The Allied contingent was made up of the American 2nd and 3rd Divisions and included a brigade of the Marine Corps. Belleau Wood was the battle that defined the Marines as something independent from the U. They were established as an elite fighting force, embracing a kind of fighting spirit that the Marines are now well-known for.
The story goes that the Americans arrived on the battlefield just as a French unit was withdrawing. We just got here. This encapsulates the fighting spirit of the Americans in , that to the American eyes was utterly lacking in the French troops on their right and on their left.
It is important to state that the French soldiers were not attacking in the same gung-ho fashion as the Americans because they had already seen the human cost. Indeed, the Marines suffered heavy casualties during the battle. Williams himself was later injured and then killed in a shell blast while being evacuated.
We have no way of knowing if the story is true. These expressions capture that fighting ethos of the United States Marine Corps, that desire to identify themselves as different from the Army to which they were subordinated at this battle. It completely encapsulates the spirit, the zeitgeist of a moment.
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