Welcome to the to the deep dive. It is so great
to have you with us today. Yeah, thanks for joining
us for this one We are zeroing in on a single
just incredibly rich source document It's a comprehensive
historical text breaking down one of the most
ferocious and really legendary engagements of
World War one Battle of billowwood exactly the
Battle of billowwood now our mission today isn't
just to you know Read off a timeline of dates
and trip movements you can get a dry timeline
from any encyclopedia. What we want to do is
extract the real aha moments from this text.
We're looking at exactly how legends are born
under fire and how just a few weeks in a shattered
French hunting preserve. completely forged the
identity of a modern military force. It really
is a masterclass in how a group's identity, in
this case, the modern US Marine Corps, is forged,
not just through victory, but through shared
sacrifice, sheer tenacity, and the power of the
stories they tell about themselves. But to truly
grasp the scale of what happened in those woods,
we have to understand the profound desperation
of the moment. We're talking about a pivotal
flashpoint where the entire trajectory of the
First World War just hung by a thread. Okay,
let's untack this. The year is 1918. It's March.
And the situation for the Allies is looking,
uh... incredibly grim. On the eastern front,
the Russian empire has collapsed. They've surrendered.
Which changes everything. It changes everything
because what that means practically on the ground
is that the German army suddenly has nearly 50
additional divisions freed up, 50 divisions.
It's a massive influx of manpower suddenly shifting
focus entirely away from the east and barreling
straight toward the western front. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, The German High Command
knows they're operating on a very strict ticking
clock here. Right, because of the Americans.
Exactly. The United States has officially entered
the war, but American forces aren't fully deployed
on the continent yet. So the Germans are essentially
racing to launch a series of overwhelming spring
offensives. To finish it before the U .S. arrives
in force. Yes. The goal is to absolutely crush
the British and French forces before the full
weight of the American industrial and military
machine can get there. Yeah. And they are terrifyingly
close to succeeding. How close? By late May of
1918, German forces have reached the north bank
of the Marne River. They are just 59 miles away
from Paris. Wow. Just 59 miles. Just pause and
imagine you were sitting in Paris at that moment.
You know, the German army, bolstered by hundreds
of thousands of men from the Eastern Front, is
less than 60 miles away. It's right on their
doorstep. If Paris falls, the war could very
well be lost right then and there. It is absolute
do or die. And that takes us to the frantic early
days of June. German forces have just punched
a massive hole in the French lines right to the
left of where the American Marines are positioned.
The situation is so dire that the U .S. Reserve,
which includes the 23rd Infantry Regiment and
the 5th Marines, they're thrown into the breach.
They are forced to conduct a grueling 10 kilometer
forced march. And a forced march isn't just a
brisk hike. We are talking about carrying heavy
gear, rifles, ammunition. Moving over choked
muddy roads. Yeah, with little to no sleep. They
are racing against time to literally plug this
gap in the line by dawn. Just picture that deep
bone rattling exhaustion before the fighting
even really begins. And they arrive to find a
completely collapsing front. The momentum of
the German advance was terrifying. It was so
overwhelming that the retreating French command
actually ordered the arriving Americans to fall
back with them. To retreat? Right, to dig trenches
further to the rear and prepare for a deeper
defense. But the commander of the Marine Brigade,
Army General James Harbord, he absolutely refuses.
He countermands that French order with a directive
that is just incredibly bold. He tells the Marines
to hold where they stand. Hold where they stand.
And the source notes, they don't even have proper
entrenching tools. So they are literally digging
shallow fighting positions into the earth using
their bayonets. Just trying to scrape out enough
cover to shoot from a prone position in these
grain fields. Using knives to dig trenches. That
detail about the bayonets is crucial. It highlights
the sheer lack of preparation time. They are
scraping the dirt while the enemy is marching
toward them. And then, on the afternoon of June
3rd, the German infantry attacks. I fear they
come. They come advancing through those grain
fields with their bayonets fixed, fully expecting
to roll right over these hastily prepared, exhausted
American positions. But wait. If these Americans
are sleep deprived from a forced march and lying
in shallow ditches they just dug with knives,
how do they not just immediately open fire the
second they see the enemy? Right, it goes against
every human instinct. Yeah, it goes against every
survival instinct to push a threat away as quickly
as possible. That is exactly the aha moment here.
The tactical discipline of these Marines completely
changed the equation. Despite the exhaustion,
they relied on their intense marksmanship training.
They didn't open fire at maximum range. They
waited. They waited. They let the advancing German
ways get within a hundred yards. A hundred yards
is nothing. You can see their faces at that distance.
Exactly. They waited until the enemy was dangerously
close before unleashing a coordinated deadly
rifle fire. The source material notes that this
specific lethal accuracy completely shocked the
German forces. because they weren't expecting
it. The Germans simply weren't used to that level
of disciplined marksmanship at that range from
a supposedly green untested army. It mowed down
the advancing waves and forced the survivors
to break their advance and retreat right into
the cover of billow wood. Which perfectly sets
the stage for one of the most legendary quotes
in military history. As this defensive stand
is happening, a French officer supposedly suggests
again that the Americans should pull back to
save themselves. Right. And Marine Captain Lloyd
W. Williams of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines,
delivers this immortal retort. He says, retreat
hell, we just got here. That's incredible. Now,
the source does note that his battalion commander,
Major Frederick Wise, also later claimed he was
the one who said it. Well, it's one of those
historical moments where the exact attribution
almost matters less than the attitude it represents.
That bravado, that sheer stubborn refusal to
yield ground when every piece of conventional
wisdom told them to run, that became absolutely
foundational to the identity of the U .S. Marine
Corps. They were drawing a line in the dirt.
But holding the line was only the beginning.
Defending is one thing. Now they had to go on
the offensive to push the Germans back. Right.
This brings us to dawn on June 6th and the plan
to attack Hill 142. The Allies are launching
an attack to preempt a German strike. The Marines
are ordered to take this hill to prevent flanking
fire, which is essentially enemy fire hitting
the side of a formation rather than the front.
Exactly. To protect the neighboring French 167th
Division. But there is a massive fatal mistake
made right at the start. The Marines failed to
scout the woods before advancing. The cost of
that intelligence failure was devastating. But
why wouldn't they scout? How does a modern military
force just advance blindly into a massive forest
without knowing what's in there? It comes down
to a mix of extreme urgency and a breakdown in
battlefield intelligence. They were rushing to
preempt a German attack, so time was of the essence.
So they just rushed in. But... Because they didn't
scout they completely missed the fact that there
was an entire regiment of German infantry heavily
dug in We are talking about a sophisticated network
of interlocked machine gun nests interlocked
meaning meaning the fields of fire overlap Yeah,
if you manage to dodge the bullets from one machine
gun You were immediately stepping into the stream
of bullets from another no safe zones none. There
are no safe zones No blind spots. They were also
supported by artillery When you advance blindly
into an entrenched position like that, the outcome
is inevitably tragic. Tragic doesn't even begin
to cover it. You have the 1st Battalion, 5th
Marines advancing in waves with fixed bayonets
straight across an open waist -high wheat field.
Waist -high wheat. Yeah, and Waste High Wheat
sounds picturesque until you realize it obscures
the uneven ground, trips you up, but offers absolutely
zero ballistic protection against bullets. They
are completely exposed. Catherine Crowther, commanding
the 67th Company, is killed almost instantly.
Yes, brutal. On the other side, Captain Hamilton
and the 49th Company are fighting tree to tree.
Hamilton loses every single one of his five junior
officers in this charge. Yet somehow... His men
not only take their objective, they overrun it
by exactly six yards. And it's in the midst of
this absolute chaos that we see staggering individual
heroism. During a fierce German counter -attack,
you have Gunnery Sergeant Ernest A. Jansen, who
was serving under the name Charles Hoffman at
the time. What did he do? The source details
how he single -handedly repelled in advance of
12 German soldiers who were carrying light machine
guns. Twelve against one. He charged them, killed
two with his bayonet, and the rest actually dropped
their weapons and fled. For that sheer force
of will, he became the first Marine to earn the
Medal of Honor in World War I. That heroism brings
us to a darker pivot point later that same afternoon.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Because
at 5 0 p .m. on that same day, June 6th, the
next phase of the offensive begins. Right, the
17 .0 assault. This time it's the 3rd Battalion,
5th Marines, and the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines,
advancing directly into below wood from the west.
Once again, they have to cross a waist -high
wheat field right into the teeth of German machine
guns. Right back into it. And during the initial
step off for this assault, First Sergeant Dan
Daley, who already had two medals of honor from
previous conflicts, looks at his men in the 73rd
Machine Gun Company and yells out this famous
battle cry. A legendary quote. He yells, come
on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live
forever? It's a quote that echoes through history.
But we have to ground that bravado in the sobering
reality of what actually happened in that wheat
field. Those first waves of Marines, advancing
in well -disciplined lines just as they were
trained, were systematically slaughtered. Major
Berry was severely wounded. The men swept into
the southern end of the woods and immediately
hit a wall of heavy machine gun fire. Sharp shooters
hidden in the trees, thick barbed wire, and brutal
hand -to -hand combat. It was a meat grinder.
It was. The casualties sustained on June 6th
alone were the highest in Marine Corps history
up to that point. 31 officers and 1 ,056 men
in a single day. Over a thousand men lost while
charging across an open field. It feels like
a complete failure of tactics. It's one of those
wild contradictions of military history. You
look at the tactical map and think this is a
complete disaster. You don't charge machine guns
across an open field. Right. But strategically,
Despite the catastrophic loss of life, the Marines
had finally gained a foothold inside Belleau
Wood. They absorbed a terrifying amount of punishment,
but they breached the fortress. And that breached
fortress turns into an absolute nightmare over
the next week. From June 7th to the 15th, the
battle descends into a brutal grinding deadlock.
The text points out that Belleau Wood had once
been this attractive, serene French hunting preserve,
but an enormous allied artillery barrage completely
devastated it. The source describes it turning
into a jungle of shattered trees soaked in massive
quantities of mustard gas used by the Germans.
The environmental degradation alone is terrifying
to visualize. Mustard gas isn't just a that blows
away. It settles into the shell craters, it coats
the splintered timber, it lingers in the soil,
and burns the skin of anyone who touches it.
So you can't even take cover properly. You are
no longer just fighting the enemy, you are fighting
the very terrain. Platoon communication completely
breaks down in this maze of fallen trees. Men
are isolated in small pockets reduced to fighting
with bayonets, trench knives, and bare fists.
Which leads to this wildly chaotic detail from
June 11th. Major Wise's 2nd Battalion 5th Marines
are ordered to attack through a thick morning
mist. Because visibility is so poor, and the
terrain is so destroyed that there are no landmarks
left, they actually advance in the completely
wrong direction. They get completely lost in
the fog of war. Exactly. Instead of moving northeast,
they move directly across the narrow waste of
the woods. Walking right into the unknown. But
here is the crazy part. They wander into the
wrong area, but they accidentally smash right
through the German southern defensive lines anyway.
How does a mistake like that actually work in
their favor? What's fascinating here is the psychological
effect that kind of raw, unpredictable aggression
had on the German defenders. It surprised them.
The German military doctrine of 1918 was highly
choreographed. They expected the Americans to
fight by the established rules of engagement.
When these Marines emerged from the mist and
the wrong place fighting like cornered animals,
it broke the German mental models. They just
didn't know how to react. It completely compensated
for the tactical chaos. The source includes a
profound quote from a German private whose company
had been reduced from 120 and down to just 30.
He wrote back home. We have Americans opposite
us who are terribly reckless fellows. Parably
reckless fellows. They simply didn't understand
the style of fighting because it defied their
tactical logic. It was pure aggression overriding
strategy. But as we talk about this marine aggression.
We also have to highlight the unsung heroes who
made this relentless push possible, because the
Marines absolutely didn't do this alone. Far
from it. The source specifically praises the
US Army's second engineers. These guys were doing
the impossible. As one Marine captain put it,
boy, they dig trenches and men rows all night
and they fight all day. Imagine the physical
toll of that. digging through root -choked rocky
soil in the dark, constantly under the threat
of artillery, and then picking up a rifle when
the sun comes up. No rest at all. And when the
Marines were finally just ground down to the
point of total combat exhaustion, it was the
Army's 7th and 23rd Infantry Regiments who stepped
into the line to relieve them. It was a massive
combined arms effort. The Army, the Italians
took incredibly heavy casualties themselves.
The seventh infantry was described by a returning
Marine private as being almost wiped out, but
they held the pressure. They did. The source
notes, they attacked those woods a total of six
times against parts of five different German
divisions. They kept chewing up those defenses
so the line wouldn't collapse. And all that grinding,
all that blood in the wheat fields and the shattered
timber finally culminates on June 26th. The end
of the battle. Major Maurice E. Shearer, leading
the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, finishes clearing
the very last of the German defenders from the
northern edge of the forest. And he submits a
report back to headquarters that is just devastatingly
simple. Seven words. Seven words. Woods, now
U .S. Marine Corps entirely. A seven word report
to cap off one of the bloodiest and most ferocious
battles U .S. forces would fight in the entire
war. But when you look at the human toll, Those
seven words carry an unimaginable weight. They
really do. For the United States, nearly 10 ,000
casualties, including 8 ,811 men killed. And
the German casualties are estimated to be over
10 ,000. The commander of the American Expeditionary
Forces, General John J. Pershing, stated that
for the U .S., it was the biggest battle since
Appomattox. And just to contextualize that for
a moment, referencing Appomattox means the United
States military hadn't seen concentrated bloodshed
on this scale since the final... days of the
American Civil War over 50 years prior. It had
been a long time. It was a baptism by fire for
a new generation. It fundamentally shifted how
the world viewed the American military. Which
brings us to the lore, the legacy of Bella Wood.
If you know anything about the Marine Corps today,
you've probably heard the nickname Devil Dogs.
Yes. Legend has it that the Germans were so terrified
of the Marines charging through that wheat field
that they called them Teufelschund or double
dogs. The source actually provides some really
great historical nuance here. It points out that
Teufelschund likely wasn't common contemporary
German slang. The closer term in German would
have been Hohlenhunde, meaning hellhound. Hellhound.
There's evidence to suggest the Devil Dog moniker
might have been amplified by a clever American
propaganda poster created by an artist named
Charles B. Falls. So it might have been partly
marketing? However, even if the exact vocabulary
was a bit of stateside myth -making, the underlying
truth of that profound enemy respect was very
real. The respect was earned in blood, not just
on posters. Exactly. An official German report
evaluated during the battle classified the Marines
as vigorous, self -confident and remarkable marksmen.
They felt the impact. Years later, A lieutenant
colonel from the historical section of the German
army wrote specifically about the Marines' fiery
advance and great tenacity. They recognized they
had faced something entirely different in those
woods. And you see the echoes of that hard earned
respect everywhere today. The French were so
moved by the Marines' tenacity that they officially
renamed the forest Bois de la Brigade de Marine.
A huge honor. If you travel to Europe today,
you can see the 1955 Felix de Welden monument
in the clearing of those woods. It's a massive
black marble monolith with a bronze relief of
a fighting Marine, and it is the only memorial
in all of Europe dedicated solely to the United
States Marines. The cultural footprint is massive.
It extends far beyond official military channels.
It really does. Even modern pop culture remembers.
In 2019, the Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton
released a song literally called Devil Dogs,
commemorating the battle and using those famous
quotes from Pershing and Dan Daly. When a Swedish
metal band a century later is singing about a
battle in a French forest, you know the mythos
has taken on a life of its own. So what does
this all mean? When we step back and look at
all these sources. The staggering casualty lists,
the failure to scout, the wrong turns in the
mist, the legendary battle cries, what is the
ultimate takeaway from the wheat fields of Bellowood?
It shows us that military legacy isn't always
built on perfect tactics. Tactically, Bellowood
was often chaotic and deeply flawed. But the
modern U .S. Marine Corps wasn't built on flawless
doctrine. No. It was built on the willingness
to endure shared sacrifice, a sheer terrifying
tenacity and an unbreakable psychological will.
It is the story of ordinary people placed in
an impossible shattered landscape who chose to
move forward when every human instinct and every
piece of military logic told them to retreat.
Retreat hell. We just got here. Thank you so
much for joining us on this deep dive. Walking
through the harrowing, awe -inspiring history
of Belleau Wood has been an incredible journey.
It truly has. And before we wrap up, I want to
leave you with a final lingering thought to mull
over. Let's hear it. We've spent this entire
time talking about the legendary quotes from
the Americans, but the source notes, 1 ,600 German
soldiers were taken prisoner during this battle.
1 ,600 prisoners. Imagine being one of those
prisoners watching these reckless fellows charge
through a wheat field straight into your machine
gun fire. How might the personal, untold stories
of those 1600 captives fundamentally change our
understanding of what really happened in those
woods? That is a fascinating perspective to think
about. What did they see? Keep questioning, keep
exploring, and we will catch you on the next
Deep Dive.