ing qualities of the individual American
soldier. Their comrades were proud of them, and were inclined to
consider the exploit, "Alamo stuff."

Two of the defenders were killed, four were wounded, and one was
captured. The wounded men reported that the captured American continued
to fight even after being severely wounded. He was the last to remain on
his feet and when a bomb blew his rifle from his hand and injured his
arm, he succumbed to superior numbers and was carried off by his
captors.

After the hurried sortie, the Germans beat a hasty retreat so that the
position was reoccupied immediately by another American detail.

The "Alamo" seven had not been taken by surprise. Through a downpour of
rather badly placed shells, they held their position on the firing step
and worked both their rifles and machine guns against the raiding party,
which they could not see, but knew would be advancing behind the curtain
of fire. Hundreds of empty cartridges and a broken American bayonet
constituted impartial testimony to the fierceness of the fighting. After
the first rush, in which the defenders accounted for a number of
Germans, the fighting began at close quarters, the enemy peppering the
listening post with hand-grenades.

In the meantime the German barrage had been lifted and lengthened until
it was lowered again between the "Alamo" seven and their comrades in the
rear.

There were calls to surrender, but no acceptances. The fighting became
hand-to-hand with bayonet and gun butt. The defenders fought on in the
hope that assistance soon would arrive from the American artillery.

But the Germans had planned the raid well. Their first barrage cut all
telephone wires leading back from our front lines and the signal rocket
which one of the men in the listening post had fired into the air, had
been smothered in the dense mist. That rocket had called for a
defensive barrage from American artillery and when no answer came to it,
a second one was fired, but that also was snuffed out by the fog.

The net result of the raid was that the Germans had captured one of our
wounded men and had thereby identified the organisation opposing them as
the First Regular Division of the United States Army, composed of the
16th, 18th, 26th, and 28th Regular U. S. Infantry Regiments and the 5th,
6th and 7th Regular U. S. Army Field Artillery. The division was under
the command of Major General Robert Lee Bullard.

In the days and weeks that