4 of Lieutenants Goettler and Bleckley, and the two men volunteered to make one more trip to the ravine before darkness fell.  Lieutenant Goetler planned to fly even lower than before, intentionally drawing enemy fire in hopes of locating the hidden pocket by simple process of elimination.  Then Bleckley would be able to drop the packages directly into the midst of the starving soldiers.    "Sir," Goettler informed Lieutenant Dan Morse before taking off on the final flight of the day, "Erv and I have decided we're going to find that bunch of doughboys or die trying."

Half an hour later, Major Whittlesey, Captain McMurtry, Lieutenant Holderman, and the demoralized men of the Lost Battalion witnessed one of the most amazing air shows in history.  From a distance they heard the roar of yet another Liberty engine as the DH-4 approached.  Slowly the roar grew louder, drowning out even the crash of the heavy enemy barrage.  Wings vibrating against the laws of aerodynamics, struts whining against the whipping wind, Lieutenant Goettler was running the gauntlet so low at times it seemed the large DH-4 would actually touch ground.  Fighting the stick, the airplane would rise just in time to clear a tall tree, then drop on the other side to scour the terrain for any signs of the Americans.  From time to time as he skillfully navigated the ravine, Goettler strafed enemy positions with his forward Marlin machine guns.  Behind him, Lieutenant Bleckley ignored the whine of enemy fire zipping past his exposed torso to carefully sketch out the enemy positions.  By mapping these, it was becoming much easier to locate the one spot in the ravine devoid of incoming fire.  That had to be location of The Pocket.

Nearing the far side of the ravine, Goettler pulled back sharply on the stick to clear the slopes, then banked for a second pass.  To run the gauntlet again seemed sheer suicide, but perhaps with one more pass he could enable Bleckley to finish his map and pinpoint the Lost Battalion.  Shadows were starting to creep across the floor of the ravine and the DH-4 dropped into the valley of death one more time.  The forest literally blinked with the flashes of tracer rounds, and a pall of spent gun powder hung low to obscure  the terrain.  Still Lieutenant Goettler stayed his course.

Enemy machine gun fire shattered the windscreen, and then the instrument panel disintegrated before Lieutenant Goettler's eyes in a hail of incoming bullets.  Behind him Lieutenant Bleckley's Lewis gun fell silent and the young soldier, formerly of the Kansas National Guard, slumped in his seat.  With blood flowing unchecked from his own ruptured body, Goettler pulled back on the stick, gripping it tightly lest it slip from his bloody hands, and headed over the ridge to the west.  Moments later the battered airship pancaked with a loud crash in front of the French lines, and slid sideways to a halt.  

Surprised French infantrymen raced to the scene of the crash.  "Ces aviateurs--ils sont morts!" shouted the first to arrive..."Both aviators are dead!"  Quickly they set about removing the bodies for fear the airplane would burst into flames.  The pilot was indeed dead, yet somehow the airplane had "landed itself".  The legend of the Lost Battalion was soon supplemented by the legend of the Ghost Plane.

As the French pulled the body of Lieutenant Bleckley from the rear cockpit, they found he was still breathing, though quite shallowly.  Somehow the intrepid observer mustered the strength to press a piece of paper into a nearby hand before he died.  When the paper was neatly pressed out it contained the detailed map of enemy positions in the ravine, and the most accurate estimate of the Lost Battalion's location since they had entered the ravine.

For the incredible courage demonstrated that day by the pilot of a lumbering DH-4 and his back-seat observer, Lieutenants Bleckley and Goettler were awarded posthumous Medals of Honor, joining the ranks of World War I's two greatest American Aces, Frank Luke and Eddie Rickenbacker.  In the air, no mission was ever routine, and no aerial specialty mundane.

Upon being relieved after the 5-day ordeal above Charlevaux Brook, Major Whittlesey was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.  He was promptly submitted for the Medal of Honor, and in turn recommended both Captain McMurtry and Lieutenant Holderman for Medals of Honor as well.  Whittlesey and McMurtry's awards were announced on December 2, 1918. 

Following the November 11th Armistice, many of the doughboys returned home in time for Christmas, Lietuenant Colonel Whittlesey himself arriving back in his home state for the holidays.  On Christmas Day a ceremony was held on Boston Common, and the Medal of Honor pinned to the tunic of the mild-mannered, New York attorney.  It was the first Medal of Honor of World War I to be presented to a member of the United States Army.  Lieutenant Holderman's Medal of Honor was announced in War Department Orders two years later.

The story of the Lost Battalion became perhaps the most talked about and written about event of World War I, growing more sensational with each retelling.  Sadly, the bare facts alone were sufficient to inspire.  Americans have always sought for heroes, and Charles Whittlesey was hesitantly thrust into that role.  But, as surely as we need heroes to inspire us, a sad fact of human nature is that heroes also inspire jealousy and often resentment.  Yesterday's hero, all too often becomes today's whipping boy.

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Whittlesey was honorably discharged from the United States Army the day before his Medal of Honor was announced.  He attempted to return to the practice of law, but the legend of the Lost Battalion would not let him go.  There were rumors and innuendo that Whittlesey was himself, personally responsible for the tragedy.  Some pointed to the minor error in the map coordinates he had sent back by carrier pigeon, others claimed the unit had been trapped only because the Major had overzealously pushed his soldiers ahead of all others.  The fact that Major Whittlesey had simply followed orders to the letter, no more and no less, or that the general location of The Pocket was well known in headquarters, could not stop these sad rumors.  

In 1921 the reluctant hero boarded the S.S. Toloa, a vacation liner to Cuba, to escape the war that wouldn't end from him.  During the voyage he penned a letter bequeathing the original copy of the German surrender request written by Lieutenant Prinz to his friend, George McMurtry.  He left his Cross of the Legion of Honor to his closest friend, former classmate at Harvard, and law partner J. Bayard Pruyn.  On November 27, 1921 Charles Whittlesey finally completed his escape from The Pocket of a steep slope in the Argonne Forest when he leaped from the rail of the S.S. Toloa and vanished forever in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. 

Sources:

Cooke, Donald E., For Conspicuous Gallantry, C.S. Hammond and Co., 1966
Hartney, Harold E., Up and at 'Em, Ayer Company Publishing, 1979
Hopper, James, Medals of Honor, John Day Company, New York, 1929
Johnson, Thomas M. and Pratt, Fletcher, The Lost Battalion, 1927
McCollum, Lee Charles (Buck Private), History and Rhymes of the Lost Battalion, 1919
Miles, Capt. L. Wardlaw, History of the 308th Infantry 1917-1919, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1927
Schott, Joseph L., Above and Beyond, The Story of the Congressional Medal of Honor, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1963
Shirreffs, Captain Gordon D., They Met Danger, Whitman Publishing Company, Racine, WI, 1960

The following websites contain online versions of some of the above sources and/or contain other material that is highly recommended for further study: History of the 308th Infantry Purchase the 2001 Video Story of THE LOST BATTALION Starring Rick Schroder as  Major Whittlesey Click on picture the picture at left to order from Amazon.com History and Rhymes of the Lost Battalion The Doughboy Center The Lost Battalion

Part I Wings of Valor Home Page Introduction The Balloon Buster For The Men on the Ground Ace of Aces Billy Mitchell's Aerial Armada Fight for Survival Court Martial of Billy Mitchell Charles Lindbergh A Different Kind of Hero Older Heroes In a Brand New War

All the above pages can now be printed as a single MS WORD or Adobe PDF file in a single, full-color book complete with attractive cover, Table of Contents and appendixes.  To go to our download page, click on the book cover below. Part II World War Two Coming in Summer 2006 Part III US Air Force