par Zw Maas und Mosel » Ven 27 Mar 2020 12:16
Bonjour,
Il s'agit de l'opération "Jacobsbrunnen", "Fontaine de Jacob" le 3 Novembre 1917. L'histoire est détaillée dans le livre "Back Over There" de Richard Rubin. Le texte ci-dessous (en anglais mais je peux traduire si nécessaire) mentionne l'attaque allemande à Bathelémont puis le transport des prisonniers à Coincourt pour être photographiés. Il s'agirait donc de ce village à l'est de Bathelémont.
"At 9:00 P.M. on the night of November 2, the 2nd Battalions of all four regiments in the 1st Division -the 16th, 18th, 26th and 28th- relieved the 1st Battalions in their first - and second - line trenches. A battalion was half a regiment; thousands of men would have been in motion simultaneously, either coming or going, in the dark- a tremendous logistical challenge. "The execution of a relief is in itself a difficult and a dangerous operation, and every precaution was taken to prevent the enemy from knowing of the plan. On this occasion the relief was completed and the newly arrived garrisons set about learning their way in the maze of deep trenches and familiarizing themselves with the instructions for the defense given by their predecessors." The division had only been at the front for a little more than a week; no doubt there was still a good bit of adventure to it all. "With the exception of a rifle shot here and there, the stillness of the black night was unbroken and the men were tense with the novelty and the sense of danger". Midnight passed; it was now November 3. The part of the line closest to Bathelemont, along a hilltop ridge, was occupied by the men of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment. Like the rest of their division, they were Regular Army, and hailed from all across the United States; many had been in the service for years. The relief maneuvers completed, the men settled in for the night, some curling up to sleep.
And then, at 3:26 A.M., things suddenly started blowing up all around them.
The Germans launched Operation Jakobsbrunnen -Jacob 's Fountain- by bombarding the 16th Regiment with high-explosive shells for a few minutes; then they isolated one specific platoon from Company F with what was known as a box barrage, surrounding them on three sides with shell fire to prevent them from retreating and reinforcements from reaching them. Into the fourth side rushed Stosstruppen- shock troops, from Leonhard Hoffmann's 7th Bavarian Infantry Regiment- blowing open the protective barbed wire in front of the trenches with bangalore torpedoes and tossing hand grenades into the American trench line. They followed close behind. "With pistols, trench knives and bayonets they attacked the men along the trench". "The affair lasted only a few minutes, when the raiders disappeared and the fire ceased." Twenty-four minutes, to be precise; but it was enough, for their purposes: The raiders carried off eleven American prisoners, three of them wounded, one a sergeant. Later that day, in the village of Coincourt, a few miles behind the German lines, the healthy eight were lined up on the street and photographed, surrounded by German soldiers over whom they towered. The image was circulated throughout Germany; the photo was made into a popular postcard, with the caption Die ersten gefangenen Amerikaner. The first American prisoners."
Bien à vous,
Zw Mass und Mosel