Greater dash, a more complete disregard for danger which amounted in many cases to individual foolhardiness, causing at the same time the enemy to feel that he was up against foemen that outclassed him in that sort of thing, had much to do with the winning streak that the Yanks maintained. The Germans fooled themselves into thinking that they were above defeat where the great forest, its ravines and hills, afforded them such protection, but this was the sort of thing that the Americans--many of them hunters, sportsmen, woodsmen, mountaineers, or with vacation experiences in such places and having the hereditary instincts of ancestors who were pioneers--now welcomed.
This manner of fighting took from the Germans their natural inclinations following their training as a body of men who depended upon the spirit of comradeship and who were only at their best when fighting shoulder to shoulder. But it was exactly according to the American standards and training, showing clearly the superiority of the latter method of making each man depend on himself. Moreover, it was what is known as open fighting, differing from trench warfare and though the opposing forces often fortified themselves behind natural rock masses and within thickets and groves, they were not as fixed as in the elaborate dugouts and fortresses beneath the surface of the ground. In some instances, however, over officers had erected cabins or stone huts.
The fighting in the Argonne occurred mostly in the daytime and except where some few night raids were carried out with slight gain either way, the opposing forces were content to lie in wait until early morning hours, when they again leaped at each other’s throats, the Yanks doing most of the jumping and the Huns getting the larger part of the throttling. Then, until the fall of darkness again, the battle went on uninterruptedly.
Naturally, slow progress was made in the forest. Between the Aire River, which skirts the Argonne region on the east, and the Meuse, an average of twelve miles away, the attacking Americans got on much faster, taking village after village and compelling the Germans to fall back continually. Units of other divisions cleared the immediate valley of the Aire of Huns, but before all this was done the now famous 77th Division had penetrated into the very center of the forest and was still going strong. After pausing to make good the ground and re-form, the drive was resumed in the early morning of October 4th, the sounds thereof conveying the glad fact to Herbert Whitcomb, Don Richards and their brave little company.