The Vosges Mountains were the setting for Harry S. Truman’s first artillery action in France: a remote, supposedly quiet sector where Battery D was assigned to learn trench warfare before a larger American offensive. Their wooded slopes and difficult roads first concealed the men and guns, then made every move laborious. The battery’s opening barrage, fired from a position closer to the German lines, turned the mountains from a training ground into a battlefield.

A Quiet Sector on the Front

The Vosges lay in Alsace, near the Swiss border, at the eastern end of the front. The American high command considered this relatively inactive stretch a suitable place for inexperienced troops to gain experience holding the lines before an all-out offensive. It was not untouched by combat: the first American battle casualties had been suffered there the previous autumn. Since then, divisions had been moved in and out of the sector, making it a staging ground for troops entering the war as well as a defensive position.

Battery D reached the mountain region after a two-day train journey. Its destination was Saulxures, a town in a valley beside a fast-flowing river. The night arrival in mid-August placed the unit at the edge of the terrain it was to occupy. On August 20, anti-aircraft fire directed at an enemy observation plane offered a first visible sign of the fighting nearby. Truman, however, was already heading farther into the mountains to locate a gun position.

Reconnaissance and the First Position

Truman and a small detachment began by truck, following twisting roads to the village of Kruth. From there, they continued on horseback with a French officer who spoke no English, climbing steep logging roads through fir-covered mountains. The landscape differed sharply from the Missouri countryside familiar to the men: rushing streams, deep beds of moss, granite boulders, and thickly wooded slopes enclosed their route. German batteries occupied the mountainside opposite them. The valley’s V-shaped formation made the opposing positions seem so rugged and separated that the men initially judged it possible for both sides to fire without causing harm.

The detachment chose a site at the edge of the trees, more than 2,000 feet above the valley. The men ate cold beans and beef with hardtack, supplemented by wild red raspberries gathered on the way and champagne supplied by the French officer. The location balanced height and concealment: the guns could be placed near the tree line, while the forest sheltered the men and horses from observation. On an exposed ridge where they came into view of German positions, the French officer had them cross one at a time.

Hauling the Guns Through the Mountains

After camping in the woods for several days, the detachment prepared the position for the rest of Battery D. The guns and equipment then had to be hauled up from below over a steep route. A can of lard broke loose from a wagon and bounced all the way down the hill, a small mishap amid an effort already made harder by the ground and weather. Clouds gathered over the mountain, and rain followed. Although mist reduced the risk of being seen, damp conditions carried sound; Truman ordered burlap wrapped around the gun wheels to muffle them.

The labor proved short-lived. After days of waiting in clouds and then rain, the battery was ordered to pack up and move again. Truman had been directed to take a position about a mile nearer the German lines and prepare a gas barrage. The new assignment changed the purpose of the mountain emplacement: what had begun as a concealed place to learn the work of holding the line was now to serve as a firing position against enemy batteries.

The August 29 Barrage

Battery D moved after nightfall along roads slick with mud and rain. By the following afternoon, the men had reached the new position, exhausted from going without sleep but eager to fire. Their targets were German batteries about four miles away. The planned mission was to suppress enemy activity rather than necessarily destroy the positions. At precisely 8:00 p.m. on August 29, four batteries opened fire. The artillery barrage lasted half an hour, and Battery D fired 500 rounds.

The firing was followed by an order to withdraw quickly, before German guns could return the fire. The horses were supposed to arrive from the rear so the guns could be hauled away, but the first sergeant responsible for them was missing for nearly half an hour. In the darkness, the delayed movement became confused. Worried about a possible German gas barrage, the men put on their masks, and some struggled to fit masks onto the horses. Truman was mounted and trying to assess the situation when a shell burst about 15 feet away; the horse went down into a shell hole and pinned him until Lieutenant Vic Housholder pulled him free. Meanwhile, horses and two guns moved off in the wrong direction and became stuck in the mud.

The episode makes the Vosges more than a picturesque backdrop or a passive training ground. Its steep approaches, forest cover, rain-soaked roads, and limited visibility governed where the battery could be placed and how quickly it could leave. The same terrain that sheltered the guns during their preparation complicated the withdrawal after their first sustained firing. In the mountains, the practical demands of artillery warfare—concealment, transport, timing, and coordination—became inseparable from the landscape.