In this battle in the streets, and again at night, the young American soldiers showed a courage and determination which aroused the admiration of their French colonial comrades. With their machine guns they covered the withdrawal of troops across the bridge before its destruction, and although under severe fire themselves, kept all the approaches to the bank under a rain of bullets which nullified all the subsequent efforts of the enemy to cross the river. Every attempt of the Germans to elude the vigilance of the Americans resulted in disaster. During the last two days the enemy has renounced the occupation of the northern part of Château-Thierry, which the American machine guns have made untenable. It now belongs to No Man's Land, as, since the destruction of the bridges, it is not worth while for the French to garrison it. Against their casualties the Americans can set a much greater loss inflicted by their bullets on the enemy. They have borne their full part in what a French staff officer well qualified to judge described as one of the finest feats of the war. THE QUICK ADVANCE The story of the quick advance of the American marines was related in detail by Wilbur Forrest in The New York Tribune as follows: It is a narrative that stands for more, perhaps, than most of those written in American history books. It is literally another story of American minute men who abandoned the figurative plowshares of peaceful training camps and rushed to the scene of action. They met the enemy with weapons they knew how to handle. On May 30 the enemy reached the Marne east of Château-Thierry and began a forceful advance along the north bank toward the city. The same day American machine gunners received orders 100 kilometers to the rear to jump into auto trucks and hurry into action. They started almost immediately, and an all-night journey found the battalion at 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 31st on a hill overlooking Château-Thierry. All around them French batteries were firing full tilt. The enemy was advancing on the city. Right here those American machine gunners got their first glimpse of real war. German shells crashed into villages within plain view and the little city below them was not being spared. The officers chose a small nearby village as headquarters and the marines waited for darkness before loading little black machine guns on their shoulders and marching into Château-Thierry. GERMAN SHELLS RAKE CITY