Oscar E. Gilbert - First to Fight: The U.S. Marines in World War I

The U.S. Marines in World War I

OSCAR E. GILBERT AND ROMAIN V. CANSIRE

Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2017 by

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Copyright 2017 Casemate Publishers, Oscar E. Gilbert & Romain V. Cansire

Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-508-9

Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-509-6 (epub)

Mobi Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-509-6 (mobi)

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Interlibrary Loan Services were provided by the Harris County (Texas) Public Library, Katy Branch. Rare and other books, as well as other materials, were provided by: Moffett Library, Midwestern University, Wichita Falls TX; Montgomery County Public Library, Conroe TX; Library of the University of Missouri - St. Louis MO; The Grey Research Center, MCB Quantico; Texas A&M University Library, College Station TX; Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston TX; The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI; and The University of West Florida John C. Pace Library, Pensacola FL. The Service Historique de la Dfense provided French sources, mainly through their archives available online via the website www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr . Additional French resource materials were provided by the Muse de la Grande Guerre, Meaux; Association du Souvenir de Sommepy-Tahure; Centre dInterprtation 1418, Suippes ; and the Muse de la Mmoire de Belleau 19141918. Unpublished interviews were provided by the U.S. Marine Corps History Division, MCB Quantico, with special thanks to Dr. Fred Allison. Archival photographs were provided by The U.S. Marine Corps History Division, MCB, Quantico, The Library of Congress, and the US Navy. Special thanks to Kara Newcomer and Annette Ammerman, USMC History Division; Stphanie Derynck of Muse de la Grande Guerre, Meaux ; Jean Myslinsky and Bernard Nodet from Bouresches; David Bedford and Constant Lebastard from the American Battlefield Monuments Commission (sites of Romagne sous Montfaucon and Belleau respectively). Thanks to Catherine R. Gilbert for archival research assistance and editing; and to Caroline Barbot and Christiane Cansire for field assistance.

This project grew out of two prior projects, and the realization that much information about the World War I Marine Corps has been greatly mythologized over the past century. For most readers the Battle of Belleau Woodconsidered the birth of the modern Marine Corpsis World War I. However Belleau Wood was by no means the only contribution of the Fourth (Marine) Brigade to the land fighting in France. Belleau Wood did, however, cement the reputation of the Marine Brigade as a unit that could achieve the impossible. This fueled a rivalry between the Marine Brigade and the Armys Third Brigade that made the Second Division arguably one of the most ferocious Allied divisions on the Western Front. As a result, they would be called upon to fight both under French tactical control, and in every major action of the American Expeditionary Force for the remainder of the war.

Perhaps because it was fought under French control, the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge in October 1918 is now one of the almost forgotten battles of history. Its strategic importance in unhinging the German front east of the Ardennes range was the subject of considerable professional literature until the early 1930s. In the opinion of Marines who fought in both battles, Blanc Mont was the worse of the two. At Blanc Mont the Marine Brigade was assigned the most difficult task, attacking a dominating enemy-held ridge, heavily fortified over the course of four years, across several kilometers of open terrain subject to observed artillery and long-range machine-gun fire, and with shallow bedrock that offered no opportunity to dig in if the attack faltered. The result was best summed up by an Army officer of the Second Divisions Third Brigade: The French troops that we relieved here had been trying to advance their lines for some time, gaining ground one day, only to lose it the next. They told us that it was no use trying to advance because it could not be done. However, we did not know that it could not be done, so we went ahead and did it.

Less well known are the contributions of the Marine aviators of the First Aviation Force that served with the British Royal Air Force in northern France and Belgium. Least well known by far are the contributions of the 1st Aeronautic Company and a small contingent of Marine artillerymen to the defense of the Portuguese Azores, crucial to interrupting German U-boat activities in the central Atlantic. Marines also served aboard capital ships of the US Navy in the North Atlantic and North Sea, helping bottle up the German High Seas Fleet.

The existing literature of the Great War can in large part be divided into two broad categories: the summation of the strategic big picture, and the memoirs and experiences of the men on the Western Front. It is a rich literature, and one that could fill years of reading. In this study we have tried to merge the big picture with personal experiences, and in the latter case we have relied heavily upon both published memoirs, and interviewsmost previously unpublishedconducted by the Marine Corps Historical Division under the direction of Benis Frank.

The Marine Brigade was part of a composite ArmyMarine Corps division, and artillery, medical services above regimental level, and other services were provided by supporting Army components of the division. Experiences of soldiers in these units are incorporated as appropriate.

Accounts of American units in the Western Front battles have often ignored the role played by cooperating French forces, and in many the American accounts of the actions do not jibe with French military records. In these cases we have relied upon archival French military records to reconcile the discrepancies.

In the final analysis, this is but a tiny slice of the varied and important contributions of the United States Marine Corps in the Great War.

Ed Gilbert, Katy, Texas, August 2017

Romain Cansire, Puimoisson, France, August 2017

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON

For most of its early institutional history the United States Marine Corps filled many of the functions of the British Royal Marines upon which it was patterned: shipboard and naval security, and providing skilled manpower to strengthen naval landing parties. Yet almost from its inception the Corps had been forced by circumstance to function as infantry in land warfare. The most notable examples were in the Battle of Bladensberg in defense of Washington against a British raid in August 1814, and in a raid on the British camp on the night of December 23/24, 1814 prior to the decisive Battle of New Orleans.