The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-09-05
FIGHTING DELIGHTS YANks
CONTINUED from Page u

commissioner to our capital, who told
the world that an American division
on the Ourcq had met and defeated
division of the Prussian Guards.
When the history of that American
division comes to be written with all
the freedom of retrospect, it may be
added that in the course of the great
battle which began on July Is, 1918
that division, before it stopped to
catch its breath, had met and done
battle with two divisions of the Prus
sian Guards, of which, it is said, there
are but five altogether.
1t is probable that the fighting the
Americans experienced between July
81 and August 3, will be studied al
school by your children and your
grandchildren as the Battle Of the
Ourcq, but that unpretentious creek
had little to do with it except as
through the centuries, it had worn
down the land till there sloped away
to the north of it a gradual hill most
difficult to storm.
No one will understand the Battle
Of the Ourcq who does not keep in
tminG tie fact that the mere rushing
across the stream itself presented nc
difficulties and that the real fight was
the fight to possess the heights be
yond.
1t took one battalion only 80 min
wade the river, and entrench itself al
the crest Of the first slope beyond
1t took the forces engaged there five
days of the bitterest fighting to move
a kilometer further to capture Sergy
and Seringes, and make the heights
|untenable for the crown princes
forces.
For the Americans engaged, it
meant, after the first rush, an artil
1ery battle of the heaviest kind, great
guns brought into play, while neither
side could boast the deep entrench.
ments of the older lines. In addition
to the steady, poisonous rat-a-tat-tat
of machine guns innumerable and the
roar of the larger pieces, the thunder
of hat battle was augmented toward
the end by the reverberations of am
munition dumps, where the Germans
twere 'everishly trying to destroy their
own costly a~ccumulations because
they knew they could not get away
with them.
1t has been said that Seringes
changed hands several times. AS a
matter of fact, the American artillery
blasted the Germans out Of all but one
corner of the town, and after mop
ping it UP, the American infantry
withdrew to avoid the answering fire
from the German guns. The enemy
chung to his corner until he made his
retreat from that entire sector on
August 2.
1t has been said that Sergy chang
ed hands nine times in as many hours,
The Yankee regiment that took it will
tell you that it grabbed Sergy on the
first day and never let go again.
What happened was that American
regiments rushed and helped positions
on either side Of the gun-bristling
village, that the village itself there
upon became a No Mans Land, in
which. through five days and nights,
venturesome patrols did battle from
time to time.
Neither town vas important in it.
self, and both stood out in the com
muniques and dispatches because, Wis
ible on all maps, they were easier to
identify, If not easier to capture, than
the nameless, blood-drenched crests
between.
The first rush across the Ourcq
which preceded the battle on the
heights where these two towns were
was made in the early hours of Sun
day morning, July %. 1t was made
by troops that had been pursuing the
Germans from the Marine, pursuing a
retreating enemy who paused from
time to time to resist violently. All
the way. the Yankees had been ham
pered by clusters Of machine guns
and the backward play of the Ger
man heavies tearing UP the fields.
The pursuit was made along narrow,
twisting roads, cut by shells and
made muddier and muddier by the in
termittent squalls OF summer rain.
The pursuit was hot, the scheme to
keep the enemy on the jump. The
plan and order was to advance from
the heights below the Ourcq to the
heights beyond at 4:30 Sunday morn
ing. AS the time approached. it be-
came apparent that all the elements
would not he ready nor all the artil-