The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood: U.S. Marines in World War I Paperback - 2008

"Retreat, hell. We just got here!" So said Captain Lloyd Williams, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, to a French officer urging retreat from the Germans as they pushed toward Paris during their massive Spring Offensive of 1918. Instead, the U.S. Marines--fresh to the fight in a war nearly four years old--drew a line just south of Belleau Wood and held it, saving Paris and beginning the end of the war. But there was still deadly work ahead. In a battle that lasted most of June 1918, the Marines made six bloody sweeps into the meadows within Belleau Wood. Facing massed German machine guns, the carnage was terrible. The 4th Marine Brigade persevered, however, and the Spring Offensive--which had threatened to overwhelm French and British forces before the Americans even joined the battle--would never regain its momentum. The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood" brings the battle to life with numerous personal accounts, illustrating the tenacity and ferocity that earned the Marines the "devil dog" nickname. The exciting text is complemented by over one hundred photographs, many that are rare and never before published, mined from the resources of the Marine Corps archives by author Dick Camp.