In a 1922 issue of THE AMERICAN LEGION WEEKLY a veteran of the U.S. First Division, Frank Coffman, recalled the chilling events of that rainy night in November, 1917, when the first German raid upon the American trenches resulted in three dead, five wounded, and twelve Americans taken away as prisoners. As only an eyewitness can do, Coffman went in to some detail as to how Hay, Enright and Gresham were killed following a forty-five minute artillery barrage:
“…two hundred and forty Bavarians, the widely advertised cut-throats of the German Army, hopped down on us. The first raid on American troops was in full swing. They had crawled up to our wire under cover of their barrage and the moment it lifted were right on top of us.”
“Corporal Gresham was standing in a dugout entrance when a man in an American uniform came running by and said to him, ‘Who are you?” to which Gresham replied, ‘An American, don’t shoot.’ The man replied ‘You are the one I’m looking for,’ and immediately shot him through the eye…”.
The U.S. Army would not launch their own trench raid for another four months.
Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.
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