Re-establishing Link
As it were, communication was a big problem during the First World War. Whittlesey longed to communicate with his allies so as to get back up and support to tear away from his German enemies. He sent two soldiers to tell his allies of the situation on the ground. He waited. He hoped. He expected the backup. But unknown to him, the messengers got lost in the forest. An hour later, he sent two more soldiers. But those run into the German enemy and were abducted. He sent more messengers, but none of them reached their allies.
By the end of the second day, Whittlesey had begun to lose soldiers. He forced his men to attack the Germans. They killed some of the enemy men, but he continued losing his men, too. Moreover, the division was several times bombarded by shells from their own artillery!
“We are on the right, coming to rescue you,” the heard a potter shout. Whittlesey commanded his soldiers to move in that direction. But those who led the way were all shot by the Germans! On the following days, his division got other wrong messages from carrier pigeons and lost more men. But his men fought fearlessly despite the fact that some of their own were perishing through the enemy’s rifle. At the end of six days, a total of 197 soldiers had been killed.
Victory at Last
But Whittlesey knew he had to win. With a total of 554 men in his division, he now had more than two-thirds remaining. He would use those to rescue himself and his living army men. His men came mostly from New York City. Whittlesey believed those men would fight and win. Before they were enlisted in the army, they used to fight for food from the time they were young. The division had been trained outside New York City in Camp Upton and Charles White Whittlesey was made its commanding officer. Whittlesey would make them use the attributes they acquired from the streets to survive and fight and win in the Argonne Forest.
Just when he made that resolution, Cher Ami was sent as a pigeon. He shouted, “We are close by, next to road 276.4. We are low on ammunition. We are being blocked by the enemy. You must stop the enemy!”
Whittlesey and his men mustered all their strength and knowledge and run into the Germans. Somehow, the Germans started to run away. By the end of the sixth day, 194 soldiers from the US 77th Division broke through the German lines!
Major Charles White Whittlesey was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Together with Captain George G. McMurtry and Captain Nelson M. Holderman, he received the Medal of Honor for his bravery. Unfortunately, about 150 soldiers went missing. Either they were captured by the Germans or they were killed and could not be accounted for. And in 1921, Whittlesey seemed to have committed suicide off a ship, because he went missing. His army is known as the Lost Battalion because of being surrounded in the Argonne forest.