![]() They manned the two captured machine guns and held the captured ground. ![]() small groups of other Marines he soon commanded 40 Marines. Though Lt Timmerman was shot in the face, he pulled his six surviving men of his platoon back into the shelter of the woods. They once inore charged out of the woods and were decimated. but when exiting were the target of fire from every side. led his platoon straight through the mile-wide woods without any major incident. ![]() Several Marine units reached the woods and 2nd Lt. Catlin watched on proudly from a rise, until a snipers bullet sent the former Marine and Medal of Honor recipient at Vera Cruz home after an eight hour ambulance ride to Paris. The Germans aimed low, shooting the Marines in the legs. His young lieutenants shouted, “follow me!” And the Marines swept across the fields in four waves at right dress into the Southern end of Belleau Wood. On Berry’s right, the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines moved out under Major Berton W. Though against the rules to identify units in combat, the censor’s sentimentality allowed the world to know that the Marine Corps was in action at Belleau Wood. The censor hearing that the reporter was wounded and apparently killed in action, passed the story unchanged. Gibbons sent to Paris a dispatch reporting that the Marines were entering combat. In the advance, Major Berry was severely wounded in the left forearm and correspondent Floyd Gibbons trying to help the Major took three bullets. Most of the Marines who survived were pinned down in the wheat field, and after dark crawled back to the safety of the edge of the original Marine line. Those first waves were severely slaughtered. He said, “Come on you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?” (*1) Then he turned to give the charge orders to the men of bis platoon, his mates, the men he loved. He jumped out onto the exposed edge of the field that ran hot with lead. The service bar across his left breast showed that he had fought in the Philippines, in Santo Domingo, at the walls of Peking and in the streets of Vera Cruz …Īs the minute for the advance arrived, he arose from the trees first. was a Marine veteran, and his cheeks were bronzed with the wind and the sun of the seven seas. commanded the platoon in the absence of the lieutenant who had been shot and was out of this fight. The bullets nipped the tops of the wheat and ripped the bark from the trees, three feet from the ground, on which the Marines lay. Dan Daly, recipient already of two Medals of Honor, crouched with his men of the 73rd Machine Gun Company in a wooded grove at the edge of the wheat field.įloyd Gibbons a war correspondent described in the Chicago Tribune what he observed. It made great cover for the game and birds along with.the German machine guns and their gray-uniformed crack troops, considered at that time, as the “Worlds Finest.”Īs the attack started at 5 P.M. Their quest was a mile square hunting preserve, with its dense underbrush, huge boulders and trees. Berry approached Belleau Woods, with lines of steel helmeted Marines with fixed bayonets. on Jthree companies of Marines led by Major, Benjamin S. What happened over the following days, brought the United States Marine Corps to the forefront as an elite fighting force for the first time as well as a demonstration of military fire-power that was viewed by all nations. Click Above to enjoy this great Music / History of the Marine Devil Dogs History of the Devil DogsĪs members of the Military Order of Devil Dogs, perhaps many of us know little to nothing about what happened in June in the year 1918.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |