In late spring of 1918, the Germans had made an aggressive push through the Western Front lines in France with the intent to invade Paris and win the war. By the end of May they were nearly 50 miles from Paris, near a town called Belleau. They were able to entrench themselves in a nearby hill and into the woods that bordered the town.
On or around June 2nd is when the US Marines arrived to assist the French Marines with the US Army. The French were retreating the same day that the US Marines arrived.
Lead by General Pershing, at the end of their first day of fighting the 4th Marine Brigade had suffered more than 1000 casualties.
The battle lasted three weeks. While the Germans were able to bring up reinforcements, the US Marines were limited in their personnel, supplies and sleep because of the almost constant bombardment of artillery shells, machine gun fire and the threat of mustard gas.
The way this battle ended was a integral part of the defense of the Western Front. If the Allied lines had been broken and the Germans made it to Paris, there is a good chance that the Allies would have lost WWI.
A major reason for the Marines ability to retake the town, the hill and the woods were the different tactics that they used, their emphasis on marksmanship instead of “pray and spray” method that the Germans were using with machine guns. Unfortunately these tactics also resulted in the Brigade taking heavy losses as they advanced through the town. The survivors of those advances were then forced to fight hand to hand in the trenches with their adversaries. In the trenches they fought with whatever they could grab-knives, rifle butts, bayonets, trench shovels were all fair game- while shelling and small arms fire continued to explode around them.
On June 13 the French Army artillery unleashed a 14 hr long heavy barrage on the forrest that allowed the Marines to remove the remaining Germans from their positions. On June 26th the woods were finally declared “cleared”. The members of the 4th Marine Brigade were later awarded the French Croix De Guerre. However, the victory was won at a tremendous cost, the battle had an approximately 60% casualty rate.
The Battle Of Belleau Wood is the place where the legend of the Marine nickname was supposedly born. The tenacity of the US Marines as they fought their way up the hills, sometimes crawling, while wearing gas masks, with blood shot eyes from the mustard gas made a lasting impression on the German officers. Some of them apparently started calling the Marines “Teufel Hunden” or dogs from hell.
The Aisne-Marne American Cemetery is the resting place of more than 2000 of the soldiers who lost their lives near Belleau in 1918. The people that live in the surrounding areas hold Memorial Day services there every year, and have since the cemetery was dedicated in 1937.
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