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Author: Alan Axelrod
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2010-10-05
Total Pages: 283
ISBN-13: 0762767073
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Battle of Belleau Wood, stunning in both its concentration and intensity, was the fiery furnace from which the modern United States Marine Corps emerged as America's fiercest and most effective warriors, the world's preeminent fighting elite.
Author: Robert B. Asprey
Publisher:
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781574410167
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBattle account of the successful American "baptism of fire" in June 1918 northwest of Chateau-Thierry, France, as experienced by soldiers and marines of the Second Division.
Author: Gregg Adams
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-05-22
Total Pages: 81
ISBN-13: 1472825594
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFeaturing specially commissioned artwork and careful analysis, this volume investigates the fighting between US Marines and their German opponents during the battle for Belleau Wood in June 1918.
Author: Dick Camp
Publisher: Zenith Press
Published: 2008-04-15
Total Pages: 128
ISBN-13: 1610600304
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFacing massed German machine guns, the Marines made sweep after bloody sweep through Belleau Wood. Repeatedly accosted by the retreating French and urged to turn back, Captain Lloyd Williams of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, uttered the now-famous retort, "Retreat, hell. We just got here." And indeed, by the end of that terrible June of 1918, the Marines had broken the back of the Germans powerful spring offensive. Their ferocity had earned them the nickname Teufelshunde--Devil Dogs--from their enemies; it also won such admiration from their allies that the French government changed the name of Belleau Wood to Bois de la Brigade de Marine. The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood recreates the drama of the battle for Belleau Wood as it was experienced by those who were there. Drawing on numerous firsthand accounts of the month-long engagement, the book captures the spirit of the Leathernecks in desperate battle. It offers a harrowing look at a critical campaign in which, as one soldier says, "men were being mowed down like wheat." And, amidst the carnage and cruelty, it tells the very human story of camaraderie and courage that carried the day. Rich with the personal insights and observations that bring history to life, the book is illustrated with a great number of photographs, many of which are rare and never before published.
Author: James Carl Nelson
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 0425281485
DOWNLOAD EBOOKClifton B. Cates's fame came from his consistent and courageous demeanour throughout the war. In the bloody second half of 1918 with the 6th Marine Regiment, he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart, the Silver Star, was recognized by the French government with the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre, and earned the nickname 'Lucky'. I Will Hold is the inspiring, brutal, and incredible true life story of a Marine Corps legend whose grit and unstoppable spirit on the battlefield matched his personal drive and sage wisdom off of it.
Author: J. Michael Miller
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2020-06-29
Total Pages: 488
ISBN-13: 0700629572
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe battles of Belleau Wood and Soissons in June and July of 1918 marked a turning point in World War I and in the stature of the US Marine Corps, whose fighting proved so critical in repelling the Germans that the French would later rename Belleau “Bois de la Brigade de Marine.” In this book J. Michael Miller, a historian of the Marine Corps and veteran chronicler of battle, takes us to the battlefields of Belleau Wood and Soissons, immersing us in the experience of a single brigade of marines at the forefront of the fighting. Through a close-up look at the doughboys’ singular impact on Allied victory in 1918, his work illuminates America’s bloody sacrifice during World War I. The 4th Marine Brigade at Belleau Wood and Soissons for the first time treats these two battles as one campaign and demonstrates why it is impossible to fully understand one without the other. Miller outlines the company and platoon levels of combat throughout the campaign, establishing a basic tactical understanding of the fighting; he also draws on letters, diaries, memoirs, and interviews to create a vivid and personal reconstruction of the battles. His use of French and German sources, also a first, adds unprecedented insights to this boots-on-the-ground account. The book includes detailed mapping of both battlefields, with a thirty-six-stop guide linking the text with the actual terrain. For each of these stops Miller gives GPS coordinates to provide a virtual tour of the sites he discusses. With its strategic overview and ground-level perspective, Miller’s work suggests a new interpretation and offers a new experience of an iconic moment in American military history—and in the story of the Marine Corps.
Author: Elton Mackin
Publisher: Presidio Press
Published: 2009-03-12
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 0307547620
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front, Elton E. Mackin’s memoirs are a haunting portrayal of war as seen through the eyes of a highly decorated Marine who fought in every Marine Brigade battle from Belleau Wood to the crossing of the Meuse on the eve of the Armistice. Praise for Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die “This beautifully written and truly gripping war memoir is a significant addition to battlefield literature. A minor classic . . . An altogether remarkable job [comparable] to Crane, Remarque and Mailer. Deserves the widest possible audience.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer “This immediate, eloquent report merit[s] comparison with Thomas Boyd’s Marine Corps [1923] classic Through the wheat.”—Publishers Weekly “A real curiosity: a highly mannered World War I diary, published nearly 80 years after being written and 20 years after its author’s death. Bright snapshots abound…sometimes a young man’s lyricism takes over [but] the horror of war never departs. The diary has the faults one expects, and the promise one prays for. A fine addition to WWI literature.”—Kirkus Reviews “A forthright, eloquent, and powerful memoir certain to become an enduring testament to the drama and tragedy of World War I. Threaded with no small measure of poetry, this superb memoir is sure to become a classic.”—Great Battles “A plain but powerful tale . . . [in] vivid prose loaded with details that bring the horrors of World War I to life, he tells an exceptional new version of the old story of battle transforming a boy into a veteran.”—American Library Association Booklist “To the ranks of Erich Maria Remarque, E.E. Cummings, John Dos Passos and Siegfried Sassoon, we must now add Elton Mackin . . . who, in a terse style reminiscent of Hemingway, [succeeds] in making someone unfamiliar with war truly now the frightfulness of the trenches and the greatness of the many men who fought in them.”—Marine Corps Gazette
Author: Edward G. Lengel
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2023-06-16
Total Pages: 470
ISBN-13: 0700627839
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNovember 1917. The American troops were poorly trained, deficient in military equipment and doctrine, not remotely ready for armed conflict on a large scale—and they’d arrived on the Western front to help the French push back the Germans. The story of what happened next—the American Expeditionary Force’s trial by fire on the brutal battlefields of France—is told in full for the first time in Thunder and Flames. Where history has given us some perspective on the individual battles of the period—at Cantigny, Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, the Marne River, Soissons, and little-known Fismette—they appear here as part of a larger series of interconnected operations, all conducted by Americans new to the lethal killing fields of World War I and guided by the battle-tested French. Following the AEF from their initial landing to their emergence as an independent army in late September 1918, this book presents a complex picture of how, learning warfare on the fly, sometimes with devastating consequences, the American force played a critical role in blunting and then rolling back the German army’s drive toward Paris. The picture that emerges is at once sweeping in scope and rich in detail, with firsthand testimony conjuring the real mud and blood of the combat that Edward Lengel so vividly describes. Official reports and documents provide the strategic and historical context for these ground-level accounts, from the perspective of the Germans as well as the Americans and French. Battle by battle, Thunder and Flames reveals the cost of the inadequacies in U.S. training, equipment, logistics, intelligence, and command, along with the rifts in the Franco-American military marriage. But it also shows how, by trial and error, through luck and ingenuity, the AEF swiftly became the independent fighting force of General John “Blackjack” Pershing’s long-held dream—its divisions ultimately among the most combat-effective military forces to see the war through.
Author: Stephen Taaffe
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2021-09-15
Total Pages: 213
ISBN-13: 1682477096
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Marine Corps covered itself in glory in World War II with victories over the Japanese in hard-fought battles such as Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima. While these battles are well known, those who led the Marines into them have remained obscure until now. In Commanding the Pacific: Marine Corps Generals in World War II, Stephen R. Taaffe analyzes the fifteen high-level Marine generals who led the Corps' six combat divisions and two corps in the conflict. He concludes that these leaders played an indispensable and unheralded role in organizing, training, and leading their men to victory. Taaffe insists there was nothing inevitable about the Marine Corps' success in World War II. The small pre-war size of the Corps meant that its commandant had to draw his combat leaders from a small pool of officers who often lacked the education of their Army and Navy counterparts. Indeed, there were fewer than one hundred Marine officers with the necessary rank, background, character, and skills for its high-level combat assignments. Moreover, the Army and Navy froze the Marines out of high-level strategic decisions and frequently impinged on Marine prerogatives. There were no Marines in the Joint Chiefs of Staff or at the head of the Pacific War's geographic theaters, so the Marines usually had little influence over the island targets selected for them. In addition to bureaucratic obstacles, constricted geography and vicious Japanese opposition limited opportunities for Marine generals to earn the kind of renown that Army and Navy commanders achieved elsewhere. In most of its battles on small Pacific War islands, Marine generals had neither the option nor inclination to engage in sophisticated tactics, but they instead relied in direct frontal assaults that resulted in heavy casualties. Such losses against targets of often questionable strategic value sometimes called into question the Marine Corps' doctrine, mission, and the quality of its combat generals. Despite these difficulties, Marine combat commanders repeatedly overcame challenges and fulfilled their missions. Their ability to do so does credit to the Corps and demonstrates that these generals deserve more attention from historians than they have so far received.
Author: Kevin Seldon
Publisher:
Published: 2019-05-31
Total Pages: 598
ISBN-13: 9780359665433
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is a detailed narrative about the battle of Belleau Wood and the surrounding area told through the perspective of the men who were there.
