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| Left: From a Reenactment at the Actual Site: Soldiers in Rifle Pits and Whittlesey with Senior Officers Right: Site Marker on Hillside |
On the evening of 2 October 1918, Major Charles Whittlesey led roughly 550 soldiers of the 77th Division into the Charlevaux Ravine in the Argonne Forest of France, pushing past enemy lines as ordered. While his battalion reached its objective, French and American units on their left and right flanks were pushed back by heavy German counterattacks. By the following morning, Whittlesey realized his men were completely surrounded and trapped. He issued this order to his men: "OUR MISSION IS TO HOLD THIS POSITION AT ALL COSTS. NO FALLING BACK. HAVE THIS UNDERSTOOD BY EVERY MAN IN YOUR COMMAND."
Four days later the opposing German commander sent a message to Major Whittlesey. This is an eyewitness account of what ensued from Sergeant Major Walter Baldwin.
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| Sergeant Major Baldwin |
Monday, 7 October 1918
It was a monotonous day, with the added dead and wounded, a repetition that we had grown used to. Then night again, a cold damp night it was, that dug into the very marrow of our bones, causing new aches and pains until we wondered if death itself was not more merciful. Then came another morning with the same humdrum things, the morning of the seventh in this wilderness of murder. In the afternoon several men, unable to withstand the strain any longer, took it upon themselves to go after a bag of rations they had seen fall from an aeroplane. They had only gone but a short distance when all but one ran into a machine gun nest and were completely wiped out.
[There was, however, one survivor of this group, Pvt. Lowell Hollingshead, who later described his capture:
I have no idea how long that deadly "rat-tat-tat" of the machine guns kept up, it may have been for only a few minutes or longer but it seemed like eternity to me. I had no idea how many of the other fellows were alive, but I did know that the boy directly in front of me was dead. . .About that time a German appeared from behind a bush not six feet from me and held a long Luger leveled at my head. The German half smiled, half sneered and I instinctively raised my hands and said the only German work I knew, "Kamerad." Perhaps a second passed between the time I said "Kamerad" until he slowly lowered his gun, but it seemed several lifetimes to me.]
The survivor was made prisoner, well fed and his wounds dressed, then the German commander had him blindfolded and with a cane containing a little white flag for his guidance, they led him through their lines to their outposts from which they sent him off in the direction of our position on the hill.
He finally reported to Major Whittlesey and handed him the following communication from the German officer:
To The Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion, I. R. 308, of the 77th American Division
Sir: The bearer of the present, LOWELL R. HOLLINGSHEAD, has been taken prisoner by us on October 7. He refused to the German Intelligence Officer every answer to his questions and is quite an honourable fellow, doing honour to his Fatherland in the strictest sense of the word.
He has been charged against his will, believing in doing wrong to his country, in carrying forward this present letter to the Officer in charge of the 2nd Battalion, J.R. 308 of the 77th Division with the purpose to recommend this Commander to surrender with his forces as it would be quite useless to resist any more, in view of the present conditions.
The suffering of your wounded men can be heard over here in the German lines and we are appealing to your human sentiments.
A white Flag shown by one of your men will tell us that you agree with these conditions.
Please treat the LOWELL R. HOLLINGSHEAD as an honourable man. He is quite a soldier. We envy you.
The German Commanding Officer
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| Private Hollingshead |
Major Whittlesey read the note carefully and silently, then without comment, he placed it in the hands of Captain McMurtry, who likewise read it without change of expression, passing it in turn to Captain Holderman. The three then looked at each other and simultaneously a broad grin actually spread over the features of all. Undoubtedly the appeal to us to stop contained a grim humor that the hard headed Boche could not realize, in his hasty desire to play a safe game under the present harrowing conditions.
It's very audacity smacked of simplicity, when one considers the brand of warfare they had waged. After six days of relentless diabolic Teutonism, using every conceivable means of hell's torture and trickery, sending death and destruction in our midst, he would now have us cry quits, when he became tired of the unequal carnage.
The Major, fearing the slightest sign from us might be misinterpreted as a show of acceptance and surrender, yelled "Baldwin, take in the Panel," and I promptly scrambled out of my funk hole scurrying over the torn and bumpy ground, dragging from its place the signal we had prayed so hard and long would be seen by the planes. Now this ray of hope must be put in the same category as the rest of the forlorn ones.
Turning to the unfortunate Hollingshead, the Major berated him unmercifully, in a loud angry voice, for having left his post without permission, ordering him to report at once to his company commander. The incident had spread like wildfire through the ranks. Men, almost too weak to stand, actually on the verge of starvation, had now mustered every ounce of remaining strength to voice their sentiments in cursing and damning the Hun, daring him in loud exclamations of choice profanity to come over and try to take us. That was all the white the Germans would ever see on that hillside slaughterhouse and was the unanimous sentiment of every half-dead man who still retained a breath of life.
I was within five feet of Major Whittlesey when he received the note from Hollingshead, and I positively declare he never used the expression "GO TO HELL," in response to the German commander. That story is simply a myth. There was absolutely no recognition given to the Boche communication, therefore there was no necessity to answer it. . .
[Later that night] literally alive with vermin, weary and sore in body and mind, we settled down for another night in hell's garden. About nine o'clock, one of the men on the right flank came stumbling up to Major Whittlesey's funk hole and breathlessly gasped, "The 307th Infantry has broken through and their outposts are now in contact with our right flank."
The Lost Battalion had been saved. On 8 October, the 190 remaining men of the “Lost Battalion” walked back to American lines. Another 260 wounded were carried out. 107 men were dead and 63 missing. Sgt. Major Baldwin survived until 1965, Pvt. Hollingshead to 1966. Charles Whittlesey—heavily burdened by the loss of his men and uncomfortable with his unwanted public fame as a war hero committed suicide in November 1921.
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| Post-Battle Survivors of the Lost Battalion |
Source: Over the Top, April & May, 2013
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