Bellicourt and the St. Quentin Canal
An American helmet with the 30th Division insignia painted on. (North Carolina State Archives) World War I had nearly ended before the Americans could make their presence felt. During the closing days of 1917, the Germans concluded an armistice with the new Soviet government of Russia. This freed up well over one million combat troops for service in France. The troops were re-deployed, rested and re-trained in Germany then sent out to win the war before the Americans arrived.
In M arch 1918, the Germans launched a massive assault on the British Fifth Army in Flanders (northern France and Belgium) code named Operation Michael. Using advanced combined-arms tactics, the Germans tore a massive hole in the British lines and poured through headed for the English Channel. Then they ran afoul of the great weakness of all Great War operations. Once the initial assault had broken through, there was no way to rapidly move follow-on forces and supplies across the four or five miles of torn-up ground where the two armies had sat for three long years. It was for a reason that Dwight Eisenhower listed the humble bulldozer as one of the primary implements that won World War II. Bulldozers could fill in shell holes and remove obstacles and build passable roads where none had existed before. There were no bulldozers anywhere in 1918.
The basic problem was one of time and distance. An advancing army in 1918 moved at the same pace as the Roman Legions or the Greek Phalanx. Behind the lines, though, men and equipment could be moved from place to place by rail. Foot soldiers move at about 18 miles per day, trains can move at 40-60 miles per hour. In this case, re-enforcements could be be rapidly shifted from other parts of the front to contain the German advance and, predictably, the German advance ran out of steam. It had, however, been a very close call.
There were a series of smaller German attacks up and down the front for the rest of the spring. The American divisions began to make their presence felt at places like Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood.
By the Summer of 1918, the Allies began to think not of defense but of shifting to the offensive. A massive British attack on August … was so disastrous for the Germans that the German Chief of Staff von Hindenburg called in “the Black Day of the German Army.” However, the British were not immune to the time and distance considerations that had bedeviled the German earlier and their advance ran out of steam as well. However, with fresh American troops available, the Allies could look much more confidently in their ability to launch further attacks.
The American 27th and 30th Divisions were assigned to British Fourth Army and soon plans were underway to use them as the center-piece of an offensive aimed at breaking the Germans' main line of resistance in Flanders called the “Hindenburg Line.” The German had taken this area in 1914 and had used the intervening time to dig a defensive line like no other. It featured concrete bunkers and machine-gun nests and miles of trenches behind thousands of acres of barbed-wire entanglements.
To even get to the Hindenburg Line in the Fourth Army sector, the attackers would have to cross the St. Quentin Canal which had been dug as a public works project under Napoleon. There was one exception.
Napoleon's engineers had found themselves faced by a masif or hill complex directly astride the canal's path near the village of Bellicourt. It would take years of effort and millions of francs to dig and blast through this with picks, shovels and gunpowder. The engineers took a different approach and went under the hill. Their tunnel stretched for some five kilometers (about three miles) and now presented the Germans with a threat to their entire defensive system. They made this apparent weakness into a strength and fortified the area west of Bellicourt so extensively that they believed nobody would be foolish enough to attack there. The Germans sealed the entrances to the tunnel itself with concrete and steel and converted into a vast barracks impervious to any artillery fire and then dug connecting tunnels to key points so troops could be sent there without being exposed to fire.
The entrance to the St. Quentin Tunnel, 1918 (North Carolina Museum of History)The British Fourth Army commander, one General Henry Rawlinson, clearly saw the Bellicourt defenses as the key and planned to deal with it. To do this he had two aces up his sleeve. Not only did he control the American II Corps (27th and 30th Divisions) but Fourth Army also boasted the “Diggers” of the Australian Army Corps, considered to be the elite shock troops of the entire British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He ordered the Americans to lead the attack and once they had gained their objectives, the Aussies would pass through them and continue on. If the attack were successful, a huge hole would be torn in the German line and there would be opportunities for later and more extensive attacks.
The plan was simple, the Americans would attack into the teeth of the Hindenburg Line over the St. Quentin Tunnel and capture Bellicourt. After that the Australian 5th Division would pass through and carry on the attack. The Americans would occupy the length of the St. Quentin tunnel area with the 27th Division on the left and the 30th on the right.
The 30th Division was already in the front lines and on the night of 27-28 September the 60th Brigade rotated in to relieve the 59th and prepare for the assault. The 119th and 120th Infantry would jump off at 0550 on 29 September and the 117th and 118th would follow closely. On the left, the 27th Divison made similar arrangements.
The British spared no effort to support the attack, scheduled to jump off at 0550. Brigades of artillery would lead off and fire over 100,000 rounds of high-explosive, shrapnel, smoke, and gas shells into the German lines along the 4th Army front over the 72 hours before the assault. Nearly 100 tanks were assigned to American II Corps and were split more or less evenly between the 27th and 30th Divisions. To the right and left of II Corps, other British divisions were assigned to cross the canal itself and assault those sections of the Hindenburg Line to prevent the Germans shifting troops to the Bellicourt area. Lastly there was an entire corps of horse cavalry.
As the artillery pounded the German lines a thick fog rolled in along the St. Quentin Canal. A rolling barrage was planned. A “rolling barrage was a brief bombardment 100 yards in front of the front of the advance which would then lift and move another 100 yards every five minutes or so, the idea being that the shelling would keep the Germans' heads down until the assault troops were on top of them and also cut through the thick barbed wire protecting the German trenches. Smoke shells would be included in this barrage to conceal the attackers.
The commander of the 30th Division, General E. M. Lewis ordered the 60th Brigade to lead off with the 59thfollowing closely. In the 59th, the 117th would lead and the 118th would be in reserve, “L” Company of the 117th was assigned to the 120th Infantry and would make the initial assault with them.
The combination of smoke, dust and fog made the attack doubly difficult and many doughboys reported not being able to see more than a few feet in any direction and some platoons actually linked hands to avoid becoming separated in gloom. Captain Reese Amis wrote later, “During the morning hours it was impossible for a man to see his hand more than a few inches in front of him. … The atmosphere did not clear completely until after the canal had been crossed.” Combat engineers went ahead using compasses and marked the attack lanes with white cloth tape.
A roll of engineers' tape used on the Hindenburg Line. (North Carolina Museum of HistoryThe 117th cleared out German positions south and west of the canal entrance. One company mistook a large German trench for the canal and turned early but fought its way to the entrance itself and cleared out a pocket of German machine guns which would have caused a lot of problems later on. The tanks got spearated from the infantry early on, but continued on like huge steel elephants and did yeaomanry service by crushing barbed wire the artillery had missed. However, by noon most of the tanks had broken down or were otherwise immobilized.
This mattered little as by that time the 30th Division was in control of Bellicourt and was digging in. On the left though, it was a different story, The 27th Division had run into determined German resistance and was about lagging about 1000 yards behind the the 30th's advance. Most of the afternoon of 29 September was spent by the boys of the 117th Regiment digging in and extending their lines south and west to link up with the 27th Division before the Germans could take advantage of the situation.
By 1500 (3pm) the Australian 5th Division had arrived and passed through the American lines and pushed on another 1000 yards or so before nightfall.
No doubt about it, the Old Hickory boys had broken the Hindenburg Line and took a big step toward forcing an end to the war. In capturing Bellicourt, the 117th Infantry also seized seven artillery pieces, 99 machine guns and seven anti-tank rifles along with many small arms and 592 prisoners.
German POWs captured by the 30th Division (North Carolina Museum of History)There was a price to be paid and it was steep. The 117th Infantry lost 26 officers and 366 enlisted men in the operation. Knox County, too, paid a price in blood that day and it is only fitting we remember these twelve young men who never got to “come back when it was over, over there.”
Sgt. Thomas D Adcock – C Company, 120th Infantry
Pvt. William N. Austin – B Company, 113th Machine Gun Battalion
Cpl. Richard H. Dickson – C Company, 120th Infantry
Pvt. Arthur Walter Gibbons – C Company, 120th Infantry
Pvt. Floyd Thomas Koontz – B Company, 117th Infantry
Pvt. John Alexander Langford – B Company, 117th Infantry
Sgt. Claude Eecher Phillips – 114th Machine Gun Battalion, 117th Infantry
Sgt. Lawrence Cockrum – Headquarters Company, 117th Infantry
Pvt. William N. Johnson – Sanitary Company (Medic), 117th Infantry
Pvt. Claude L. Mingle – 114th Machine Gun Battalion, 117th Infantry (Cited for Bravery)
Sgt. Hugh J. Luttrell – D Company, 117th Infantry
Sgt. George Fredrick Miller – K Company, 117th Infantry (WIA 29 Sept., Died of Wounds 4 Oct.)
The 30th Division was withdrawn for a few days' rest. This time was needed to prepare for an even larger assault on 8 October. The butcher's bill for that one would dwarf the slaughter at Bellicourt.
