Buchanan, Company G, who, upon returning from an aid station after having his wounds dressed,
reached the German lines instead of our own, but succeeded in escaping and finding his own platoon
which he led with marked courage until wounded a second time. When darkness came the battalion had
reached the narrow-gauge railway running west through the woods from Côte 243. Lieutenant Thomas
E. Hazlett, Company E, had been killed shortly after the attack was launched. Captain Charles D.
Birkhead, Company F, and Lieutenant John S. LeClercq were wounded.
The 1st Battalion, which had moved forward to the right rear of the 2d Battalion, was in position
south of Andevanne at 4:30 P. M., when Major W. H. H. Morris, the commanding officer, received
orders to pass to the right of the 2d Battalion and seize Côte 243. Owing to the darkness it was
necessary for the battalion to advance by compass bearing. Shells from our own artillery, which had
been playing on the hill at intervals throughout the day, were bursting on Côte 243 when Major Morris
reached the foot of the wooded heights. As telephonic communication with regimental headquarters had
been maintained practically continuously, the artillery fire was soon stopped and the battalion moved up
the hill. Major Morris established his P. C. there about 8:00 P. M. Captain Gustav Dittmar, Captain
Mike Hogg, Lieutenant Lonus Read, and Lieutenant Robert Campbell were wounded during the
advance. In mopping up the hill the next morning, a battery of 77’s and two 105’s and fifteen
artillerymen, as well as the infantry officers, were captured. The guns were manned by our own artillery
and fired on the Germans, there being a plentiful supply of ammunition at hand.
The 1st Battalion, 359th Infantry, was subjected to an enemy heavy artillery barrage just as the
attack got under way. The advance proceeded rapidly, despite the machine gun fire which swept the
open ridges from the north, the intermediate objective being reached at 6 A. M. and the corps objective
at 9:30 A. M. During this advance Lieutenant Raymond A. Schoberth, Company B, was killed by a
shell fragment near Cheline Ravine. Early in the morning he had been wounded by a machine gun
bullet, but refused to give up. He was awarded the D. S. C. posthumously.
While organizing the line of the corps objective, which it was planned to hold against counter-
attacks during the night of November 1, the battalion suffered very heavily from artillery fire. Captain
John R. Burkett, Company C; Lieutenant Eugene C. Bell, Company B; and Lieutenant Eugene A.
Scanlon, Company D, were killed here.
The 1st Battalion was commanded by Major William R. Brown, who, as a captain, had served as
regimental operations officer during the St. Mihiel offensive. Captain George Knox, who had done
excellent work as regimental intelligence officer, was now operations officer.
During this advance the 2d Battalion had followed the 1st as support. Some casualties had been
suffered in passing through Bantheville and Bourrut, on which towns the enemy had laid down a thick
barrage; but the company officers, inspired by the example of Major Tom G. Woolen, the battalion
commander, led the men through without the slightest interruption of the regularity of the approach
formation. In the advance one platoon of Company F extended too far to the right and came under
machine gun fire. Two guns and their crews of four men each were speedily captured. Lieutenant
Vernon B. Zacher, commanding the platoon, was awarded the D. S. C.
At 1:30 P. M. the 2d Battalion passed through the 1st and continued the advance toward
Chassogne Farm. The farm itself offered no resistance, as the artillery had played havoc with it; but, on
reaching this crest, the battalion found itself under machine gun fire from all sides. Darkness found the
battalion’s outposts along the Aincreville-Villers-devant-Dun road, at the edge of the triangular woods
north of Aincreville. Patrols brought back the information that the enemy was falling back toward
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