24 MAY 20, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
The Lost Battalion and fate of Ridgewood & Glendale Great War soldiers
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
On Sept. 26, 1918, the 77th Division — which included
many Ridgewood and Glendale soldiers
— participated in the Battle of Argonne Forest.
They were assigned a front of 7 ½ kilometers, and in
19 days, they managed to move 22 kilometers against
fi ve German divisions.
One of their units was the famous “Lost Battalion,”
which is where Lost Battalion Hall in Rego Park got
its name.
Elements from the 308th Infantry Regiment and
the 306th Machine Gun Battalion, under the command
of Charles Whittlesey, were ordered to push
ahead in the Argonne Forest and were told if they
broke through to keep going until they reached a
certain position, until those units on their fl anks
caught up with them.
They followed orders, but the units on the fl anks
had a great deal of diffi culty in moving ahead, so that
Major Whittlesey’s battalion was isolated.
The Germans, discovering this, laid wire behind
them and cut them off . They were in a deep ravine,
completely surrounded. For six days and nights, the
German troops poured hand grenades and shellfi re
down on them. Their food and ammunition ran low,
and the Germans called upon them to surrender; they
refused to do so.
Finally, American artillery fi re poured down
in front of the ravine and then skipped over it and
Soldiers from the 308th Infantry Regiment (part of the 77th Division) are among the soldiers
shown liberating a French town in 1918. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
poured down on the far side. A short time later, elements
of the other brigades from the 77th Division
entered the ravine and broke the trap. Of the 679 men
that went in, 252 came out.
The German Air Force commanded the skies and
bombed the Allied troops day and night.
As the war was winding down and the German
armies were retreating, the 77th Division advanced
37 kilometers; when the war ended at 11 a.m. on Nov.
11, 1918, they found themselves on the east bank of the
Meuse River, only two kilometers from the historic
battlefi eld of Sedan. They were the American Division
closest to the German border when the war ended.
They also had the distinction of being the fi rst
American National Army division assigned to the
line in France, and the fi rst to be assigned in an active
sector. They suff ered 9,611 casualties; when the war
ended, they had 21,624 offi cers and men.
On May 6, 1919, the offi cers and men of the 77th
Division, “New York’s Own,” were honored with a
parade up Fift h Avenue, with Mayor John Hylan and
Governor Al Smith greeting the troops.
ALL GAVE SOME, AND SOME
GAVE ALL
In 1918, the local newspapers were fi lled with lists
of war casualties.
Private Tobias Ammon of 765 Seneca Ave. in Ridgewood,
a member of the 77th Division, was killed in
action in the Argonne Forest. He had left for Camp
Upton on Sept. 30, 1917.
Clarence T. Leonard died of wounds he received in
action on Sept. 15, 1918, in France. His wife, a resident
of Hanson Place in Glendale, received the dreaded
telegram. He was inducted at Camp Upton on Feb. 25,
1918, and left for France on April 6 of that year.
Corporal Bernard Brandt, son of Rebecca and
Henry Brandt of 2527 Woodbine St. in Ridgewood,
was convalescing at a French hospital in October 1918
A monument to the Lost Battalion of World War I in Argonne, France. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
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