82nd losing heavily in men, but pushing on.

Grant's good buddy Stuart Hugh Fraser (1892-1990) was born in London, raised in New York and moved to Brazil after the war. Through the Internet, I got in touch with Fraser's descendants in Brazil who kindly shared with me Fraser's own diary from the First World War--an interesting account of some 25 thousand words. It's fascinating to read about these places and events, now so familiar to me and you, as seen through different eyes. An excerpt is below.

First, Grant's diary:

Tuesday, October 15, 1918:

Went on post, with Savage as aide, at Fléville. St. Juvin now in our hands. We work three posts out of here -- the ditch, the barns and Sommerance. Very, very busy. 82nd losing heavily in men, but pushing on. 

Fraser had a close call when a piece caught him in the neck, but has proved to be nothing serious. He has gone into Paris for a good rest and convalescence. 

Mail has been coming to us regularly and I have gotten much of it, but have lost all track and have written nothing except in this book since leaving Paris. We expect to be hauled out of here soon. 

Here, Stuart Fraser gives his own recollections of that day:

Stuart Hugh Fraser

"My last day on active service, the 14th October, I left Apremont at sunrise with two other cars. The German shelling had been, and still continued to be, heavy, so much so that just before reaching Pleinchamp Farm, south of Fleville, the supply and ammunition trains were ordered to wait. Once clear of the supply trains the ambulances had the road to themselves. We had instructions to bring our wounded into Pleinchamp Farm where larger ambulances would pick them up for transportation to the Field Hospital. However the big ambulances got jammed in the traffic and never got up to the farm that day. 

"The Germans were methodically shelling the farm. Half the dressing station personnel had disappeared, and altogether it seemed a most risky place to bring helpless wounded. But orders were orders, and there was no one there to cancel them, so that ended the matter. It would have been much better if we had left our wounded in any other place, but we had no choice. After my second trip I left the farm and there were ten stretcher cases lying in the courtyard, waiting for the big ambulances to bring them back. Coming back with another load, I saw all our work was done in vain. Broken pieces of stretches, bloody canvas and mutilated bodies marked the spot where the wounded had been before the shell had burst on them. Over against the wall and seated on a pile of wood, two wounded Germans were stoically sitting. They must have seen the demolition of the American wounded, but their faces were dumbly expressionless. From the leg of one the blood was dripping and oozing through his shoe. The other had a body wound. Although weak, he could have gotten into the lee of the house, but he wasn´t strong enough to help his companion, so evidently had decided to stay with him. I felt sorry for the poor blighters, so with the help of an orderly got them inside the barn, which was really no protection if a shell hit it. 

Entering Sommerance

"I worked Sommerance in the afternoon. The road was in very bad shape and was being shelled steadily. On the crest of the hill before dipping into the village, I passed a reserve line of infantry lying in their holes, waiting for the word to push ahead, and in the meantime getting a dose of shrapnel and high explosives from the German batteries. It was a long line of steel helmets and brown uniforms, no faces showing, each man playing possum for all he was worth. Down in Sommerance the Germans were mixing in gas shells with high explosive. The aid station was in the charge of a Jewish doctor from New York named Goldstein. From all accounts he had done splendid work with the wounded and gassed. For two days and nights he had been constantly on the job and late that afternoon he was evacuated after collapsing from strain and gas.

"On my last trip I saw the usual dust and smoke clouds rising up from the neighborhood of Pleinchamp Farm. On reaching the road twining off to the farm, a shell exploded on it about fifty yards from me. Instead of turning in I kept straight ahead on the main road with the idea of getting my three stretcher cases to the field hospital, but a hundred yards or so further I ran into the blocked traffic which was still not allowed to go any further. As it would take an hour or so to pick my way through, and also as I had orders to stop at the Farm, I decided to go back before being missed. A shell hit in the field behind one of the buildings, throwing up a geyser of soft earth. I felt resigned to anything turning into the narrow road. 

Fraser in 1918

"I got my patients out and into the farm building and returned to the car to have a look at the motor. I was bent over the engine, and Grover Taylor was talking to me, having just arrived. A shell exploded behind the car, the concussion of it taking me off my feet and sending me up against the wall of the barn. At the same time my throat felt as if a mule had kicked it. I gulped a couple of times to make sure I could swallow and then I knew I wasn´t badly damaged. Somebody grabbed me, and another chap cheerfully called out, “Don´t bother with him, he´s done for!” I can remember the words to this day, also my answer, “Like hell I am!” He thought my throat was properly cut. I laid down in the barn, but I didn´t fear the shells so much now, for after one close call I figured there were no more shells left with my name on them. 

 

"At sunset I went back in my ambulance, not driving this time, to the Field Hospital. The traffic was loosening up a bit and moving forward, but even so progress was very slow. I recall now a dead German half on and half off the road, countless wheels having passed over his legs and flattened them out into the mud. American bodies on the road were always removed to one side, but the German dead were spurned by horses feet and artillery caissons until they formed part of the mud on the road. At the field hospital the ambulances converged from all parts of the sector into one solid slow-moving stream. They picked their way along in the darkness, delivered their loads at the big tents and departed for more. Lieut. Smith was with me in order to keep me identified with my outfit, as otherwise I would have been detached from 647. After entering one of the tents I again thanked my lucky stars that I wasn´t badly wounded, for the place was crowded with stretcher cases, all waiting patiently for the one doctor and two or three orderlies to give them some attention. There were no lights except a portable gas torch in the hands of an orderly, and by this light the others did the dirty work. The standing wounded formed a line, and talk along this line was more animated. The stretcher cases strewn all about were for the most part silent. Over in a corner a German intermittently wailed and let out a stream of his own language and was promptly cursed into silence by all and sundry. His, in all that terrific tent-full of wounded, was the only voice with a note of complaint in it.

Outside, just on the other side of the canvas, were the very audible sounds of picks and shovels turning over the earth. This was the burial squad, and I have no doubt that some poor chaps in that tent heard their graves being dug. The doctor came down the line of standing wounded, each man exposing his wound for his inspection and hurried treatment. He came to me and sprinkled some powder on my throat and told Lieut. Smith the cut would be healed in three weeks with further attention. In the meantime an orderly had pulled out my shirt, caught up the slack of my tummy and stuck an injection needle into it. This was the anti-tetanus serum, which consisted of a whole test-tube full of the liquid per person. I was now through for the night, and Lieu. Smith said he would be back in the morning and take me to Bar-le-Duc, and from there I was to go to Paris and report at the ambulance hospital. The tent smelled badly so I pushed into the open air. At the entrance was a huge pile of useless equipment taken from the wounded and thrown into the discard. It consisted of knapsacks, gas masks, small arms, belts, old clothes, etc. I crossed the road which was choked with ambulances and found my way to one of the cook shacks where the day shift was sleeping. One of the fellows got up and gave me one of the blankets belonging to one of the men on night duty. I spent a comfortable night but didn´t sleep much as the reaction after the day´s events kept my mind active."

Ambulances in Fleville

Back to Grant's diary:

Wednesday, October 16:

Still very busy. Had a close call last night at the barns beyond the ditch when a flying piece of shell or rock clipped the knuckles on my left hand. Hap was fired on by machine guns yesterday, but wasn’t touched. Still raining and miserable. No more casualties in our section. Feel rotten with a bad cold. We all have them.

Thursday, October 17:

Reported that the 82nd is soon to be relieved. Maybe tonight. Am now back at camp having been relieved last night. Am sitting beside a nice fire in what we choose to call our reading room in the mill. Boche mines have started exploding in this district and we are wondering when this place is going up in smoke. Four went off last night in Chatel and this morning another tore up the road near the hospital. Wow, what an explosion it was! Things are very quiet up front now (2 P.M.) We have St. Georges and are near Imécourt. Grandpré has to fall now as we have the place flanked. This means that the Boche are now out of the woods and hills on to the plateau where the cavalry and tanks can cut loose at them.