Moving up the artillery in France
In early October 1918 the Allies had launched the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and Harold MacKenzie of Dover was in the middle of the battle zone with Battery A of the 119th Field Artillery. They were stationed just outside the town of Montfaucon, France, not far from the German border. Under fire from German artillery they had already had some close calls.
Moving up the artillery in France
October 3, 1918 - Excerpt from Harold's diary:
"I have been Officers mess orderly ever since I came back to the battery from my first hospital trip. I follow the field kitchen that follows the guns.
At about 4:00 pm, I stepped up to our kitchen where there were ten other fellows. The kitchen was located in a clump of bushes.
I stepped over to the stove and was just starting to fill my pipe. The first thing that I knew, I was flying through the air and landed some twenty feet away.. laying under the feet of two badly wounded horses that were jumping around to beat the band.
As I looked up all I could see was the air full of bursted steel and horses legs flying over me. It felt just as though my left leg and right arm had been blown off. When I saw that they were not, you can bet that I wasn't long getting out from under those horses feet. Before I had time to look myself over two Red Cross First Aid men had me on my way to the first aid station. Before they could get me there several more shells pretty near got me.
At the first aid station,they layed me down in a shallow trench and gave me a dose of A.T.S. and painted my wounds with iodine. All the time.. the shells were falling so close that they kept throwing dirt and steel over us.. After that they took me across the street behind some bushes in a trench. They also took the rest of the wounded there while they were waiting for an ambulance,
About eight o'clock a Ford ambulance came down and took us up to a First Aid waiting station in Montfaucon about one kilometer from where we were. This waiting station was a very interesting place. It was a large dugout, all stoned up about forty feet below the surface of the ground. There was a Captain and a Lieutenant, both doctors, and beaucoup wounded soldiers waiting for ambulances.
The captain was a good old fellow. He told us that..in the other side of this dugout.. the German Crown Prince watched the big battle of Verdun in 1916 through a powerful forty-foot periscope* that ran from the dugout up through a tall building directly over the dugout. The dugout was a very large affair and was under the buildings of the town. But at this time the buildings were all knocked down and shells still falling awful thick.
Rose [another wounded man] and I got into an ambulance and started out. The roads were so congested with moving troops and artillery, and also such heavy shellfire that it took us all night to go thirty-five kilometers. I never suffered so much in all my life as I did on that ride. The shells kept the roads all torn up and for that reason the ambulance just shook the life out of us. It was necessary for me to sit on my wound and it was awful sore."
October 4th:
"At five O'clock in the morning we landed at some barricks where they put us to bed in our bloody clothes and let us sleep until one o'clock. When I woke up I wanted something to eat but they wouldn't give me anything.. because I was going to take ether to be operated on. I also wanted a smoke very bad but I didn't have any pipe or tobacco.
When they took me out to put me in the ambulance to take me to Souly the ambulance driver gave me a pipe and some tobacco. I don't think that I ever appreciated anything so much in all my life as I did that pipe and tobacco. The same driver also told me, if I could get into the kitchen without being seen by an officer.. the cook would give me something to eat.
It was difficult to get there because of my leg being so crooked up but I got there and had a great feed. The cook was very homely but generous. At two o'clock we were put into a Ford ambulance and taken to Evacuation Hospital No. 6 at Souly a distance of about fifteen kilometers.
At the hospital we took off our bloody clothes and had a bath. I had an awful time getting my pants off on account of my leg. It had become very crooked by this time. My clothes were so stiff with blood that they would stand alone. After I had my bath and put on some pajamas I was sent to a waiting room where I stayed until about 11 o'clock. Then I was sent up to the operating room where I waited for an hour before they operated on me.
There were twelve operating tables. I was sent into the X-Ray room and then while I was waiting to be operated on, I was laying on a bench. A matron lady came over to see how badly I was wounded and it had been so long since I had a chance to talk to an American lady that I must have talked her almost to pieces, for I talked to her for almost an hour...Ó
*American engineers removed this periscope and it is now at West Point.