t the Marine
brigade and regiments of United States infantry, the 9th and the 23rd
Regulars, boarded camions, twenty to thirty men and their equipment in
each vehicle.

They were bound eastward to the valley of the Marne. The road took them
through the string of pretty villages fifteen miles to the north of
Paris. The trucks loaded with United States troops soon became part of
the endless traffic of war that was pouring northward and eastward
toward the raging front. Our men soon became coated with the dust of the
road. The French people in the villages through which they passed at top
speed cheered them and threw flowers into the lorries.

Between Meaux and Chateau-Thierry, where the road wound along the Marne,
our men encountered long trains of French refugees, weary mothers
carrying hungry babies at the breast, farm wagons loaded with household
belongings, usually surmounted by feather mattresses on which rode
grey-haired grandfathers and grandmothers. This pitiful procession was
moving toward the rear driving before it flocks of geese and herds of
cattle. On the other side of the road war, grim war, moved in the
opposite direction.

The Second Division was bound for the line to the northwest of
Chateau-Thierry. On June 1st, the 6th Marines relieved the French on the
support lines. The sector of the 6th Regiment joined on the left the
sector held by two battalions of the 5th. The line on the right was held
by the French. On June 2nd, the hard-pressed French line, weak and weary
from continual rear guard actions, over a hard fighting period of
almost a week, fell back by prearranged plan and passed through the
support positions which we held. To fill gaps between units, the Marines
extended their brigade sector to between twelve and fourteen kilometres.
As the French withdrew to the rear, hard pressed by the enemy, the
Marines held the new first line.

The regimental headquarters of the 6th was located in a stone farmhouse
at a cross-roads called La Voie Chatel, situated between the villages of
Champillon and Lucy-le-Bocage. There was clear observation from that
point toward the north. At five o'clock in the afternoon on that day of
clear visibility, the Germans renewed their attacks from the north and
northeast toward a position called Hill 165, which was defended by the
5th Regiment.

The Germans advanced in two solid columns across a field of golden
wheat. More than half of the two columns had left the cover