July, 1918, was a red-letter month in the annals of American belligerency on the European battle field. Events of historic moment, in which American soldiers, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French, were irresistible protagonists, crowded one upon another. They had got into their stride; they were seasoned and in the pink of condition; no German heroics could withstand them. As a sort of prelude to their memorable participation in General Foch's offensive stroke of July 18, 1918, the American troops undertook a little offensive of their own to the west of Château-Thierry, and accomplished their object with devastating results to the enemy. The investment and capture of Belleau Wood to the northwest had completed a chain of operations designed to secure the American positions. But there remained an awkward loop or sag which it was deemed desirable to remove. Its straightening involved the occupation of a little village called Vaux, with its tap on the main railroad line into Château-Thierry, the capture of a knoblike crest of ground designated as Hill 192, on the edge of Clerembauts Wood, and also the routing of Germans from a sizable cluster of trees, midway between the two other points and known as the Bois de la Roche. The front of the attack was about two and a half miles, stretching from the village of Triangle, then north to the Bois Clerembauts, across the Paris road, and running south of Vaux. Vaux was an important objective, being considered vital to the Germans for holding Château-Thierry. The Americans went over Vaux and established themselves just beyond the northern edge of the village, taking in the same rush the hills just to the west of Vaux. This eliminated the German wedge almost completely, the only remaining portion being at the wood of Clerembauts, where the Germans were in a pocket. A merciless, methodical artillery fire was leveled at the German positions on the morning of July 1, 1918. American guns, big and little, hurled torrents of high explosive and gas shells on the village with a deadly accuracy of aim. By noon Vaux was on fire. Every house had been hit at least once. A shell would fall on some little habitation, a cloud of yellow smoke would arise, and the house was no more. The American guns continued to belch all day with an unemotional, matter-of-fact regularity from the depths of a score of leafy woods. In the evening the infantry advanced. They swept through the enemy lines and, had their object been to continue the advance, they could have done so with the greatest ease, as virtually everything before them had been cleared.