"Floyd Gibbons at Belleau Wood"

On June 6, 1918, Floyd Gibbons, war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and Lieutenant Oscar Hartzel of the Intelligence Division entered Belleau Wood. There they met Major Benjamin S. Berry, battalion commander of the Fifth Marine Corps. Berry advised them to go back, as it was "hotter than hell" just ahead, but relented with the admonition that they were coming at their own risk. Gibbons and Hartzel found themselves in the midst of one of the roughest and toughest battles of the entire war. The French were so impressed with the heroic fighting abilities of the Marines, and the nullifying of the German threat to actually march on and capture Paris, that they renamed the area Bois de la Brigade des Marines - "the Woods of the Brigade of Marines".

Belleau Wood, west of the town of Lucy-le-Bocage, was not one solid mass of forest, but made up of many one- to five-acre patches of woods with oat and wheat fields in between. The advance of the Marines was so rapid and over such rough terrain that the men had only machine guns, their carbines with bayonets attached, hand grenades, and side arms for the officers. Although the heavy artillary in the rear was within range of the front, the speed with which the Marines were rolling forward prohibited the use of heavy shelling. The Fifth Marine Corps was poised on the edge of a V shaped oatfield, bordered on all sides by thick woodland. According to the international rules of war, Floyd Gibbons, a noncombatant, could carry no arms. He was armed with his notebook and pencil.

Berry gave the order to advance, stepping out first himself, with each man following at ten to fifteen yard intervals. Floyd was next in line to Berry, with Hartzell next to Floyd. As they reached the middle of the field German machine-gunners a hundred yards on their left, opened up. Berry ordered everybody down, and they flattened themselves in the young oats as best they could. Floyd looked up to see Major Berry, his right hand holding the stump of what had been his left hand, still standing.

Floyd yelled to him to get down, and started inching towards him. Trying to hide his movement from the German machine-gunners, Floyd crawled along, his left cheek hugging the ground and his helmut pushed over the right, partly covering his face on that side. Floyd had gotten but a few feet when a bullet hit him in the left arm, just above the elbow, going in one side and out the other. He continued to push himself forward. A few moments later another bullet hit him in the left shoulder blade, still he inched on. Another five feet along, a third bullet hit him, it ricocheted off a rock in the ground, and with an upward course ripped out his left eye, continued on, making a compound fracture of the skull, and finally coming out on the right side of his helmet where it blew a hole three inches long.

Remarkabley Floyd did not lose consciousness, he was dazed, and experienced a sensation of a lot of glass crashing around him, everything turning white in his mind's eye. His eyeball was lying on his cheek split in half. His left hand and arm were numb and out of commission. He wondered if he was dead, and pinching himself for reassurance, concluded he was still alive.

Citation:

Diary Record of Trench Warfare

http://www.worldwar1.com/sffgbw.htm