IN THE VOSGES: TRAINING WITH THE ALPIN CHASSEURS, OR "BLUE DEVILS", WHILE LIVING IN
MAKESHIFT BILLETS AMONG THE VILLAGERS.
Toward the end of September 1917, owing to the organization and mobilization of the Second Division, United States Army, A. E. F., the Fifth Regiment was detached from the First Division and was assigned to the Second Division. Aside from the Fourth Brigade of Marines, made up of the Fifth and Sixth Regiments and the Sixth Machine Gun Battalion, the Second Division was regular United States Army.
This interdivisional change required a move of Marine Corps elements into a new training area. The Fourth Brigade area of the Second Division tract was located in the Department of the Vosges and comprised the adjoining towns of Damblain, Breuvannes, and Colombes-les-Choiseul. In January 1918 the Sixth Regiment, the Sixth Machine Gun Battalion, and the remainder of the Fifth Regiment, employed until then on construction and police missions elsewhere in France and England, joined the Second Division in the Vosges, occupying the towns of Blevaincourt, Robecourt, Germainvillers, Championeulles, and Chaumont-la-Ville.
The billet villages of this new area were typically French. Almost every house had its steaming stack of manure piled high to the right or left of the front door. Surface drainage from these stacks moved thickly in shallow ditches,
on both sides of the unpaved streets, to a creek running through .the center of each village. Human excrement was disposed of in soakage pits of the privy type except when homes bordered the town creek. Then the privy houses
straddled the creek, and sported the "a. m. c." factor: running water. This was soapy water that flowed underneath and came from the public roadside laundry farther upstream. These factors gave the odor of home to the sheep herder, but provided many basic hygienic and sanitary problems for the brigade medical department to solve in making the respective towns habitable for troops.
Native social activity centered around the potable water source where, not only human drinking water was obtained but all animal life was watered from a trough built to catch the overflow from the human tank. This animal
trough in turn emptied into the washing tank where the village laundry was pounded out by women of various ages.
Drinking water was obtained from small creeks. In its conservation for human and animal purposes, frequently odd engineering skill was seen in spreading the
supply through a series of tanks and spillways, all concentrated in a surprisingly small space. To protect the washer-woman from the sun and weather, the washing pools of these water systems are sometimes covered with a crude circular and domed construction.
Billets for troops, usually in haylofts, were totally inadequate. To take care of this need, "Adrian" barracks were constructed in sufficient number to accommo
date the men comfortably. Ice, snow, sleet, and thaw prevailed during most of the stay in this area. While here everybody in the brigade "turned-to" in the serious business of training and shaking-down preparatory to entering the lines.
Litter drills and practice marches with troops, conducted during day and night operations, were supplemented by lectures about practical application of the various special and improvised splints and dressings. Gas mask drills were
carried out with the French mask and the British respirator. The drills involved exposure to chlorine in chambers and marchinlg, running, carrying, and transmitting verbal orders with the masks in place. Seasoned French medical officers gave lectures and demonstrations in caring for and transporting wounded in various systems of trenches and dugouts.
During this period (September 1917 until March 1918) the plan of training centered around building and occupying trench systems, trench raids, grenade and bayonet attacks, Chau Chau and Hotchkiss gun drills, laying field communications, airplane signals, Very lights, 37 mm. firing, day and night marches, bivouacs and practice billeting, with full field equipment, and the use of animals
and motorized equipment. This training thoroughly adapted and prepared the Marine brigade for active service.
Strenuous activities were carried out to prepare the troops for occupation of a trench sector. This started first with small detachments and later involved regimental and brigade units. A great deal of the training was along lines
essential for participation in a highly specialized form of warfare. Although the tactics and drills practiced were especially of the types for carrying on position
or trench warfare, the possibility that the character of warfare might at any time be changed to one of movement or open warfare made it necessary for the training
to include drills for both methods. Regimental, brigade, and divisional maneuvers were conducted in the open country under all kinds of weather, characterized by "the rain, the cold, and the mud; the mud, the cold, and the rain." Practice trenches were occupied by successive battalions for 24-hour periods. The weather during this particular stage of training duplicated that which is said to have existed at Valley Forge.
Medical and Hospital Corps personnel attached to their respective infantry organizations likewise became hardened to the rigors of an outside existence and familiarized themselves with the many situations (entirely new and foreign to them) characteristic of infantry and trench warfare.
Living in close contact with the men under these severe conditions not only meant undergoing the same physical adjustments and hardships but acquainted them personally with the multitudinous variations in individual endurance,
courage, and psychology of the men with whom they were serving.
There were important lessons learned in hygiene and sanitation, food preparation and feeding as applied to rationing men in the field, water supply and chlorin
ation, foot and skin conditions resulting from extensive outdoor training in cold weather over a wet or frozen terrain, the use of new hob-nail shoes and being
required to go several days without removing clothing; rodents and vermin; various problems arising from exposure; the requirements of individual, battalion,
and regimental medical equipment for warfare of position (trench) and movement. (We were oversupplied with Navy medical gear for flexible maneuverability and a great deal of materiel had to be abandoned.)
Because the greater number of the Marines had had tropical service prior to going to France, the change in climatic and living conditions caused many cases of bronchitis. There were comparatively few cases of acute infectious disease;
most cases were of mumps.
As a result of intensive education regarding venereal infection and prophylaxis, in conjunction with weekly inspections of organizations, disciplinary measures
and pay checkage, ineffectives resulting from these conditions were surprisingly few.
Flat foot for a time gave some concern. But this was quickly remedied through the use of orthopedic appliances, graduated exercise, iron-clad followthrough instructions and examinations, and the best possible fitting of new
shoes.
It was felt that the low sick rate was largely due to the use of shelter halves as partitions between bunks in billets where a number of men were accommodated.
All units of the regiment were given their first delousing in August 1917, when a mobile plant was assigned to the brigade.
Bathing and the changing of clothing was a problem, mostly because of move' ment, the character of training, and inadequacy of the water supply. In the Vosges area, bathing was done under a few improvised showers and mostly
in buckets.
During the transition period before combat while on transports, in ports of debarkation, in temporary-duty camps, and the training area in the Vosges, the general detail and employment of medical personnel continued as instituted at Quantico. Even though units were often separated by many kilometers, the attached Hospital Corps maintained unit relationships with the parent organization and, when alone, brought their sick and injured to the proper area medical officers.
Generally, the major sections of regiments stayed together, and battalion medical and dental officers held regular sick call. The regimental surgeons and their staffs carried out these routine functions for the personnel of the headquarters contingent, received daily sick reports from battalion surgeons, and performed the medical-clericaI duties for the units as a whole.
From the day of arrival in Europe until the time the Fourth Brigade assembled in the Vosges
area, as a contingent of the Second Division, the experiences of the separated battalion
surgeons, with their respective medical units, were many and varied.
(Strott, pp 14-17).
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