Floyd Gibbons, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, a noncombatant who wanted to see the combat he was there to report, was in that memorable action. He lost his left eye there, and was otherwise severely shattered, but he got his story through. His home paper some months afterward gave Gibbons well earned credit for that contribution to current history. It said he "helped to put the Marines where they belong in the war's history, for he was with them in their early exploits and fell in one of their battles. Six thousand out of 8,000 engaged was their toll. They fought with the French through Belleau Wood, heartening the brave, tired, discouraged poilus, and after they came out upon the other side the name of the battlefield was changed to the 'Wood of the American Marines.' Mr. Gibbons says that when Marshal Foch began his great offensive, which in cosmic importance is second only to creation, he selected the units in which he had the most faith. These units were chosen not because they were braver nor more sacrificial, but because they knew. They were the Foreign Legion of France, two divisions of American Regulars, and the United States Marines." From that day there was no change in the favorable fortunes of war on the western front. AMERICANS CAN FIGHT AND YELL An eyewitness of the first days of the Chateau Thierry battle thus describes the capture of the Beauleau wood: "The Americans moved stealthily with fixed bayonet until they got into the edge of the woods and atop of the German machine gun-tiers. Then the farm boys cheered, and the lumberjacks shouted, and the Indians yelled. They were where they could mix it at close range with the Boche, and that was what they wanted. "Their yells could be heard a mile away. They were up against two of the Kaiser's redoubtable divisions, the Two Hundredth Jaegers and the Two Hundred and Sixteenth reserve division. They fought with vim and joy. "They had lost comrades at the hands of the Germans and now were to avenge them. No quarter was asked or expected. The Germans had orders to fight to the death and the Americans needed no such order. "Without much artillery on either side and without gas, the Americans fought the Germans through that woods, four kilometers (nearly three miles) long, for six hours. At last we got through and took up a position across the northern end of the woods. "Perhaps the most sensational part of the fight was when about Germans got around behind our men. They were chased into a clearing, where the Americans went at them from all sides with the bayonet, and I am told that three prisoners were all that were left of the Germans." "How did you do it?" inquired a dazed Prussian officer, taken prisoner at Chateau Thierry by an American soldier. "We are storm troops." "Storm hell!" said the American. "I come from Kansas, where we have cyclones."