The broad ax., 1926-04-10

pany, all of whom had been wounded,
and with but two officers in Com
pany I.
Sergt. William Collier, of Company
X. captured on this day Of the alleged
disorderly retreat machine guns, IL
Germans, killing others. The Sec
ond Battalion had not supported the
Third Battalion because their white
major, Max Ellser, had hidden in a
shell hole at the launching of the at
tack, surrounding himself with pla-
toon Of colored soldiers, and finally
after countermanding and rechanging
orders to his captains, he fed pre-
cipitately to the rear, destroying the
morale OF his battalion and making
them ineffective in this combat. De-
spite this, his captains held wherever
possible the terrain gained and where
impossible to do so retired.
Several days after this, Maj. Gen.
c. c. Ballou, in the presence of Judge
Advocate Maj. A. E. Patterson (col-
ored) said to Maj. Max Ellser, who
sat cringing before him, "You cow
ardly -, | ought to have you
court-martialed, but for the sake OF
the division, I shall send you to the
base hospital, where you stay three
weeks"
The inefficiency of Major Norris, OF
the Third Battalion, was demon
strated by the fact that on the 9th
of September while his troops were
engaged under heavy and severe ar
tillery and machine gun fire he issued
orders for all officers on the line to
report to Battalion Headquarters,
leaving his thousand soldiers without
single officer while his colored Off
GERS had TO come backward through
the enemy's barrage to his protected
dugout and then return through the
same enemy's barrage to their exposed
positions.
Only Colored Officers Tried for
Cowardice
Yes, the colored officers, including
Capt. Dan Smith, a veteran of the
Twenty-seventh Infantry of the
United States Army, who had been
awarded a congressional medal Of
honor for bravery in action, hero OF
the Carizal and the Philippines, and
who had captured with his company
20 Germans and machine guns on
the 9th, were tried for cowardice
along with four others. Max Ellser,
cowardly major, was promoted after
his return from the base hospital to a
lieutenant colonelcy and assigned to
command the Three Hundred and
Sixty-6fth Infantry when he was re-
lieved after two days. Major Norris,
of course, was the victim of circum-
stances Of offering colored men.
However, in their precipitate retreat
the colored officers and men of the
Three Hundred and Sixty-eighth Bat
talon captured SO Germans, ma
chine guns, killing 3 Germans and
wounding others in hand to hand battle.
Four of these officers were tried. Cap
tain Smith was sentenced to be shot
but reprieved by President Wilson.
The other units Of the Ninety-sec-
ond Division were not engaged, but
felt bitter because of the turn of
events in the Three Hundred and
Sixty-eighth, which we feel were due
to cowardly field officers more than
anything else We might mention
these trivial circumstances that our
equipment was short because our
white supply officer of the Three
Hundred and Sixty-eighth Infantry
had failed to provide our men and off,
GERS with the barbed-wire cutters
usual and necessary, in such attacks
our own white artillery had failed to
make the proper preparation for our
immediate sector of advance, leaving
the barbed wire untouched so that
our second day of attack on the 18th,
our commands were caught not only
by the German barrage but by the
shots of white American artillery who
were endeavoring to break up the
barbed-wire entanglements. These
were the facts that led to the charge
of cowardice in that regiment.
Reports on Other Units
On October the Ninety-second
Division began to take over the Mar
bache sector opposite Metz. The
first three and four weeks were spent
in patrols, raids, and counter attacks
by the front-line regiments. The
One Hundred and Eighty-third Bri-
gade was composed Of the Three Hun