s to volunteer" someone asked
their colonel as they were embarking for France. He replied: "I
have often thought of that. With many the cause was sheer
patriotism. Others said they had gone into the 15th for social
reasons, to meet with their friends. One--this seemed to me a most
pathetic touch--said: 'I j'ined up because when Colonel Hayward
asked me it was the first time anyone had ever asked me to j'ine up
with anything in my whole lifetime.'"

If any great amount of superstition had existed among the men or
officers of the New York regiment, they would have been greatly
depressed over the series of incidents that preceded their arrival in
France. In the first place they had been assigned to police and pioneer
duty at camps near New York, a duty which no fighting man relishes. They
embarked on the transport Pocahontas November 12, 1917. Two hundred
miles at sea a piston rod was bent and the vessel put back to port. They
got away again December 3, were out a day and had to return on account
of fire in the coal bunkers. A third attempt on December 12, in a
blizzard, was frustrated by a collision with a tanker in New York
harbor.

After this series of bad starts, anyone inclined to indulge in
forebodings would have predicted the certainty of their becoming prey
for the submarines on the way over. But the fourth attempt proved
successful and they landed in France on December 27, 1917. They had
hoped to celebrate Christmas day on French soil, but were forced by the
elements and the precautions of convoys and sailing master to observe
the anniversary on board the ship.

The Colonel undoubtedly thought that those first in France would be the
first to get a chance at the Boche, but the department took him at his
word, and for over two months his men were kept busy in the vicinity of
St. Nazaire, largely as laborers and builders. Early in 1918 they went
into training quarters near St. Nazaire. The 371st, another Negro
regiment, made up of draft selectives principally from South Carolina,
was later given quarters nearby.

The black soldiers of the 369th were brigaded as a part of the 16th
division of the 8th Corps of the 4th French Army. From St. Nazaire they
went to Givrey-En-Argonne, and there in three weeks the French turned
them into a regulation French regiment. They had Lebel rifles, French
packs and French gas masks. For 191 days they were in the trenches or on
the field of battl