The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-04-03
NEGROES FOUGHT
like DEMONS
NOT ONE MAN OF THE FAMOUS
s69TH EVER TAKEN ALIVE.
Loved to Cut, Not Shoot
Sent to Hold Abandoned Trenches
With But Little Chance for Their
Lives They Came Back Safe.

Like most good omcefS, COl. VIII
liam Haywood, of the famous 36Stn
negro regiment, thoroughly believes
I'm his men and is eager to testify to
their soldierly qualities. In the course
of his first public address since his
recent return from France, he told a
vivid story of real fighting by his
.'boys," who never wanted any weap-
on but "something with a good cut
ting edge on it." Declaring his opin-
ion that bit of strategy brought in
to play by General Gouraud on July
IS, 1918, turned the tide of the war,
the colonel said, as reported in the
New York papers:
We were at one end of the line held
BY General Gouraud and were part
of his army. At the other end OF the
line was that famous fighting Irish
outfit, the 165th (e9th New York;,
and other urits of the great Rainbow
division.
The first thing I knew all there
was between the German army and
Paris on a stretch of front a little
more than four miles long was my
regiment of negroes. But it was fair
enough at that; all there was be-
tween us and Berlin was the German
army. They tried pretty hard to get
by, but they never did. No German
ever got into a trench with my regi-
ment who did not stay there or go
back with the brand of my boys on
him.
In 191 days of battle we never had
one of our men captured-aliVe.
When those Germans would come into
our trenches after what our boys
called q million-dollar artillery prep
aration. the thing just got down to
regular he-nan, street-corner fight.
They fought with knives, bayonets,
and the butts of guns. All those boys
of mine ever wanted to fight with
was something with good cutting
edge on it.
On July ii the Germans reinforced
by prisoners released by Russia}were
at their maximum strength. The al
lies were at the lowest ebb they had
reached during the war. That night
we captured some German prisoners
In a raid and they told us that at
certain time the Germans were to
launch a great attack that was to
last for five hours and twenty-five
minutes.
General Gouraud started coun-
ter-attack on a great scale five min
utes before the German attack was
to start. AS we afterward learned
from prisoners, this attack greatly
upset the Germans and hampered
their own attack disastrously.
General Gouraud knowing the
hour when the German attack was
to begin took what was probably the
longest chance that general ever
took. Before the attack began he
ordered his whole army to abandon
the first trenches on front of fifty
kilometers. These trenches had cost
thousands of lives and men had toiled
months and months to gain those po-
sitions. If Gouraud's plan failed he
was ruined.
When the troops were withdrawn,
only sixteen of the 1900 men in my
regiment remained in the front-line
teers, who fully expected to lose their
trenches. Those sixteen, all volun-
teers, who fully expected to lose
their lives, took refuge in shell-holes,
specially constructed dug-outs, arm
ed with signal-rockets, mustard-gas
shells, and few machine guns Of an
old type, which could be started and
then abandoned, as they would keep
on firing without manipulation until
their ammunition belts were ex-
hausted COR they got jammed.
When the handful of men in the
trenches saw the German infantry
coming. after a terrific artillery show
er had railed down on the first-line
trenches, they set off the signal-rock-
cts to notify us. set off the mustard
gas shells in the dugouts, started the
machine guns going, and then ran
for it, with the German barrage LII
front <of them and the advancing
German Infantry behind them.
Strange to say, most Of them got
back.
When the Germans poured into
our trenches they failed to find a
single man alive. Those Germans
who went into the dug-outs stayed