Belleau Wood

The following letter was written by a Belleau Wood veteran of the U.S. Marine Corp’s Sixth Regiment, Private Hiram B. Pottinger. It was included the World War One memoir, With the Help of God and a Few Marines (1919) by Brigadier General A.W. Catlin, U.S.M.C. (1868-1933), who believed it rendered accurately the enlisted man’s view of the battle.

The letter is accompanied by a black and white photograph depicting what is clearly a re-staging of the Marines mad dash across the wheat fields that sit just outside the Bois de Belleau.

Click here to read about the U.S. Navy railroad artillery of W.W. I.

An eyewitness account of the decoration ceremony that took place on a lawn of an unnamed French chateau in the Marne Valley on July 11, 1918. The ceremony was presided over by U.S. Army General James Harbord (1866 – 1947) and well over 100 Marines of the U.S. Second Division were cited for their deeds in the fighting North-West of Chateau-Thierry.