Belleau wood essays

Belleau wood essays The battle of Belleau Wood, June 1-26 of 1918, was fought five miles immediately northwest of the town of Chateau-Thierry on the River Marne, The Aisne-Marne Sector. Belleau Wood was approximately a mile in length and of irregular shape. It was mostly heavily wooded, cut by a deep ravine on the southern section, and also huge boulders scattered the area. Marines fought one of their greatest battles in history at Belleau Wood. The Marines helped to crush a German offensive that threatened Paris. The three-week long battle was not a masterminds work. Rather, it was a confused mess; often enough the soldiers didnt know where they, the enemy, or the front line was located on that one mile-square dark, bloody forest. This made it almost impossible to communicate on accounts of location and progress during the actions. Prisoners were numbered into the hundreds. One day, after an attack, the prisoner count grew by more than 300. There had been 1200 Germans in the woods that day, and with the exception of those prisoners, nearly all the rest were slain by the marines. This shows the intensity of which the Americans fought. The prisoners reported that they were glad to have a chance to surrender, seeing as though the artillery fire for three days had cut off their food and other supplies. The American attack was a furious one in which the Germans were rather impressed. The battle of Belleau Wood was the first battle in which the AEF (Allied Expeditionary Forces) recorded major casualties associated with the Great War. On this day, the Marine Brigade suffered the worse single-days casualties in the history of the United States Marine Corps, with the killing of 1087 men killed or wounded. The characterization of the USMCs determination and dedication impressed the adversaries and also proved to both the allies and adversaries that America was on the Western Front to fight. ...