e to prevent their making another
attempt to advance by infiltrating through.

Above, a French airplane was checking up on the artillery fire.
Surprised by the fact that men should deliberately set their sights,
adjust their range, and then fire deliberately at an advancing foe, each
man picking his target, instead of firing merely in the direction of the
enemy, the aviator signalled below: "Bravo!" In the rear that word was
echoed again and again. The German drive on Paris had been stopped.

IN BELLEAU WOOD

For the next few days the fighting took on the character of pushing
forth outposts and determining the strength of the enemy. Now, the
fighting had changed. The Germans, mystified that they should have run
against a stone wall of defense just when they believed that their
advance would be easiest, had halted, amazed; then prepared to defend
the positions they had won with all the stubbornness possible. In the
black recesses of Belleau Wood the Germans had established nest after
nest of machine guns. There in the jungle of matted underbrush, of
vines, of heavy foliage, they had placed themselves in positions they
believed impregnable. And this meant that unless they could be routed,
unless they could be thrown back, the breaking of the attack of June 2
would mean nothing. There would come another drive and another. The
battle of Chateau-Thierry was therefore not won and could not be won
until Belleau Wood had been cleared of the enemy.

It was June 6 that the attack of the American troops began against that
wood and its adjacent surroundings, with the wood itself and the towns
of Torcy and Bouresches forming the objectives. At 5 o'clock the attack
came, and there began the tremendous sacrifices which the Marine Corps
gladly suffered that the German fighters might be thrown back.

FOUGHT IN AMERICAN FASHION

The marines fought strictly according to American methods--a rush, a
halt, a rush again, in four-wave formation, the rear waves taking over
the work of those who had fallen before them, passing over the bodies of
their dead comrades and plunging ahead, until they, too, should be torn
to bits. But behind those waves were more waves, and the attack went on.

"Men fell like flies," the expression is that of an officer writing from
the field. Companies that had entered the battle 250 strong dwindled to
50 and 60, with a Sergeant in command; but the attack did not falter. At
9.45 o'clock that night Bouresch