Memoirs of 2dLt W. B. Jackson, USMC
BOIS DE BELLEAU
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Shortly after noon we were ordered to unload and we proceeded by hiking for a way and then off to our left along a country lane. Shortly we came into a large courtyard and a big two story stone house on one side of the courtyard. There were various other out-buildings on the other side of the yard. We went on through for a mile or so. We were told we were relieving a line of French reserve troops. Presently we reached them and they immediately started getting ready to leave. I talked to a French sergeant in the group-a man in his fifties-a reservist. He told me that we were to hold that line through the night and then fall back on them in the new line they would establish during the night. I laughed and told him that would not be necessary now. "Why not", he asked. "Because you have an American Division in here now", I answered. He roared. "Ah the optimism of youth", he snorted and took off. We spread out along the hillside. That night more French troops passed through our lines enroute to the rear.
As we were novices in warfare and very tired from our long camion ride we simply set our guns up on their tripods-pointed they towards Germany-mounted a gun watch-and the rest of us rolled in our blankets right on topside of the ground and went to sleep. Early the next morning out top kick-an old timer-came roaring profanely down the line bawling us out for not having dug the guns in somewhat and not having made shallow slip trenches for our own protection. This we proceeded to do throughout that day. Nothing went amiss all day and the next night-no shells-no rifle fire-no enemy in evidence. Just a nice spring day.
On the second morning Heinie came over the distant ridge tops. Apparently having found the French lines abandoned he thought the war was over. Several days with miles of easy advance had contributed to his impression. He came over the hills in columns, long lines of them. Our artillery placed a few shells in the middle of things and changed his mind. The columns broke up and thinned out into skirmish lines and took cover. Their main line in our front finally established itself in a wood some 800 to 1000 yards from us across a shallow valley. During the next day or two a number of our guns were set up in the orchard around three small stone farm houses (Triangle Farm) where we would have an unimpeded field of fire on the German lines in the edge of the woods mentioned. For the next day or so all remained relatively quiet except for sporadic artillery fire and rare sniper shooting. Probably Heinie was waiting for his artillery etc., to catch up. At least he did not try any further advancing.
Then the word came down that about noon on June 6th the 2nd Division would attack the German positions. Our company's job at Triangle Farm was to fire an overhead barrage on the
wood line mentioned to keep the enemy pinned down while the American infantry advanced
through the valley and up the far slope. We did-the infantry, units of the Division's army brigade, went through and up to the wood mentioned. Heinie had retired slightly towards the Marne River to his rear. So that is where the afternoon's effort stopped. (On the 7th of June, 1963, Mom and I revisited Triangle Farm. The houses were still there, unoccupied and padlocked. The orchard grounds were still there from which we had fired and there was still a line of woods just where it had been 45 years before).
on the night of the 9th, our company was pulled out of Triangle Farm, hiked across a bunch of open farm land and a main country road to join the Marine infantry in an initial assault on Bois De Belleau. Where the Germans had succeeded in establishing their position. For the most of the rest of June the Marine Corp's effort was largely to drive the Germans out of Belleau and the surrounding territory. There were numerous spasmodic actions. Sometimes we were on the offensive-sometimes on the defensive against the German counter attacks. Our personal knowledge was restricted at all times to a relatively small front and we only knew by infrequent scuttlebutt of anything that was going on elsewhere in the woods. Our machine guns were mostly held in crude emplacements or trench positions ready for defense operation rather than in attacks in the woods, so we did not do a large amount of offensive effort.
In a very; short time due to our artillery fire and German shelling the Bois was in a shambles-the upper portion of most of the trees blown off and scattered in litter on the ground. Many dead lay where they had fallen and in the warm days of June soon added to the already uncomfortable situation. There was almost no water available in the wood. Our outfit sent out a canteen detail every night to the town pump in a nearby village, Lucy la Bocage. Two men with a pole between them on which were hung the canteens of the men in the immediate unit. That was the supply for the next day. (Mom and I visited Lucy la Bocage and the old town-pump on June 7th, 1963 45 years later and the old well was still there-little changed except they had built a clothes wash house sort of in front of the well between it and the village street.)
At one time a relief of the Marine infantry was planned by a regiment of Army. The machine guns were to stay put in support of the army unit. This outfit was even worse as novices in war than we had been. On the night they came in they came in columns. In the clear night air the sound of their bayonet scabbards slapping their legs could be heard a long distance. Sure enough Heinie began to suspect that something was happening-he knew every pathway in the woods by now-so he began a firing of whiz bangs (Austrian 88's)on the paths and quickly persuaded the army unit to scatter out.
Another night Heinie put down a mild artillery barrage. Everybody stood by sort of expecting an attack. Suddenly the army unit began firing their rifles. I and my crew could see or hear nothing so we held our machine gun fire. I leaned across our pit wall to the youngster next to us who was firing like mad and asked him what he was shooting at. He replied that he did not know but that he was aimed in waist high and if there was anything out there he would hit it. I would almost say that he had his eyes closed from the way his head was pitched. No attack came out of it. I and the gun crew went back to our blankets.
In talking to one of the army men I asked what way they had come down into the woods. He said he didn't know but that they had come by that Negro Marine up there in the path. I told him that the Marines had no Negro Marines. He replied, "Your sure as hell do have, I saw him with my own eyes." A day or so later going up this path I saw the corpse he had seen. His conclusion was reasonable but it was one of the boys who had been killed in the initial attack. Days of hot sun had changed his color but he was not a Negro.
The aroma near our gun got worse and worse. In looking over the situation the reason
became obvious. A few yards ahead of our pit there was a German corpse exposed to the sun throughout the day and had been for days. I finally decided to dispose of the body which was in no-man's land between the lines. I got a stout tree limb and climbed out to where he lay. He was the source alright. I put on a French gas mask, hooked the limb in his uniform and worked the body up over a mound to a small slit trench. Just as the body went over the top of the mound the head in the heavy German helmet broke loose and came rolling down the mound right at me. I ran away for several feet before I got hold of myself and went back and hooked my tree limb in the helmet's chin- strap and added it and its contents to the burial. I shoveled some dirt over the burial and stuck a rifle upside down on its bayonet to mark the spot. The relief was very welcome.
Shortly the Marine infantry took over again. Further attacks by them gradually kept pushing Heinie out of the woods and its surrounding area. The result for us was a frequent move of our gun etc., from one location to another. Finally we wound-up on a rocky crag looking down of the field to the village of Bourexches. Off to our right in the edge of the woods was quite a bunch of unoccupied slit trenches. For the first night or so the crew stayed with the gun on the crag. But aside from boulders there was no protection. The crag was too rocky to dig into. A night or so later Heinie started to put down an artillery barrage. Many shells exploded near our position. I felt that my father was speaking to me telling me to stand clear. I told the crew if another shell exploded near us that was what I was going to do. I had hardly finished speaking when a shrapnel shell exploded in the air near us. I had flopped on my face. A ball from the shell came down and hit my left arm just above the elbow. It was too spent to penetrate but must have hit just above the crazy bone nerve. At any rate my arm was numb for several moments. I got up, told the crew, "here I go", and took off for the slit trenches to our right. All but one of the crew went with me. For hours we were pinned in the trenches by the barrage. I sort of scooped into the front of my trench so that I could squeeze forward under the top dirt towards the enemy. Finally, the general barrage ended and a rolling barrage began. I sat up on the edge of my trench. I soon spotted the row of explosions approaching my position. One was going to hit my trench. Should I run or what? My father seemed to tell me to sit tight. I got back in my hole and made myself a small as possible under the forward bank. I heard the one coming that was for my spot. My hurried thought was wondering if this was it. The shell arrived and exploded in the air. It was a shrapnel and balls from it chewed into the dirt in the open part of my trench. If it had been a high explosive or if I hadn't scraped out a place for my body under the forward bank it would have been it. Heinie followed his barrage to meet a surprise. Our infantry had not waited for him but had moved out into the field ahead of their original position. Helped by the surprise they drove Heinie clear back into the valley below. When we returned to our position after the barrage passed we found our gun ruined by shell- fire. I never again saw or heard of the lad who had stayed there. This was the last concerted effort the Germans made to advance in our immediate area. Some patrol clashes, artillery and sniper fire but no real assault.
Somewhere around the end of our third week in the Bois area, word came down that we were being relieved. While there was not apparent gun by gun relief we were finally hiked out one night and made our way by roadside files back to Montriell. Here we formed in columns, recovered and loaded our mule carts and moved out in columns into the night time. We passed through Montriell and headed down the highway towards Meaux. After a couple of miles we suddenly began passing a column on the other side of the road hiking along in towards the lines. What talk there was it was in English. Quickly the word was passed "What outfit is that?" Startlingly, back came the reply "Marine Corps". Going back in again. It couldn't be.
Hadn't we just finished nearly a month in and around Bois de Belleau? Weren't we to have any time in a rest billet? Pretty soon it was our own battalion that was heading back in by us. It turned out that we were supposed to have taken up reserve positions behind the lines to the east of those we had left. My crew wound up in a well built field emplacement dug in almost under an apple tree in the edge of an orchard. The emplacement was roofed over with heavy logs and then covered with dirt. Not impregnable but safe against a lot of things. Our firing window looked out over a slope leading down to the Marne River. A beautiful view in late June days. We even got to have an occasional swim in the Marne. Activity had stilled tremendously. Something big was coming just around the corner. What was it? The fourth of July came and went and Bastile Day was upon us.
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