the Bois de Triangle until by eight o'clock on the morning of the 6th the Americans had carried by storm Hill 142 half a mile south of Torcy, and chased the Germans out of Veuilly wood. The following day they gained more ground, captured the villages of Veuilly-la-Poterie, Bussiare and Bouresches, entered Torcy, took some 200 prisoners and extended their line over a front of six miles and to a depth of nearly two and a half miles. At midnight on the 7th the Germans counter-attacked, but, despite their use of gas, were completely defeated and driven back before they reached the American lines. Following up these successes the Marines on the 10th entered the German lines for a depth of two-thirds of a mile along a six-hundred-yard front in the Belleau wood just west of Bouresches and south of Belleau. As the Germans still held a part of this wood the Marines attacked again on the 11th, took it, and captured 250 prisoners and forty machineguns and trench mortars.

Fighting in the woods was from tree to tree, from rock to rock. Every available spot was a nest of German machine guns not to be destroyed by artillery or grenade fire, but taken with the bayonet. In these attacks the Marines suffered heavy losses. Companies, it is said, which entered the fight two hundred and fifty strong were soon reduced to fifty or sixty. But over the bodies of the dead and wounded the boys came on wave after wave. Time and again the officers sent back word their men were exhausted. But the answer was that the lines must be held and if possible new attacks made, and without water, with little food, without rest, with men so tired that they fell asleep under shell fire, the lines were held and new advances made.

A captured German officer reported that a fresh division was to be thrown in and a desperate effort made to wrest from the Marines their hard-won territory. June 13 at two o'clock in the morning it came, and under orders to drive back the Americans at all costs, to retake Bouresches and the wood however great the loss of life, the Germans launched an attack along

the whole front. The thin line of Marines held fast, the drive was checked, the Germans forced back and thousands of rounds of ammunition and a score of machine guns were captured and used against the enemy. Time after time, says Secretary Daniels in his account of the fight, messages such as the following traveled to the post command:

Losses heavy. Difficult to get runners through. Some have never returned. Morale excellent, but troops about all in. Men exhausted.

Still they fought on, gaining ground day by day until their position was such that they were ready for the final rush which was to clear the Wood of Belleau. The objective was an important German position south of the village of Torcy northwest of Château-Thierry. Stretching for three kilometers along a wooded hill north of the Bois de Belleau, it commanded the German line and was dotted with machine-gun nests which gave our men much trouble. Just before six o'clock in the evening, of June 25, after a terrific bombardment of thirteen hours, the Marines advanced through the wood, throwing hand grenades and shooting from behind trees, and by nine o'clock had herded the Germans in the north end of the wood, captured 200 prisoners and practically destroyed a force of twelve hundred.

From the prisoners it was learned that a German army had been landed in our country, that it had captured New York and was marching on Philadelphia; that another great drive would be made in August, that Paris would be taken, the American army destroyed, and peace forced on the Allies.

The success of the 25th was followed up on the evening of July 1 when, after a heavy bombardment which lasted all day, our troops at six o'clock went over the top, captured the village of Vaux close to the western edge of Château-Thierry, recovered a piece of the Paris highway and entered the Bois de la Roche. On the 2nd the Germans came back with a strong counter-attack, but were defeated. "Our own positions," General Pershing reported, "were advanced on a front of a mile

and a half and to a depth of a thousand yards. The enemy's losses in killed and wounded were heavy. His regiment holding the sector attacked offered obstinate resistance and was practically annihilated.

The prisoners captured in the attack and counter-attack number over five hundred and include six officers. This increases the total number of prisoners taken by our troops in this vicinity during the last month to nearly 1,200."

In grateful appreciation of the splendid work of the Marines the General commanding the French Sixth Army ordered, on June 30, 1918, that:

In view of the brilliant conduct of the Fourth Brigade of the Second United States Division, which, in a spirited fight, took Bouresches and the important strong point of Bois de Belleau, stubbornly defended by a large enemy force, the General commanding the Sixth Army orders that henceforth, in all official papers, the Bois de Belleau shall be named "Bois de la Brigade de Marine."

Division General Degoutte,
Commanding Sixth Army.

July 6 what remained of the brigade was sent back to rest billets for recuperation.

June 13 was the anniversary of the landing in France of the first American troops, and because of the great things done by those troops, by those who followed, and by the people who sent them, the day was made the occasion for expressions of gratitude and appreciation by men high in public affairs in France. President Poincaré in a cablegram to President Wilson said:

The Allies, owing to the Russian Capitulation, are living through the most difficult hours of the war, but the rapid formation of new American units and the uninterrupted increase in oversea transportation are leading us with certainty towards the day when the equilibrium will be restored.

President Wilson replied:

Your telegram of yesterday was certainly conceived in the highest and most generous spirit of friendship and I am sure that I am