Memoirs of 2dLt W. B. Jackson, USMC
St MIHIEL
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Along towards the first week of September rumor began to have it that we were going back into the lines again. Sure enough along came orders and we move out by hiking, finally bivouacking in a valley near where at that time nobody knew. We pitched shelter halves and settled down. Almost at once it started to rain and rained almost continually for the next several days. We ditched our tents to make the water run away from rather than into them. But as the hours rolled by the ditches broke down or overflowed and soon our blankets and clothes were wet. Our soup kitchen had set up down the valley a ways and chow call meant a couple of hundred yards dash down and back through the rain. Our rations would be soaked and our coffee chilled. A miserable week. Then about the 9th of September orders came down to stand by-we were going in again. And in we went in the drive for St. Mihiel. There was quite a bit of shell fire as we jumped off but no infantry resistance to speak of. By late afternoon we reached Jauiny, our objective for the 2nd night. The location was strictly Deutsche, in clothes found, various items of equipment, ammunition cartons etc. We might about as well have been in Germany. The next afternoon the platoon I was with moved down across the railroad and on into a field overlooking Rembrecourt. Here we stayed on the alert for 2 or 3 days. This area was in range of the big guns near Metz and when one of these box cars came the roar was impressive. It would sink a distance into the ground and when it exploded would blow out an enormous shellhole.
While we were here, we were issued a French 1 liter canteen, bright shiny tin. Why? Nobody knew but each of us got one. A few nights later we hiked out of the area. A beautiful, moonlight night. As we hiked across the fields we became suddenly away of a German plane staying with us and circling above us. We knew that it was the enemy because of its peculiar engine noise. We sort of expected it to strafe us but no. In a few minutes shells began falling in our area and accompanied us as we went along. Suddenly someone thought of those bright new tin canteens and we realize that they were reflecting the moonlight. Hid them as best we could and shortly the avion left us and the shelling dwindled.
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