The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-02-23

| ble obstacle.
 The two bridges near Sergy had been | blown up by the enemy and the troops | had to struggle through the water as | best they could. in face of the intense
 front and flank fire from Sergy and l Meurcy farm. At first Judgement on the other bank was impossible. But at | length elements of Col Frank McCoy's ] New Workers contrived to retain toe 1 hold, and by 10:S0 a. m. parts Of all four
 regiments were over.
 The shelling, which the allied artillery
 could not suppress, was very severe, and 5 lowflying German planes at frequent in-
 tervals machine-gunned the front lines, !, though some of them came to grief al the hsr ds of such men as Sergt. Frank Gar
 dello, Jr., of the 165th machine gun com
 pany, who with his machine gun riddled the upper one of two approaching planes,
 which fell upon the lower one, and both ! crashed. to earth.
 | Acting upon the theory that nothing
 was to be gained either by lying still or by going back, the Alabama and Iowa men of the Eighty-fourth> brigade shortly
 made rush and took Sergy. But that | was just what the Germans wanted. From the dominating woodlands of Jom-
 biets, Planchette and Pelger they loosed
 down the draw leading to Sergy hail of machine gun fire that blasted the l Americans from the place and swept them | back to the river bank
 OPPOSING GERMANY'S BEST ! Here they rallied returned to the charge and again drove the Germans I from the village, learning when they did so that the IVth Guard division (Prus- ! sian Guards), one of the best in the Ger man army, had just been put in against them. Time after time through the after noon the battle lines thus swept back ' and forth in desperate conflict while further to the right at the southeastern ' base of Hill 20, on which stand thc three woodlands. the Twenty-eighth d. vision was vainly struggling to reach and capture the latter.
 | The sun was near to setting when at | s o'clock Iowa and Alabama troops rolled into Sergy for the last time that evening" holding it under artillery and night | bombing To the left the Ohio and New fork troops of the Eighty-thrd brigade 1 had been striving as hard for the dis tant objective of Meurcy farm, but had been unable to reach it.
 1 Even Sergy itself was not yet finally taken, for early on the 10th the Germans rushed it again and drove their adver-
 saries back to the Ourcq. The answer | this time was a general attack of the division, including an advance against | the plateau between Sergy and Meurcy farm.
 l Everything blazed up once more with l the addition of numerous machine guns
 hidden in the wheat fields of the plateau. The most substantial progress at first
 was on the right, where by noon Colonel l Bennetts Iowans retook Sergy and got some machine guns to the nearest crest of Hill 220, from which they could partly suppress the fire from Jomblets and l Planchette woods.
 1 It was while struggling for the crest, to give only one instance of the hot work that Sergt. B. w. Hamilton, Com pany M, ahead of his line and so badly 1 wounded that he could not stand, was attacked by the Prussian Guards, of whom he shot five, whereupon the rest i, fled.
 1 Further to the northwest, the 167th made some progress toward the top Of
 the plateau but in the left center the 165th could not approach Meurcy farm until a long concentration of artillery fire l had put some of it's machine gun nests out of action, and even then it was taken
 only by bayonet attack in which the gl,nners were killed in handto-hand lighting.
 | Taken, it could barely be held under the lash of other machine guns in the edge of the Forest de Nesles, and the bulk of the troops dug themselves in the little Bois Colas, across the creek |
 Seringes, on it's high, open hill, was
 not directly attacked until afternoon
 when Colonel Hough's men of the 1SStf 1 infantry, who had to form on the soutf
 l side of the Ourcq and advance agains
 the heavily garrisoned village and 1ts
 many flanking machine gun nests acros l 1200 meters of ground entirely devoit
 of timber, went forward in spite of every
 thing and, unable to enter the village . fN hn
 the crest of Hill 1S4, from there silence'
 l the machine guns in the town and the
 istormed it. dealing with the German gunners as those at Meurcy farm haC
 been dealt with or driving them north
 east into the Forest de Nesles. Thu darkness found the American line. ) Prisoners taken near Sergy had prove' ] the presence in that vicinity of yet an other first-class German division, tn ; With Bavarian reserves, So that the en emy order of battle, as it came in con
 tact with the Forty-second division, no, } appeared to be-, from left to right, Xt ) Landwehr, With Bavarian reserve, IVt r Guard and CCIst divisions. and tn : density of the German line opposite tn three American divisions. Forty-second , Twenty-eighth and Third, was for tn 3 moment much greater than anywher else along the front.
 , Entirely regardless of the force } against them, the Rainbows kept ol { pushing. At 9 a. m. Of the 30th, tn 5 16sth attacked out of the ravine 0 : Sergy across the uplands towar' < Nesles, while on it's left, Colone Screws started his Alabamians througl the wheat fields of the plateau towar
 the Chateau de Nesles. closely sup 3 | ported by the 101st Field artillery o ; the Twenty sixth division and particu 3 larly by the sniping guns of Battery A. r While the latter destroyed the Ger } man machine gun nests in front a l fast as they were discovered, the 167t f was able by noon to cross the platea' 3 and establish itself on the hillside 30 , meters south of the chateau. But tn 3 16Sth, still flanked fronls the wood lands on Hill 220. could not progres l more than 500 meters, when the, 3 dug in.
 : On the other end of the platea, Colonel Mccoy and his men, swept by 5 constant blast of fire from the Boi
 Brule and other parts of the valley Q
 the Ru du Pont Brule just above then I could only burrow and hold on in t.i
 Bois Colas and the ruins of Meure I farm. while many such brave spirits q ? | Second Lieut.. Oliver Ames. Jr., mad s here the last supreme sacrifice o e heroism.
 Their exposed position was protecte f as much as possible by their support g ing batteries of the 151st Field artil lery, which, directed by Second Lieu s F. F. Mccoy, artillery liaison office
 in the front line. waged an unceasin 6 duel with the German batteries an q machine guns On the left. the Oni