“Fix bayonets!”

The piercing shriek of Marine whistles and guttural bellows of “Follow me!” trailed the order as men of Gunnery Sergeant Ernest Janson’s 49th Company emerged from the woods. Dawn turned gray, and light bathed the flowing fields of wheat that lay in front of the men. “Dewy poppies, red as blood” were sprinkled randomly through the waist-deep wheat.

The Marines advanced in Civil War–style formations. As they gazed to their right and left, they viewed a panorama largely untouched by the Great War: sinuous hills of grain, clumps of trees, and a lush, verdant forest that served as a hunting preserve prior to the war. The dense kidney-shaped woods known as Bois de Belleau occupied roughly one square mile of land. Two deep ravines cut through the trees, and massive boulders, some the size of a small building, littered the ground, making Belleau Wood a natural fortress. A ridge 142 meters high, and therefore dubbed Hill 142, sprawled to the west.

An angry red sun emerged just above the horizon in the cloudless blue sky behind the men’s backs. Many turned their heads, some for the last time, to glimpse the blazing sunrise. At that instant, German shells and machine-gun bullets ripped through the golden farmland, striking flesh and bone.

As men began toppling like dominos, Marine officers screamed, “Battle-sight! Fire at will!” Their voices broke through the din of the battle and anguished cries of wounded and dying men.

Only two companies from 1/5, the 49th and 67th, had arrived at the jumping-off point prior to 3:45 as instructed. The battalion commander of 1/5, Major Julius Turrill, who had received the order to attack Hill 142 only hours earlier, had earmarked five companies, or nearly one thousand men, for the assault. Short and stocky, Turrill had served in the Philippines, Cuba, and Guam, as well as on various ships. Unbeknownst to the attackers, the Marines faced a battalion from the German 460th Regiment and a battalion of the 273rd Regiment (both understrength), including several machine-gun companies. The hill lay on the boundary between the two German divisions. Fortunately for Janson and the 49th, the enemy had not dug in, and a command dispute prevented the two Boche units from tying together for maximum defense. Nevertheless, the Germans vastly outnumbered the two Marine companies.

The 49th’s commanding officer, Captain Hamilton, led the Marines toward Hill 142. A rugged former football captain, exceptional athlete, and fighting Marine officer, Hamilton never asked his men to do anything he would not do personally. Before the charge, he realized the men “were up against something unusual, and ran along the whole line to get each man (almost individually) on his feet to rush the wood.”

Armed with Springfield rifles, Hamilton and Janson fired into the woods at field-gray German gunners wearing camouflaged Stahlhelms on their heads. While Janson, Hamilton, and most of the Marines carried the M1903 rifles, other men armed with the fully automatic Chauchat machine gun fired from the hip, laying down a heavy spray of lead as they surged toward the German gunners.

Its height in meters led to 142’s designation as a hill, but in reality, the slope was more of a ridge that jutted from north to south in front of the Bois de Belleau. Patches of woods and wheat fields and ravines bracketed the mound, which dominated the battlefield. Both sides coveted 142’s high ground and would fight to the death to possess it.

Although many of their brother Marines lay dead or wounded in the grain, Janson, Hamilton, and other men in the 49th emerged unscathed. They descended on the Germans, quickly hurling grenades, plunging the blued steel of their sixteen-inch bayonets into the bodies of the enemy, and dispatching others with small arms fire. Later, Hamilton had vague recollections of “snatching an Iron Cross off the first officer . . . and of shooting wildly at several rapidly retreating Boches.” He added, “I carried a rifle on the whole trip and used it to good advantage.”

The 67th did not fare so well. Lieutenant Orlando C. Crowther, its leader, and 1st Sergeant “Beau” Hunter both died from wounds inflicted by Maxim nests concealed in a ravine. Hamilton and Janson reorganized what was left of the shattered platoons in the 49th and 67th. Then they had to do it all over again: yet another open wheat field lay in front of the murderous fire of several companies of German machine gunners defending Hill 142.

Once again, the Marines burst from cover and waded through waist-high wheat. Hill 142 loomed ahead, crested with pine trees that ominously appeared black as they reached skyward against the background of the blue sky. Colored tracer rounds from the Maxims whizzed by the Marines, and German rifle and machine-gun fire cut through the front ranks. Most of the men dove to the ground, prone, hoping the fragile stalks would obscure the gunners’ line of sight.

A Marine officer barked, “Can’t walk up to these babies. No—won’t be enough of us left to get on with the war. Pass the word: crawl forward, keeping touch with the man on your right! Fire where you can.” Within minutes, the officer went down—a dozen Maxim bullets having ripped through his chest.

Another squad of Janson’s men aimed to take out a Maxim crew. A corporal from the group got beyond the gun and tried to flank it. Attempting to coordinate their actions, one man yelled, “Get far enough past that flank gun, now, close as you can, and rush it—we’ll keep it busy.” After maneuvering into position, the corporal shot up and, with a yell, attacked the gun. Keeping their promise, his brothers backed him and charged the gun. One member of the 49th remembered the grisly result after two gunners turned their weapons on the charging Marines: “[Their Maxims] cut the squad down like a grass-hook levels a clump of weeds. . . . They lay there for days, eight Marines in a dozen yards, face down on their rifles.”

Some Marines, repeatedly wounded, forged ahead. One small group of men from the 49th lay in wheat in front of the muzzle of a German machine gun. Bullets zipped by and “clipped the stalks around their ears and riddled their combat packs— firing high by a matter of inches and the mercy of God.”

One member of the 49th explained: “A man can stand just so much of that. Life presently ceases to be desirable; the only desirable thing is to kill that gunner, kill him with your hands!” He added, “One fellow seized the spitting muzzle and up-ended it on the gunner; he lost a hand in the matter. Bayonets flashed in, and a rifle butt rose and fell.”

Janson’s and Hamilton’s Marines improvised their tactics on the fly. Small groups of determined men surmounted the seemingly impossible with their iron will, taking out one nest after another as they rolled up the hill. Later Hamilton noted, “It was only because we rushed the positions that we were able to take them, as there were too many guns to take in any other way.”

The Marines had the enemy on the run. They took out several more nests; the Germans seemed to melt away. With resistance waning, Hamilton pulled out his map case and scanned the area for an unimproved road that appeared on the map. With only a platoon of men, including Janson, Hamilton set out for the road, moving over the nose of Hill 142 in the process. Unbeknownst to them, that road led to the German-held village of Torcy.

On the road, the men found themselves in a cleared area scattered with woodpiles. Hidden behind the piles, several Maxims started firing upon them. A stream of bullets struck one Marine. “The man’s head was gone from the eyes up; his helmet slid stickily back over his combat pack and lay on the ground.” A Marine picked up the man’s Chauchat and pulled the trigger back, unloading an entire half-moon-shaped magazine into three oncoming Germans, who appeared to “wilt.”

Hamilton pushed ahead with an automatic rifle team that had attacked to the left to take out one of the machine-gun nests in the mounds of wood. “What saved me I don’t know—the Maxims on both sides cut at us unmercifully—but although I lost heavily here [the 49th lost several officers and enlisted men], I came out unscathed.”

During the melee, a corporal and two Marines wandered down the road into the town of Torcy. As they approached he first house, another squad of Germans pelted the Americans with heavy fire, wounding one and sending the Marines scurrying into a large shell hole where they attempted to hold out. The corporal sent one Marine back to gather reinforcements. Fighting in their own miniature Alamo, the pair of men held back the enemy until two Germans in infiltrated their position. The Germans never returned, nor did the Americans. The two intrepid Marines were never seen again, and the 49th registered its first men missing in action; shortly thereafter, the disposition of their bodies was declared “unknown.” Nine years would pass before a French farmer would discover the bodies of the unsung Americans and two Germans, along with their equipment and weapons, in the bottom of the fighting hole.

Back on the road, Hamilton and his small platoon continued to encounter heavy fire, and he realized, “I had gone too far—that the nose of the hill I had come over was our objective.”

Hamilton had to get back to the hill with his men and dig in. “It was a case of every man for himself. I crawled back through a drainage ditch filled with cold water and shiny reeds. Machine-gun bullets were just grazing my back and our own artillery was dropping close.”

Miraculously, Hamilton and Janson returned to the hill and started reorganizing what remained of the two shredded companies. Platoons with an original strength of around sixty men had withered to a pitiful handful of men led by a corporal. Most of his officers were dead. Reinforcements had not arrived. Moving from one position to another, Hamilton ordered his men to dig in and set up strongpoints and outposts. The Marines scoured the hill for working German machine guns and belts of ammo. Making the most of his meager force, Hamilton sent out a few men as scouts to keep an eye on his flanks.

Then the heavy thud and thunder of German artillery shook the hill. Hamilton and Janson knew the shelling signaled one thing.

The German counterattack on Hill 142 had begun.

The deafening blasts of grenades dashed Hamilton’s feverish efforts to bolster the Marine’s anemic defenses on Hill 142. A rock hurled by the explosion struck Hamilton behind the ear, temporarily stunning him. But through the din of battle, dense fog, and mass confusion generated in the melee, Hamilton heard a bloodcurdling scream emanating from the direction of Gunnery Sergeant Ernest Janson’s fighting position.

A moment earlier, out of the corner of his eye, the forty-year-old Janson had caught sight of more than a dozen Stahlhelm helmets weaving through the underbrush in front of his foxhole. Janson leapt into the infiltrating column of Germans, who had positioned five machine guns to annihilate the 49th Company. He impaled the belly of the first soldier and twisted the bayonet’s keen blade, eviscerating him. Withdrawing his bayonet, the gunny lunged again, penetrating the torso of the next field-gray-clad soldier.

Hamilton described the furious fight: “Shooting to beat the devil. Not more than twenty feet from us was a line of [about] fifteen German helmets and five light machine guns just coming into action.” All alone, Janson lurched at the Germans.

His war cry alerted the rest of his company who, adding their efforts to Janson’s heroics and baleful bayonet, killed or scattered the column, forcing them to flee and abandon their weapons. Severely wounded, the Marine veteran, with his daring charge, saved the 49th and the hill. Had the Germans been able to set up their guns, they would have obliterated the 49th and retaken the hill.

For his bravery and disregard for his own safety, Body Bearer Gunnery Sergeant Ernest Janson would become the first recipient of the Medal of Honor for the AEF. But that was not his only decoration. As a result of his “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty,” Janson received both the Navy Medal of Honor and the Army Medal of Honor; the Purple Heart; the Médaille pour la Bravoure Militaire from Montenegro; the Cruz de Guerra, Third Class, from the Portuguese government; the Croce di Guerra from the Italian government; and the Croix de Guerre with Palm, the French Fourragere, and the Médaille Militaire from the French government.

Throughout the rest of the day and night, the Germans relentlessly counterattacked Hamilton’s tiny force of Marines holding the hill. Through a runner who had to weave his way past the Germans, Hamilton sent a desperate message to his battalion CO, Major Julius Turrill:

Our position is not very good because of salient. We are entrenching and have four         [captured German] machine guns in place. We have been counterattacked several times     but so far have held the hill. Our casualties are very heavy. We need medical aid badly,      and cannot locate any hospital apprentices and need many. We will need artillery assistance to this line tonight.

Ammunition of all kinds needed. . . . All my officers are gone.

9:50 a.m.  George W. Hamilton

The Marines held the hill. Later on the afternoon of June 6, reinforcements trickled into Hamilton’s position. The first to arrive were the missing companies earmarked for the initial assault: 1/5’s 17th Company and the 66th Company along with the 8th Machine Gun Company, followed by a company of Army combat engineers whose spades and pickaxes could dig deeper entrenchments into the hill.

Captured machine guns and accurate rifle fire kept the Germans at bay. The marksmanship of Hamilton’s men had a chilling effect on the Germans. One Marine reflected, “Aimed sustained rifle fire that comes from nowhere in particular and picks off men—it brought the war home to the individual and demoralized him.”

Nowhere was the war “brought home” more than with the wounded. Suffering from multiple injuries, Janson struggled to stay alive. Wounded and dying men carpeted the fields and hill. The stifling sun and lack of water drove men mad. Germans cried out: “Ach, Himmel, hilf, hilf! . . . Liebe Gott!” (“Oh, heaven, help, help, for the love of God!”) In the midst of the carnage, shells rained down on the hill in a killing pattern, searching for men with their deadly shrapnel and by concussion.

Immediate battle field medicine was brutal and crude. Navy corpsmen assigned to the 49th and 67th worked overtime tending to the wounded, exhausting their limited supply of bandages. At the beginning of 1917, the US Navy Hospital Corps had just seventeen hundred men in its ranks. A vigorous recruitment effort brought the total number of corpsmen up to six thousand, or about 3.5 percent of the total Navy and Marine personnel just prior to America’s entry into World War I.

Because the Marine Corps had no medical personnel of its own, the Marines used Navy corpsmen to tend to the wounded. Typically five to seven corpsmen accompanied each rifle company, with another five to seven assigned to the battalion aid station; in all, the 4th Marine Brigade contained 350 Navy medical personnel. Serving alongside the Marines in France was one of the most difficult assignments a corpsman could receive. Despite the prominent Red Cross armbands on their uniforms, the corpsmen were common targets for the enemy. Hamilton required more to tend the scores of wounded Marines.

German stretcher-bearers worked in the fields, and initially, the Americans allowed them to perform their duty and collect the wounded. But the vicious German counterattacks and the dwindling numbers of Marines changed the calculus. One incident galvanized Hamilton’s men. Wind lifted the blanket on one of the German stretchers. Through their field glasses, the Marines could see that, instead of a wounded soldier, the stretcher party was transporting a light machine gun—a blatant violation of laws of war. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, the enemy medics became a legitimate military target, and accurate Marine rifle fire killed the group. News of the Boche ruse quickly spread, and the Marines didn’t take chances with the lives of the few remaining members of the 49th and 67th Companies. A letter taken later from a dead Feldwebel (deputy platoon leader) summed up the Germans’ viewpoint of the lethal new enemy they faced: “The Americans are savages. They kill everything that moves.” Dispatches from the German front line to headquarters also alluded to the ferocity of their Marine opponents, referring to the Leathernecks by the moniker Teufel Hunden (Devil Dogs)—a title the Marines proudly use to refer to themselves to this day.