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By Thomas M. Johnson
SLOWLY but surely the Argonne
mists clear, and new light is shed
upon the Lost Battalion. Here is
truth, hitherto unpublished, about
the most celebrated single battlefield
episode of the American part in the
World War! Unexpected thrills, sur
prising revelations, at the 19th anniver
sary of the historic dates when a handful
of gallant Americans, surrounded in the
forest, fought off encircling Germans for
five undaunted days and nights—Oct.
2-7, 1918.
Today no monument marks the wood
land scene, but a new memorial has just
come to light in the poignant words that
one of the survivors wrote in a diary he
kept through all those hideous yet splen
did days and nights, setting down faith
fully what he felt and smelled and saw
there among the gruesome funkholes in
the forest
At any moment a bullet might have
put a period on the last page of the black
book about six inches long and four wide
to which he confided the concentrated
emotions of that frightful ordeal.
Yet, grimly, this slim, determined
looking young American stuck to his self
imposed task; and determinedly to this
day he has clung to the result—the only
existing diary, he believes, of a Lost
Battalion survivor.
When he wrote that diary, Jim Lamey,
a Rochester, N. Y., boy, was, signalman
for Maj. Charles W. Whittlesey, the tall,
calm New England lawyer who com
manded the troops that newspapers
christened “The Lost Battalion,” although
they were not lost, but surrounded and
beleaguered in the forest. Today Private
Lamey is an engineer in Watertown,
N. Y. He finally consented to publica
tion of his diary just as he was getting
ready to head for the American Legion
•onvention in New York, Sept. 20-23,
from which 10,000 veterans were to sail
overseas to revisit French battlefields.
A page from Larney’s diary, with a
doughboy’s prayer on the eve of bat
tle. “Please God, I come through
* . . The light is going out. The Lord
be with us all.—Amen.”
AT last he has consented to let the pub
lic see the treasured diary that he
alone of the nearly 600 who entered “the
pocket” carried buttoned tight beneath
his olive-drab blouse, close to his pound
ing heart, as he scrambled through the
underbrush and over fallen logs on his
belly, so as not to give German snipers
a mark, and then helped lug after him
the coop of carrier pigeons that later
were his comrades' hope of salvation-.
“I was a walking arsenal,” Larney
chuckles now. “Besides helping with the
pigeons, I carried in a case the four white
cloth panels, each about six feet long,
with which we were to signal airplanes
—or try to; also a can of butter, two
cartons of cigarets, and—a copy of an
adventure magazine!”
The most thrilling adventure of Lar
ney’s lifetime lay before him. Far more
gripping than fiction was the true story
he was to write in that black-bound diary
to which he has clung since as, excepting
his family, his greatest treasure.
Crouching low to escape more wounds,
huddled in his funkhole, he kept the
diary. As signalman he had pencils and
fountain pens; but the writing tottered
painfully as did the writer when finally
blessed relief came. Only 194 of the 600
who had gone in walked out of “the
pocket.” Os the 252 living, 58 had to be
carried.
Here is the diary as Private Jim
Lamey wrote it, beginning Sept. 25,
1918. That was the night before the
opening of the greatest battle in Amer
ican history, the Meuse-Argonne, which
eventually involved two million men—
more than half of them Americans.
Through that morning’s mist and the
smoke of • thunderous barrage, those
men advanced northward on the whole
25-mile front which stretched from the
Meuse River at historic Verdun to the
dark Argonne Forest, most sinister nat
ural fortress on the western front.
The attack in the forest was made by
soldiers of the metropolitan 77th Divi
sion, drafted from the sidewalks of
New York, and reinforced by recruits
from west and midwest; especially Cali
fornia, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and New
Mexico.
f HAVE heard recently from Lost Bat
talion survivors in those states, in Min
nesota, in Ohio, in Illinois, in Florida
indeed, they are everywhere. This story
of their heroism and of their humanity
is not cheaply dramatized for the "popu
lar” taste. It is a real man’s story of
real men in that supreme experience
Here is what Larney wrote on the eve
of the ordeal by fire:
“Wed., Sept. 25—Fair. Cool. Went to
mass and communion at 7a. m. Reading
and writing letters this a. m. Made up
battle packs this afternoon for attack to
night or in a. m. Iron rations, toilet
articles, and battalion panels. Evans de
livered a new panel code to me today.
He says we are to make a 30-mile drive.
This drive to end the war. Beaucoup
(many) guns in forest here. Thirteen
6-inch howitzers in line. Lt. Whiting
(A Company) in lecture says we will
pull off the biggest drive in history
against the Germans in front of us. Wrote
to Farlow, Driscoll and turned my bunch
of out-going mail over to Sergeant Flan
nery. . . .
“Baldwin (Sergt. Maj. Walter Baldwin,
now of 1859 Victor street, Bronx, New
York City), Monson (Jack Monson, re
ceived D. S. C., now dead), Flannery,
Femes, and Herschowitz (Jack Herscho
witz later got D. S. C., 234 Broome street,
New York City) and myself sitting
around my candle talking it over, con
sidering our chances, hoping for the best
and all agreeing quite frankly that we
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are in the hands of God, wherever we
are, come what may. Fellow# do, not
hesitate to express their religious feel
ings in such times. Waiting to go over
the top ‘with the best of luck’ for fathers,
mothers, and other near and dear ojies
sake. Please God I come through as well
as for my own. I have made my peace
with God, hold no grudge, hereby put
ting them all aside if I had any and
offer up whatever happens in sacrifice
and reparation for my past offenses. ® ie
light is going out! The Lord be with us
all. Amen!” -
Not exactly the “wine, women, song
wherewith some books, plays, and movies
represent American doughboys habitu-