American units
abandoned their bayonet-stabbing of gunny-sacks and make-believe warfare
to rush forward into the real thing.

On June 2nd, these Americans, under command of French officers, began
the counter attack to sweep the Germans back from the south bank. By
that time the enemy had succeeded in putting twenty-two light bridges
across the Marne and had established a strong bridgehead position with a
number of machine guns and a strong force of men in the railway station
on the south bank of the river opposite Jaulgonne.

This position was attacked frontally by the Americans and French. Our
novices in battle were guilty of numerous so-called strategical
blunders, but in the main purpose of killing the enemy, they proved
irresistible. The Germans broke and ran. At the same time, the French
artillery lowered a terrific barrage on the bridges crossing the river,
with the result that many of the fleeing enemy were killed and more
drowned. Only thirty or forty escaped by swimming. One hundred of them
threw down their arms and surrendered. The remainder of the battalion
was wiped out. At the close of the engagement the Americans and the
French were in full command of the south bank.

But it was in Chateau-Thierry itself that the Germans made their most
determined effort to cross the river and get a footing on the south
bank, and it was there, again, that their efforts were frustrated by our
forces. On May 31st, American machine gun units, then in training
seventy-five kilometres south of the Marne, were hurriedly bundled into
motor lorries and rushed northward into Chateau-Thierry.

The Germans were advancing their patrols into the north side of the
city. They were pouring down the streets in large numbers, with the
evident purpose of crossing the bridges and establishing themselves on
the south bank.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon of May 31st that those American
machine gunners got their first glimpse of real war. That night while
the German artillery raked the south bank of the river with high
explosive shells, those Americans, shouldering their machine guns,
marched into the city and took up defensive positions on the south bank
of the river.

During the night many houses were turned into ruins. Shells striking the
railroad station had caused it to burn. In the red glare our men saw the
houses about them collapse under clouds of dust and debris. Under cover
of darkness the Germans filtered through the str