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Sgt Willis L. Burnworth
At 11:30 PM, Wednesday, October 16th, they hiked the muddy one kilometer to the loading point on the high road between Bouillonville and Essey. The truck trip ended at 9:00 AM the next day at the town of Foug, having passed through Toul shortly before. They hiked to Blenod-les-Toul where they stayed till October 19th.
October 19th at 4:30 PM they left Blenod-les-Toul and hiked ten kilometers to the rail head at Domgermain. The route took them through Troyes, Nangis, and the outskirts of Paris that night. At about 1 PM the following day they hit the seacoast near Boulogne-sur-Mer, passing within sight of that port.
October 31 - November 4, 1918
Ypres-Lys offensive
Transport to Ypres
Wednesday October 30th at 4:30 PM they left Thielt by the road leading southeast to Denterghem, reached a crossroads near the Lys River, one kilometer from the town of Olsene. They had hiked about fifteen kilometers.
At 4:30 AM October 31st they were aroused and ordered to make light packs and prepare to go over the top at 5:30. Just as dawn came, the French artillery let loose a terrific barrage and they started over. Jerry immediately poured upon them the most wicked concentration of H. E. and shrapnel they had ever experienced. Many men fell before they had gone twenty feet. It was a new kind of fighting. Instead of the wild Argonne forest and brush they plunged past little farmhouses, fought from strawstack to strawstack, surged down narrow lanes and roads, and forced their way forward through endless turnip patches. The country was generally flat, broken at intervals by low ridges, and offered no shelter, while the enemy took advantage of the high ground and swept their line with machine gun crossfire. He had machine gun nests in strawstacks, hedges, and houses, and knew how to use them. The German artillery pounded with fearful accuracy. Nest after nest was surrounded and captured, and the prisoners streamed back. The Regiment plunged forward in a whirlwind advance and swept the enemy back
Peter Stassen
8 August 2015
During the two full days in this town they worked on the equipment, cleaning, polishing and oiling them until they shone with proper brightness. Gas masks and helmets were carefully marked. They were given severe lectures on care and preservation of equipment and clothing. Being now isolated from the rest of the A. E. F. they could not procure supplies in plenty.
Leaving Staden at about 8:00 AM on Saturday October 26th, they hiked sixteen kilometers to Lichtervelde, passing through the small town of St. Joseph.
The 37th Division was attached to the Army Of France in Belgium, being assigned to the French XXX Corps. On Monday, October 28th they went for another move. They indulged in a good deal of cussing of the Belgian roads. They were a new type to them and were already beginning to get their feet. These roads are the worst drawback to soldiering in Belgium; built of old, worn cobblestones between which are wide interstices, and usually covered with a slime of thin mud, they cause the feet to slip and the legs to strain unduly hard in order to balance the weight of the body. One's feet are continually slipping, at toe or heel, into the wide crevices, and nothing so enhances the difficulty of marching and maintaining a steady pace as an unstable footing. Passing through Koolscamp and Pitthem, they made Thielt, by 11:30 AM.
Transport to Olsene
Key map Ypres-Lys offensive
to Cruyshautem Ridge. Here Jerry reorganized and they were forced to dig and remain all afternoon and night, under harassing shell and machine gun fire and gas attacks, until the morning of the next day, awaiting the aid of the artillery. The Regiment, at the end of the first day, had driven the enemy approximately four kilometers and were near Cruyshautem.
Detail Ypres-Lys offensive
Next morning they went over again behind a brief barrage and outflanked the machine gun nests. Their line swept over the ridge and Cruyshautem fell into their hands. During the night the Germans had withdrawn their main body, leaving only a few machine guns to guard their rear. From Cruyshautem on to the Scheldt the Regiment rambled merrily forward. They entered the village of Eyne. Crossed a high-banked railroad, and a parallel road, and streamed out upon the river flats. At a point one hundred yards from the river they came upon a wide ditch, deep with water. The enemy shelled Eyne constantly and, due to the absence of Allied aircraft, their planes, flying low, harassed them with bombs and machine gun fire. When night came they settled down to the nerve-racking job of hanging on under fire until the Engineers could get a
pontoon bridge across. It was distinctly understood that if they failed, they would swim the river under fire. Early the next morning, November 2nd, a small body of men succeeded in swimming the river, and laboring under hot machine gun fire and shrapnel, threw a foot-bridge across by fastening tree trunks end to end. Many of the boys died or were seriously wounded in attempting to get over, but late that afternoon a total of fifty-two were on the other side and thus a foothold was established. Men crept over that night, one at a time, during lulls in the frantic German fire.
Next day the contest for the river continued. The enemy became desperate and their planes circled and dove head-on, sending showers of machine gun bullets along the stream and bombing at close range. The German efforts were of no avail; the engineers succeeded, after three attempts, in getting a pontoon bridge in place near Heurne. By nightfall over nine companies of infantry and four of machine guns were dug in on the opposite side. They held that footing in spite of counter attacks, resisting all efforts to dislodge them.
On November 4th, the objective, the establishing of a bridgehead over the Scheldt, having been accomplished, the Regiment was relieved by French troops, although a portion of the division did not get out until the 5th. They were the first and only Allied troops to cross and establish ourselves on the other side of that famous river.
The historic crossing of the Escault-Scheldt River is symbolized in the Regimental insignia by the wavy blue line representing the river.
With the Armistice on November 11, 1918, a selected group form the Regiment made a formal entry into Brussels, capitol city of Belgium. While there King Albert of Belgium sent a barrel of whiskey to the Regiment as a token of friendship. This was followed by a formal entry in at Aix-la-Chapell, or Aachen, Germany, where the 145h Infantry first set foot on German soil.
Reference: Heaven, Hell or Hoboken by Ray N. Johnson
Images: Great War Primary Document Archive: Photos of the Great War