Evening star., 1937-04-04
BY FREDERICK PALMER,

Author Of Our Gallant Madness With
My Own Eyes" Etc.
TINE pulse Quickens, 20 years after
our entry into the World War,
and memory glows on the high
point of the exploit of the 3D.
"the Rock of the Marne"-Division
No more brilliant page, none more
characteristicaly American, was ever
written in our military annals.
1t was from paradise into hell for
the 3d. Gen. Pershing had made the
rule that about eight months training
was necessary after a divisions ar
rival in France. First, newcomers
should have two to three months be-
hind the lines in camp, then turn
in quiet trench sector, then turn
or two in livelier sectors before they
would be ready to meet the enemy
with equal skill as we'll as courage in
violent sector or an offensive.
The Sd had been hardly two months
in France. It's men were out OF the
melting pot, home and foreign-born,
Western farmers and city men, draft
men and volunteers, speaking IS diff
ferent languages Far in the rear, in
fields dappled with wild f1oWers-this
was paradise in the fair month OF
May-they were being put through
the initial PAGES.
Liaison-Everything!
When Pershing came to inspect
them Col. Butt mentioned to him the
Importance of liaison. Pershing said
that it was everything. Liaison-tesm
play! Without team play courage is
due for massacre against an enemy to
which team play is second nature, as
it was to the German veterans.
Team play without artillery! The
Sd had no artillery to train with. 1t
is the artillery-the guns, big and lit
tle-which protects the advance OF the
infantry with the moving barrage of
shells and smothers the enemy's fire.
II team play between the guns and in
fantry fails, the barrage may be into
your own men instead of being their
shield. Not many yards OF variation
makes the fatal difference.
Also, the Sd had no planes to work
with. Planes spot the targets for the
guns, locate the lines of friend and
foe and tell the guns whether the bar
rage is right. Guns and planes were
not ready yet. We had hurried over
man power-infantry and machine
gunners-to France to meet the des-
perate emergency of the German
drives of 1918
On May 26 the secretly massed third
German drive took the French in the
Chemin des Danes sector by complete
surprise in overwhelming force. 1t
broke through all the trench lines and
into the open. Alarm turned to fear
as it swept on day after day. In an
swer to the S o S call the 3d-guns
or no guns-planes or no planes-was
ordered to entrain on May 80.
Where's the Enemy?
The motorized 7th Machine Gun
Company of the Sd did not have to
wait at a railroad station. Which way
to Chateau-Thier was its question
as it sped on to meet the enemy.
Across the Marine, there in the
streets Of Chateau-Thierry, 1t reached
its destination; there it met the Ger
mans pouring into the town from the
hills. It barred the enemy passage
over the Marne At that point, foot by
foot in violent combat" as Gen. Pc
tain said
This Introductory incident set the
pace for the Sd. Its infantry detrained
in what had been a peaceful world in
the rear a week ago and now was in
the confusion of despair. The people
in that region and in all France knew
that after four years of fighting the
Germans were on the Marne, the sa-
cred river of France, which had so
many times been Redeemed by the
blood of her soldiers and borne SOL
dier dead downstream. Stop the in
vader on the Marine and he was held.
Once across the Marne he would have
Paris-and victory.
But the Germans, though the ma
chine gunners had held them on the
north bank at Chateau-Thierry, were
across on the south bank at Jaul-
gonne, to the eastward, and fortified
on hill 204. From Chateau -Thierry
they had swung over the hill along
the Paris road on the north. bank.
They were nearer Paris than they had
been during the first battle of the
Marne in 1914
The people were evacuating Paris;
Official papers were being packed up.
Marshal Foch, allied generalissimo,
appealed to President Wilson to pre-
pare to send 100000 American SOL
diers to France by 1919, and to hurry
over more Infantry and machine gun
ners to hold the enemy through the
Summer. He liked the sample Of our