19181776 Club
Shearer wires four words: "Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely"
After 26 days of bayonets and close-quarters fighting through shattered timber, the Marines hold Belleau Wood and the German advance on Paris is stopped.
By late May 1918, the German spring offensive had torn through Allied lines and reached the Marne River, leaving Paris roughly fifty miles behind the front — the closest German troops had come to the French capital since 1914. The U.S. 2nd Division, including a Marine brigade under Major General James G. Harbord, was rushed in to stop the advance near a dense hunting preserve called Belleau Wood. For twenty-six days, from June 1 to June 26, Marines and Army soldiers fought German troops through shattered timber in some of the closest combat the war produced — bayonets and fists where rifles wouldn't serve. On June 26, Major Maurice E. Shearer sent back a four-word dispatch: "Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely."…
