Kentucky Marine: Major General Logan Feland and the Making of the Modern USMC

7. From Soissons to the Return Home

103 7 From Soissons to the Return Home During the first week of July 1918, the Fourth Marine Brigade finally got a major respite from fighting. Pulled back into reserve, the Marines regrouped, taking in new replacements and preparing for future combat. General Pershing made significant command changes. Second Division commander Omar Bundy moved up the ladder to head an army corps. Brigadier General James Harbord became Second Division commander and received a promotion to major general. Wendell “Buck” Neville was promoted to brigadier general and replaced Harbord as head of the Fourth Marine Brigade, and Lieutenant Colonel Logan Feland took command of the Fifth Regiment. Given his new responsibilities, in August, Feland would get official notification of his promotion to colonel, retroactive to July 1, 1918. Feland inherited a regiment that had been decimated by the Battle of Belleau Wood. In nearly five weeks, it had lost about 500 men, with another 44 officers and more than 1,500 men wounded. Despite these losses, the regiment still included some outstanding veterans of the fierce battle against the Germans. Major Julius Turrill, who had received the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for his role at Belleau Wood, still commanded the First Battalion. The Second Battalion would be commanded by Major Ralph Stover Keyser, who had worked for Feland in 1916, during the Philadelphia Military Training Camp, before becoming an aide to Commandant Barnett. Toward the end of the Belleau Wood struggle, Harbord had relieved Fritz Wise of command of the Third Battalion , due to exhaustion. After recovering, Wise was eventually promoted and sent to command a U.S. Army regiment. Major Ralph Shearer, also a 104 KENTUCKY MARINE DSC recipient for his part at Belleau Wood (his men had gained control of the last part of the wood), took over command of the Third Battalion. Other Marine Corps notables who served in the Fifth Regiment included writer and illustrator Lieutenant John Thomason, the future “Kipling of the Corps,” known for his stories about the Marines.1 With Feland’s new assignment came great responsibility. He would have little time to restore and reorganize his unit. On July 15 the Germans began their fifth and last offensive of the year, striking on a broad front in the Champagne and Marne regions. On leave in Paris, Major General Harbord drove back to Second Division headquarters to prepare for a major Allied counteroffensive after the German attack bogged down. The Second Division would be thrown into the battle south of the town of Soissons, north of Belleau Wood. On July 16 Feland received orders to move his regiment hastily to the forest at Villers-Coterets, near Soissons. The Forêt de Retz would be the staging ground for an attack eastward through the wheat fields toward the Beaurepaire Farm. Feland’s Fifth Regiment would lead the Marine Corps attack, with the Sixth Regiment held in reserve. Because Colonel Albertus Catlin had been severely wounded at Belleau Wood, the Sixth Regiment was now commanded by Colonel Harry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Catlin ’s second in command. In a new twist, French tanks would support the ground troops during the attack.2 After riding in cramped French camions for up to thirty hours, the Fifth Regiment slogged in extreme darkness and through rain and mud in an exhausting twelve-mile march to take up their attack positions in the Forêt de Retz. New York World newspaperman Joseph A. Brady, serving as a Marine lieutenant, described the move, which left the men starving and thirsty. Then “night came, and with it rain and lightning, and thunder, and action.” According to Brady, at about five miles into the march, Colonel Feland gathered his officers in a small clearing and “told us briefly that we were going to attack and attack big—along a thirty mile front.” Then Feland asked Brady to accompany him to the front of the regiment to find the French guides who were supposed to direct them to their jumping-off place. The two went off into the rainy darkness, stopping every so often to inquire about the guides. After a six-hour march, the regiment halted— hungry, tired, confused, and with little ammunition.3 The ensuing attack on July 18 had been hastily planned. Attack orders From Soissons to the Return Home 105 were sketchy, and maps were almost nonexistent. Feland’s regiment would attack on a rather wide front, requiring...