BATTLE OF BELLEAU WOOD
“Retreat, hell we just got here!”



advantages that machine guns and fortified positions afforded defenders against attackers. The marines embraced open warfare, expecting that their highly accurate rifle fire would give them the advantage.

    Before dawn on 6 June, the marines of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment (denoted as 1/6) drove the Germans from Hill 142. This anchored the American line to the Allied units farther to the west. It also allowed the marines to pour fire into Belleau Wood to the east. Next began an uncoordinated American attack that started on the evening of 6 June. The 3/5 and the 3/6 hit the center and southern sides of Belleau Wood respectively. However, while marching across the open ground, heavy German machine and artillery fire cut the 3/5 to shreds. Meanwhile, the 3/6 fought their way in the southern edge of the woods before their advance ground to a halt in the face of enemy fire. In all the confusion, the two-time Medal of Honor recipient Gunnery Sgt. Daly questioned his men: “C’mon you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?” Despite their best efforts, the marines’ marksmanship failed to silence the German guns. By nightfall, both Marine battalions suffered debilitating casualties.

    To the east in the evening of 6 June two smart-looking companies of the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment began an orderly advance across the eight hundred yards of wheat toward the enemy positions in Bouresches. This assault was doomed from its start because the Americans did not obtain supporting artillery to provide a rolling barrage. Instead the 2/6 faced withering German gunfire from the village to the northeast and from Belleau Wood to the northwest. The two Marine companies quickly began taking casualties as they were pinned down without communications with each other or the battalion’s commanding officer Maj. Thomas Holcomb. Even so, the surviving marines pushed their way into the village of Bouresches where they fought house to house and expelled the German defenders.

    That first day of 6 June proved to be costly for the 4th Marine Brigade: Six officers and 222 enlisted men and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) killed in action, and another 25 and 834 wounded in action respectively. This amounted to more casualties than in the entire history of the Marine Corps to date. On 8 June, two days into the battle, Holcomb scribbled a

letter his wife back on the American homefront. He described his men’s performance in the wheat field:

    The regiment has carried itself with undying glory, but the price was heavy. My battalion did wonderfully. . . There was never anything finer than their advance across a place literally swept with machine gun fire. . . There never was such self-sacrifice, courage, and spirit shown.

    Holcomb next gave his wife an inkling, albeit sanitized, of the conditions in Bouresches on 9 June. “I am safe and well. I have not even had my shoes off for 10 days, except once for ten minutes. Several days I’ve been without food and my only sleep has been snatched at odd moments during the retorted,” wrote Holcomb. “The whole brigade put up a most wonderful fight. We have been cited twice by the French authorities.”

    After being reinforced by more than 100 soldiers of the Company A of the 2nd Regiment of Engineers, the remaining 200 marines in 2/6 dug in and withstood several German infantry assaults on Bouresches before relief arrived a week later. Meanwhile, together with soldiers in the 2nd Regiment of Engineers, the marines of the 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 1/6, 3/6, and 6th Machine Gun Battalion secured most of Belleau Wood by 11 June. They encountered concentrated German small arms, machine gun, and artillery fire, often at point-blank range. Exploding shells from enemy and Allied guns splintered the trees, showering the ground with deadly wood splinters and metal shrapnel. The Germans also used mustard gas shells to try to halt the advance. The adversaries clashed in bitter hand-to-hand combat with knives, rifle butts, bayonets, and trench shovels. As Marine officers and NCOs fell dead or wounded, junior officers and enlisted men took their places. The most determined counterattack on 13 June came when elements of three Germans divisions attempted to reclaim their old positions. Then, the French Army’s artillery finally unleashed a 14-hour long heavy bombardment that allowed marines in 2/5, 3/5, and 3/6 to dislodge the remaining Germans from the northern end of Belleau Wood on 26 June.

    After three of weeks of intense combat, a report announced the 4th Marine Brigade’s success with the message “Belleau Wood now U.S. Marine Corps entirely.” The French government renamed it Bois de la





Continued on Page 3




Close this window

Copyright 2018, Scottish–American  Military  Society
Last Modified 5/18/2018-2002 hours PST
Please report problems to the webmaster