Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-08-18 | Page 33 | Xivray Engagement is Called a 'Fight'

XIVRAY EKEHT IS C 'FIGHT American Troops Refer to Preceding Clashes as "Affairs" or "Things." TRUE METAL SHOWN Fighters From IL S. Defeat the Germans in Desperate Des-perate Conflict. WITH THE AMERICAN TROOPS IN FRANCE, July 20. (Correspondence, of the Associated Press.) Though the American troops have had three engagements engage-ments in the Toul sector during the past three months, men in the division say "there has teen just one fight." The big raid on Apremont in April tbey call "the Apremont affair" ; they refer to the attack on Seicheprey, ten days later a"s "the Seicheprey thing"; but the morning of June 16 at Xivray, they say , "there was a fight." This distinction does no wrong to the defenders of Apremont and Seicheprey. The men did their best there, and that best was as good as could be expected under the circumstances, but their best was not so good as their best at Xivray. That is the significance given to the distinction dis-tinction by French officers. They say that it was at Xivray the men holding the sector showed they had learned how to do what must be done in the front line. Xivray has a similar meaning to the Germans in that sector, if the evidence of prisoners may be trusted. The men captured cap-tured there show Increased respect for the fighting qualities of the Americans, and betray a deeper awe of the American machine gun. Quick-firers Deadly. It is no disparagement of the work the ordinary rifle did there to say that the quick-firers decided the issue. Two companies com-panies of infantry, without dugouts to shelter them, held their ground on the right of the position through a heavy artillery ar-tillery preparation, and kept the enemy from bringing up reinforcements throughout through-out the fight. Meanwhile, in the center at Xivray and on' the left, the machine gunners did the rest. The enemy's plan, according to prisoners, prison-ers, was to force the village, destroy the defense works, make the place untenable and take prisoners. The effort was well organized ajid might have succeeded but for the work of the quick-firers. Six hundred men advanced to the attack at-tack in no less than a dozen different columns,' led by 200 picked Bavarian storming troops. They came up. on the right flank, on the left and on the center under cover of smoke, making a dark night still darker. They crept up the ravines and slipped through the hollows. The sharp ears of sentries alone prevented prevent-ed a total surprise. , Great Bravery Shown. Their guns laid down a heavy box barrage that prevented the reinforcing of the front line. One platoon, led by Lieutenant Lieu-tenant Doan from Maine, got through the first curtain of fire, Doan even went through the second with some volunteers, but that was ail the help that could be sent to the 225 men that were holding the line attacked. They were only one to three, but they fought in a way to surprise sur-prise and dismay the 600 Germans. One machine gun section in the village was reduced to two men, Monfort Wyck-off Wyck-off and John Flynn. Their gun jammed and Flynn kept the Germans off with bis revolver while Wyckoff got the quick-firer quick-firer going again. They held their ground to the end. Two other men, unable to get a sight at the Germans from their trench, climbed the parapet and stood there erect firing their automatics from the shoulder. Two infantrymen crawled out of a shell hole to get a better aim. The Germans had lost a third of their 600 men, when growing daylight, impaired the effectivenese of their smoke screen, and they began to retire. The fifty odd un wounded Americans left out of 225 went over the top after them. Cook Proves a Hero. Two hundred is a conservative estimate esti-mate of the German losses, for our men buried forty-seven of them on the field, and there were more corpses in the tall grass facing the position out of reach. Thus the Germans lost nearly as many men as they had facing them during the fight. One of the heroes of the day was a cook who had been dismissed from the service on account of loose habits with respect to drink. When sober he was possessed of an astonishing amount of perseverance. He had foiled all efforts of the officers to put lvim out of the division. di-vision. He left one regiment to appear In another. an-other. He pass.ed from one company to another until he had reached the last one. If he was thrown out of that it was all over with his soldiering'. He was one of the volunteers that went through the barrages! and he stayed through the fight, giving first aid to the wounded under un-der the sharpest fire from the assailants.