It was the evening of Memorial Day, May 30, 1918, that they were ordered to the most critical point in the battle lines. Paris was threatened more sorely than it had been since the Battle of the Marne. The Germans were only forty miles away. Hurdling the Chemin-des-Dames, taking Soissons, they had overcome the strongest French defenses, and were moving on at the rate of five or six miles a day. Capture of the city seemed imminent. Parisians by thousands were trekking to safer abodes. Archives were packed; preparations made to move government offices and set up a temporary capital in the southwest. To the rescue came the Americans--the Second Division, which included the Marines; and elements of the Third and Twenty-eighth Divisions. "Move at 10 p. m. by bus to new area," was the order received by the Fifth and Sixth Marine Regiments, and the Sixth Machine-Gun Battalion. Seventy-five miles from the field, they had to travel in camions, not even the officers knowing their ultimate destination. But all were in happy mood, sure they were bound for the front. The roads were crowded with French, men, women and children hurrying away from the battle lines, seeking safety. Only the Americans rode ahead--always forward. They had no tanks, gas-shells, or flame projectors. They were untried in open warfare and they had to go up against Germany's best troops. The French hesitated to risk all to them in the crisis. "Let us fight in our own way," said General Harbord, "and we will stop them." Permission was granted. In their own way they fought and won. Colonel (later Brigadier General) A. W. Catlin, who commanded the Sixth Regiment, showed his officers the map, indicating the points to be held, and the maps were passed around to the men so they would have all the information available. "I hold," said he, "that men like ours fight none the worse for knowing just what they are fighting for." One secret of Marine efficiency in combat is the comradeship between officers and men. "Theirs not to reason why" has no place in their vocabulary. When they arrived, June 1st, the Marines were told to "dig in." As tools they used bayonets and the lids of their mess-gear. "Say, you'd be surprised to know just how much digging you can do under those circumstances," remarked Private Geiger afterwards as he lay wounded in a hospital. "Bullets and shrapnel came from everywhere. You'd work until it seemed you couldn't budge another inch, when a shell would hit right close and then you'd start digging with as much energy as if you had just begun." At ten o'clock, on June 2nd, they were ordered to back up the overtaxed French. It was the second battalion of the Fifth Marines, and particularly the 55th Company, which bore the brunt of the assault at Les Mares Ferme, the point where the Germans came nearest Paris.