In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

7 Blanc Mont With only two weeks after Saint-Mihiel before its next battle, 2/6 had time for a mere six days of training. This brief period could not replicate the extensive training the battalion had conducted in August and early September. Nonetheless, it provided an opportunity for the veterans to familiarize the recent replacements with the new tactics developed in August. Both the marines who had joined 2/6 just before Saint-Mihiel and the replacements for the casualties lost there profited from this experience. In another interesting development , a handful of sergeants drew M97 shotguns for fighting in close quarters.1 Once again, heavy casualties among the officers required substantial reorganization of the battalion’s leadership. According to Lieutenant Sellers, who rejoined the unit after recovering from his wound of June 6, five inexperienced replacement captains joined the battalion after Saint-Mihiel, yet Major Williams did not entrust them with companies. He assigned one of these men, Capt. J. C. Collier, as his battalion second in command. Williams chose to post three lieutenants who had proved themselves in combat, Sellers, Shinkle, and Cates, as company commanders. He gave Sellers the 78th Company, Shinkle the 79th, and put Lieutenant Cates permanently in charge of the 96th. Sellers wrote in his memoir that he suspected Lieutenant Vandoren persuaded Williams to make these assignments.2 Cates and Shinkle had commanded companies after their captains fell in the heat of battle, and all three were known and respected by their men. The same could not be said of the solitary captain Williams entrusted with a company. Capt. Walter Powers, who had served in 1/6 before joining the battalion in August as a first lieutenant, took over the 80th Company. A lawyer before the war, Powers had obtained his commission through the Massachusetts Naval Militia along with Arthur Worton. At Soissons, he had served under Maj. Johnnie “The Hard” Hughes. Hughes knew Williams from the Dominican Republic and had endorsed Williams’s recommendation for the Medal of 160 To the Limit of Endurance Honor. Hughes likely provided him with a favorable recommendation on the captain, for Powers later claimed that Hughes intended to recommend him for a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Soissons. The men in the 80th Company did not know Powers but were prepared to give him a fair shake. “We had heard good reports about his performances on other fronts,” recalled Paradis.3 Williams’s platoon commanders, all seasoned veterans, buttressed these company leaders with at least as much combat time as their superiors. All had either come over as lieutenants with Holcomb or earned their commissions as NCOs in the 4th Brigade. But the number of lieutenants greatly exceeded the battalion’s requirements. Recognizing the disruption that heavy officer casualties had caused, the Marine Corps commissioned so many NCOs that 2/6 would enter its next fight with at least eight extra lieutenants. Veterans returning from the AEF’s School of the Line included Jack West and former NCOs Maurice Bennett and Edward Fowler. West had gone AWOL from school to rejoin the battalion during the Saint-Mihiel action, while Barnett had stayed the course and graduated. Both had received high marks. They reported to the 79th Company. Fowler, a former South Boston police officer, took command of a platoon in Sellers’s 78th Company.4 West, Barnett, Fowler, and others like them provided 2/6 with lieutenants as well trained and experienced as it ever had. Only the unsteady leadership of Williams and Powers were in question. Blanc Mont: The Operational Situation The German performance at Saint-Mihiel testified to the exhaustion of the kaiser’s army. Sensing the opportunity to end the war in 1918, General Foch had ordered a final general offensive to commence September 26. The Americans would attack in the Meuse-Argonne, the British would continue their advance near Cambrai, and the French would resume the attack in the Champagne region just west of the Argonne to support the Americans. In order to reinforce the French Army’s attack, Pershing passed control of the U.S. 2nd and 36th Divisions to Foch.5 Two days into this offensive, the French Fourth Army had shuddered to a halt before an east-west chain of hills north of the Vesle River known as Les Monts. Beyond them to the north, the terrain descends gradually to the Aisne River. If the French could take Les Monts, the Germans...

Share