From time to time, we will check in with the One Hundred and Fifteenth Regiment of the Twenty-Ninth Division, the only regiment in the United States Army to consist entirely of Maryland men. Denison, though temporarily separated from his comrades, would rejoin the regiment in September 1918 as preparations were made to launch the great Meuse-Argonne offensive.
Chandler Sprague’s mid-August encounter with the Germans had been terrifying, but it was nothing in comparison to The Great Raid of August 30/31, 1918 near Balschwiller, Alsace. “I was never able to tell this story from France, and tell it truthfully, because of the censorship,” wrote Raymond S. Tompkins later. “It was not a success, and the One Hundred and Fifteenth Regiment was not at fault.”
The raiding party was much bigger this time, and it had three leaders: Captain Brooke Lee, Lieutenant Spencer Phelps, and Sprague. They took with them 110 Company K men, all hand picked, all from Maryland, and a detachment of 6 men from the 104th Engineers. Their objective was “to capture prisoners and to secure information as to the morale and disposition of the enemy’s troops.”
Again, every detail was meticulously planned, rehearsed for ten days. Strictest secrecy as to time and place was observed. Airplane reconnaissance was made and photographs were studied. It was of utmost importance that all watches should be carefully synchronized, for this was a delicate and precise operation. The raid was carefully planned, each man having a special duty.
They were to leave the trenches at 1 AM and cross No Man’s Land by 4:36 AM, at which time a preliminary bombardment of five minutes’ duration would begin. When that lifted, the French trench mortars would fire “for five or more minutes” from their camouflaged guns in position beyond the villages of La Fontaine, La Chapelle-Sous-Rougemont and Brechaumont. These shells were calculated to land in the enemy wire and destroy it, allowing the raiders to rush unimpeded upon the Germans. The engineers were each equipped with bengalore torpedos, long hollow steel strips filled with TNT for use on any wire the trench mortar bombs did not destroy. Once there, a rolling barrage from the 112th Machine Gun Battalion would protect them as they yanked German soldiers out of their dugouts and returned to their own lines. Waiting back at their trenches would be men from the three other Third Battalion companies, ready to conduct the prisoners to the rear.
The raiders reached their targeted position not far from the German wire at 2:10 AM and settled down to wait. Promptly at 4:36, the bombardment began, followed precisely five minutes later by the trench mortar bombs. “The Marylanders lay flat to the ground under this screaming roof of shells,” wrote Tompkins much later, “and just ahead of them the earth tossed and rocked with the crashing explosions….It was a beautiful barrage, timed to the second and deadly.”
Tompkins was there watching in person from the parapet of an old trench. He could see “great bursts of flame splotch[ing] the woods on the boche side, flaring and dying and flaring again up and down the whole front, and then the sky over toward Germany [growing] paler and pink with coming dawn, and volcanic eruptions [becoming] visible there — geysers of black earth spouting high above the trees.”
But the trench-mortars were falling short. The raiders were lying 250 yards from the objective and yet some of the bombs were falling just 60 yards ahead of them. At the end of the five minutes — with one extra minute added for certainty — Captain Lee ordered the men ahead.
The next moment he countermanded the order; the bombs were still coming. Another three minute wait, and the order to move was repeated. Yet still the bombs continued and the men were now faced with going through their own mortar barrage. Moreover, they were several minutes behind schedule. And now the worst happened.
One of the trench mortar bombs squarely hit one of the engineers carrying a TNT bomb. He was instantly vaporized, while others near him were “swished away like dry leaves in a sudden gale.” Some were wounded and all were dazed and disoriented.
Captain Lee led half of the party through the wire and down a German trench. Many of the men were cut off by the trench mortar barrage, but Sprague and Phelps brought others down behind Lee. The trenches were empty, “nobody home,” as the newspaper report put it, no Germans to be found. One of the sergeants from a machine gun company had been tasked with procuring a German machine gun, He seized one and, his objective realized, began lugging it back across No Man’s Land. Red signal rockets were launched all up and down the German line, summoning German gunners into action. Now a vicious German counter-barrage began, boxing them in and cutting off their return.
Sergeant Fred Gerk and Private Joseph D. Dorsey jumped down in one trench and discovered three Germans lurking in the shadows. Two fled, but a third stood his ground and shot Dorsey, who was in front, through the stomach. Gerk came up behind Dorsey and thrust his bayonet into the German soldier, pinning him to the ground and breaking off the bayonet. He was just preparing to chase the other two when Captain Lee sent up a pink flare, the signal for withdrawal. Gerk contented himself with throwing grenades after the fleeing Germans. He slung Dorsey over his shoulders, and headed toward the Allied trenches. Dorsey died on the return journey across No Man’s Land.
“The men dodged and flopped their way back through the barrage, knocked down by the shells, killed outright or wounded,” wrote Tompkins, “and those who were able continued at a crawl, never knowing whether the next inch of progress would bring them in line with a shell, or whether it was surer death to lie still. But, somehow, most of them got back….”
Captain Lee was in a shellhole, unwilling to leave Sergeant Miller, wounded, of M Company. He ordered several others back with the message that he would not be able to leave until nightfall, but he reckoned his cover was adequate. All that next long, hot August day, Lee and Miller lay there unable to move because of the German snipers.
Chandler Sprague did get back. Then he turned back to look at his comrades. From No Man’s Land he heard groans and calls for help. He learned that a wounded M Company man was trapped in a shellhole with Private Davis, 115th I Company, who was “frightfully mangled and evidently … instantly killed by a direct hit of shrapnel shell.” Fifty yards away, a German sniper waited to pick him off if he tried to move — or to shoot anyone who tried to come to his rescue.
Sprague was determined to try to help. Private Frank Fleischman, Company K, sprang to accompany him. Together they dashed from hole to hole, repeatedly calling to the wounded man for directions. They were able to get him safely behind the lines when all of a sudden, Sprague felt a “ping!” on his helmet at the same time that Fleischman fell. Fleischman had been shot through both thighs, his arteries severed. “Be careful, lieutenant,” he said to Sprague, “they’ve got me.”
Sprague quickly fashioned tourniquets from shoelaces, handkerchief and belt and was able, for a time, to stop the bleeding. Then, spotting the sniper in the grass, Sprague shot at him with his service pistol, either hitting him or successfully frightening him away. Now, from shellhole to shellhole and still unable to stand up, Sprague dragged Fleischman back to the post. Tompkins arrived to see the wounded man lowered onto a stretcher and borne away. He died in the Belfort hospital the next day.
Out of the handpicked group of 110 of the best men the One Hundred and Fifteenth had to offer, 11 were killed and 28 wounded. No German prisoners were taken and no information had been gained. All they had was one damaged German machine gun.
As Tompkins had said, the mission had not been successful, but, he added, it was not through any failing of the 115th. “Division headquarters investigated,” he wrote, “and was able to settle upon little more than the fact that the trench mortars had played on the German wire too long. The trench mortars were manned and fired by the French.”
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“Privates Walter Lowe and Glen Owens disappeared sometime during the raid and were never found again. They were either taken prisoners or blown to pieces. Patrols searched every part of No Man’s Land but were unable to find any trace of them.
“Sergeant John W. Saxon, Corporal John Elliott, Privates James Raney, William Dryden, John Daley, Ralph Johnson, Matthews Sinnott and Mechanic Marcel Zimmerman were wounded in action in this raid.” (Cutchins, The History of the Twenty-Ninth Division “Blue and Gray” 1917-1919).
Private Frank F. Fleischman, Company K, of Chesaco Park, Back River, Maryland, gave his life in his attempt to rescue stricken comrades. He and Sprague were both awarded the Distinguished Service Cross “for extraordinary heroism in action:”
Frank F. Fleischman, Private, Company K, 115th Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near Balschwiller, Alsace, August 31, 1918. After a raid against enemy trenches, he volunteered to accompany his platoon leader into No Man’s Land to rescue a missing member of the platoon who had been wounded. While engaged in this courageous duty he was mortally wounded.
Chandler Sprague, First Lieutenant, Company K, 115th Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near Balschwiller, Alsace, August 31, 1918. Upon returning from a raid which he led against enemy trenches, Lieutenant Sprague found one of his men was missing. Accompanied by one man, he promptly and voluntarily returned through artillery, machine gun, and rifle fire, found the missing man, who had been wounded, and carried him back to the American lines.
POSTSCRIPT:
The purpose of this blog is not to provide complete biographies of the people it encounters, but here are a few interesting things about Chandler Sprague that bear mentioning.
Sprague must have been married when he went to France, for he had a son, Pattison, in 1918.
After the war, he decided that writing, not sports, was his future. In 1926, he moved to Hollywood and became a screenwriter, director and producer, working on stories for twelve films during his career until he retired in 1943.
His best known movie, A Guy Named Joe, may have been prompted by his own wartime experiences. It was directed by Victor Fleming and starred Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson and Irene Dunne. The screenplay was based on a story co-written by Sprague and David Boehm, who were nominated in 1945 for the Oscar for best original story.
It was about a World War II fighter pilot (Tracy) who is persuaded by his girl (Dunne) to give up dangerous flying. He agrees, but opts to go on just one final mission. During the mission he is killed, and comes back to find that his buddy (Johnson), another pilot, has fallen in love with his girl. Though he is jealous at first, he comes to the conclusion that he must let her go.
Stephen Spielberg claimed that this movie, a favorite of his, was his inspiration to become a movie director. He used a clip in his movie Poltergeist and later remade the film under the title Always.
A Guy Named Joe was the last film Sprague was involved in. He died in Sacramento on November 15, 1955.
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References:
Cutchins, Lieutenant-Colonel John A., The History of the Twenty-Ninth Division “Blue and Gray” 1917-1919, Philadelphia: 1921.
Reynolds, Chaplain F.C. and McLaughlin, Chaplain William F., History of Headquarters Company, 115th Infantry (Baltimore: Read-Taylor Printers, 1920)
Tompkins, Raymond Sidney, Maryland Fighters In The Great War, (Baltimore: Thomas & Evans Printing Co., 1919)
Baltimore Sun: 1917: August 25, 26, 27; September 3, 26, 30; October 6; November 12, 15; December 22, 23. 1918: January 15; March 17 ; April 24; August 8; September 19; October 25, 31.
Baltimore In The Great War 