The 2d Battalion, 314th Field Artillery, was designated to fire on targets of opportunity and
surprise. It was pulled by drag-ropes into the northern edge of the Bois des Rappes, and there awaited
its chances. But the fog and smoke so completely obscured all observation that the battalion could
render but little service.
Colonel William Tidball, who succeeded Colonel Welsh in command of the brigade,
commanded the heavy regiment, the 315th Field Artillery. In addition to the organic units of the 155th
Field Artillery Brigade, the 16th Field Artillery and the 250th R. A. C. P. (French) were under the
divisional artillery commander.
Before the action Captain Francis Tweddell of the 305th Ammunition Train organized a detail of
twenty-four men to handle captured guns. Of the thirty-two guns captured, four 77’s were used against
the enemy, firing a total of 226 rounds, and two 105-mm. guns, firing a total of 275 rounds. A battery of
105’s put in operation on the heights south of Mont-devant-Sassey was given the name of
“Hindenburg.” The principal difficulty found by Captain Tweddell was that the guns had been stripped
of their sights or disabled by the retiring enemy, or that there was no transport available to haul them
into range.
As in the St. Mihiel operation, the gas troops were unable to be of great service. Company F, 1st
Gas Regiment, attached to the 90th Division, installed four 4-inch Stokes mortars in the northern edge of
Bois de Bantheville and twenty gas projectors in the Ravin-dit-Fosse-de-Balandre, between the wood
and the town of Bantheville, and planned to assist the infantry with smoke screens and lethal gas. But
owing to adverse wind conditions no gas was fired. However, the mortars were able to fire thermite on
enemy targets in the woods south of the Bois d’Andevanne and Grand Carré Farm before H hour, and at
H hour to create a white phosphorus smoke screen. But about twenty minutes after the advance started,
the Stokes mortar section was caught by enemy shell-fire and broken up, five men being killed and
thirteen wounded.
The exploitation on November 2 turned out to be as costly as the set attack of the first day. In
consideration of the urgent need of pressing the enemy without respite, and owing to the fact that the
180th Brigade had suffered heavy casualties and was nearing exhaustion, a division order was issued at
2 P. M. directing the 179th Brigade to relieve the 180th Brigade and carry on the latter’s mission of
exploitation.
But, as on the previous night, further information regarding the great success of the divisions
further to the west brought about a change in the army’s plans. The enemy was now in full retreat and
was withdrawing so fast that the 4th French Army, to the left of the 1st United States Army, had lost
contact altogether. The French troops had entered Boult-aux-Bois, just east of the Argonne Forest, there
making connection with the Americans.
The front of the 90th Division was the pivot of this retreat; Hill 321 and Villers-devant-Dun were
the hinge which had held fast while the door was swinging backward. So it was decided to attack in full
force the morning of November 3 in order to smash this hinge.
Field Order No. 16, 90th Division, specified that the 179th Brigade would make this attack,
while the 180th Brigade would continue to hold the line which it had established during the day – Bois
de Raux, Hill 321, Ravin de Theisse, and Les Dix Jours.
The objective of the attack was the heights from Halles to the Meuse. Simultaneously the 5th
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