Then followed, a few days later, the fierce and stubborn attacks of the Marines upon the defenses which the Germans had set up and which they held with determination. Belleau Wood, a jungle of underbrush, heavy foliage and piles of boulders, they had filled with machine gun nests. The Marines attacked in wave formation, rushing, halting, rushing again, the rear waves plunging forward over the dead and wounded bodies of those who had fallen. It was almost a month before the Americans reached their final objectives and completely routed the Germans from Belleau Wood, to be known ever after as the Wood of the American Marines because of the valor and heroism with which it was won. They fought day and night, day after day, much of the time without sleep or water or hot food. Their officers sent back messages that the men were exhausted and must be relieved and were told that the lines must hold and if possible continue to attack. And the lines again went forward. They fought from tree to tree, they charged machine gun nests with the bayonet, wiped them out and turned the guns against the retreating foe. Some companies lost every commissioned officer, some that had entered the battle 250 strong dwindled to fifty or sixty. The Germans threw in fresh troops, their best Prussian Guards, with orders to retake the lost positions at whatever cost. But the Marines and their fellows of the Regular Army held on, repulsed the fresh attacks, and slowly advanced their positions. And at last, toward the end of June, with some reënforcements and following an artillery barrage that tore the woods into fragments, the Marines made their final successful rushes and with rifle and bayonet cleaned out all the remaining machine gun nests. The enemy had been turned back, Paris had been saved, the morale of the best German troops had been undermined and the Allied commanders and armies had been shown what raw American troops could do. After the battle of Belleau Wood neither British nor French commanders had any doubt about sending American troops anywhere, no matter whether they had had much or little training and little or no experience. At Soissons, in July, the Marines again showed their valor and at the battle of St. Mihiel, in mid-September, they took over a portion of the line and, attacking with two days’ objectives ahead of them, won them all by mid-afternoon of the first day. And early in October the Second Division, brigaded with the French and still composed of Marines and Regulars, swept forward in an attack on Blanc Mont Ridge, east of Rheims, the keystone of the German main position, for the possession of which German and Allied Armies had fought many bitter battles. The Marines and their companions attacked the rugged and wooded Blanc Mont, rushed the enemy before them across its summit and pushed him down the slope, repulsed counter attacks and forced the Germans to fall back from before Rheims and yield positions they had held for four years.