“In front of Cantigny, in woods on hill. Valley in front, with main road from Montdidier to Amiens running thru valley. Boche on hill across valley and in town of Cantigny. Heavy shelling; gas day and night. Parks and Wynn killed by shellfire. Relieved Algerians. No trenches, they stopped the Boche there. We are busy all night putting up wire and digging in. The ground is like chalk, easy digging. I’ve had a patrol out every night, protecting the wire stringers. May 1. On patrol last night with Lt. Monroe, Sgt. Edwards, Fat Stephenson. Got to main road, very dark, heard Boche talking. Peeked over road, could see nothing. Heard snap of grenade detonator. Grenade hit my back, but didn’t explode. Machine gun opens up and we see gun right across from us. We each throw a couple of grenades, and as flares are going up we run like Hell back to our side. Capt. Graves meets us and says we will go back soon with a larger party and get that gun. We went after the gun with two officers and nine men, on the night of May 3. Ran into 34 Boche laying for us. I was shot in the head and Fat Stephenson got a scratch across his forehead. I saw two Boche go down before the blood started to run into my eyes, blinding me, but we all got back safely. All we had was pistols. If we had had an automatic rifle or two we could have taken them. I walked about a mile back to an aid station with two guys helping me.”

Entries of April 29 and May 1- 3, 1918
from the diary of Cpl. Tom Carroll, 16th Inf., Co. F

Courtesy of the
Colonel Robert R. McCormick Research Center

Above: Col. W. S. Grant observing artillery fire near Broyes, France prior to advance at Cantigny on May 28th, 1918. Signal Corps Photograph courtesy of the Colonel Robert R. McCormick Center