The Sacrifices of Company C: Somerset County’s Valiant Soldiers in the Great War

Company C enlisted personnel posed for this photograph on the steps of the Somerset County Courthouse, Summer 1917. Courtesy David and Barbara Rodgers

In spring 2004 a resident of Somerset in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, chanced upon an aged postcard that had fallen behind a dresser many years before. Dated November 7, 1918, the postcard had been sent by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland, and was addressed to “the Family of Herbert Foust,” a soldier of Company C, 110th Infantry Regiment, a Pennsylvania National Guard unit based in Somerset, and it informed the family that Herbert had been taken prisoner while fighting in France. This found historic document was a reminder of a savage battle in which almost an entire company of Somerset County soldiers was killed or captured in a single day.

When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, National Guard units were called into federal service to help fill the ranks. Few of the soldiers of Company C, then a unit of the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 10th Regiment, had seen much service. The unit mustered before a crowd of 2,000 people in Somerset on July 15, 1917, to the accompaniment of local bands. The roll call showed 140 soldiers present, although many were without equipment and a few even lacked uniforms. The men were inspected by company commander Capt. W. Curtis Truxal and encamped on the lawn of the Somerset County Courthouse.

Herbert Foust was typical of the soldiers mustering that day. Born in 1894, he had worked as a laborer in Somerset. He then enlisted in Company C in 1913 and again in June 1916, shortly before the company left for service during the Mexican Punitive Expedition, presumably because he did not want to be left behind. In September 1917 he left Somerset with his company for Camp Hancock near Augusta, Georgia, where Pennsylvania’s National Guard units were being trained for overseas service.

The men of Company C lined up for inspection in Somerset, Summer 1917. Courtesy the Family of Ivan Lambert

Company C formed in ranks at the Somerset County Courthouse prior to boarding trains for Camp Hancock, Georgia, September 7, 1917. Courtesy the Family of Ivan Lambert

Company C trained at Camp Hancock, Georgia, from September 1917 to April 1918.
Somerset Historical Center/Truxal Collection

Also among the soldiers was a father and son pairing, 18-year-old Edgar Crouse and his father, 2nd Lt. Samuel Crouse. Once the troops arrived in Georgia, the unit was reorganized. Company C of the 10th Regiment was combined with Company C of the 3rd Pennsylvania National Guard Regiment from Philadelphia to form the new Company C of the 110th Infantry Regiment, a unit of the 28th “Keystone” Division.

This enlarged Company C remained in Georgia for seven months, engaging in drill and small arms exercises using a replica trench network to prepare for the fighting in Europe. On April 24, 1918, the 28th Division departed for Camp Merritt, New Jersey. On May 3 the troops boarded British ships in nearby Hoboken and set sail for England.

The war was not going well for the Allies in early 1918. Their armies had suffered huge losses in 1917. German U-boats were taking a heavy toll on Allied shipping, and the British feared they soon would be starved out of the war. Russia, wracked by revolution, had sued for peace, allowing the German army to shift 1 million veteran soldiers to France.

The German army, however, had also suffered heavy losses, and the country itself faced famine. They would have to win the war before the Americans tipped the balance inexorably in favor of the Allies. On March 21, 1918, the Germans launched a massive attack on the British in Flanders, hoping to destroy the Allies’ most effective fighting force. New tactics were employed in the attack. Highly trained storm troops led the assault under the cover of artillery, moving rapidly and bypassing resistance to disrupt the enemy from the rear. The results were devastating. In two days the British suffered 200,000 casualties, and an additional 90,000 soldiers and 1,300 artillery pieces were captured. The British 5th Army was virtually eliminated and a 50-mile gap was opened in the Allied lines. The attack slowly ground to a halt, however, as resistance stiffened and starving German soldiers stopped to loot Allied supply dumps. Believing the Allies were near collapse, the Germans renewed the offensive, hoping to land a knockout blow. Over the next three months the German Army continued to make spectacular gains, advancing to within 50 miles of Paris. The Allies held out nonetheless, gathering strength and preparing a counterstroke. In July 1918 the German army began preparing a final attack across the Marne River, east of Paris.  They hoped to divert attention away from their efforts in Flanders, but with luck it was thought Paris itself might yet fall. The “Peace Offensive,” as it came to be called, represented Germany’s last real chance to win the war.

Company C and the 28th Division arrived in France in late May 1918. The first order of business was additional training. The troops were issued gas masks and were lectured on chemical warfare by veteran British instructors. The division remained in reserve behind British lines until the immediate danger to the British had subsided and then was shifted to the French sector to counter new threats. In late June, Company C moved to the front near Condé-en-Brie, occupying trenches controlling the valleys and roads leading from the Marne River towards Paris.

On July 10 Company C received orders to join the French 125th Infantry Division occupying frontline outposts along the Marne itself. Truxal deployed his soldiers along the south bank of the river near Sauvigny the next day. The company’s four platoons were sandwiched between French units along a railroad track in a strong defensive position. The 3rd Platoon, under the command of Lt. Robert Bonner, covered roughly 500 yards along the river-bank with soldiers placed in small groups roughly 25 yards apart. The 1st and 2nd platoons, under the respective commands of Lts. Samuel Crouse and Wilbur Schell, and the company’s automatic rifle squads were placed along the railroad track 50 to 100 yards to Bonner’s rear. The 4th Platoon, under the command of Sgt. Robert Floto, took position a further 200 yards behind. It was a strong position, but the dispersal of the Americans among the French and communication difficulties with the French units on either flank left the company’s officers uneasy.

Capt. W. Curtis Truxal,
commander of Company C.
From The Twenty-Eighth Division in the World War, Vol. 1 (28th Division Publishing, 1923)

The next few days were quiet. Company C would take position along the Marne at dusk each night and withdraw at daybreak to eat and rest. On July 14 the French were celebrating Bastille Day, their patriotic holiday. The Germans, hoping for surprise, attacked shortly before midnight as the men of Company C were receiving their first meal of the day. For the next five hours, the soldiers were subjected to a fierce artillery bombardment that included chemical weapons. They donned gas masks but suffered casualties nonetheless.

Cpl. Samuel Landis of Rockwood, an automatic rifleman from the 2nd Platoon, remembered it thus: “We had a hard fight. In my platoon Privates Paul Bills, Charles Olson, Nathan Arndt, Charles Kelley, and Luther Streng were killed by the barrage of artillery fire. Of course, there were lots more wounded, among them myself, hit in the back.” Landis remained with his companions. “I couldn’t leave the boys. I guess I played the wise game the whole way through.”

The Germans had hoped to catch the French off guard using the celebrations as a distraction, but the Allies were ready. Forewarned, the French unleashed a preemptive artillery barrage of their own that disrupted the assault before it began. The Germans pressed ahead nonetheless, launching boats laden with troops to cross the Marne under the cover of artillery.

The brunt of the attack fell on Bonner’s 3rd Platoon entrenched along the river. The men repulsed the initial attack, sinking the boats with hand grenades. Additional boats were launched, but each successive wave was beaten back by the 3rd Platoon with support from the rest of the company. As the Germans gathered for a final assault, the company’s automatic rifle squads opened fire. The Germans were cut down in swaths and forced to abandon their attempt to cross the river on Company C’s front. Daybreak found the riverbanks strewn with German dead.

When the attack started, Truxal organized a reserve rear guard defense using kitchen personnel and food-carrying parties as a precaution, placing them along the Paris-Dormans road to stop the Germans in case they had broken through the rest of the company. At dawn, Truxal was confident the German assault had been repelled, not only on Company C’s front but all along the Allied lines. He was wrong.

2nd Lt. Samuel Crouse, 1st Platoon commander. From The Twenty-Eighth Division in the World War, Vol. 1 (28th Division Publishing, 1923)

The German attack was designed to cross the Marne both east and west of the city of Reims, a major Allied transportation center. Once across the river, the German armies were to converge, trapping the defenders in an encircling pincer movement. The assault east of Reims quickly failed and was abandoned. The German 7th and 9th armies successfully crossed the Marne west of Reims, however, smashing through the French 125th Infantry Division at several locations. As the size of the attack became apparent, the French began falling back to prepared defensive positions. Four companies of American troops failed to receive the order to retreat, however. Company C, still occupying its positions along the Marne, was left behind and surrounded by advancing German troops.

The first indication that something was wrong came at 8 o’clock when a German soldier was captured behind Company C’s lines. The prisoner indicated that the main body of the German army had crossed the river hours earlier and was already to the company’s rear. Suddenly, without warning, German machine guns opened fire on the rear guard covering the Paris-Dorman road. The soldiers were taken by surprise and overrun.

The Germans now attacked Company C from behind, trapping it against the river it had so tenaciously defended. The fighting was “very fierce,” in the words of Pvt. William S. Sarver, a Somerset resident and member of the 4th Platoon. “There were several of us together, facing the Marne, when all of a sudden a voice from our rear called out in a cheerful and drawn-out ‘Aha!’ We looked around and saw thirty or more Germans.”

Surprised, the platoon nevertheless turned and opened fire. The combat was soon hand-to-hand. Sarver killed several Germans but was himself shot four times in the left leg and right wrist, falling on the battlefield, where he laid helpless for the next three days. The 4th Platoon was quickly reduced to small bands of soldiers fighting desperately to regain the Allied lines.

The attack next descended upon the 1st and 2nd platoons entrenched along the railroad track. The soldiers were unaware of danger until shots rang out behind their positions. Samuel Crouse ran to investigate and was killed by a volley of shots fired at close range. The platoons suffered heavy casualties in close fighting. Samuel Landis was wounded again, struck by three machine gun bullets in his left leg. He dragged himself into a shell hole where he remained for the next four days trying to avoid capture by the Germans. Cpl. Earl Wirick of Somerset also fell, wounded in both legs. Cpl. Alvey Martz of Glencoe killed 17 enemy soldiers and escaped, but the fight  was largely one-sided. Only 25 survivors of the two platoons made their way back to the Allied lines. Eighteen were led to safety by Bugler Walter Jones of Somerset. Jones’ group fought and evaded capture for two days despite being surrounded on several occasions. For his actions, Jones was subsequently awarded the Croix de Guerre, a decoration given by the French to foreign allies for heroism. The remaining soldiers of the two platoons were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

An 18-year old resident of Somerset, Pvt. Paul Evans Bills enlisted in Company C on July 20, 1917, while the unit was encamped at the Somerset County Courthouse. He was killed in action on July 15, 1918. Somerset Historical Center/Truxal Collection

The 3rd Platoon entrenched along the river met a similar fate. Fighting with their backs to the Marne, the soldiers held off the Germans for several hours. As the other defenders were overcome, however, large numbers of enemy troops began swarming over the railroad track. Outnumbered five to one and with German reserves pouring in, the entire 3rd Platoon was either killed or captured.

Truxal found himself fighting with a group of French and American soldiers in a pocket along the river using trees and stumps for cover. This small band fought for more than four hours before the French commander surrendered. As the Germans began taking the soldiers prisoner, Truxal slipped into a nearby culvert, disassembled his pistol, and threw the pieces into the mud and water. “I took my orders and tore them up. . . . My compass, map, money, a large pen-knife with a saw on it, and a few other trinkets I hid in my leggings and trouser legs. I had scarcely finished when a German appeared at the mouth of the culvert and ordered me out.” Truxal would spend the rest of the war as a POW.

The Germans succeeded in establishing a bridgehead on the Allied side of the Marne, but by July 17 the attack had been stopped. Company C’s defense had played an important part in blunting the German assault. The Allies counterattacked, and by July 20 the Germans were in full retreat. When the counterattack ended in early August, the Germans had suffered 168,000 casualties. With them went Germany’s last chance to win World War I.

The scale of Company C’s misfortunes became apparent in the days after the battle as the scattered survivors made their way back to Allied lines. Of the 210 men Company C had rostered on July 15, only 36 had returned by July 20. Forty-eight of the company’s soldiers were dead or dying, 68 were wounded, and 126 were captured.

Most of the wounded were prisoners. Herbert Foust and Edgar Crouse were both captured during the battle. As Crouse was being taken from the battlefield, he saw the body of his father Samuel lying dead where he fell. Foust and Crouse would spend the rest of the war in a POW camp in Rastatt, Germany, along with many other Company C survivors.

Truxal found himself in a different column of prisoners being led across the Marne. The prisoners were generally treated well, although there were incidents of theft and abuse. Food was scarce and of poor quality. Truxal was taken first to Rastatt and then to a POW camp near Karlsruhe, where German intelligence officers interrogated him. He was then moved to an officer’s POW camp in Villingen, Germany, for the remainder of the war.

The wounded faced a different ordeal. William Sarver lay where he fell on the battlefield. “The wounds made me unconscious and put me out of business,” he recalled. Germans searching the dead found him the next day and gave him water. A German officer dressed his wounds and left him and other wounded prisoners lying in the open under guard. “I stayed there until the night of July 18, which was a beautiful moonlit night. Watching for a chance to escape, I saw it when the German guard took refuge in a dugout.” Sarver crept away, hiding during the daylight hours. He eventually regained the Allied lines and was taken to a French army hospital to begin a long but successful recuperation.

Samuel Landis and Earl Wirick were both captured. “I could have and would have tried to sneak off from them long before I did,” Landis wrote in a letter to his mother, “but I could not leave him [Wirick] because he was wounded worse than I was.” Landis and Wirick eventually escaped from their guards during an artillery barrage. “I dragged him about 75 or 100 yards out of the shell fire. We could only go a little ways, sometimes I bet we did not get five feet until we had to rest.”

Among the surviving members of Company C were, left to right, Pvt. Herbert Foust, Cpl. Samuel Landis, and Pvt. William Sarver. From The Twenty-Eighth Division in the World War, Vol. 2 (28th Division Publishing, 1923)

As the barrage continued Wirick was wounded again. “I don’t see how he lived at all for his legs were torn all to pieces. . . . He was a plucky boy; he never even moaned once that I heard. We got a little farther and were pretty well out of the shell fire. We lay there a while and he said, ‘Sam, I can’t live much longer,’ and asked me to pray for him. Well, mother, that was something I did not have much practice in, but I’m sure I did the best I knew how for him and I think it went to the right place too for he was soon unconscious and I don’t think he knew very much about the pain after that.” Allied soldiers found them soon afterwards and rushed them to a field hospital. Landis survived the loss of his left leg, but Wirick died shortly after surgery, never having regained consciousness.

News of the battle made its way back to Somerset County with surprising speed. The first printed word Somerset residents received of the encounter appeared in the Somerset Herald of July 17, 1918, which reported that the Germans had launched an offensive that had been driven back with heavy losses. It was not clear at first that any Pennsylvania units were involved, but when local newspapers posted Walter Jones’ Croix de Guerre citation in the window of Mullin’s drug store on the Diamond in Somerset on July 18, the entire town went wild with excitement. Work stopped as crowds flocked to read the citation. The next evening, a patriotic meeting was held in the town square, marked by speeches, a parade, and the sounding of all the town’s church bells and steam whistles.

As the euphoria died away, rumors began circulating about the deaths of several Company C soldiers, rumors which became fact when War Department telegrams began arriving in August. Initially, the casualties were listed as missing in action. A pall fell over the county as people sought more information about their loved ones. As letters from Company C survivors began arriving home, they were quickly reprinted in local newspapers. Although censored, the letters often contained a surprising amount of information about the fates of specific soldiers. All too often, however, the soldiers’ eyewitness accounts contradicted incomplete official reports. The resulting confusion made the families’ ordeal that much worse.

Truxal revisited the battlefields of France in February 1919 to search for Company C’s MIAs. Somerset Historical Center/Truxal Collection

For the next several months, Somerset County newspapers were crammed with stories about the battle, survivor’s letters, and casualty lists. By August 14 the number of Company C soldiers officially listed as missing in action had grown to 90, and the first announcements of deaths were made. William Sarver was officially declared dead even though he was recuperating in a French army hospital. His family was soon informed by the Red Cross that he was alive, but others were unable to learn anything.

Over time a more complete picture of the disaster that had overtaken Company C began to form. The survivors made their reports, wounded men were located in hospitals, and the identities of the POWs became known. Official information lagged, however. Several survivors, for instance, wrote home stating that they had witnessed Samuel Crouse’s death, but Crouse officially remained missing in action. Survivors similarly reported the death of Gilbert Blades, but he too remained listed as missing. Truxal wrote home as often he could, relaying what information he had been able to gather about the men of his unit. Sometimes the news was good; other times it was not. When the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, however, the fate of many of Company C’s soldiers remained unknown.

The end of the war brought the repatriation of the POWs and the prospect of a final determination of the fate of Company C’s missing. By December 12, 1918, the Associated Press was reporting that all American prisoners of war had left Germany. Truxal made his way to France through Switzerland. “We left Villingen Tuesday a.m. at 5 o’clock, Nov. 26. The trip through Switzerland was wonderful. The people received us most enthusiastically. In fact, they could not have greeted their own army returning victoriously with more enthusiasm.”

Truxal had nothing good to say about his former captors. “I certainly will never have a very kindly feeling for the Germans. There is only one word by which I can describe them, individually and collectively, and that is – Hog, Hog, Hog.” After a brief stay in quarantine, Truxal resumed command of Company C. In the following weeks, other former POWs such as Herbert Foust rejoined the unit while those recuperating from wounds began returning stateside. William Sarver arrived in Somerset on furlough on December 26, 1918, the first member of Company C to come home.

Although the fighting had ended, Truxal still had many duties, the most important of which was determining the whereabouts of Company C’s missing. Six months after the battle there was still no definitive word on the fate of Samuel Crouse, Gilbert Blades and many others. Truxal wrote to the Somerset Standard on January 9, 1919, hoping to put an end to some of the confusion. “There have been so many errors in the reporting of casualties and deaths that strict orders have been issued against reporting any death until the same has been officially reported,” Truxal noted. “About twenty-five have been officially reported killed out of my company on July 15. I have traced the rest of the company until there are but fifteen left of whom I know nothing, other than some of the men have stated that they were killed.”

Alvey Martz, a corporal who was one of Company C’s surviving heroes, is pictured here following his promotion to sergeant in 1919. Somerset Historical Center/Truxal Collection

Truxal took matters into his own hands and returned to the battlefields looking for the graves of his missing men. He found them near the village of St. Agnan, photographing the temporary graves of Crouse, Blades and Company C’s other fallen. They still lie in France today, buried in the permanent military cemeteries created by the American Battlefield Monuments Commission after the war.

The remaining members of Company C sailed for the United States on April 29, 1919, arriving in Philadelphia on May 11. After the great homecoming parade in Philadelphia on May 15, the mustering out process began and the soldiers returned home.

The last group of Company C soldiers returned to Somerset on May 24, 1919, to be joined by others who had come back earlier. Hundreds greeted the soldiers at the railroad station, and a parade of honor escorted them to the Diamond. A platform had been prepared and speeches were made, but none was as warmly received as that given by Truxal. He was greeted by a thunderous ovation. In his address, he noted that although he had waited for this moment for almost two years, he still found it difficult to speak. Those years, he said, had been filled with pleasures and sorrows. The bonds of comradeship would make it hard for the soldiers to separate. Truxal spoke of the valor of the soldiers, the events along the Marne, and the fallen who would never return, closing his remarks by urging his fellow soldiers to fight the battle of life as heroically as they had fought the battle along the Marne. After the speech, the officers and men of the company joined Truxal on the speaker’s platform as each one was introduced to the cheers of the crowd. For most, it marked the final act of their military careers.

The soldiers of Company C remained close after the war. There were regular reunions and funerals for the deceased. When Sgt. Robert McIntyre was laid to rest in Berlin in October 1932, 100 of his former comrades marched in the funeral procession. Walter Jones blew “Taps” over the grave.

Life dealt the former soldiers different hands. William Sarver died in an accident in 1920. Walter Jones became an electrician, marrying and raising two sons. Alvey Martz returned to his farm and raised six children. Curtis Truxal returned to his prewar occupation as an attorney and shortly after the war was elected district attorney of Somerset County. He remained a fixture in the county’s legal community for decades. He died in 1960, shortly after attending a reunion with his former comrades. Alvey Martz died in 1972. Walter Jones lived until 82 and passed away in Somerset in 1975. Former private Lawrence Hartle of Meyersdale, wounded and captured in the fighting along the Marne, passed away in 1999, the last known living survivor of Somerset’s Company C.

Herbert Foust epitomized Company C’s veterans in many ways. After his discharge, he returned to Somerset where he married and worked as a laborer. Foust raised nine children while working for Bender Farm Implements of Somerset. Herbert’s youngest child recalled that he was occasionally sent out to collect money from farmers who were behind in their payments but simply didn’t have the heart to pressure those who had fallen on hard times. Herbert’s pancakes were a fixture at Bender’s annual Christmas lunches, but he rarely spoke of his experiences during World War I. He passed away in June 1969 at the age of 74.

Truxal photographed the graves of Pvt. Gilbert Blades, Cpl. Joseph Heath and Sgt. Herbert Hochard in February 1919. Somerset Historical Center/Truxal Collection

This article highlights Pennsylvania at War, a multiyear initiative of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission to commemorate the centennial of World War I and the 75th anniversary of World War II. As part of the program, the exhibition Answering the Call: Somerset County in the Great War will open on July 14, 2018, at Somerset Historical Center in Somerset. For more information, visit somersethistoricalcenter.org.

Charles Fox is Western Division chief for PHMC’s Bureau of Historic Sites and Museums. He previously served as historic site administrator at Somerset Historical Center and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.