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The attack on Belleau Wood begins 100 years ago today


devildog34
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devildog34

Thank you guys for the wonderful comments, it's a great honor to remember these tremendous men, I am honored to share it here with you all.

Semper Fi

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Rakkasan187

Kevin,

 

This is advanced scholarly research and information. Museum Quality items and information..

 

You have captured some incredible information that will take us into the next Century..

 

Well Done...

 

Leigh

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WOW! That was Fantastic. You have done a tremendous job honoring what these men did 100 Years ago.

Semper Fidelis,

John

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bertmedals

Kevin,

Outstanding tribute and recounting of the battle. The memorabilia you are preserving is equally outstanding. I can't imagine the perseverance it took to assemble it. Thanks for posting it.

Dennis

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M24 Chaffee

Thanks for this great thread! Outstanding research and outstanding collection!

 

 

Frank

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French Sam

Hello,

Unbeliveable !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Thank you so much for sharing !

 

Loïc.

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Nineteen-year-old Albert J. Prince (changed from his original last name Prinza) was wounded during the predawn hours of June 7, 1918 while serving with the 82nd Company in the ravine along the southern edge of Belleau Wood.

By dawn of June 7th accurate casualty figures were nowhere near available, but for the Marines, soldiers and corpsmen who endured June 6th, the dead littering the fields along places like Hill 142, Bouresches, the fields, ravines and wooded tangle between the Lucy-Torcy road and Belleau Wood, the timbered slopes and ravine along the southern region of Belleau Wood was all the evidence necessary to convey the horror and tragedy of what unfolded the previous 24 hours. The cries of wounded pleading for help from isolated fields would last through the morning and well into the day. The influx of casualties would continue to keep corpsmen, medics and doctors working the dressing stations red-eyed from sleep deprivation. By the end of the day June 7th, the reported casualties for the division for the six days since arriving at the front at 1,105 men killed wounded or missing. Later figures for June just 6th reflect that the 4th Marine Brigade alone suffered 1,087 casualties- more casualties than all the combined 143 years of the Marine Corps’ existence. These casualty figures included 268 killed or missing in action for the Marine Brigade.

 

 

 

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Close up of Prince

For much of the 4th Marine Brigade, June 7th arrived after a sleepless and abbreviated night. Wounded Marines from the heavy fighting the day before continued to pour into battalion and regimental dressing stations. At first light messages bringing clearer idea as to the disposition of units. Verification that the 79th and 96th Companies held Bouresches and were reinforced b... See More

 

 

 

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The medals of Pvt. Albert J. Prinza

No one had clarity as to the big picture regarding the definitive disposition of all attacking units at that hour. Throughout the night messages arrived at regimental and brigade headquarters that slowly painted a clearer picture, but one still devoid of accuracy. Colonel Harry Lee, who had taken over command of the 6th Marines the previous evening, still erroneously believed that elements of the brigade held the eastern edge of Belleau Wood. In a message that morning, he notified brigade headquarters, “Three battalions occupy eastern and southern edge of Bois de Belleau. They are not in touch with Wise who is supposed to be on left.” By 8:00 a.m., French aviators flying between Bouresches and Torcy reported being fired upon by enemy machine gun positions in the northern part of the woods. Despite the lingering confusion circulating in piecemeal information and scant understanding of unit disposition, the definitive proof that the attack had been exceedingly costly was evidenced by the silence accompanying the summoned names of comrades at impromptu roll calls. At 7:25am, Major Turrill sent a message to 5th Regiment requesting that the dead littered around his battalion’s position be collected and taken back to the village of Champillon to be buried.

 

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Reverse of Prince's medals

During the night, possession of the village of Bouresches was reinforced with the 97th Company, which arrived after dark. The 84th Company was moved into a position that extended the line south of the town where they connected with the left flank of the 78th Company. At 8:10 a.m., from 5th Regiment headquarters, Colonel Logan Feland spoke by telephone to Brigadier General Harbord so as to pass on the latest information. In mid-conversation, Harbord realized that too much confusion plagued the situation and told Feland to stand by at regimental command post and that he was in route with a map to sort out the chaos. Within several hours, Harbord began to develop a more thorough understanding of the situation following the previous days heavy action. Realizing that the brigade’s left flank near Hill 142 was in a predicament as long as the French remained shy of their objectives, Harbord requested the French 167th Division advance upon a cluster of woods situated about 200 meters east of the brigade’s left flank. By 12:30 p.m., Harbord also directed the remnants of 3rd Battalion 5th Marines to move to the position several hundred meters southeast of Lucy-le-Bocage.

 

 

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A close up of the reverse of Prince's Purple Heart

Despite these orders, two platoons of Captain Conachy’s 45th Company were dug in along the northern portions of Bois de Champillon just southeast of Hill 142. Around 2:00 p.m., Conachy was summoned to appear at Major Turrill’s battalion headquarters where he received orders to advance the two platoons of his company north from Bois de Champillon and seize the small square stretch of woods situated just east of Hill 142. During the attack the previous morning, these woods were occupied by the 10th and 11th Companies of the 3rd Battalion 460th German Infantry and had been incredibly problematic for Turrill’s advance. Turrill was unaware that during the night, the survivors who had been driven from the hill had pulled back into these square woods and were absorbed by the 10th and 11th Companies. During the night of June 6-7, the heavy artillery barrage placed upon Turrill’s battalion on Hill 142 covered the evacuation of the 10th and 11th Companies from the square patch of woods to the east. The orders given to Conachy to take these woods would mean his platoons would advance against an unoccupied position. The two platoons, reinforced by elements of the 2nd Engineers, immediately carried these orders out and seized the woods without opposition and quickly established liaison with the 17th Company on the eastern flank of Hill 142.

 

 

 

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a court petition to legally change his name from Prinza to Prince.

Fronting the town of Bouresches, reports of enemy activity just east were constant throughout the afternoon. At 3:55 p.m. members of the 79th Company holding parts of the eastern sector of the village reported seeing enemy troops in and around the northeast to southwest ravine situated east of the town. Within twenty minutes the distant report of enemy guns rippled across the region followed shortly by the piercing scream of incoming shells. A string of dull impacts just northeast of Lucy-le-Bocage revealed a blossoming plume of thick smoke covering the area. At 4:20 p.m. a telephone call from the brigade gas officer to division in Montreuil-aux-Lions informed them of the large haze of smoke believe to preclude a gas barrage. Within fifteen minutes’ enemy shells fell in rapid succession on the town of Bouresches which sent everyone scampering for cover. Twenty-six-year-old Private Herbert Courtland Shough of the 73rd Machine Gun Company recalled, “Several of these ‘hell by heavies,’ as we call their 6 or 8-inch shells, hit the building we took cover under, and when they hit I thought hell had been turned loose for sure.” In the midst of the shelling, one Marine from the 97th Company was instantly killed.

 

 

 

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Prince's WWI Service medal awarded by the Royal Arcanum, a fraternal benefit society he belonged to.

Throughout the late afternoon, shelling became sporadic in and around Bouresches. From their positions along the railroad embankment, elements of the 8th Company 2nd Battalion 398th German Infantry maintained observation over the area and noted the fact that the Americans had knocked holesfor firing ports through the stone walls along the edge of the town. The Germans also poured fire on the southeastern portions of Belleau Wood and by 7:00 p.m. approximately fifty German minenwerfer rounds had plastered the region held by the 83rd Company anchored on Lieutenant Timmerman’s consolidated 3rd Platoon. Timmerman’s Marines spent the day digging in and remaining vigilant to any enemy movement to the north and east of their position.

 

 

 

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Prince's French Fourragere card which entitled him as a member of the 6th Marines to wear the French Fourragere.

Just after 8:00 p.m. Division headquarters received a report from a French aviator stating division panels marking the American lines had been spotted running from the brook south of Torcy and extending southeast toward the small finger of woods near Hill 169 and continuing west of Hill 181 through the southwestern corner of Belleau Wood and stretching the distance of the ravine along the southern fringe of the woods toward Bouresches. With this information, it was clear that an overwhelming majority of Belleau Wood remained in German hands.

 
 
 

 

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Photo in Prince's stuff of members of the 82nd Co. likely in Quantico before shipping over to France. Prince is seated at the front.

The remainder of June 7th remained comparatively quiet as brigade and division headquarters sought to gain more definitive information regarding the status and layout and disposition of units. Inside Bouresches, things seemed to calm just after sundown. Corporal Havelock Nelson of the 97th Company recalled, “About 11:30 p.m., just as I was falling into a doze, I heard a faint shout which seemed to come from the eastern tip of Belleau woods. This outcry was followed by a burst of machine-gun fire, and then, all hell broke loose.” From the southeastern edge of Belleau Wood all the way to the southern outskirts of the village, the Marine line erupted with gun fire. The darkness lit up with a furious volley of gun fire emanating from both American and German lines. The barrage of artillery smashing into the village of Bouresches added the utter chaos the erupted. Men ran back and forth along the firing line shouting and screaming to be heard above the noise as automatic rifle teams and Hotchkiss gun crews unleashed a torrent of fire into the distant darkness at the unseen enemy. The thunderous exchange went on for a while before dwindling into sporadic shooting before dying out and being be supplanted entirely by the tranquil dark silence.

 

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The Purple Heart awarded to Louis Kother of the 82nd Company for wounds he received in action on June 8, 1918.

Shortly after the violent exchange subsided, the 83rd Company, situated near the southeastern edge of Belleau Wood was redirected to move approximately 800 yards east by way of the ravine skirting the southern edge of the forest. “We got back there sometime toward the late night, before dawn on the early morning of June 8th and learned from Major Sibley via Noble that we were to attack at dawn on the 8th against the German positions which had been as I described on our left flank.” As the 82nd and 83rd Companies of Sibley’s battalion meandered through the ravine in the darkness, ration details were in route along this ravine with the first real food these Marines would have in over twenty-four hours. Marmites full of thick slices of beef and cans of hot coffee carried by a ration detail were immediately grabbed up by the men as they awaited the cresting sun and the approaching assault they were to conduct.
In the predawn darkness, Sibley’s Marines maneuvered in long single-file lines through the ravine so that the 82nd Company made up the right flank of the planned advance while Captain Noble’s 83rd moved to the left. Extending and covering the left of the 83rd Company were two platoons of Captain Bailey Coffenburg’s 80th Company as well as 2nd Platoon of Company B 1st Battalion 2nd Engineers. 1st Platoon of Company B followed the attack as support. The two remaining platoons of Company B 1st Battalion 2nd Engineers as well as the other two platoons of the 80th Company remain in the ravine as support behind the attacking 82nd and 83rd Companies.

 

 

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The reverse of the officially engraved Purple heart.

As the Marines lay in wait for the hour to advance, Stokes mortars from the 6th Regimental Headquarters Company delivered a brief bombardment of the suspected enemy positions. By 4:00 a.m., with the faint glimmer of sunlight surmounting the horizon to their right, the assault companies lurched from the ravine in skirmish formation. Fronting Timmerman’s 3rd Platoon was a stretch of clear terrain just beyond the edge of the ravine. Stretching approximately a hundred meters, the open space terminated at the edge of a steep wooded incline. As soon as they hustled passed this clearing, the 3rd Platoon entered the woods and were met with a blistering staccato of machine gun fire. The German Maxim guns of the 2nd Battalion 461st German Infantry as well as the machine gunners of the 3rd Machine Gun Company who had reinforced the line. The German guns were positions so as to provide a lane of fire diagonal to the likely avenues of approach and create interlocking fields of fire with adjacent machine gun positions. The effects of this were horrific for the assaulting Marines. “So when they saw us coming all these guns opened with intersecting fires. We no sooner got in than the leading men were immediately hit,” recalled Timmerman.
The assault waves were immediately scattered and pinned down in the heavy timbered slopes. Immediately small groups tried to maneuver unsuccessfully and casualties were heavy. “There was absolutely no question of being able to advance. The whole company was pinned down,” Timmerman remembered. The blast of machine gun fire was deafening as it echoed through the woods. Bullets ripped through the foliage with unspeakable ferocity. Few could determine where exactly the enemy gun positions were located and any effort to maneuver through the undergrowth drew heavy machine gun and concentrated rifle fire. Well-concealed and interlocked, the withering machine gun fire took a devastating toll on the 82nd and 83rd Companies. Initial reports from Major Sibley relayed to brigade headquarters from regimental headquarters at 5:45 a.m. stated, “Some machine guns out of action. Mowing our men down pretty fast. 83rd Company reports many machine guns delaying advance. Good progress in some points. This information from wounded.”

 

 

 

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another view of the reverse.

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The rim number. This medal was awarded in 1935. The Purple Heart was not instituted as a medal until 1932 and veterans of the Army and those who served with the Army (The marines and corpsmen who fought in France) were eligible to apply for the medal. Louis applied for his in 1935.

The crack of machine gun fire could be heard across the area. By 5:55 a.m., two enemy machine gun positions had been taken by the 82nd Company. Shortly after losing their company commander, Captain Dwight Smith, several sergeants and corporals pressed the attack forward. By 6:10 a.m. reports flooded in that the advance had been completely stalled due to the fact that every stretch of ground seemed to reveal another enemy machine gun position. Despite the fact two guns were captured by the 82nd Company, several other well-concealed enemy positions remained active in addition to the enemy snipers and riflemen who rendered any further efforts to advance futile. Casualties were already high. Twenty-one men between the two companies had been killed. All the remaining officers in the 82nd Company had been wounded.
In Bouresches, the village’s defenders kept a vigilant eye on the southeastern section of the woods and as late as 6:58 a.m. the fighting could still be heard by elements of the 79th Company in Bouresches. The two platoons of the 80th Company lost approximately fifty nine men of which forty four were wounded- two mortally wounded, and thirteen were killed. Among the dead was twenty one year old Second Lieutenant Clarence Ashley Dennis of Haekensack, New Jersey who was mortally wounded in the abdomen and hip. The same shell struck twenty-year-old Second Lieutenant Charles Ulmer who, only days earlier, had commented in a letter home, “So far, I have been miraculously untouched, and it is surprising how much steel can pass you and yet leave you untouched. Something tells me I am going to have a chance this time.” In addition to the loss of Dennis and Ulmer, the 80th Company lost twenty-five-year-old First Lieutenants Harold Douglas Shannon, a former enlisted Marine, and twenty-one-year-old Julius Chesnee Cogswell- a student at the esteemed Citadel from Charleston, South Carolina.

 

 

 

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Kother's application for the Purple Heart.
 
By 10:27 a.m. a message from Sibley simply stated, “They are too strong for us. Soon as we take on M.G. the losses are so heavy that I am reforming on the ground held by the 82nd Company last night. All of the officers of the 82nd Company wounded or missing and it is necessary to reform before we can advance. Unable to do much with Trench Mortars because of being in the woods. These machine guns are too strong for our infantry. We can attack again if desired.”
At 12:30 p.m., Brigadier General Harbord dispatched a runner to Sibley with instructions, “Get cover for your men in the ravine at the south edge of woods. Let your men rest. I will have artillery play on the wood. Any further orders will be given you later for other movement by you. Send reply by runner who brings this as to the hour at which you will be in your gully.” As elements of the 82nd and 80th disengaged early that morning, the 83rd Company on the left held the enemy in check as the small amount of terrain gained was consolidated. “The territory captured on June 8th was not given up to the enemy while this battalion remained in line as Cossack posts and patrols were left to cover it until such time as the shelling could begin.” Elements of Major Milo Fox’s 1st Battalion 2nd Engineers protected the right flank of Sibley’s advance.

 

 

 

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The application for Kother's veteran's headstone.
 
By 1:55 p.m. Sibley, as directed by Harbord, relayed information stating, “Will have men under cover for artillery fire south edge of woods (within 125 yards of edge) by 3:00 p.m. Regret to report officers and men too much exhausted for further attack on strong resistance until after several hours rest. Enemy shelling our position now. Damage not serious at present.” Harbord quickly summoned Major John Hughes who commanded the 1st Battalion 6th Marines to brigade headquarters with instructions for the relief. By 6:20 p.m. arrangements were made to pull Major John Hughes’s 1st Battalion 6th Marines from Corps Reserve and direct them to the woods southeast of Lucy-le-Bocage with the plan to relieve Sibley’s shot up and utterly exhausted battalion out of the line after nearly three horrendous days.

 

Colonel Aldebert de Chambrun, an American-born French artillery officer, immediately made his way to 4th Brigade Headquarters at La Loge Farm along with forty-seven-year-old Brigadier General William Chamberlaine who commanded the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade. The two officers had received information regarding the stubborn resistance in the woods and once they arrived at 4th Brigade headquarters they proposed the idea that the woods, “be systematically covered by artillery fire preparatory to another attack.” Harbord emphatically agreed to the idea and plans were immediately devised to deliver devastating fire on the woods and approaches from the north and east. Six batteries of the 17th Field Artillery, twenty-four 155mm guns, were scheduled to concentrate fire on the woods. In addition to this, six more batteries of French 155mm guns were to bombard the eastern portion of the woods. Augmenting this fire power were two battalions of the 12th Field Artillery armed with 75mm guns as well as an additional French 75mm battalion. Eleven other battalions of 75mm and 155mm guns would provide fire support for Bouresches and interdiction fire along the approaches to the woods from the north and east. This impressive and terrifying display of fire power would commence at dawn.

 

While Sibley’s men prepared to pull themselves back away from the area so that supporting artillery could devastate it, intelligence extracted from one of the prisoners taken in Belleau Wood that morning revealed that German orders vehemently demanded that the line along the high ground at the railroad just northeast of Bouresches must be emphatically held. In addition to this information, French Army Corps Headquarters had intercepted information from the Germans that the roads leading to Bouresches from the north, west and south were to be subjected to intense artillery and machine gun fire. This information, according to the French, was indicative of a potential effort to cut off the village and the Americans holding it so that it might be recaptured. Because of this new development, the exhausted Marines of Major Holcomb’s 2nd Battalion as well as the two companies of the 3rd Battalion supporting them would have to wait at least another night to be relieved. Harbord, apologetically explained to Holcomb in a 9:15 p.m. message, “Much to my regret I am unable to relieve your battalion in its turn from its present place. The holding of that town is too important for me to risk a change at this time. It will be done just as soon as conditions permit.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Kother's grave in Camp Butler National Cemetery.

By 9:45 p.m., Harbord had informed Colonel Lee, commanding the 6th Marines, that the scheduled relief of Sibley’s battalion by the 1st Battalion 6th Marines had been changed. The 1st Battalion, commanded by Major John Hughes, will move as many companies as possible to the woods just southeast of Lucy-le-Bocage where the 80th Company was reportedly located. Plans were underway for a massive artillery barrage to begin at dawn tomorrow morning which was to be annihilating fire concentrated on enemy positions in Belleau Wood. Everyone who could possibly be affected by this had been informed and pulled to positions of safety. Following the apologetic nature of the message to Holcomb that his battalion would endure another night in the line, Harbord directed Major Maurice Shearer to go to Bouresches at dawn so that he could become familiar with the layout and situation inside the village as well as the rest of the line held by 2nd Battalion 6th Marines. Harbord’s desire was to have Shearer’s 3rd Battalion 5th Marines relieve Holcomb’s exhausted men, but the details of the relief would be relayed later.
Late that evening Sergeant Gerald Thomas, a member of the 1st Battalion 6th Marines headquarters staff remembered, “Late on June 8 Hughes returned from a conference at 4th Brigade Headquarters with orders for a move. He called for me at once, saying that we were moving back to the front.” Hughes quickly instructed Thomas to reconnoiter a road which will lead to a sunken trail that will lead the beyond Paris Farm situated along the Paris-Metz road. Thomas summoned a comrade and quickly moved the nearly two and a half miles toward Paris Farm while there was still daylight. In no time Thomas and his comrade located the Paris Farm and the sunken road and returned to report to the battalion where Hughes instructed Thomas to lead the battalion to the beginning of this sunken road and would then be able to turn the situation over to twenty-four-year-old Second Lieutenant Charles Antonio Etheridge, the battalion intelligence officer.

 

 

 

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By June 10th following the failed efforts to gain a significant toehold in Belleau Wood, the 2nd Division ordered the survivors of Sibley's battalion to pull back from the southern end of the woods and for the next 36 hours, artillery hammered the woods. By the morning of June 10th, Major John Hughes' 1st Battalion 6th Marines advanced into the souther portion of the woods and reported himself having taken approximatley the southern half. Due to the poor maps and the difficult terrain, Hughes's battalion had barely penetrated the woods and had advanced not much further beyond the point of Sibley's failed attack of two days ago. When division learned of Hughes's position, despite the inaccuracy of his location, they decided to initiate the next phase and ordered 2nd Bn 5th Marines to attack at dawn on the 11th.

 

For Lieutenant Colonel Wise, word that his battalion would advance had him scurrying his company commanders together. The specific details of the field order were evidently delayed in reaching Wise who was under the impression that he had the liberty to plan and carry out the attack as he saw fit. “General Harbord’s order had given me carte blanche,” remembered Wise. “I didn’t see any use following the same line of attack which had failed with the Sixth Marines, as the Germans evidently had their lines of defense worked out to received attacks from that direction. It was common sense to hit them where they weren’t looking for it.” Wise had opted for taking the battalion across the Lucy-Torcy road toward the northwestern face of the woods and having the battalion fan out from there and work across the northern half of the woods where they would hopefully catch the Germans from behind while Hughes’s Battalion would continue to press the attack north and hopefully establish liaison. According to Wise, this plan was even discussed in detail with his company commanders. “The whole thing depended on getting across the Lucy-Torcy road before daybreak and making a rapid advance to the northern edge of the woods,” remembered Wise.

Lieutenant Elliott Cooke, an Army officer who suddenly found himself in command of the 55th Company following the mortal wounding of Captain Blanchfield, remembered the meeting that night differently. “Two plans were under consideration: one, an encircling maneuver by two columns, mopping up afterwards; the other, a straight frontal attack with a rolling barrage. We held out for the frontal attack with a rolling barrage. We didn’t want any razzle-dazzle, but a direct power play with plenty of artillery. Colonel Wise finally lost patience. ‘Cooke,’ he demanded, ‘have you seen any Germans in those woods?’ I don’t know why he picked on me. The woods were more than a mile from where I had been located and I was forced to admit that I had seen no Germans over there.”

Despite the contradictory accounts, the specifics of field order 4 give the east and west sector limits of the attack which were roughly at the point of the left flank in the woods where Major Hughes’s battalion was reportedly located as the right flank or east limits. The western or left flank was to extend roughly along the cart path that ran from the village of Belleau and stretched southwest where it terminated at the Lucy-Torcy road at a point just west of Hill 169. The attack was scheduled to commence at 4:30 a.m. In addition to the artillery, the guns of the 23rd and 77th Companies of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion were to provide fire support. The objectives were clearly defined and Wise’s perception of having a free hand in planning the attack remains a mystery. Nonetheless, Wise recalled receiving specifics of this field order at approximately midnight when a messenger had delivered word that his battalion would advance frontally against the western face of the woods in a north eastern direction. With his plans dashed, a bewildered Wise summoned his company commanders to notify them of the changes.

 

Artillery support by the 17th Field Artillery as well as several batteries of 75mm guns from the 12th Field Artillery were scheduled to provide artillery support. At 3:30 a.m. the thunderous report of 155mm guns of C Battery 1st Battalion 17th Field Artillery initiated harassing fire of Belleau Wood. Within an hour and fifteen minutes one hundred and twenty-four 155mm shells crashed through the treetops of the northern sector of the woods. “Suddenly, overhead sounded the rustling swish of passing shells. The sound grew louder and louder and a hurricane of steel lashed and tore at the borders of Belleau Wood,” Cooke recalled. Sitting against a tree with Captain Lester Wass, Cooke used a borrowed-blanket to conceal the glowing end of one last cigarette before the advance. Upon the initiation of the artillery barrage, Wass quickly parted company with Cooke and headed back towards his 18th Company. The assault was slated to move in half platoon columns with the 43rd Company on the left and the 51st Company on the right. Following the 43rd Company was Wass’s 18th Company while Cooke’s 55th was to follow the 51st Company which had just been returned to the battalion the previous day. “Up from the ground rose the assaulting waves. They moved forward into a thick mist, followed by Wass and me in support.”

The morning was hazy, the fronting fields were mist-strewn and a misty fog hung low. The leading companies had moved clear of the Lucy-Torcy road and advanced into the distant fog beyond view. The barrage had clearly indicated to the Germans the likelihood of an attack. Situated at his battalion command post along a corner of Belleau Woods just under a kilometer northeast of Lucy-le-Bocage and approximately 300 meters southwest of Hill 181, Lieutenant Colonel Wise remembered, “Amid the explosions of the bursting shells we could hear the German machine guns in the woods come to life. They couldn’t see us yet, but they knew from the barrage that the attack was coming.” The distant hollow crack of machine gunfire reverberated across the fog-covered field nearly a kilometer away where Cooke and Wass began to press their companies forward from the jump off point as they followed the lead companies. “With the attack barely started, some light Maxims that had gotten inside our barrage zone opened fire.” Unknown to Cooke, the machine gun fire emanated from the western center of the woods which was completely unmolested by the barrage and the machine guns from the 1st, 4th and 2nd Companies of the 1st Battalion 461st German Infantry gazed from the western face of the woods across the mist-laden fields at the approaching assault. Private William Lee of the 51st Company was with the 3rd Platoon and recalled that the Germans could not see them but fired more in anticipation of an approaching assault.

As the secondary companies crossed the Lucy-Torcy road, Cooke noted, “Through a fence and clear of the grain- no more concealment except for the heavy clinging mist; that was a gift of provenance. The ground had been ploughed for spring planting.” For the 43rd and 51st Companies at the head of the attack, the machine gun fire cut through their ranks with devastating effect. Twenty-two-year-old First Lieutenant Samuel Calvin Cumming, who was born and grew up in Japan due to his father’s mission work, was with the 51st Company leading the right front of the battalion assault. He remembered, “The ground became covered with a sheet of machine gun bullets from a Prussian Guard machine gun battalion and their supporting infantry which was placed to hold the wood, as it was an important position. We moved forward at a slow pace, keeping perfect lines. Men were being mowed down like wheat.”

The blistering fire pinned much of the 51st Company to the ground. Quickly platoon commanders, gunnery sergeants and corporals rallied their men and pressed them into the murderous fire. Casualties among these senior leaders was horrific. First Lieutenant Joseph Hagan was hit in the left thigh. Twenty-three-year-old Second Lieutenant James Carlock Brewer, an Army officer from Bristol, Virginia who commanding a platoon in William’s company was killed by machine gun fire. Twenty-two year old Second Lieutenant Robert Henry Rose Loughborough, an Army Officer from Manhattan, New York, commanding another platoon in the 51st Company assisted in rallying the pinned-down squads and compelled them to move forward. Private William Eugene Lee remembered, “We went in waves, about four waves. The first wave went so far and they were scattered and they couldn’t see anything, but they were just trying to fire at the edge of the woods in the woods and they laid down and then the next wave came along and leaped over them. . . There was shooting all the while. We couldn’t see anybody in the woods but they had machine guns in there firing at us.”

After leaving numerous casualties in the field, the 51st Company managed to reach the woods. “Finally we worked our way into the woods, and that’s when the real fighting took place. . .It was man for man,” remembered Lee. In their terrifying advance across the open field, the 51st Company, upon which the 43rd Company on the left would guide, had been inadvertently pulled to the right by the blistering machine gun fire emanating from the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion 461st German Infantry as well as the right flank of the 8th Company of the 2nd Battalion 40th Fusiliers who were simultaneously absorbing an advance from the south by the 76th Company. The position of the 40th Fusiliers was significantly south of where Wise’s battalion should have struck the tree line given the purported position of Major Hughes’s 1st Battalion 6th Marines. As the 51st Company struck the woods, the expected to find the left flank of 1st Battalion 6th Marines but instead found a network of German infantry and machine guns. Standing between this liaison were the better part of two German battalions.

On the left of the advance by 2nd Battalion 5th Marines, the 43rd Company made a little better advance but were assailed by the 1st and 4th Companies of the 1st Battalion 461st Infantry and had drifted south to maintain liaison with the 51st Company on the right who also was pulled south and struck the tree line much further to their right than expected. Captain Charley Dunbeck’s 43rd Company suffered their worst casualties in the field about three hundred meters southeast of the scabbed Hillock of 169, ironically over the same ground where many of the 20th Company’s dead lay from the attack five days earlier. In charging the woods, the 43rd Company quickly overran the left flank of the 1st Battalion 461st turning the engagement in the woods into absolute pandemonium where small isolated groups of Marines engaged pockets of Germans scattered throughout the woods.

While Dunbeck’s man tore through the left flank of the 1st Battalion 461st Infantry, the 51st Company on the right smashed into the right flank of the 8th Company of the 40th Fusiliers catching many Germans from behind as they were being pressed from Hughes’s Marines in the south. One nineteen-year-old German soldier with the 8th Company of the 40th Fusiliers named Friedrich Engler recalled,

On the morning of June 11th 5:45 (4:45 French time) only weak artillery fire fell on our positions. Suddenly Americans, against whom we open fired, came from the front. While we were in combat with the enemy pressing forward from the front, Americans came suddenly from the rear. With several comrades, who were separated from me later, I thereupon fought through to the rear so as to not be taken prisoner. I know no other details, but I can state with certainty that the enemy came from the right against our rear. My platoon was the right flank of the 8th Company, which had contact on the right with the 461st Infantry.

Left of the 8th Company, members of the 7th Company 2nd Battalion 40th Fusiliers were also being overrun. Twenty-year-old Johann Czech, a member of the 7th Company, remembered, “I was with the 3rd Platoon which was employed in the front line on the left flank. After the Americans had attacked from the front we suddenly received fire from the rear, and when we turned around we saw that the enemy had come up in our rear. With several comrades I then went a little to the right where a heavy machine gun was in position and firing. The gun commandeered ordered us to keep on bringing ammunition to him so that he could continue firing.”

Despite the fact that Wise’s men hit the woods at a point significantly further south than expected, they managed to smash into the point where the join German defense of the woods was in weak liaison between the 28th and 237th Divisions. By hitting the left flank of the 237th Division and the right flank of the 28th who were also being attacked by 1st Battalion 6th Marines in the south, Wise’s attack managed to pry apart the German line in the western portion of the woods and virtually decimate the two companies of the 28th Division’s 2nd Battalion 40th Fusiliers holding the southern portion of the narrow center of the woods. Survivors of the 7th and 8th Companies of the 2nd Battalion 40th Fusiliers desperately tried to flee from the eastern tree line of the woods where they were caught by enfilading machine gun fire from Bouresches to the south.

Thirty-year-old Lieutenant Ludwig Deppich, a minenwerfer officer of the 2nd Battalion 40th Fusiliers immediately fell back toward the eastern portion of the woods where approximately eleven surviving ammunition carriers quickly took up position near one of the minenwerfers in an effort to try and place fire on the advancing Marines.

This security post immediately started firing into the right since the enemy ran in masses towards our minenwerfer emplacements. I wanted to hurry to the minenwerfer of the 110th Grenadier Regiment to direct the barrage fire to the right, but the enemy with roars of ‘urreh’ was already passed the minenwerfer and was held up by a few pioneers, by a few men of the 5th Company 40th Fusiliers and my minenwerfer crews. We were still only a few meters from the edge of the woods. I then ran over to the company commander of the 5th Company, Lieutenant of Reserve Fuhren, so that with him and the few men who were not killed and wounded we could throw the enemy back with a will.

As the surviving minenwerfer crew debouched the eastern tree line of Belleau Wood, they were met with blistering fire. “We received most heavy machine gun fire not only from the front but also from Bouresches, that is from the rear. We were meanwhile too weak for counter-attack against the mass of Americans and to avoid being captured we jumped into the wheat field and crawled back under the heaviest machine gun fire to the brook north of Bouresches.” As the Germans fled the woods heading east, messages from Bouresches where Major Maurice Shearer’s 3rd Battalion 5th Marines held the town reported an attack on their position. Hotchkiss machine guns of the 77th and 81st Company of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion as well as the 73rd Machine Gun Company laid down a curtain of fire on the exposed Germans inflicting horrible casualties.

 

Among those leading the 51st Company that morning was Sgt. Paul J. Althoff of York, Pennsylvania. He was struck in the abdomen and mortally wounded. He died at 3:00 p.m. that afternoon at a dressing station in Lucy-le-Bocage. Here is Sgt. Althoff's Columbia accolade.

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the 51st Company pressed further east in the melee of tangled undergrowth and thick woods, and had unknowingly bypassed numerous pockets of German resistance. Lieutenant Colonel Wise, from his command post along the southwestern tree line of Belleau Woods recalled, “Across those fields from the woods I could distinguish machine-gun fire, rifle fire. A sudden ripping burst of machine gun fire would break out. That meant the Marines were advancing on a nest. It would die down. That meant the nest was taken.” At 5:35 a.m. Wise telephoned brigade, “Machine gun fire begins and stops again.” Twenty-four-year-old Captain Charles Cooper Gill, a former enlisted Marine serving as brigade liaison to the 5th Marines relayed information to brigade headquarters by telephone at 5:27 a.m. that “Germans retiring over hill. Regimental runner and battalion runner reported prisoners taken.”

Shortly after the attack began, Captain William Mathews, the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines intelligence officer encountered Captain De Carre who told him about the 172 Germans his Headquarters Company Marines had encountered and captured in the woods between the Lucy-Torcy Road and Hill 169. De Carre further explained that the section of woods where his group entered was completely open. This development was perplexing considering that De Carre’s company was to follow behind Wise’s attack into woods that should have already been cleared. Mathews immediately left De Carre and headed toward Wise’s command post to inform him of this troubling information.

Wise, waiting with nervous anticipation for any semblance of information from his company commanders could see the field to the north of his battalion command post was covered with wounded and dying. When Mathews reached Wise’s command post with his suspicion that the entire left flank of his battalion was completely open, Wise expressed his doubt. Information soon reached Wise that further convinced him that Mathew’s report was likely inaccurate. Wise remembered, “Company runners began to come back out of the woods with reports. Messages hastily scrawled in pencil. This objective attained. That objective attained. Heavy casualties. Prisoners commenced to come back. Convoys of twenty, thirty, fifty Germans, herded along by some single Marine- generally a wounded one at that.”

Runners frequented the paths between battalion headquarters and company fronts keeping the steady flow of information constant. The optimistic news prompted Wise to report to Brigade that, “Reports from my company commanders said that the woods were ours.” By 6:11a.m. the first definitive message from a company commander was received from Dunbeck stating, “All objectives reached and am mopping up with machine guns.” By 6:33 a.m. Wise reported to Brigade that his companies were holding the objective and that the attack on Bouresches had been shattered.

In going through the woods, the right rear flank of Captain Lloyd William’s 51st Company lay open and he noted at 6:50 a.m., “Holding everything. Machine guns are causing damage on our right rear. Request company be sent in.” As members of the 51st Company worked to mop up isolated pockets of these bypassed enemy some 51st Company Marines were used as prisoner chasers to drive prisoners at bayonet-point back through the woods as cover to keep concealed German positions from firing upon them as these German-speaking Marines tried to persuade whatever bypassed enemy still remained. As he worked his way up front with his men, Captain Williams was suddenly struck through the right arm and right side by gun fire which left a hideous lacerating wound. He was immediately carried away by German prisoners who were pressed into service as litter bearers to the battalion aid station inside Lucy-le-Bocage which was under tremendous shell fire. At 8:55 a.m., Wise requested artillery fire to be laid in front of his battalion where it was reported that Germans were massing. The coordinates given were, however, about 500 meters to the left (north) of where Wise’s left-most company was actually located. Wise also informed brigade that Captain Williams had been wounded and that the artillery preparation had not been enough to clean things up and has resulted in heavy casualties.

As the 51st Company, thinned by casualties, remained vulnerable to bypassed pockets of enemy in the thick woods and undergrowth tried to hold their ground, Lieutenant Cooke and the 55th Company entered the woods just slightly south of the 51st and moved up from their right rear. “At the trees I turned, half expecting to find ourselves alone. We weren’t. About twenty men were right behind us. And more came running, eager to do anything that was wanted.” Cooke and his company headquarters detachment which included twenty-nine-year-old Gunnery Sergeant John Henry Parker of Shadyside, Ohio quickly encountered commotion in a thicket of undergrowth and quickly encountered a bypassed enemy machine gun position and the terrified German who was eager to surrender. “He was young, white as a corpse, and fully expected to be one,” remembered Cooke. “My kids fingered their triggers but couldn’t shoot in cold blood. It made no difference to me, one way or the other.” As Cooke and Parker worked to extract the enemy weapon from its concealed abode, the rustling of the undergrowth nearby startled the group. According to Cooke, “The noise was made by two men from the 6th Marines who had come forward to join us. One of them carried an automatic rifle. That addition put us in good shape to relieve the pressure on the flank of the 51st Company- providing there was anything left of it.”

As they pushed further into the woods, Cooke found Loughborough- one of only two officers of the 51st Company left. All around lay evidence of a horrific fight that had unfolded. “Dead men littered the ground and lay hidden in every thicket and rocky cleft. Even the living walked about in a sort of shell-shocked daze,” remembered Cooke. Cooke linked up with Loughborough and located Second Lieutenant Lucius Lyle who commanded the 2nd Platoon of the 55th Company. Scattered elements of the 74th Company were also found including twenty-one-year-old Second Lieutenant Edgar Allan Poe Jr. who accompanied Cooke as he tried to locate Captain Lester Wass reportedly on the left or north near the 43rd Company’s position. While Cooke sorted out the situation with Wass Poe left in search of his men only to return in a hurry with word that there was nothing but open woods to the left. After confirming this, Wass sent Poe back to Wise’s command post with this information.

While runners carrying promising news continued to reinforced Wise’s satisfaction that the attack was a success, Captain Mathews took his battalion intelligence section across the open field north of Wise’s battalion command and traversed the open ground littered with the battalion’s casualties. As Mathews and his Marines reached the tree line he encountered twenty-seven-year-old Gunnery Sergeant Wodarczyk, a six-year veteran of the Marine Corps, who was in command of the 4th Platoon of the 43rd Company. Members of the 4th Platoon had just captured an enemy machine guns and a number of the crews. Wodarczyk was in the process of escorting several of the captives back when Mathews found him. Mathews discovered that there was nothing in the section of woods to the north, Mathews quickly accompanied him through the woods to locate Wass and Dunbeck whose companies constituted the left position of the battalion’s position.

Mathews soon found Wass, Dunbeck and Cooke all standing together. When he inquired as to their position, Mathews discovered that the three officers all believed themselves to be in the northeastern region of the woods when in fact they were in the central eastern edge- nearly a kilometer from where they were believed to be located. With this information combined with Wodarczyk and De Carre’s observation, Mathews immediately placed elements of the battalion intelligence section along a line through the western edge of the woods directly west of where he found Wass, Dunbeck and Cooke and quickly headed back to Wise to further make his case. Upon emphatically emphasizing the point that the left flank was completely open, Wise quickly lost his cool and countered his claims that his company commanders had reported themselves on their objectives. Wise was also reassured by recent information that his battalion was finally, “in perfect touch with the 6th,” in addition to the numerous German prisoners escorted through his battalion command on their way to the rear. Convinced that Wise was beyond reason, Mathews left the battalion command post and headed back to the line once more.

 

A close up of his name.

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At 10:55 a.m., Wise informed brigade headquarters of his plans to inspect the lines with the arrival of an artillery officer to begin counterbattery work as well as his belief of his plans to root out any marauding enemy in this region.

Despite his stubborn persistence in believing that his battalion had attained the objective, a notion of doubt had evidently infiltrated Wise’s own conscience following his heated encounter with Mathews as well as the latest information from Poe. He was concerned enough over this potentially weak flank that he reported to brigade at 11:25 a.m., “I think my left flank is rather weak. The Germans are massing in our front. I can hardly spare any men. They could very easily filter through tonight for counter-attack.”

As Wise perhaps began to realize that there may be a grave discrepancy between his early reports and Mathews’ assertion, earlier reports of success that Wise had relayed from his company commanders to Brigadier General Harbord at brigade headquarters had long been forwarded to division headquarters. By 11:45 a.m., Major General Bundy, the division commander, had sent his laudatory praises to Harbord and his staff who quickly relayed the compliments to Colonel Neville’s 5th Marine Headquarters staff. Neville, of course, wasted no time in relaying the division’s accolades on to Wise who now began to wonder if the initial optimistic reports of his company commanders had been premature

 

A photo of Sgt. Paul J. Althoff.

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With this disheartening information along with the insistent report of his battalion intelligence officer, Wise finally went into the wood near where he saw the 51st Company hit the line. Mathews knew that Wise was aware of the situation and remembered, “He then saw how serious the situation was and proceeded to reconnoiter about six hours too late.” Wise moved along the tree line and veered into the woods where he saw first-hand the carnage of dead Germans and Marines. Moving east into the woods he located what was left of the 51st Company. “They were in fox holes on the far side of the woods. Some junior was in command.” The junior officer Wise had encountered was Second Lieutenant Robert Loughborough, one of only two officers of the 51st Company left. Wise was again told that Captain Williams had been hit. “The youngster in command told me of the terrific fighting they’d had. Foot by foot they had pushed their way through the underbrush in the face of continuous machine-gun and rifle fire.”

 

Sgt. Althoff's sea bag.

 

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a better view.

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Wise then located Lieutenant Cooke and shortly after that he continued along the rudimentary battalion front where he found Dunbeck and his men dug in preparing for counterattack. Nearby digging in to the left of Dunbeck’s 43rd Company, Wise located Wass and his men. Conferring with Wass, Wise learned of the treacherous conditions in which his men fought. “He told me of the difficulties they had orienting themselves in that heavy underbrush. There were no landmarks, once you got into those woods. If you turned around twice you lost all sense of direction and only your compass could straighten you out.” Wass also informed Wise that the northeast corner of the woods were open. Realizing that his high casualties rendered his battalion largely inefficient to extend to secure this unoccupied portion of the woods, Wise quickly returned to his command post nearly a kilometer to the southwest of his battalion’s front. Back at his command post, Wise met with Hughes and told him of his situation to which Hughes agreed to send more assistance in addition to the two platoons already sent.

While Wise pondered over the prematurity of his initial reports, Lieutenant Cooke elements of his 55th Company were prepared to move toward the flank where they believed it was weak so as to utilize Marines who spoke German to persuade any stragglers to give up. “Followed by runners we moved cautiously through the woods,” remembered Cooke. As the group came upon a narrow unimproved road stretching east to west, they came to a halt and as they tried to remain as tactical as possible in discussing which direction to proceed, a bullet cracked passed them. Instinctively flat on the ground, Cooke recalled, “Poe and one of our German-speaking runners proffered a long-distant invitation for the unseen Germans to come in and surrender. And each time they opened their mouths the Heinies answered with a shower of bullets.” Cooke immediately sent a runner to bring more men up but the crunch of the undergrowth over the occasional snap of bullets and rifle fire were clear that the Germans were working in through the woods in significant numbers. Cooke then summoned Gunnery Sergeant Parker to bring more men, but before they arrived, the small engagement had blossomed into an almost entirely new front line in that portion of the woods. Cooke was compelled to bring up yet more reinforcements so he left Poe in command and immediately left to get help.

While a small group of men under Second Lieutenant Poe held the line, brigade notified Wise at 2:00 p.m. that, “Artillery very watchful on your left flank, you need have no fear for it. Use your engineers to consolidate your front as rapidly as possible. Refuse your left flank slightly, along ravine or higher up along the edge of woods.” Upon receiving this information, Wise, accompanied by Mathews immediately went to locate this left flank in order to pull them back and found Second Lieutenant Poe holding a short east to west line along the eastern part of the wood a few hundred meters south of the unimproved road skirting the northern waist of the woods. Poe’s men were exchanging fire with the unseen Germans to the north. Cooke soon returned having also heard the order to refuse the left. “’Withdraw your left,” word was sent down. ‘We will hold your flank with iron,’” Cooke remembered. With that order, the left flank of the battalion retracted back a few hundred meters. Cooke realized that the line held by the rest of his company in addition to the 18th, 43rd, and the remnants of the 51st Company faced east toward the main German line situated across the railroad embankment just east of the Bouresches Belleau Wood. “Behind the embankment were plenty of Boche machine guns, peppering away at our part of the woods.” When he made his way over to the 18th Company on the northeast of the battalion’s line, he consulted with Captain Wass regarding the tenuous nature of their situation. “’You keep your outfit in support,’ Wass told me. ‘Milner and I will take care of the front.’ With Germans right before him, even Wass couldn’t be worried about the left side of our line. So, leaving Parker with Poe, I put the remainder of the 55th Company under cover.”

 

Another Marine killed that afternoon with the 51st Co. was Sgt. Alonzo Hensiek pictured here.

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The consolidated line of the battalion was to be reinforced by Engineers. Company D of the 2nd Battalion 2nd Engineers reached Wise’s command post around 4:00 p.m. They were sent forward with a vague explanation of where Wise’s men were located with each platoon of the company assigned to each of Wise’s companies. Moving through the heavy underbrush, the engineers of Company D were hopelessly disoriented and did not reach their designated position for several hours. Shortly after Company D reached Wise’s command post, Company F 2nd Battalion 2nd Engineers arrived and were pushed out along the western edge of the woods just to the northeast of the battalion command post. Also reinforcing the line were several Hotchkiss machine guns of the 23rd and 77th Companies of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion. The survivors of the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines dug in for the night after an exhaustive, chaotic and terrifying day. They had been without chow, rest or reinforcements. They were shy of their desired objective, but brigade and division had believed otherwise and had forwarded the successful attainment of Belleau Wood to American Expeditionary Forces Headquarters in Chaumont earlier that afternoon at 12:55 p.m.

The sun sunk below the western horizon after what had been a costly day for Wise’s battalion had lost 168 men which included 117 wounded and fifty-one dead. The 51st Company alone lost 75 of their officers and men who were wounded and 36 who were killed or died of wounds. Five of the seven officers with the 51st Company were lost, including their commander, Captain Williams, who was killed. With his battalion’s tenuous position in the wood relatively reinforced, Wise took refuge in a dugout at his battalion command post. He remembered, “I knew that if the Germans launched any kind of strong attack in those woods they could tear clean through us.”

 

Pictured above is the Columbian accolade of Alonzo Hensiek.

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  • 3 years later...
parsonrussell0916

Hi, my name is Russell Sullivan. Louis Kother was my grandfather. I am so glad that someone has cared for his Purple Heart. Unbeknownst to me, my sister sold it. I would love to buy it back. If you know how I could locate it and make an offer to purchase it, please let me known, I would be most grateful. My contact information is as follows:

 

Russell Sullivan

2001 Hamilton Street

Apt. 1918

Philadelphia, PA 19130

Phone: (717)580-2011

Email: [email protected]

 

Thanks,

Russell Sullivan

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