On June 6, the Americans began the assault on that wood and the strategic positions adjacent, the towns of Torcy and Bouresches being the objectives. At 5 p. m. the Marines attacked. It was a desperate task. Before they started, their officers cheered them. "Give 'em hell!" was the command Colonel Catlin is said to have given. They gave it to them, but paid a heavy price in blood. As the Marines advanced, the German artillery let loose a storm of fire. Men on every hand were killed or injured. Brave Berry was struck in the arm, but with the blood streaming from his sleeve, he kept on until exhausted. Just as daring Sibley's men reached the edge of the woods a sniper's bullet hit Colonel Catlin in the chest. Severely wounded, he was relieved in command by Lieutenant Colonel Harry Lee. [Illustration: Reproduced by permission of the Ladies' Home Journal from the painting by Frank E. Schoonover THE MARINES IN BELLEAU WOOD] But the lines never halted or wavered. Fighting strictly according to American methods, a rush, a halt, a rush again, in four-wave formation, the rear waves taking over the work of those who had fallen before them, the Marines moved ever forward. Passing over the bodies of their dead comrades, they plunged ahead. They might be torn to bits, but behind them were more waves, and the attack went on. "Men fell like flies," reported an officer writing from the field. Companies that had entered the battle 250 strong dwindled to fifty and sixty, with a sergeant in command; but the attack did not falter. At 9:45 o'clock that night Bouresches was taken by Lieutenant James F. Robertson and twenty-odd men of his platoon. They were soon joined by reinforcements. The enemy made counter attacks, but the Marines held the town. Leading his men through the machine-gun fire, Captain Donald Duncan, of the 96th Company, was killed. In Belleau Wood the fighting had been literally from tree to tree, stronghold to stronghold; and it was a fight which must last for weeks before victory was complete. Every rocky formation was a German machine-gun nest, almost impossible to reach by artillery or grenades. There was only one way to wipe out these nests--by the bayonet. And by this method were they wiped out, for United States Marines, bare-chested, shouting their battle cry of "E-e-e-e-e y-a-a-h-h-h yip!" charged straight into the murderous fire from those guns and won! Out of those that charged, in more than one instance, only one would reach the stronghold. There, with his bayonet as his only weapon, he would kill or capture the defenders and then, swinging the gun about, turn it against remaining German positions.