US+during+WW1

Hear an original 1917 recording of the most famous pop/patriotic song in the US during WW1: [|Over There]

Some members of the famous 369th "Harlem Hell Fighters" below and the patches of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions 93d Division Patch above 92nd Division Patch below



Click on Cher Ami to read the account about the Lost Battalion "Cher Ami" the famous pigeon from the Battle of the Argonne Forest and the "Lost Battalion" now on display at the National Museum of History( the Smithsonian). Major Whittlesey-click on the photo to read more Read below an account about the "Devil Dogs" of Belleau Wood. Nothing in all our training had foreseen fighting like this. If there was any strategy in it, it was the strategy of the Red Indian. The only thing that drove those Marines through those woods in the face of such resistance as they met was their individual, elemental guts, plus the hardening of the training through which they had gone. I passed nest after nest of German machine-guns. Out in front of every gun lay Marines where they had fallen. Around the guns themselves there weren't so very many dead Germans. They had worked their guns up to the moment the Marines got among them with the bayonet -- and then they had surrendered. Most of my wounded had been worked out. Here and there through the woods stretcher bearers were searching for more. There was some little evidence of that rolling barrage under which we had advanced, in a few shell holes and splintered trees. But not much. It hadn't hurt the Germans enough to mention. But it had given them plenty of notice that we were coming.

Though everywhere I could see Marines who had been killed by machine guns and snipers, though there were plenty of dead Germans, killed by rifle fire, nowhere was there any sign that the Germans had stood face to face with Marines at close quarters and fought it out. Always when it got hot and hand to hand, they had surrendered. But now the German artillery stepped in. They had a pretty thorough idea of our position in those woods. About ten o'clock that night they sounded off. They gave us an awful pounding. It lasted for about two hours.

. . . The Bois de Belleau was an unforgettable sight that night. I had dozed off in the dark during a lull. The explosions of renewed shelling woke me to see the blackness rent and torn everywhere with those terrific flashes of bluish flame from the bursting shells. Silhouetted in that ghastly light I could see splintered tree trunks and twisted limbs and the black mass of the forest stretching off on both sides. Then for minutes those flashes would come so fast that it looked as if a great ragged searchlight was playing up and down in the dark, so continuous would be the illumination. And all the time the shattering impact of the bursts would hammer on your ears.

By daybreak next morning I was out on inspection again. The woods were strangely silent. I found to my amazement that the terrific barrage of the night before had done comparatively little damage to our front line. It had torn the woods just behind the line to pieces. If we'd had supports in those woods, they would have been annihilated.

At the battle's end. . .I lined the men up and looked them over. It was enough to break your heart. I had left Courcelles May 31st with nine hundred and sixty-five men and twenty six officers -- the best battalion I ever saw anywhere. I had taken them, raw recruits for the most. Ten months I had trained them. I had seen them grow into Marines. Now before me stood three hundred and fifty men and six officers. Six hundred and fifteen men and nineteen officers were gone.