The doughboy, not materiel, was the United States’ main contribution to Allied victory in World War I. General John J. Pershing believed that with equal training the American soldier would prove superior to his European counterpart. His hyperbole was not without some foundation. High literacy and mathematical abilities, combined with high morale, made the doughboys quick to train, though not always easy to command. The Americans fought well, and some, like Sergeant Alvin C. York, whom Pershing called the war’s greatest civilian soldier, became national heroes.

Among the citizen soldiers who formed the backbone of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was Sergeant James Francis Carty. Shortly before he died, Carty wrote an account of what he had done ‘over there’ during World War I. Titled Hände Hoch! (’Hands Up!’), his narrative vividly described how he and a comrade, Private Harold F. Proctor, captured a German machine-gun nest and 41 prisoners in Bois de St. Rémy in September 1918.

Thousands of young men like Carty rushed to join the National Guard when America declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. They knew the Guard would be rapidly mobilized, federalized and dispatched to Europe. The Regular Army was too small to do the job, and the new conscript army was just getting organized. Carty, like a good many of his countrymen, objected to the new draft law and told his mother that ‘it would be better to enlist than be drafted.’

When Carty enlisted, he was a state militiaman in a tradition-rich Connecticut infantry company. By the time he embarked for France, he was part of a new national army, a soldier in the 102nd Infantry Regiment of the 26th Division, better known as the ‘Yankee’ Division because most of its troops came from New England states. The shotgun marriage of the National Guard and the Regular Army was never an easy one. The 26th Division’s most demoralizing moment came amid the agonizing Argonne campaign in October 1918, when Pershing sacked its beloved commander, Maj. Gen. Clarence R. Edwards, even though he was a fellow West Pointer. The Yankees never forgave and never forgot.

Rivalry continued to reverberate after the war, when the New Englanders — blessed perhaps with more than their fair share of intellectuals — produced three official histories and countless memoirs that defended their record, while casting aspersions on Pershing and his senior command. If the division did not win all its battles, it could at least note with pride that it was the first division to reach France intact, the first to go into the line as a division and the first to engage in a strictly German-American fight. The 26th also was in combat longer than any other division in the AEF.

Carty led the division’s observation group. Forward observation — critical at a time when communications technology was still primitive and tactical control often problematic — was dangerous work. Only nine of the 16 original members of Carty’s group survived the first month of combat.

Carty was better than most at his job. He had learned to hunt, trap and reconnoiter in the Canadian wilderness and had spent several years in the merchant marine. One of many commendations he received from the division’s G-2 (Intelligence section) began: ‘Your work as a member of the Division Observation Group and later as Group Commander was, I believe, unequaled by any man in the other divisions of our army.’ Even Pershing and his headquarters staff, whose praise for the controversial Yankees was sparse, considered the 26th’s observation group the best in the AEF.

The St. Mihiel offensive was the first campaign of the war in which the AEF played a key role. The offensive’s objective was to reduce the large German salient protruding from St. Mihiel, and the 26th played a major part in the secondary attack on the northern flank of the salient. The division was to drive from Mouilly toward the towns of Hatton-Châtel and Vigneulles, then link up with the 1st Division, ‘The Big Red One,’ coming from the south.

Carty was one of the first observers to recognize and report that German Army Group C was already making an orderly withdrawal, contrary to intelligence assessments. He also reported that the Germans in his sector, close to their base and determined to protect a vital supply route, were well-positioned to wage a rear-guard action. In the following excerpt from Hände Hoch! Carty recounts his experiences on the first day of the St. Mihiel offensive:

‘It was on the 3rd of September, 1918 that the General Staff of the Yankee Division decided to give me an opportunity to demonstrate some new ideas in regard to the functioning of the Intelligence Service during attack. For this purpose, I was called from my duties with the Battalion Intelligence Section and given a picked body of men and unlimited power to carry out the theories which previous experience on other fronts, and especially at Château-Thierry [in July 1918], had convinced me were right. In previous engagements, unexpected changes in both our own positions and those of the enemy had been noticed and foreseen, which, if taken advantage of at the right time, could have hastened our progress, killed more of the enemy, and saved the lives of many of our own men. For instance — after the enemy’s front line had been broken, it was to his advantage to resist at the points which gave him the greatest natural protection, and those points could be determined beforehand by a study of the terrain.

‘A better system of applying tactics on the field was needed — a much better system. The tactical brains of the Division were in division headquarters, at least four kilometers from the front. The plans for attack were made there. The information from the lines was received there through long channels, and there were longer intervals between the times absolutely dependable information was received as to positions of units in our own front and a correct diagnosis of the enemy’s movement. The General Staff must become more intimately acquainted with events as they occurred on both sides of the line, and they also would have to shoulder the responsibility for a greater part of the minor tactics, as well as making the plans for the general attack. I firmly believed that the only way for them to gain this more intimate knowledge of conditions was through a group of men who would accompany attacks, at various points in the line, and do nothing but keep the Staff supplied with the information which they needed.

‘By September 7 we were on our way, by short night marches from one patch of woods to another, to take our position for the St. Mihiel Drive, which was about due. Our Headquarters was already established on the extreme left of the American forces, not far from Mouilly. We were to capture the sharp ridges which extended fourteen kilometers southeast from Mouilly to Hatton-Châtel. Under the direction of the assistant chief of staff [Lt. Col. Hamilton R. Horsey], I made very careful plans covering the entire division front, and for conveying back the information we secured by telephone, being given additional signal corps men for that sole object. Every available map of the terrain was studied, and from the Mayor of Pierrefitte, we secured a large scale map of Hatton-Châtel, the town we were to capture at the end of our objective. Every elevation and the ground formation which could be seen from it, was plotted on our maps, together with the time at which our barrage was scheduled to rise from those points.

‘At midnight on the 11th of September, the best barrage which we ever had roared out its opening chorus and at seven o’clock the following morning, with the barrage still pounding unmercifully, we got ready to start. The twisted pair, or ordinary telephone line which we had been using up to that time, was disconnected, as from then on, we were to rely on a single wire and the use of the ground. In this way a connection can be made at any point by jabbing a trench knife into the ground and connecting one pole of the field telephone to that. At eight o’clock the barrage lifted, and we went over the top with the Infantry. The enemy’s trenches were about four hundred yards away near the top of the next ridge. The ground between was terribly mangled by artillery fire, masses of tangled barb wire, and blasted trees laying in all directions, but nevertheless the Infantry went down our side of the valley and up the other side with good formation and with few losses. My men followed me in single file, the signal corps men unreeling their light wire as they went. The Boche [a derogatory French slang term for Germans, adopted by the Americans] first line, although composed of stone and concrete trenches, was completely wrecked by our artillery. We followed our barrage so closely that we caught most of them in their dugouts, and those who did come out to fight were quickly bayoneted or made prisoners. Their first line was captured in less time than we had expected, and within twenty minutes the General Staff was aware of the fact. When we reached their second line of resistance, there was a dense undergrowth which afforded them better cover, and, as the trenches were not so badly injured as was their first line, it took us a bit longer to mop up and get them all out. Our men were in an ugly humor that morning and worked with grim satisfaction.

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