Between Meaux and Château-Thierry, where the road wound along the Marne, our men encountered long trains of French refugees, weary mothers carrying hungry babies at the breast, farm wagons loaded with household belongings, usually surmounted by feather mattresses on which rode grey-haired grandfathers and grandmothers. This pitiful procession was moving toward the rear driving before it flocks of geese and herds of cattle. On the other side of the road war, grim war, moved in the opposite direction.
The Second Division was bound for the line to the northwest of Château-Thierry. On June 1st, the 6th Marines relieved the French on the support lines. The sector of the 6th Regiment joined on the left the sector held by two battalions of the 5th. The line on the right was held by the French. On June 2nd, the hard-pressed French line, weak and weary from continual rear guard actions, over a hard fighting period of almost a week, fell back by prearranged plan and passed through the support positions which we held. To fill gaps between units, the Marines extended their brigade sector to between twelve and fourteen kilometres. As the French withdrew to the rear, hard pressed by the enemy, the Marines held the new first line.
The regimental headquarters of the 6th was located in a stone farmhouse at a cross-roads called La Voie Châtel, situated between the villages of Champillon and Lucy-le-Bocage. There was clear observation from that point toward the north. At five o'clock in the afternoon on that day of clear visibility, the Germans renewed their attacks from the north and northeast toward a position called Hill 165, which was defended by the 5th Regiment.
The Germans advanced in two solid columns across a field of golden wheat. More than half of the two columns had left the cover of the trees and were moving in perfect order across the field when the shrapnel fire from the American artillery in the rear got range on the target. Burst after burst of white smoke suddenly appeared in the air over the column, and under each burst the ground was marked with a circle of German dead. It was not barrage fire: it was individual firing against two individual moving targets and its success spoke well for the training which that brigade of American artillery had received.
French aviators from above directed the fire of our guns, and from high in the air signalled down their "bravos" in congratulation on the excellent work. At the same time, the machine gunners of the 5th covered the ravines and wooded clumps with a hot fire to prevent small bodies of the enemy from infiltrating through our lines. The French marvelled at the deliberateness and accuracy of our riflemen.
The Germans, unaware that a change had taken place in the personnel that faced them, reeled back demoralised and unable to understand how such a sudden show of resistance had been presented by the weakened French troops which they had been driving before them for a week. The enemy's advance had been made openly and confidently in the mistaken flush of victory. Their triumphant advances of the previous week had more than supported the statements of the German officers, who had told their men that they were on the road to Paris—the end of the war and peace. It was in this mood of victory that the enemy encountered the Marines' stone wall and reeled back in surprise.
That engagement, in addition to lowering the enemy morale, deprived them of their offensive spirit and placed them on the defensive. The next few days were spent in advancing small strong points and the strengthening of positions. In broad daylight one group of Marines rushed a German machine gun pit in the open, killed or wounded every man in the crew, disabled the gun and got back to their lines in safety.
It was at five o'clock on the bright afternoon of June 6th that the United States Marines began to carve their way into history in the battle of the Bois de Belleau. Major General Harbord, former Chief of Staff to General Pershing, was in command of the Marine brigade. Orders were received for a general advance on the brigade front. The main objectives were the eastern edge of the Bois de Belleau and the towns of Bussiares, Torcy and Bouresches.
Owing to the difficulty of liaison in the thickets of the wood, and because of the almost impossible task of directing it in conjunction with the advancing lines, the artillery preparation for the attack was necessarily brief. At five o'clock to the dot the Marines moved out from the woods in perfect order, and started across the wheat fields in four long waves. It was a beautiful sight, these men of ours going across those flat fields toward the tree clusters beyond from which the Germans poured a murderous machine gun fire.
The woods were impregnated with nests of machine guns, but our advance proved irresistible. Many of our men fell, but those that survived pushed on through the woods, bayoneting right and left and firing as they charged. So sweeping was the advance that in some places small isolated units of our men found themselves with Germans both before and behind them.