The enemy put up a stubborn resistance on the left, and it was not until later in the evening that this part of the line reached the northeast edge of the woods, after it had completely surrounded a most populous machine gun nest which was located on a rocky hill. During the fighting Colonel Catlin was wounded and Captain Laspierre, the French liaison officer, was gassed, two casualties which represented a distinct blow to the brigade, but did not hinder its further progress.
On the right Lieutenant Robertson, with twenty survivors out of his entire platoon, emerged from the terrific enemy barrage and took the town of Bouresches at the point of the bayonet. Captain Duncan, receiving word that one Marine company, with a determination to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, had gone two hundred yards in advance, raced forward on the double quick with the 96th Marine Company, and was met by a terrific machine gun barrage from both sides of Bouresches.
Lieutenant Robertson, looking back, saw Duncan and the rest of his company going down like flies as they charged through the barrage. He saw Lieutenant Bowling get up from the ground, his face white with pain, and go stumbling ahead with a bullet in his shoulder. Duncan, carrying a stick and with his pipe in his mouth, was mowed down in the rain of lead. Robertson saw Dental Surgeon Osborne pick Duncan up. With the aid of a Hospital Corps man, they had just gained the shelter of some trees when a shell wiped all three of them out.
In the street fighting that ensued in Bouresches, Lieutenant Robertson's orderly, Private Dunlavy, who was later killed in the defence of the town, captured one of the enemy's own machine guns and turned it against them.
In the dense woods the Germans showed their mastery of machine gun manipulation and the method of infiltration by which they would place strong units in our rear and pour in a deadly fire. Many of these guns were located on rocky ridges, from which they could fire to all points. These Marines worked with reckless courage against heavy odds, and the Germans exacted a heavy toll for every machine gun that was captured or disabled, but in spite of losses the Marine advance continued.
Lieutenant Overton, commanding the 76th Company, made a brilliant charge against a strong German position at the top of a rocky hill. He and his men captured all of the guns and all of their crews. Overton was hit later when the Germans retaliated by a concentration of fire against the captured position for forty-eight hours.
Lieutenant Robertson, according to the report brought back by a regimental runner, was last seen flat on a rock not twenty yards away from one enemy gun, at which he kept shooting with an automatic in each hand. He was hit three times before he consented to let his men carry him to the rear.
"There was not an officer left in the 82nd Company," according to a letter by Major Frank E. Evans, Adjutant of the Sixth. "Major Sibley and his Adjutant reorganised them under close fire and led them in a charge that put one particular machine gun nest out of business at the most critical time in all the fighting. I heard later that at that stage some one said: 'Major Sibley ordered that—' and another man said: 'Where in hell is Sibley?' Sibley was twenty yards away at that time and a hush went down the line when they saw him step out to lead the charge.
"And when the word got around through that dead-tired, crippled outfit that 'the Old Man' was on the line, all hell could not have stopped that rush."
In such fashion did the Marines go through the Bois de Belleau. Their losses were heavy, but they did the work. The sacrifice was necessary. Paris was in danger. The Marines constituted the thin line between the enemy and Paris. The Marines not only held that line—they pushed it forward.