Wood Elf Army

[Elsa Hoelscher]

Anadvertising agency is a good thing at times, but when the advertising agency misrepresents its goods there is a possibility of it becoming a detriment to the advertiser. There are a few organisations in France that really do not need an advertising agency- their work has been honourable enough to speak for itself. There are two regiments of Marines in France and they are part of my division and I know their service has been honourable, let us say just as glorious as many other infantry organisations of the United States Army that are now in France.

But from time to time, and very often too, certain papers in the United States write as if certain organisations were doing the whole thing alone over here. For example, in your pictorial issue of Aug. 11, 1918, you show a picture of the town of Vaux, France, and announce that this town was stormed by the marines. Now, as I am in command of the battalion that actually took Vaux and as we are all very, very proud of her reputation and of her high standard as a shock outfit, will you kindly correct this error? Also, out of respect for the high standard of veracity The New York Times has ever maintained, please remember that there are today over 1 750 000 American troops abroad, and about 6 000 of them are marines in the two excellent regiments the Navy Department has sent over.

For the first state dinner of his presidency, President Trump could hardly have picked a better candidate in this centennial year of U.S. combat action in World War I: President Macron of France. And for a gift to the United States, Present Macron could hardly have picked a better symbol: a sapling from Belleau Wood, or as it is now known, Bois de la Brigade de Marine (Wood of the Marine Brigade).

The front was a mess of wheat fields, small towns, and woodlots, with parallel ridges facing each other. It was virgin territory, the ground as-yet unscarred by trenchlines and shell holes. This would all change in the coming month.

The 2nd Division had been given two missions: capture the height of Bois de Belleau and the nearby town of Vaux. The height was in the sector of the Marine Brigade while Vaux lay far to the right, nearly on the dividing line between the French and the 2nd Division. The division took it one thing at a time and made the Bois de Belleau the priority mission. Vaux would have to wait.

On June 6, the Marine Brigade began their attacks on the Bois de Belleau and Bouresches, accompanied by the 2nd Engineers. One of the engineer battalion commanders had the following to say about what he learned in this operation (full account here):

Serving with infantry as infantry, has two very considerable advantages. It gives the engineers more prestige than anything else they can do. After the infantry discovers that engineers can fight, they are usually much more willing to cooperate on engineer work, and line and staff officers are usually more willing to recognize the value of an engineer regiment. Furthermore, the effect on the morale of the men is excellent, it makes them easier to handle on any work that has to be done under fire. But the practice must not be carried to such an extreme as to seriously interfere with the work the engineers must do.

The 2nd Battalion, 2nd Engineers assisted the 5th Marines in taking Hill 142 and played a vital role in its defense, fighting off German counterattacks. The 1st Battalion accompanied the 6th Marines into Belleau Wood where they took part in the first assaults.

At the same time, at around 6 pm, the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 23rd Infantry advanced from their positions to come just south of the road leading from Bouresches to Vaux, a distance of about a kilometer, in an attempt to cut Bouresches off from German reinforcement. About two hours after advancing, the 3rd Battalion was hit with a heavy counterattack in the vicinity of Cote 192, where they suffered extreme losses. Just after midnight, both battalions were given the order to withdraw to their starting positions.

To the right, the French 10th Colonial Division surged forward against a German height and the 9th Infantry extended their lines further to the right to support this assault. 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry advanced east of Bourbetin, seizing a height above the Bois de la Morette where they dug in, expecting an enemy counterattack at any moment.

Like most of the US divisions, the 2nd Division came to war with forty-eight 75mm guns, twenty-four 155mm guns, and twelve six inch trench mortars. These all began to play on the small area of Bois de Belleau, high explosive shells shattering trees and burrowing into the earth before exploding in gouts of fire and shock. Much of June 9 and 10 was spent in pulverizing the German positions in the woods, trying to seek out and destroy the hidden machine gun nests. In all, the division fired 40,000 shells in this preparation. The guns fired their last salvos before transitioning to a creeping barrage on June 11 to support the Marines as they attacked from Lucy-le-Bocage. The Marines got into the woods and lodged a foothold, reinforced by Companies D and F, 2nd Engineers.

June 12 was another busy day for the artillery, again pounding known and suspected German positions on the Bois de Belleau. All units participated in defeating a German counterattack on June 13. Company D, 2nd Engineers was deep in the woods with the Marines when the counterattack happened and all soldiers dropped their shovels to help fight off the attack. 1st Lieutenant Lyman Chase of Company D, 2nd Engineers then led his platoon in a successful assault on a German machine gun position.

On June 14, the front was adjusted to allow the Marines to again compress their forces around the Bois de Belleau. All three battalions of the 23rd Infantry went into the line, taking over the eastern edge of Bois de Belleau and the entirety of Bouresches from the 5th Marines and extending down to Tuilerie de Triangle, where they connected with the 9th Infantry. The following day, the front of the 2nd Division again compressed, for the same reason. The French 167th Division on the left relieved troops from the 6th Marines, allowing both Marine regiments to consolidate their shrinking battalions. The 23rd Infantry fought off a weak German counterattack on the east edge of Bois de Belleau and at Bouresches.

For the infantry brigade, cooped up to the south of the Marines, this would finally be their chance strike back. For most of June, they just had to sit and take it as their lines were saturated with gas and pounded with artillery. Now it was their turn to see if they were as good as their Marine brethren.

The artillery began a twelve hour bombardment at 5 am on July 1, the barrels of the well-worked guns now pointing towards Vaux, just to the front of the Infantry Brigade. They were joined by twelve batteries of French artillery, all pounding Vaux and the daunting Hill 204 to the east, which was the French objective. At around 2 pm, four batteries of US artillery fired mustard gas behind the objective to prevent reinforcements from moving in. But this fire was not without answer: the German guns fired about 33,000 shells around Vaux that day in an effort to break up the expected attack. They were unsuccessful.

At 5 pm on July 1, the US barrage grew in intensity as the infantry assembled in their jumping-off positions. With three minutes to 6 pm, the barrage transitioned to a rolling roar of shells, clearing the way for the infantry. The 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry crashed into and rolled over the German defenders in Vaux, taking 440 prisoners, while the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry seized the tree-covered heights to the left of the town. The Germans attempted to wrest Vaux away from the 9th Infantry on the morning of July 2 but were soundly defeated, losing another 141 prisoners. With Bouresches and Vaux now in friendly hands, the left flank of the division was secure from German assault. They had set the stage for the next piece of the operation: counterattack.

The execution of taking Vaux had been near flawless. The 2nd Division had learned from the bloodbath on June 6 when the Marines rushed into the meat grinder without waiting for artillery preparation. The attacks of June 25 and July 1 demonstrated that with adequate planning and preparation, relatively small numbers of troops (1-2 battalions) could take and hold ground with acceptable casualty levels. Ground which larger numbers of troops would find impossible to take without losing significant numbers of troops.

By Independence Day, the 2nd Division could now hand off a secure piece of the line to the incoming 26th Division. They had taken over the dominating heights and vital supply lines needed for the US to be able to continue the advance against the strategically important Etrepilly Plateau. But it had come at a severe cost. The 9th Infantry had come out of it the best, with 158 dead. The 23rd Infantry had 307 dead. The 5th Marines, 421; the 6th, 215. The 2nd Engineers had 121 men killed. In its three or four days of combat, the 7th Infantry had 93 men killed. And of course, there were many thousands of wounded. All told, the division had suffered nearly 8,000 casualties in one month of combat.

About the Author: Angry Staff Officer is an Army engineer officer who is adrift in a sea of doctrine and staff operations and uses writing as a means to retain his sanity. He also collaborates on a podcast with Adin Dobkin entitled War Stories, which examines key moments in the history of warfare.

I love using the speedpaints on wooden terrain. It's a lot quicker to do in one go compared to the dark wash wash-drybrush method and a 5 bottle of speedpaint should do a whole set quite happily! It actually ends up being pretty cost effective.

Fort Leonard Wood is home of the U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence (MSCoE), whose mission is to train individuals, leaders and teams in basic combat skills and chemical, engineering, military police and transportation disciplines. Located in Pulaski County, in the beautiful south central Missouri Ozarks, IHG Army Hotels Warrior Lodge is near Waynesville and St. Robert and 2 miles south of Interstate 44. St. Louis is a two- hour drive to the east along Interstate 44. Springfield, Missouri is a little more than an hour drive to the west.

3a8082e126