Talk:Battle of Belleau Wood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Battle of Belleau Wood article.
Article policies
MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] Stressing of the casualties

I am not sure that the following text is justified:

Thus ended one of the most bloody and ferocious battles in human history. (Although the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme in 1916 had been far worse.)

Even with the qualification, I do not think the casualties (particularly as the German ones are not given) justify such a statement. In comparison to other battles of the First World War, as stated above, let alone more ancient battles like the Battle of Cannae the statement looks very exaggerated.

I just happened to wander by this article, and the same sentence jumped out at me, even before viewing the discussion page. Actually, the only reason I checked the talk page was that it seemed terribly obvious that someone had tacked an ill-fitting disclaimer on a bit of hyperbole, instead of rewriting the sentence. So, I rewrote the sentence. "On June 26th, a report was sent out simply stating, "Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely,"[4] (http://www.2ndbn5thmar.com/history/belleau3.htm) ending the bloodiest and most ferocious battle U.S. forces would fight in the war." Hope that works for you, if not, modify as you see fit. Fox1 02:56, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The statement is also false in the edit, many other battles the AEF fought (such as the Meuse-Argonne) ended in a much higher casualty count than Belleau Wood.

[edit] removed a date

Hi, not sure exactly how this works (am editing for the first time), but I've just removed a reference from this page - it said that a monument was built in 1921. I don't know when the monument was put up, but it definitely wans't -before- the battle happened, so I took it out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.157.1.154 (talk • contribs) 4 January 2006.

I'm confused, the article said 1923, not 1921, and the battle took place in 1918. 1923 is, by my calculations, chronologically considered to have occured after 1918. Anyway, I've restored the year, as I was able to confirm that.
Fox1 (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference

Garth Brooks has a song titled Belleau Wood on his album Sevens. The lyrics refer to German and American forces singing Silent Night.

Synapse001 16:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sections 1 & 2 (Battle & Importance)

Why are the edit links in the middle of the part about Capt. Williams' quote? Does anyone else see this? I looked at the page and didn't see anything that stood out as wrong. I browsed the page using Firefox 1.5.0.4. Littleman TAMU 16:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I tried fixing that too with no good result. I even looked at earlier versions of the page (where it looks right), copied that section (from its edit page) and repalced the current with it. No effect. It must be a weird wiki big. --Purpleslog 16:56, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

“The Germans held out stubbornly and did not surrender until Prince Wilhelm ordered a general retreat of soldiers surrounding the area.” No. That order came a month later.

“The battle was characterized by the different fire superiority tactics. The Americans used sharpshooters and snipers, while the Germans attempted to rake the battlefield with machine guns.” Sharpshooters and snipers were used right from the begiining of the war by all compatants the only difference being that the American rifles had better range. At Belleau Wood the Germans had their own sharpshooters and snipers and the Americans also had their own machine gunners when they assaulted the woods.

The battle was more characterized for a return to the way battles were fought in 1914. It’s a sin looking back on it now on how it was a battle that didn’t need to be fought and how US troops were thrown into that battle without knowing anything about infantry tactics and without a sound plan espeicially in 1918 after the huge strides in battlefield tactics and battle planning that were made. After the battle US troops were found where they had fallen in front of every machinegun nest while rushing them from the front. Something that the Allies and enemy had long since learned not to do. It wasn’t until months later when Pershing finally issued the orders for US troops to stop rushing machinegun nests.When the woods were finally cleared it was only after a heavy artillery barrage, something that was always done on WW1 battlefields before an attack would go in if the element of surprise was not an issue.

“The Marines were forced to make six sweeps” It would be more accurate to state that the Germans countered attacked six times each time removing the Americans from the Wood.


Importance "Retreat, hell. We just got here” Famous last words. Maybe it could be noted that Major Lloyd Williams, along with many others, didn’t survive the battle. Sometimes it’s tactically advisable to retreat. it’s called a stragetic withdrawal.

“They fought off more than four divisions of Germans, often reduced to using only their bayonets or fists in hand-to-hand combat.” No they did not. It was elements of 5 divisions like this article already stated. Should this article not try to be acurate rather than suggesting that a larger number of the enemy was fought? Acording to first hand accounts there was no hand to hand combat.

“Combined with the actions at Chateau Thierry, the Battle of Belleau Wood brought an end to the last major German offensive of World War I.” No. The fifth offensive since March 21 and last major German offensive was launched on July 15. Belleau Wood didn’t stop the German offensive. It was an attack launched on the Germans in the woods who were already entrenched there.

  • This section removed. Brocky44's remarks are correct. Friedensturm ran 15 July - 18 July, being cancelled due to its own failure and the success of Mangin's counterstroke at Soissons. This offensive (Blücher-Yorck) ran out of steam between 1st and 6th June due to the German inability to widen the pocket they had created (US defense of Chateau-Thierry and French in front of Foret de Cotterets.FrankDynan 04:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

“Today, at the American cemetery nearby, white crosses and Stars of David mark 2,289 graves, 250 for unknown service members, and the names of 1,060 missing men adorn the wall of a memorial chapel. Visitors also stop at the nearby German cemetery where 8,625 men are buried; 4,321 of them - 3,847 unknown - rest in a common grave.”

The German cemetery was created after the war and the German bodies were brought in from many locations where they had been killed in 4 years of war. Someone reading this article would go away thinking that they were killed at the Belleau Wood battle. 1200 Germans held the Wood and not all were killed. Brocky44 03:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Edited to reflect this point.www.volksbund.de confirms graves are for men killed between the Aisne and the Marne in 1918, and includes 70 men killed in 1914 (1st Marne) FrankDynan 04:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the part about "After their victories at Cantigny and Chateau-Thierry" in the 2nd paragraph. [the big battle of] Chateau-Thierry was _after_ Belleau Wood. --75.85.15.24 04:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the reasoning behind the statement about the Marines using sharpshooters and the Germans using MG's is that these were the main tactics. The U.S. troops were raked by machine gun fire until the Marines captured a small hill. Now, I've heard that at the time in Europe one was considered an excellent shot if he could hit a target at (I think) 500 yards. In the USMC, however, one was considered to be (I think) slightly above-average if he could hit a target at 800 yards, makeing every Marine a sharpshooter by European standards. The Marines flipped up their sights and went to work. One German commented "the Americans are savages-they shoot anything that moves!" (Nick31091 06:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC))

If a slightly above average marine was able to hit a target at 800 yards, what was an excellent marine able to do? Hitting a target at 1000 yards with a knife? Catching bullets with his teeth? You should learn to differentiate between facts and fairy tales. I think you never tried to hit a target at that range. --79.206.138.170 (talk) 21:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] After or before Chateau-Thierry?

In the article it says "After their victories at Cantigny and Chateau-Thierry, " but Chateau-Thierry happened in July 1918. Was there another C-T or is this just wrong? --AW 14:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

There was a battle at Chateau-Thierry on 3-4 June 1918. This is the battle referred to here. I will remove the link to the July battle and put in dates for Cantigny and the 1st C-T. Airbornelawyer 18:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Battle of Belleau Wood section into main article

I've proposed this merge for the following reasons:

  1. this an article on USS Belleau Wood, so it's inappropriate to have a detailed description of the battle in this article
  2. there's an existing article
  3. there's a danger of divergence of the two descriptions

Of course, reference would remain of the significance of the ship's names. Folks at 137 08:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) name section has been modified to match USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) in that the description now points to this page. The merger tag should probably be dropped. Jmauro2000 05:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General edits

This is my first time editing Wikipedia. Here is a summary of what I did: 1. John A. Lejeune did not take command of the 2nd Division until after Belleau Wood; Omar Bundy commanded the division here. 2. AEF stands for American Expeditionary Forces, not "Force." (A common error.) 3. USMC casualties on June 6 were exceeded by the 1100 casualties suffered on Oct 4, 1918 at Blanc Mont Ridge (Allan Millet, Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps, p. 314) 4. The 2d Division's 3rd Brigade did not fight in Belleau Wood, but attacked Vaux (about 4km southeast). 5. Neither the 2d nor 3d Division fought at Cantigny; I corrected to say "US" victories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SheridanPH (talk • contribs) 17:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)