History of the 305th Field Artillery | Page 4

names in this chapter of beginnings. We commenced then with the following officers, most of whom had abandoned civil life only three months earlier:
Colonel Fred Charles Doyle, commanding the regiment;
Lieutenant Colonel Stimson, temporarily assigned to the command of the First Battalion; Major Harry F. Wanvig, commanding the Second Battalion; Captain Arthur A. Gammell, regimental adjutant; 2nd Lt. Allen A. Klots, acting adjutant, First Battalion; Captain Douglas Delanoy, adjutant Second Battalion; Captain M. G. B. Whelpley, commanding the Headquarters Company; 1st Lt. Edward Payne, temporarily in command of the Supply Company; Captain Alvin Devereux, commanding Battery A; Captain Gaillard F. Ravenel, commanding Battery B; Captain Noel B. Fox, commanding Battery C; Captain Frederick L. Starbuck, commanding Battery D; Captain Robert T. P. Storer, commanding Battery E; Captain Cornelius Von E. Mitchell, commanding Battery F; First Lieutenants Sigourney B. Olney, George P. Montgomery, William M. Kane, Harvey Pike, Jr., Watson Washburn, James L. Derby, Edgar W. Savage, Frank Walters, and Drew McKenna; Second Lieutenants Sheldon E. Road-ley, Thornton C. Thayer, Norman Thirkield, George B. Brooks, Lydig Hoyt, Thomas M. Brassel, Lee D. Brown, Chester Burden, Charles W. Camp, Paul Jones, Oliver A. Church, Roby P. Littlefield, William H. M. Fenn, John R. Mitchell, Warren W. Nissley, Harold S. Willis, Frede-rick L. Beek, Danforth Montague, Melvin E. Sawin, George P. Schutt, Lloyd Stryker, Lawrence Washington, John A. Thayer, Karrick M. Castle, Harry G. Hotchkiss, George E. Ogilvie, William L. Wilcox, Lewis E. Bomeisler, Jr., Darley Randall, and Edward W. Sage.
Almost at once changes were made in this list of our charter members, as one might call them. Officers were assigned away from us, while strangers were brought into our midst. Thirty-five of the charter members accompanied the regiment to France. After the armistice there remained only nineteen.
The eternal changes of the army system were largely responsible for these losses, as they accounted also later for the passing of many enlisted men, but whenever we meet the old friends we think of them as belonging peculiarly to the 305th. Some we can't see again, because the Vesle, the Aisne, or the Argonne holds them forever away.
But it is a dreary business to anticipate. They were very much with us and very much loved at Upton.
So the first week ended, and we were, speaking sketchily, on our feet, if still unsteady.
II
IT HAS GROWING PAINS
GOING into the second week the colonel talked daily with his organization commanders. Such conferences revolved largely about the almost scented forms from the Adjutant General's Office. These, it developed, would, when the men arrived, have to be decorated with countless, neat statistics. Soldiers, as far as we knew, might go hungry or without equipment, but, as far as figures went, they would unquestionably be cared for tenderly. No one would have the slightest doubt as to their most intimate family history, the number of years it had taken them to dribble through public or private institutions of learning, or their degree of proficiency on mandolin, harmonica, or Jew's harp.
The officers at that period filled forms about themselves in odd moments. The most persistent and suggestive demanded the name of the relative one wished notified in case one should become a casualty. Whenever in America or France things got a little slack a request for that information would come around. It kept one, as it were, on one's toes. But we wondered why that bureau never got fed up with paper work.
Into these daily conferences, almost at once, crept a sense of imminence. Huge bulletins descended from Division Hill dealing now in dates. They described with an admirable detail how the first of the draft men would be received. To aid us in this task non-commissioned officers, it was promised, would be sent us from the Regular Army. They appeared one day-a score or so for our regiment.
We looked at them. We looked at their service records. Then we looked at each other. We swallowed our first lesson in how to send, on order, one's best men to some other organization. Certainly, in this case, few commanding officers had parted with their jewels. Some of these rough diamonds, we suspected from a comparison of dates, indeed, had been set in chevrons for our needs. There lay their records of battery punishments and courts martial. We pitied those distant, unknown commanders. If these were their best we shrank from picturing their days and nights with the worst. The audacity of the thing caught our imagination. There was, we felt, something to be had from it. They weren't all bad, by any means. Some became the most useful of soldiers.
Our medical department arrived about the same time, a worried-looking little group, that trudged through the dust, dodging piles of lumber. It was led by Lieutenant James B. Parramore, who later became captain, and for