First to Fight: The U.S. Marines in World War I

“Retreat, hell! We just got here!” The words of Captain Lloyd Williams at Belleau Wood in June 1918 entered United States Marine Corps legend, and the Marine Brigade’s actions there—along with the censor’s failure to take out the name of the Brigade in the battle reports—made the Corps famous.

The Marines went to war as part of the American Expeditionary Force, bitterly resented by the Army and General Pershing. The Army tried to use them solely as labor troops and replacements, but the German spring offensive of 1918 forced the issue. The French begged Pershing to commit his partially trained men, and two untested American divisions, supported by British and French units, were thrown into the path of five German divisions. Three horrific weeks later, the Marines held the entirety of Belleau Wood. The Marines then fought in the almost forgotten Blanc Mont Ridge Offensive in October, as well as in every well-known AEF action until the end of the war.

This book looks at all the operations of the Marine Corps in World War I, covers the activities of both ground and air units, and considers the units that supported the Marine Brigade. It examines how, during the war years, the Marine Corps changed from a small organization of naval security detachments to an elite land combat force.

Table of Contents

List of Plates
Authors’ Preface
Maps

1 Background to War
2 Making Marines
3 Over There
4 Into the Lines—Les Eparges
5 Belleau Wood
6 Replacements
7 The Sick, the Wounded, and the Dead
8 Soissons
9 The Women Marines
10 St. Mihiel
11 Always on the Job: The Atlantic Fleet and Foreign Interventions
12 Blanc Mont Ridge
13 Marine Aviation
14 Meuse-Argonne
15 Victory and Occupation
16 Aftermath

Appendix: Equipment and Weapons
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index

Oscar E. “Ed” Gilbert Jr. served as an artilleryman and NCO instructor in the Marine Corps Reserve before earning a Ph.D., working for the Geological Survey in Alabama, and teaching at Auburn University. He enjoyed a three-decade career in worldwide oil exploration. Ed was the author of many books, including Marine Corps Tank Battles in Korea (2006), and Marine Corps Tank Battles in Vietnam (2008). He was awarded the 2016 General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award for Tanks in Hell: A Marine Corps Tank Company on Tarawa (2015). Ed passed away in February 2019.

Romain V. Cansière is a native of southern France, interested in the U. S. Marine Corps since his teenage years. His current historical research is on the Marine Corps in World War I.

Oscar and Romain co-authored Tanks In Hell: A Marine Corps Tank Company On Tarawa, winner of the 2016 General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award for distinguished non-fiction.