Chapter 2 of 52 · 3988 words · ~20 min read

Part 2

It has been insisted that more than their share of glory was bestowed upon the Marines for their work at Château-Thierry, other units of the A.E.F. being entitled to share the honors of those terrible but wonderful days when the barbarians were stopped. That is of course true, for the battle generally described as Château-Thierry had to do with a region, not merely a town, and it was in Belleau Wood and at Bouresches that the Marines fought so splendidly and so successfully to save Paris. Honors conferred in the early and censored dispatches have since been more properly distributed, and the various divisions—the 1st and 2d, the 3d, the 26th and the 42d—engaged at different points and at different times, have had the just recognition of the honors due them. But the distribution has not in any degree diminished the proud record of the Marines in maintaining the place of honor to which they were assigned June 6th. A very voluminous and authoritative account of the 6th Regiment, 2d Division, and its service in France was written by its commander, Brig. Gen. A. W. Catlin under the title _With the Help of God and a Few Marines_. In that volume one may find the authentic details of the heroic exploits of the Marines. But we are now concerned only with the incidents and events that caused the French to change the name of Belleau Wood (Bois de Belleau) to “Bois de la Brigade de Marine.”

The first spring drive of the Germans began March 21, 1918. It swept across the Somme and over the plains of Picardy irresistibly. Foch seemed unable to check the advance and there was consternation among the Allied nations, and the men in the trenches were anxious and restless. The enemy were sweeping everything before them. “With forty divisions, including some 400,000 of their best troops, and with the greatest auxiliary force of tanks, machine guns and poison gas projectiles ever mobilized,” says Gen. Catlin, “they rolled on for thirty miles in spite of enormous losses, advancing at the rate of six or eight miles a day, capturing men and guns by the wholesale, and occupying 650 square miles of territory. There were simply not enough French and British to stop them. The Allies resisted heroically, but they were forced to yield to the unanswerable argument of superior weight. And where was the American aid that the French people had been building their failing hopes upon?

“Held at Rheims and west of Soissons, the Germans thrust a U-shaped salient clear down to the Marne, its rounded apex resting on a contracted six-mile front between Château-Thierry and Dormans, but thirty-five scant miles from Paris.

“Then the harried soldiers of France arose in their might for a last grim stand. The name of the Marne was a rallying cry for them. ‘They shall not,’ they muttered between gritted teeth; and they did not pass.”

Fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French on the Marne at Château-Thierry was the 3rd Division of Regular troops who had arrived on May 31st in the nick of time in support of the French. On this occasion the 7th Machine Gun Battalion defended the bridge at Château-Thierry with the greatest heroism, suffering very heavy losses, and to them especially belongs the credit of checking the enemy’s attempt to cross the river.

To the northwest of the town lay Belleau Wood, a natural fortress which was full of Germans. Although the enemy had been checked in the attempt to cross the Marne, his position in Belleau Wood was a very strong one, constituting an excellent point of vantage for a sudden thrust against the Allied line along the river. Foch now decided to call upon American troops and the Marines of the 2nd Division were ordered up and sent into the line to capture Belleau Wood.

IN THE AMERICAN WAY

The delay occasioned by the French-American resistance at Château-Thierry gave time for the organization of the defensive strategy which culminated in the battle of Belleau Wood. It is interesting to know in connection with Château-Thierry that the Americans entered under the direction of the French. General Catlin says apropos of the Belleau Wood preparation:

“I think the French hesitated to trust us too far in this crisis. We were without tanks, gas shells, or flame projectors. We were untried in open warfare. But General Harbord begged to be allowed to tackle the job.

“‘Let us fight in our own way,’ said he, ‘and we’ll stop them.’

“The situation was acute; there seemed to be no alternative. General Harbord was given free rein, and in that moment we passed out from our French tutelage and acted as an American army fighting side by side with our hard-pressed Allies. The battle of Belleau Wood was fought by American troops, under American officers, supported by American guns, in a typically American manner. And the battle was won.”

The details of this battle in the wood are not to be given here. One or two of the facts that stand out must serve as illustrative of the whole splendid performance. The advance began with the 5th Battalion under Major Berry and the 6th Battalion under Major Holcomb holding the center, the French on the left and the 23d Infantry on the right, Sibley’s battalion supporting.

FACING THE MYSTERY

“We stood facing the dark, sullen mystery of Belleau Wood. It was a mystery, for we knew not what terrible destruction the Hun might be preparing for us within its baleful borders, nor at what moment it might be launched in all its fury against us. That the wood was strongly held we knew, and so we waited.

“No one knows how many Germans were in those woods. I have seen the estimate placed at 1,000, but there were certainly more than that. It had been impossible to get patrols into the woods, but we knew they were full of machine guns and that the enemy had trench mortars there. We captured five of their minenwerfers later. So far as we knew, there might have been any number of men in there, but we had to attack just the same, and with but a handful. Sibley and Berry had a thousand men each, but only half of these could be used for the first rush, and as Berry’s position was problematical, it was Sibley’s stupendous task to lead his 500 through the southern end of the wood clear to the eastern border if the attack was not to be a total failure. Even to a Marine it seemed hardly men enough.

“Orders had been given to begin the attack at 5 o’clock. The men knew in a general way what was expected of them and what they were up against, but I think only the officers realized the almost impossible task that lay before them. I knew, and the knowledge left me little comfort. But I had perfect confidence in the men; that never faltered. That they might break never once entered my head. They might be wiped out, I knew, but they would never break.

[Illustration:

Where the Marines Made Their Début

This is the road where the Marines in the name of America served notice on the German war lords that they could not capture Paris.]

“It was a clear, bright day. At that season of the year it did not get dark till about 8.30, so we had three hours of daylight ahead of us.

“As soon as I received the orders I got Holcomb and Sibley together at the former’s headquarters, some 500 yards back of the line.

“With map in hand, I explained the situation to them without trying to gloss over any of its difficulties, and gave them their orders. The men seemed cool, in good spirits and ready for the word to start. Some one has asked me what I said, what final word of inspiration I gave those men about to face sudden death.

“I am no speech maker. If the truth must be told, I think what I said was, ‘Give ’em Hell, boys!’ It was the sort of thing the Marine understands. And that is about what they did.

A BULLET THROUGH THE LUNG

“Just about the time Sibley’s men struck the woods a sniper’s bullet hit me in the chest. It felt exactly as though some one had struck me heavily with a sledge. It swung me clear around and toppled me over on the ground. When I tried to get up I found that my right side was paralyzed.

“Beside me stood Captain Tribot-Laspierre, that splendid fellow who stuck to me through thick and thin. He had been begging me to get back to a safer place, but I was obstinate and he never once thought of leaving me. When I fell he came out of his cover and rushed to my side. He is a little man and I am not, but he dragged me head first back to the shelter trench some twenty or twenty-five feet away. My life has been spared and I owe much to that Frenchman.

[Illustration:

The Bridge Across the Marne at Château-Thierry

Where the 7th Machine Gun Battalion of the 3rd Division Checked the German Drive.]

“I have heard of men getting wounded who said that it felt like a red-hot iron being jammed through them before the world turned black. None of these things happened to me. I suffered but little pain and I never for a moment lost consciousness. Nor did any thought of death occur to me, though I knew I had been hit in a vital spot. I was merely annoyed at my inability to move and carry on.

“The bullet went clean through my right lung, in at the front and out at the back, drilling a hole straight through me.

“No orders as to the adjustment of rifle sights had been given, as the range was point blank. Watches had been synchronized and no further orders were given. As the hands touched the zero hour there was a single shout, and at exactly 5 o’clock the whole line leaped up simultaneously and started forward, Berry’s 500 and Sibley’s 500, with the others in support.

“Instantly the beast in the wood bared his claws. The Boches were ready and let loose a sickening machine gun and rifle fire into the teeth of which the Marines advanced. The German artillery in the woods increased the fury of its fire, and the big guns at Belleau and Torcy, a mile and a half away, pounded our advancing lines.

“On Berry’s front there was the open wheat field, 400 yards or more wide—winter wheat, still green but tall and headed out. Other cover there was none. On Sibley’s left there was open grass land perhaps 200 yards wide; his right was close to the woods.

“Owing to the poor communications, the two battalions engaged in what were virtually independent actions, and, as I had feared, Berry got the worst end of it. He had to face that wide open space, swept by machine gun fire, with a flanking fire from the direction of Torcy.

AS SIBLEY’S MEN ADVANCED

“My eyes were on what Sibley’s men were doing, and I only knew in a general way what was happening to the battalion of the 5th. But Floyd Gibbons, the correspondent of the Chicago _Tribune_, was with Berry and saw it all. He was, in fact, seriously wounded himself, and has lost an eye as a result. Gibbons says that the platoons started in good order and advanced steadily into the field between clumps of woods. It was flat country with no protection of any sort except the bending wheat. The enemy opened up at once and it seemed, he says, as if the air were full of red-hot nails. The losses were terrific. Men fell on every hand there in the open, leaving great gaps in the line. Berry was wounded in the arm, but pressed on with the blood running down his sleeve.

“Into a veritable hell of hissing bullets, into that death-dealing torrent, with heads bent as though facing a March gale, the shattered lines of Marines pushed on. The headed wheat bowed and waved in that metal cloudburst like meadow grass in a summer breeze. The advancing lines wavered, and the voice of a Sergeant was heard above the uproar:

“‘Come on, you —— — ——! Do you want to live forever?’

“The ripping fire grew hotter. The machine guns at the edge of the woods were now a bare hundred yards away, and the enemy gunners could scarcely miss their targets. It was more than flesh and blood could stand. Our men were forced to throw themselves flat on the ground or be annihilated, and there they remained in that terrible hail till darkness made it possible for them to withdraw to their original position.

“Berry’s men did not win that first encounter in the attack on Belleau Wood, but it was not their fault. Never did men advance more gallantly in the face of certain death; never did men deserve greater honor for valor.

“Sibley, meanwhile, was having better luck. I watched his men go in and it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever witnessed. The battalion pivoted on its right, the left sweeping across the open ground in four waves, as steadily and correctly as though on parade. There were two companies of them, deployed in four skirmish lines, the men placed five yards apart and the waves fifteen to twenty yards behind each other.

“I say they went in as if on parade, and that is literally true. There was no yell and wild rush, but a deliberate forward march, with the lines at right dress. They walked at the regulation pace, because a man is of little use in a hand-to-hand bayonet struggle after a hundred yards dash. My hands were clenched and all my muscles taut as I watched that cool, intrepid, masterful defiance of the German spite. And still there was no sign of wavering or breaking.

THE RIGHT QUALITIES THERE

“Oh, it took courage and steady nerves to do that in the face of the enemy’s machine gun fire. Men fell there in the open, but the advance kept steadily on to the woods. It was then that discipline and training counted. Their minds were concentrated not on the enemy’s fire but on the thing they had to do and the necessity for doing it right. They were listening for orders and obeying them. In this frame of mind the soldier can perhaps walk with even more coolness and determination than he can run. In any case it was an admirable exhibition of military precision and it gladdened their Colonel’s heart.

“The Marines have a war cry that they can use to advantage when there is need of it. It is a blood-curdling yell calculated to carry terror to the heart of the waiting Hun. I am told that there were wild yells in the woods that night, when the Marines charged the machine gun nests, but there was no yelling when they went in. Some one has reported that they advanced on those woods crying, ‘Remember the _Lusitania_!’ If they did so, I failed to hear it. Somehow that doesn’t sound like the sort of things the Marine says under the conditions. So far as I could observe not a sound was uttered throughout the length of those four lines. The men were saving their breath for what was to follow.

[Illustration:

What American Artillery Fire Did to Vaux

Captured German officers declared that the American fire was the most deadly and concentrated they had ever faced.]

[Illustration:

American Soldiers in Vaux

The capture of Vaux, situated on the Château-Thierry-Paris highway, marked the beginning of the check to the Germans in their drive to the Marne in 1918. One of the big guns which fired on Paris was situated near here.]

“I am afraid I have given but a poor picture of that splendid advance. There was nothing dashing about it like a cavalry charge, but it was one of the finest things I have ever seen men do. They were men who had never before been called upon to attack a strongly held enemy position. Before them were the dense woods effectively sheltering armed and highly trained opponents of unknown strength. Within its depths the machine guns snarled and rattled and spat forth a leaden death. It was like some mythical monster belching smoke and fire from its lair. And straight against it marched the United States Marines, with heads up and the light of battle in their eyes.

“Well, they made it. They reached the woods without breaking. They had the advantage of slightly better cover than Berry’s men and the defensive positions at the lower end of the woods had not been so well organized by the Germans as those on the western side. The first wave reached the low growth at the edge of the woods and plunged in. Then the second wave followed, and the third and the fourth, and disappeared from view.”

About an hour later Catlin had the attention of a surgeon, but while he lay there gas shells began bursting nearby and they put the gas mask on him. “I never knew before how uncomfortable one of those things could be. It is hard enough for a man to breathe with a lung full of blood without having one of those smothering masks clapped over his face.” He was got to Lucy for treatment and then taken to Paris, where quarts of blood were drawn from his pleural cavity. The wonder is that he came through it at all.

IN THE BELLEAU WOOD

“The action was all in the hands of the platoon officers. Success or failure rested on their shoulders. It is not the general who wins such a battle as that, but the captain, the sergeant, the private.

“It has been called an exaggerated riot, that desperate conflict in the wood. It was hand-to-hand fighting from the first, and those Germans, hating cold steel as they do, soon learned what American muscle and determination are like. From tree to tree fought our Marines, from rock to rock, like the wild Indians of their native land. It is the sort of fighting the Marine has always gloried in. And in that fighting they beat the Germans on two points—initiative and daring, and accuracy of rifle fire. They picked the German gunners out of the trees like squirrels, and in innumerable fierce onslaughts that took place at the machine gun nests the Marines always struck the first blow and it was usually a knock-out. It was a wild, tempestuous, rough-and-tumble scrap, with no quarter asked or given. Rifles grew hot from constant firing and bayonets reeked with German gore. It was man to man, there in the dark recesses of the woods, with no gallery to cheer the gladiators, and it was the best man that won.

“The thick woods made the fighting a matter of constant ambuscades and nerve-racking surprises, but the Marines tore on. With Sibley at their head nothing could stop them. Machine gun nests whose crews held out formed little islands in the welter about which the Marine flood swept, eventually to engulf them. Some of the Germans turned and fled, abandoning their guns; others waited till caught in the rear and then threw up their hands and surrendered; some waited in huddled groups in the ravines till the gleaming-eyed devil dogs should leap upon them; some stuck to their guns till an American bullet or an American bayonet laid them low. One by one the guns were silenced or were turned in the opposite direction.

“They started in at 5 o’clock. At 6:45 the report was sent to headquarters that the machine gun fire at the lower end of the woods had been practically silenced. At 7:30 German prisoners began to come in.

“Night fell with the fighting still going on and only the flash of shooting to see by. But at 9 o’clock word came from Sibley by runner that he had got through and had attained the first objective, the eastern edge of the wood. In four hours he and his men had passed clear through the lower quarter of Belleau Wood, traversing nearly a mile, and had cleaned things up as they went. And only 500 of them started; I hesitate to mention the number that finished.

“At 10 o’clock reinforcements were sent in with orders to consolidate the position.”

THE TAKING OF BOURESCHES

In the meantime other Marines, the 96th Company of Major Holcomb’s battalion and one of Sibley’s reserve companies, were engaged with the task of ejecting the Germans from Bouresches, the town just east of the woods, as necessary to be cleared as Belleau Wood itself. Holcomb’s men got to Bouresches first and went in.

“Half of this little force was under Captain Duncan and the other half under Lieutenant Robertson. The enemy’s fire, as they neared the town, was frightful, and more men fell than kept going. Duncan was shot down while coolly advancing with his pipe in his mouth. Robertson, who, by the way, was afterward shot through the neck near Soissons, led the remnant on and entered the town.

“There were probably 300 to 400 Germans in that town and the place bristled with machine guns. There were guns at the street corners, behind barricades, and even on the housetops, but the Marines kept on. They attacked those machine guns with rifle, bayonet, and grenade in their bitter struggle for a foothold. They were outnumbered when they started, and one by one they were put out of the fighting. But they kept going, taking gun after gun, until the Germans, for all their numbers and advantage of position, began to fall back. And Lieutenant Robertson took Bouresches with twenty men!

“He sent back word at 9:45 that he had got in and asked for reinforcements, but he did not wait for them. Those twenty men started in to clean up that town in the approved Marine fashion, and he was well on his way when Captain Zane’s company of Holcomb’s battalion arrived to support him. Then Engineers were sent in to help consolidate the position.

“But the town was not yet fully won. The Germans began displaying counter-activity, and the Marines sent back word that they were running short of ammunition. Lieutenant William B. Moore, the Princeton athlete, and Sergeant Major John Quick (of whom more anon) volunteered to take in a truck load. With a small crew chosen from fifty who wanted to go, they started with their precious, perilous freight, over a torn road under a terrific fire. The whole way was brilliantly lighted by enemy flares and the solitary truck offered a shining mark to the German gunners. It rolled and careened fearfully over the gullies and craters, shells shrieked and whistled over their heads and burst on every hand, and as they neared the town they drove straight into the fire of the spouting machine guns. But John Quick bears a charmed life and they got through unscathed.

“That ammunition truck saved the day at Bouresches, for after it got in, Zane’s men proceeded to clean up the town. At 11 o’clock that night the report was sent in to headquarters to the effect that the Germans had been driven out of Bouresches. At 2:30 a.m. they made an attempt to get in again, but the counter-attack was smothered by our machine gun fire.

“The next day, with the help of the Engineers, our position in the town was made secure.

GERMAN TREACHERY