Cantigny: Where the Big Red One First Attacked

On June 7, on the way home from Normandy, we stopped in Cantigny, a small village in the Somme. If you know the history of the 1st Infantry Division, you know the name. The Normandy part of this trip is in Normandy: Mont-Saint-Michel and the D-Day Anniversary.

The First American Attack

Artillery fire destroyed Cantigny completely in May 1918, so the village around this statue is not the one the 28th Infantry fought through.

The attack on Cantigny began at 6:45 a.m. on May 28, 1918, and it was the first major American offensive of World War I. The 1st Division, the most experienced of the five American divisions then in France, carried it out. The 28th Infantry Regiment, under Col. Hanson Ely, led the way, reinforced by companies of the 18th Infantry. The French lent artillery, flamethrowers and Schneider tanks, because the Americans didn't have enough of their own.

An hour-long bombardment came first, and then a rolling barrage advanced 100 meters every two minutes. The 28th took the village in about 30 minutes and had all its objectives by noon. Over the next three days the Germans counterattacked again and again, and the division held. The village itself was destroyed by artillery fire. The battle showed the French that American divisions could hold a line.

The Monument

The monument stands on the ground where the old village was. Rubble from the village may be buried under its platform.

The fight for the village itself took about 30 minutes. The next three days were German counterattacks, and the division held every one.

The American monument stands on the site of the village that was destroyed in the fighting. It is a white stone shaft on a platform, in a park kept up by the American Battle Monuments Commission, and it was dedicated in 1937. Arthur Loomis Harmon designed it. His firm, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, also designed the Empire State Building. Rubble from the village may have been used as fill under the platform.

The American Battle Monuments Commission looks after the garden. The village church stands right behind it.

Nathaniel at Cantigny, a long way from Wheaton, Illinois, where Colonel McCormick named his estate after this battle.

From Cantigny to Illinois

Colonel Robert R. McCormick commanded the 1st Battalion of the 5th Field Artillery at Cantigny. He later named his estate in Wheaton, Illinois after the battle. It is now Cantigny Park, and it holds the 1st Division Museum. It was good to see where the name came from.

Possum et ego.