Photo By Lori Stewart | Map showing the positions of the 318th Infantry during the fighting of 4-7 October...... read more read more
by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
2D LT. DILLINGHAM EARNS DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS
On 6 October 1918, 2d Lt. Charles Kollock Dillingham conducted a hazardous patrol to locate enemy machine-gun positions firing on his battalion in the Bois des Ogons near Nantillois, France. He earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions that day.
Following graduation from the first Officers’ Training Camp at Fort Myer, Virginia, in August 1917, 27-year-old Dillingham had joined the 3d Battalion, 318th Infantry, 80th Division. Most of the division’s enlisted personnel hailed either from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley or from Pennsylvania, giving the division its nickname “Blue Ridge Division.” The division’s officers, however, came from throughout the United States; Lieutenant Dillingham had been born and raised in northeastern South Carolina.
Completing its training at Camp Lee, Virginia, in May 1918, the 80th Division joined the American Expeditionary Forces in France on 9 June. The division initially was attached to the British Expeditionary Forces for training and participation in the August Somme offensive (not to be confused with the bloody 1916 battle). On 19 August, the division was withdrawn from the British lines and moved to the American sector, where it stayed in reserve during the St. Mihiel offensive in mid-September.
Following St. Mihiel, the division’s 318th Infantry, under the command of Col. Ulysses G. Worrilow, moved to a position near Bethincourt for the Meuse-Argonne offensive. It and the 317th Infantry remained in reserve while the 80th Division’s other two regiments (the 319th and 320th) joined in the action on 26 September. Three days later, the 318th Infantry was temporarily attached to the 4th Division, on the 80th Division’s left, for its unsuccessful advance through heavily wooded terrain north of Septsarges. Although Maj. Henry H. Burdick’s 3d Battalion remained in the rear, it lost several soldiers from the enemy’s heavy shelling.
On 3 October, the regiment’s 2d and 3d battalions were returned to the 318th in anticipation of an attack by the 80th Division, now on the 4th Division’s left, north of Nantillois the next day. The 3d Battalion remained in support of the 2d Battalion when the attack began around dawn. When the units on either side of the 2d Battalion failed to advance as expected, the 3d Battalion was committed to fill gaps in the line. The units, lacking maps and adequate reconnaissance, advanced slowly to the southern edge of the dense Bois des Ogons, taking heavy casualties from the enemy shelling from the heights of the east bank of the Meuse River to their right.
The next evening, 5 October, under cover of darkness and following an intense barrage, the two battalions continued their advance into the woods but soon stalled under constant interlocking enemy machine-gun fire. On Sunday, 6 October, Lieutenant Dillingham, the 3d Battalion’s intelligence officer, twice volunteered to lead patrols to locate the enemy’s positions to the battalion’s left and right. With accurate coordinates, the battalion was able to destroy the German machine-gun nests. By the time the 318th Infantry was relieved for rest and refit on 7 October, the 2d and 3d Battalions had lost most of their company commanders and suffered a nearly 60-percent casualty rate during the preceding eight days of fighting.
After three weeks of rest, the 318th Infantry went back in the line on 31 October about eleven miles northwest of the Bois des Ogons. When the regiment received orders to advance on 3 November, newly promoted 1st Lt. Dillingham joined forty-four other regimental personnel in a stable to pore over maps for the attack. Dillingham was one of twelve officers wounded when a German shell came through the roof of the structure. Refusing to be evacuated, Dillingham remained with his battalion until the 80th Division was relieved on 6 November.
Little is known of Dillingham’s later career except that he retired from the Army as a colonel. He died in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 3 August 1957.
| Date Taken: | 10.04.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.04.2024 15:44 |
| Story ID: | 482573 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 43 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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