Major Whittlesey Research Paper

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The 77th division under the command of major Whittlesey had inexperienced soldiers put into their ranks. Major Whittlesey was given an order to advance into the argonne forest and capture the Charlevaux mill up on hill 193 hill ,and after taking casualties wished to fall back to receive supplies and reinforcements but were told that under no circumstances were they to give up ground to the germans "WE ARE NOT GOING BACK BUT FORWARD!" –General Alexander. They continued the advance into the Argonne while sustaining heavy losses to snipers and fortified german gun positions. The attack was successful and caught the germans off guard which was fortunate for them due to all the inexperienced soldiers. The battle fractured the individual units of their divisions and took the commanders a few days to regroup them back into their divisions. When they were back in their divisions the AEF attacked deep in the Argonne forest which proved to be an obstacle and caused the advance to be slow due to exhaustion, bad weather, combat stress and the constant resistance …show more content…

Ammunition was low and hand grenades were exhausted, while in the south the 308th and some 207th made repeated desperate attacks against the germans to relieve Whittlesey’s surrounded men in the Argonne with no success. The 152nd field artillery made plans to attempt to fire a barrage of protection around the small pocket of men in hope of supporting the men there and drawing the german forces away. Problem was someone messed up the map coordinates at least one battery* of artillery dropped a barrage right on top of Whittlesey's pocket instead of around them and with machine gun and mortar fire the americans could not relocate out of the artillery fire a half hour into the bombardment Major Whittlesey sent a pigeon named Cher Ami with the following plea for the bombardment to

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