The enemy had augmented his line recently, the Americans having pressed him so hard that he was forced to throw three new divisions of his best troops into the breach. Against them the Americans advanced in a solid phalanx, singing and whistling "Yankee Doodle," and cheering. No barrage preceded them, although there had been some advance artillery preparations. On certain parts of the line the resistance was weak; but in other instances our marines ran into German machine-gun nests which, in some cases, succeeded in inflicting considerable casualties. But they did not stop the Americans. Marines with hand grenades and rifles charged the machine guns, wiping out the nests, and in one instance capturing a gun and its crew. [Illustration: Where the American marines stopped the German advance on the Marne.] From the new line gained by the first attack, a second American advance was made at five in the evening, and by night it reached Torcy and Bouresches. The next morning, June 7, 1918, the Americans were holding Torcy in the face of repeated counterattacks and pushing back the Germans through the streets of Bouresches. Torcy was not part of the American objective, but the eager marines swept into the village by their own momentum. The hardest fighting took place in the wood of Belleau, to the east of Torcy and between that village and Bouresches. The wood of Belleau into which the marines penetrated with such ardor proved a hornets' nest. It was ambushed with machine guns, which hampered the American advance and caused many casualties. There were about twenty of them in the plateau formed by the wood. The Americans vainly tried to demolish them by rifles, mortars, and hand grenades. Finally, despite the streams of bullets, they surrounded the plateau, cut off the Germans in it, and went ahead, capturing a hill beyond the wood and inflicting heavy losses on the Germans as they withdrew.