After much bitter, indecisive fighting, and a further attack on the 26th, which resulted in the capture of 264 prisoners, the final assault was made on the 29th. Two battalions deployed in four lines of sharpshooters, fifty yards apart, closely followed by the storming columns in waves, broke through the German positions after fierce bayonet fighting. The enemy redoubts
AMERICAN OBSERVATION-POST IN BELLEAU WOOD DURING
THE FIGHTING IN JULY, 1918.
were surrounded and reduced after hard hand-to-hand fighting. The Americans, who had left off their coats and rolled up their shirt-sleeves, advanced resolutely in spite of heavy losses.
The capture of this formidable position by the Marine Brigade won the warmest praise from Marshals Foch and Pétain, and the heartfelt thanks of the Mayor of Meaux, which city was thus saved from the enemy. The French High Command decided that the wood should henceforth be called: The Wood of the American Marine Brigade.