ease firing" signal sounded
for the end of the world's greatest war.

ADVANCING TO BATTLE

Having reached their destination early on the morning of June 2, they
disembarked, stiff and tired after a journey of more than seventy-two
miles, but as they formed their lines and marched onward in the
direction of the line they were to hold they were determined and
cheerful. That evening the first field message from the 4th Brigade to
Major-General Omar Bundy, commanding the 2d Division, went forward:

Second Battalion, 6th Marines, in line from Le Thiolet through
Clarembauts Woods to Triangle to Lucy. Instructed to hold line. First
Battalion, 6th Marines, going into line from Lucy through Hill 142.
Third Battalion in support at La Voie du Chatel, which is also the post
command of the 6th Marines. Sixth Machine Gun Battalion distributed at
line.

Meanwhile the 5th Regiment was moving into line, machine guns were
advancing, and the artillery taking its position. That night the men and
officers of the marines slept in the open, many of them in a field that
was green with unharvested wheat, awaiting the time when they should be
summoned to battle. The next day at 5 o'clock, the afternoon of June 2,
began the battle of Chateau-Thierry, with the Americans holding the line
against the most vicious wedge of the German advance.

BATTLE OF CHATEAU-THIERRY

The advance of the Germans was across a wheat field driving at Hill 165
and advancing in smooth columns. The United States marines, trained to
keen observation upon the rifle range, nearly every one of them wearing
a marksman's medal or, better, that of the sharpshooter or expert
rifleman, did not wait for those gray-clad hordes to advance nearer.

Calmly they set their sights and aimed with the same precision that they
had shown upon the rifle ranges at Paris Island, Mare Island, and
Quantico. Incessantly their rifles cracked, and with their fire came the
support of the artillery. The machine-gun fire, incessant also, began to
make its inroads upon the advancing forces. Closer and closer the
shrapnel burst to its targets. Caught in a seething wave of machine-gun
fire, of scattering shrapnel, of accurate rifle fire, the Germans found
themselves in a position in which further advance could only mean
absolute suicide. The lines hesitated. They stopped. They broke for
cover, while the marines raked the woods and ravines in which they had
taken refuge with machine-gun and rifl