The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-02-22
Meclurs Newspaper syndfesss

Do these men understand" they asked. DO they know that within a few hours many of them will be dead? How can they sleep if they know ?" The French officers were told that the men understood perfectly - that they were husbanding their strength for the fight
 Fortunately at this moment the Ger mans were forced to slow up their ad- vance for a breathing spell, but mean while pushed up troops for a fresh drive designed to reach Paris. On the morning of June 1 the Americans took over from the exhausted French a twelve mile front. There were no re- serves between them and the AIarne On the first day in the lines the ma rines repuIsed an attack. Then the historic fighting in Belleau Wood. In their first attack tDe marines gained a fOothOld in the woods in the face of terrible machine gun fire. The wood was literally alive with machine gum nerS. In the almost impenetrabIe un- dergrowth and among the rocks the ! Germans concealed scores of machine gun nests arranged for enfilading fire. l For days the ugly man-to-man fight ! ing went on. Meanwhile Mouresches ] had been penetrated and held securely. ! One by one the machine gun nests were wiped out of the sinister wood, mostly with the bayonet.
 After nearly two weeks of bitter i fighting. during which a, regiment of i the Third Division had made an at 1 tempt, the marines finally swept through the wood. Meanwhile the
 Fourth Brigade launched the attack
 upon Vaux. The little village was re-
 duced to a heap of stones by the ar | tillery. Before the attack the German3 | put over fifteen hours of intense coun- ter artillerying. But Vaux was occu- 1 pied within five minutes after the ''jumpoff.''
 In the early fighting the men had
 only their iron rations'' and some
 times were without food or water for
 twenty-four hours, through difficulty
 ton shortage in rst hours of the battle. The eneHS sheIed the whole
 area heavily. In one brigade area
 nearly 22, 900 shells fell in twenty-four
 hours.
 During the month of continuous fighting that followed the Second cap
 tured 24 officers, 1854 men and a large quantity of guns and material. Because of the bitter nature of the
 fighting the division lost heavily
 more heavily than in any other fight. The total casualties were 9,777, of
 which 1,26O men were killed on the
 field and more than 1,5oo severely wounded Nearly 1000 slightly wound ed, gassed and missing.
 At first the hospitals were made
 quate to care for the stream of
 wounded. In one village the stretchers
 were laid out in the open, side by side,
 until nearly an acre was covered by
 the rows of them.
 For five weeks the division held the road to Paris. The German drive was
 halted. Then the Second was with
 drawn to nurse it's grevtous wounds
 At this time Foch was preparing the
 great counter offensive that sent the
 Germans reeling back from the Paris , | salient. The Second was getting re- placements to fill up it's depleted ranks On July Is the division was hastily 1 transported in trucks and unloaded in
 the Villers Cotterest region. By night marches through the forest the d1vi- sion was pushed up to the lines. The , forest was full of troops moving to- ward the front. In the inky darkness and driving rain the men were forced to march double file, touching one an 1 other, to avoid being separated Reaching the lines only few min . utes before the "H'' hour, the Second
 attacked behind the tanks at the vital point of the thrust near Soissons. l Despite stubborn resistance and , heavy losses the line swept over the
 German positions Many times the German artillery fired point blank into l the advancing Americans. But they l fired only a few times. Then the tide rolled over them. Most of our losses 5 occurred in the first few hours. The Ninth Infantry lost 66 per cent of its } men within three hours. As the of fcers fell others took their places, un- = til sometimes. sergeants commanded 3 battaHons. After very hard fighting the Second gained it's objectives- Dur : ing the night the Germans brought UT l fresh divisions, and at dawn the 9 Americans and French tore into then again. In severe fighting they gained } the heights dominating all the regior . l around Soissons
 ! In this battle the French and Amer