Men of every regiment filled stellar rôles in this smashing advance. Lieutenant Godfrey Smith, of Gwynedd Valley, Pa., overcame innumerable obstacles and passed through many dangers to establish and maintain telephone communication between the advance posts and the rear areas of the 112th Infantry. Color-Sergeant Miles Shoup, of Braddock, had charge of the runners and liaison work and displayed great personal bravery.
Shoup had the reputation among the other men of bearing a charmed life and he was termed "a remarkable soldier" by more than one officer. In the advance of the morning of September 28th, Colonel Dubb became separated and Shoup volunteered to search for him. He located the Colonel after passing unscathed through a terrific artillery and machine gun fire, then returned the same way and organized additional runners to keep the communications intact.
At night the Germans suddenly opened a smart barrage with big guns and men of the 112th became scattered. Lieutenant Smith assembled the men while the fire was going on, finding them in various shelters. It was necessary to wear masks because the Boche was mixing an occasional gas shell with his shrapnel and high explosives, but Lieutenant Smith persisted until he had returned the men to their various battalion positions and reorganized the companies.
On another occasion, Lieutenant Smith was laying telephone wire with a detail of headquarters company men. When the supply of wire ran out, he crawled through the woods to a German telephone line, within a short distance of German positions, cut the wire and brought back enough to continue laying his own line.
An officer of the 112th noticed that every time he called for a runner from any one of three companies, it was always the same man who responded. The man was Private Charles J. Ryan, of Harrisburg, a member of Company I. When a lull came in the activity, the officer investigated in person, because the men assigned to act as runners should have taken turns and he suspected the others were imposing on Ryan, which is subversive of discipline. To his amazement, he learned from the unanimous accounts of all the men, including Ryan, that the latter had insisted that the other runners should let him take all the assignments to duty. The officer put a stop to the method.