Last edited Sat Jun 6, 2026, 10:57 PM - Edit history (1)
It's arguably the date the tide turned in the First World War as well (June 6th, 1918)
Bois de Belleau, or as well call is Belleau Wood is a small forest that the Germans held, about 40 miles from Paris. It was their closest advance to France's capital in the Spring of 1918 as Germany threw everything they had in one last attempt to win the war before we arrived in force. It's maybe a mile or two in size, thick with trees (even now) and the battle must have been nigh impossible.
The Marine Brigade of the 2nd Division charged through a wheat field into the woods on June 6th and for the next three weeks Americans and Germans would trade parts of it back and forth many times.
"We got into the edge of the woods and we dug in. And we took position there, ready for either an advance again on orders from the top command or for a defense against a counter attack. Now this was the kind of fighting that many Americans knew of; no longer trench system, no trench warfare, but open warfare. The way their ancestors had fought on the frontiers and in all the wars of our country. And we knew it. But the difficulty with Belleau Wood was you never knew where the front was. Little groups of Americans, little groups of Germans got together to fight each other. And while you were fighting in one direction all of a sudden, without any warning, you’d find there were some Germans to the rear of you and they had to be mopped up. Clean up, mop up, and move ahead; move ahead with the unyielding determination to enforce your will on the enemy; and that was how we moved in Belleau Wood."
Sgt. Melvin Krulewitch (Excerpt from an interview some fifty years later)
I went with my wife (then fiancee) years back. Walking through the woods was very humbling...it is still pock marked with shell holes, fox holes, and trench lines. But maybe the most moving experience is standing in the German trench line at the edge of the forest and seeing what the Second Division charged into. They had no cover, sans the height of the spring wheat. It's amazing they got to the woods at all, much less got a foothold...much less fought and clawed their way though.
Casualties would mount on both sides...the 3rd Division would be sent in for a few days while the Second recovered. In fact the Marines lost more men in the battle than they had in their entire history prior (and if I recall would be their deadliest engagement until Iwo Jima). However Americans eventually took the forest on the 26th.
Americans fought all around that area in those fateful days of late May through mid-July where the tide was turned. The nearby village (Belleau itself) was liberated by the 26th Division, where a beautiful church now stands. It was built by the Division veterans as a memorial to the fallen and given to the town.
When we were going through France there are parts that were just as appreciative of our help in the First World War as the Second. As one of my amateur historian friends has said, the First World War was payment for the Revolutionary War...the Second took care of the interest.
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