Courtesy Photo | Sergeant Ludovicus M. M. Van Iersel after receiving his Medal of Honor in 1919...... read more read more
by Michael E. Bigelow, INSCOM Command Historian
During the night of November 8-9, 1918, 1st Lt. James H. Yuill, the intelligence officer for the 3d Battalion, 9th Infantry, sent a patrol to check the adequacy of a Meuse River bridge in northern France. The patrol demonstrated that the bridge and site were impractical for crossing and enabled Maj. Ladislav T. Janda’s battalion to withdraw from an exposed position.
Over the previous week, Maj. Janda’s battalion had been part of the 2d Division’s advance in the final stages of the Meuse-Argonne campaign. On 1 November, the division had relieved the 42d Division just north of Côte de Châtillon to attack toward the Meuse River about mid-point between the cities of Sedan and Stenay. Often Col. Robert O. Van Horn’s 9th Infantry led the division’s northern advance through the heavily wooded area southwest of the river. On November 3, Janda’s battalion led the regiment in an impressive night march that propelled the Americans five miles closer to their objective. By November 7, the battalion occupied villages overlooking the Meuse to guard the river line and reconnoiter for crossing sites.
For Lieutenant Yuill, an Iowan, six days shy of his twenty-second birthday, looking for a crossing site proved a problem. The Germans protected the sites with interlocking fires from machine gun positions. Moreover, the American side of the river offered little cover, and Yuill’s patrols were met with machine-gun and artillery fire. Nevertheless, they reported a damaged, but intact bridge near La Faubourg. To verify this, the young officer asked for volunteers for a night patrol on 8 November. The patrol would reconnoiter the bridge, and report on the enemy’s strength.
Corporal Ludovicus Van Iersel answered Yuill’s call. Van Iersel was a 25-year-old Dutchman who had enlisted in the American Army shortly after arriving the United States in June 1917. Using a technique that had proven successful in the battalion’s advance to the Meuse, Yuill and Van Iersel gathered a squad of German-speaking doughboys for the patrol.
At 9 p.m., Van Iersel cautiously led his patrol forward. They reached the bridge site to discover it had been dropped to water level. Within 100 yards of the enemy positions, the patrol’s movement brought about enemy machine gun fire that killed one of the doughboys. Nevertheless, Van Iersel continued forward. Upon reaching the bridge’s center, a section broke free and floated down the river carrying the corporal with it. With their leader gone, the others made their way back to the American lines. They dutifully told Yuill of the damaged conditions of the bridge and sadly reported Van Iersel lost.
Within an hour of this report, however, Corporal Van Iersel returned to make his report. Once in the river, despite the current and temperature, he made his way to the enemy side of the river. Finding a hiding place among the timbers, he made a careful investigation of the enemy’s defenses of the bridge. Then he swam back across the river and returned to the 3d Battalion’s lines. Learning of the bridge conditions and strength of the enemy, the attempt to cross at La Faubourg was abandoned. Major Janda withdrew the two companies slated to make the crossing from their exposed positions where they had received constant German artillery fire. On 10 November, the 2d Division crossed the Meuse at a more suitable site to the south.
For his bravery, Corporal Van Iersel received the Medal of Honor.
| Date Taken: | 11.08.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 11.07.2022 11:21 |
| Story ID: | 432778 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 46 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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