Memoirs of 2dLt W. B. Jackson, USMC
BOURMONT TRAINING AREA
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We passed through many small towns and a few larger ones like Dijon. Nobody knew where we were or where we were headed. Finally about the end of the first week of January 1918 we arrived at a town called Damblain and were told we would unload there. Nobody was sorry the trip was over. We got unloaded and learned that our company would proceed by hiking to our base village called Germanvillier. It was a very small town-one main street with houses built on both sides of the street-the people were mostly farmers of the surrounding area. Their livestock, in most cases had the occupancy of a part of the residence. The manure was collected and stacked in smelly piles in front of the house on the street side. Our platoon was billeted in the so-called Chateau-a large stone and brick building two stories high. Our first night there were no cots or the like and we slept wherever we could on the floor. I inherited space on the stone- floored passageway through the building on the first floor. Both ends of the passage were open and the night temperature dropped below zero. Two blankets on a stone floor under these conditions were of little help. Or course we had our over coats too.
The next day we got Helen Gould cots and I was assigned to a room on the second floor with ten or twelve others. We filled mattress sacks with straw and rushes which helped quite a lot. The floors were wood, an improvement over stone and the rooms could be cleaned up. Each room had one stove-a wood burner-an upright tube about a foot in diameter and three feet high. It would accommodate one fair size log length at a time. As the stove was sheet tin it would not hold any heat after the log burned out. We were permitted to have a fire for only two hours each evening. Every day there was a wood cutting detail sent out to the nearby forests to cut our wood with axes and handsaws. We could only cut the trees designated by the French forestry people and only a limited amount could be cut. But it made for at least a couple of hours of happier times in the evening.
Our first few days were devoted to policing up the Chateau and its ground, after which the appearance of thing was much improved. The Chateau was at one end of the village and the cook shacks and the mess hall were at the other end of town-so three times daily we tore down and back on the one village street, creating quite a commotion. In a short time Jack and I developed quite a reputation. The fellows claimed that the first in chow line was always either Jackson or Butterfield. But we wanted to be sure the chow did not run out until we had ours. So much for fame.
They had taken up our English Lewis machine guns a St. Nazairre and we were issued the heavier, slower firing, more cumbersome French Hotchkiss. So for weeks we had intensive instruction on these guns, nomenclature, mounting, dismounting, breaking down, some firing and endless field drilling with the gun carts. There were two carts to each gun for transport of the gun, tripod, ammunition etc. There was one mule to each cart-so two mules to each gun crew. This meant two mule skinners out of each crew. Nobody wanted to be a mule skinner-everybody tried to duck the assignment-but finally the assignments were made and skinners began to get acquainted with their charges and how to "operate" them.
Throughout January and February our drills in the field seemed endless and in quarters we were forever assembling and disassembling the guns. Our battalion Major was an old time machine gun officer and he wrote up a pamphlet of instruction on the operation of the Hotchkiss gun. At one point he stated that a certain operation of the gun took place on the forward or backward motion of the gun's piston (I don't remember which). I had become very proficient on the operation of the gun and orally describing it. I discovered by careful inspection and follow through that the operation referred to by the Major actually took place on exactly the opposite motion of the piston than as stated by him in the pamphlet. A technicality but obvious. A few days later we were all set up in gun positions in the field when who should show up for a semi-inspection but the Major and our Captain. What should happen but that the Captain brought the Major down to our gun and directed me to tell the Major how it operated. This meant recite the Major's pamphlet. Problem-should I tell it as the Major had it or should I tell it as it worked. I decided on the latter. The Major stopped me and said it operated on the opposite motion of the piston. I begged the Major's pardon and asked if I might demonstrate. He said, "Of course". I demonstrated. Very fairly, the major, after a thorough inspection agreed. His pamphlet was corrected and I became somewhat well known throughout the company accordingly. The second time I had the nerve to act as I thought I should.
Jack and I spent most of the weekends hiking to nearby villages. In this way we saw quite a bit of the French people's lives-their houses-method of constructing their homes and something of their home life and activities. Frankly we did not find ourselves enthusiastic about it.
In quarters we developed the habit of having hot chocolate in the evening after chow. We would buy milk from some local family-cocoa from the PX and use the heating stove to heat up the concoction. Then we would sit around the room on our cots waiting for the drink to cool-yacking and sipping the chocolate. It was pleasant and tension easing.
There were always things happening to increase our tension and responsibilities. For instance, the Chateau had a beautiful stone wall across the front of the property about 4 feet high. Atop the stone was an ornamental iron fence perhaps 3 feet high, cemented into the stone wall. We had a mule skinner in our platoon who was a bit smarter than his mule but
not much. One morning getting ready for field drill, this skinner drove his mule and cart up to the Chateau and casually tied the mule's rope to the iron fence. He was delayed a bit getting
his gear from quarters and when he came running out the company was already moving. Thoughtlessly he rushed at the mule head on and lunged for the rope. The mule was frightened and reared and started backing violently away. What happened? Down came the iron fence and the wall toppled over and confusion reigned. So our company had the happy (?) job on off time of rebuilding the wall and re-erecting the iron fence.
Our nearest off duty recreation place was the YMCA room in Damblain which was quite a hike from Germanvillers. There you could get one sheet of paper for each letter you wrote-could read a few outdated magazines or newspapers and buy certain goodies such a cigarettes, nuts, cocoa etc. These were at a rather steep cost and limited as to quantity. This didn't seem too bad until one day in helping to unload their supplies a crate of cigarettes was dropped and broke open and a big card fell out which read, "Compliments of the Liggett Meyers Tobacco Co." That sort of took the halo off the Y. There were times thereafter when the fellows took advantage of the Y. I recall another unloading detail where one of the fellows was carrying a his gunny sack of nuts from the truck up a hill to the Y hut. Somehow one of the bottom corners of the sack broke open and the nuts began to drain out. The carrier was followed by a growing contingent of Marines gathering nut in their tin lids. By the time the bearer reached the Y hut the nut supply was badly depleted.
Along in March a program was started to get us a bit indoctrinated in War. Weekly details were moved up to within short hiking distances of the reserve lines in a quiet sector. Each night we would hike up to these lines to help the French soldiers there, dig machine gun emplacements-trench lines-etc. While quiet, the sector furnished occasional rifle fire bursts-now and then a shell would come over-and the frequent firing of flares, etc. You got something of the feel of things out there in the cold and dark of the night. Our quarters during our stay were in some old abandoned barracks shacks-our chow was almost wholly red kidney beans (the mess sergeant claimed he could not get anything else sent up). After three meals a day for a day or two it was not much and we had a week at a time up there. One night a stray shell hit one of the barracks and exploded. No one was hurt but it gave you ideas as to what might happen.
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