America in The Somme

Following the United States entry into World War I, the American government promised

to raise and send a trained army numbering more than one million men to France to fight

on the side of the Allies. America’s army at the time numbered only 200,000 men and no

formed divisions existed. Beginning in May 1917, American troops began arriving in

France, initially to train, not to fight.

After three years of fighting, however, the Allies needed relief. In late summer

1917, small engineer contingents were released to assist Britain’s army in its sector of the

Western Front northeast of Paris. Be war’s end, five American divisions and many

separate units would fight alongside their British allies, most in the department (region)

of France named for the River Somme. For the Americans who would fight there, first combat came at Cambrai, approximately 130 miles/209 killometers to the northeast of

Paris.

The British attack at Cambrai, the first massed tank offensive in history, began on

20 November 1917 and made significant gains. By 30 November, the British attack

ground to a halt due to lack of reserves, the mechanical unreliability of the primitive

tanks, and a greatly reinforced German defense. About ten miles/16 kilometers to the

southeast of the British salient’s tip at Cambrai, lay the town of Gouzeaucourt. Here the

American 11th Engineer Regiment was repairing rail lines and building a rail yard for the

British.

On 30 November, the Germans mounted a major counterattack aimed at the

salient’s flanks and directly in front of the Americans. When the British line buckled,

U.S. engineers armed themselves and joined the British defense, some fighting as

infantry while others joined the counterattack force that recaptured the town by the end of

the day. The 11th Engineers suffered eighteen casualties. Earlier in September, the 11th

had suffered the first U.S. battle casualties while serving in the same sector.

While American divisions were arriving in increasing numbers, the separate peace

treaty signed by the Russia with Germany freed nearly 60 enemy divisions for use in the

west. In March 1918, the Germans massed 50 divisions in the Somme Region of

northern France, intending to split the British armies serving in the north from the main

body of the French armies serving in the center and southern sectors of the Western

Front. Attacking on 21 March, the Germans made great initial gains and pluged the front

into crisis. Again, U.S. engineers supporting the British became part of the defense. Two

companies of the 6th Engineer Regiment serving in the vicinity of Peronne, approximately

20 miles/32 kilometers east of Amiens, joined a mixed American-British-Canadian

defense force to block the road about ten miles/16 kilometers east of Amiens. Fighting in

the village of Warfusee-Abancourt on the Peronne-Amiens road during the last days of

March and into early April, the Americans helped repel three German attacks and fought

as infantry for eight days.

The German March offensive changed the nature of the war. American

Commander- in-Chief, General John J. Pershing placed the American Expeditionary

Force at the call of the new Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Soon

arriving American divisions both trained and fought alongside the armies of Britain and

France.

The U.S. 1st Division was attached to the French First Army in late April. In the

early morning hours of 28 May, the 1st Division’s 28th Infantry Regiment with two

companies of her sister regiment, the 18th Infantry, attacked and seized the hill town of

Cantigny which bulged into the Allied line. Withstanding furious counterattacks and

three full days of bombardment, the 1st Division held its gains. The attack at Cantigny

was America’s first division-sized offensive in World War I.

By summer, the main weight of Pershing’s forces shifted to the Champagne area

and further west into Lorraine to help form the American First Army, but American

divisions continued to arrive on the still active Somme front which would retain an

American presence until the war’s end.

On the 4th of July, four companies from the U.S. 33rd Division, interspersed with

units from the Australian Corps, helped to seize the village of Hamel, east of Amiens and

near the 6th Engineers’ battlefield. On 8 August 1918, the British began a series of major offensives that would continue until the Armistice. The U.S. 80th Division took part in

these attacks from the 8th to the 18th of August near the village of Serre while farther

south, the 131st Infantry drawn from the U.S. 33rd Division cleared the heights and woods

overlooking the Somme River from Chipilly to Braysur-Somme.

The U.S. II Corps with the 27th and 30th Divisions was attached to the British

Fourth Army in September and alternately served as a complete corps under the tactical

direction of Australian and British corps. Recently arrived from combat with the British

in Flanders, the II Corps was assigned to seize one of the Western Front’s strongest

enemy objectives: the St. Quentin tunnel complex of the Hindenburg Line.

The Corps’ objective lay about 40 miles/64 kilometers east of Amiens. The

Hingenburg Line consisted of multiple tiers of trenches, strong points, underground

protective bays, barbed wire, and machine gun nests sited on defensively superior

ground.

The American sector was about 7,500 yards wide, sited south of the Escaut River at

Vendhuile running through Bony and Bellicourt to Ville Noire. Enemy trenches were

sited both on the forward and reverse slopes of a long ridge perpendicular to the

American attack. Behind the ridge, the St. Quentin canal ran through a four-mile

underground tunnel used by the Germans to protect their troops from bombardment.

Moving into the front lines to replace British units in late September, both divisions

began limited objective attacks to secure jump-off lines for the main offensive. While

some success was achieved to the flanks by both divisions, the 27th Division’s attempt to

clear the strongpoints dominating its attack zone was repulsed with heavy casualties in

one of its regiments on 27 September. The offensive, nevertheless, proceeded two days

later.

Attacking through furious fire on 29 September, the two American divisions fought

side by side for two days to clear the ridge and tunnel. The 27th Division’s sector which

encompassed the northern half of the attack proved to be particularly vicious. In the area

which includes the Somme American Cemetery and the hill to its north known as “the

knoll,” the 27th Division’s 107th Infantry suffered 995 casualties during the first day’s

attack, the largest one-day American regimental loss for the entire war. The II Corps

suffered over 7,500 casualties during their Hindenburg Line assault. There were nine

Medal of Honor recipients.

On 6 October, after having been temporarily relieved from the front, the II Corps’

two divisions were recommitted four miles/6.4 kilometers to the east of their original

sector. The fighting continued with the II Corp making a further nine mile/14.6

kilometers advance. The II Corps was relieved from the line on 21 October, and with the

armistice in November, the 27th and 30th Divisions never again saw battle on the Western

Front. The II Corps’ battles on the Somme cost over 13,500 American casualties.

Done