World War One - Chateau Thierry
Having read a Hitler article that appeared in Pathfinder Magazine during the winter of 1937, a previously unknown German immigrant in New Jersey wrote to the editors and revealed that he had served with Hitler during the Battle of Chateau Thierry (May 31 - July 18, 1918). Perhaps the writer, Hans W. Thielborn, suffered some memory loss as a result of a head wound during the battle - but records show that the fight had been over for some ten days by the time the two interacted. The American performance at the battle of Chateau-Thierry proved to General Foche that the Americans had the necessary stuff, and it was widely recognized that the Doughboys played the key roll in keeping the Germans out of Paris.
The attached STARS AND STRIPES article is extremely detailed as to the individual units (both French and American) that participated in rolling back the Germans along the Marne.
Rumor has it that when the U.S. Army's senior staff officers had learned of the victory that the U.S. Marines had achieved at the Bois de Belleau in the summer of 1918, one of them had remarked, "Those head-line hunting bastards!" When reading this next piece you will immediately get a sense that the army was fed-up with the folks at home believing that the same Marines were responsible for the Army's success at Chateau-Thierry. The war was already over by the time this piece appeared, making it clear to all that Chateau-Thierry was a feather in the cap for the Army, and no one else. The veterans magazine that published the attached column, THE HOME SECTOR, was edited by Harold Ross, who, just a few months earlier, had held that same post at THE STARS and STRIPES; the article was written by Alexander Woollcott - previously a journalist with that same paper. I'm sure that this was quite common in 1919, but it would seem that these two men wanted to be forthright with their readers and set straight an issue that they wrote about when they were in the employment of Uncle Sam: the Doughboys who were victorious at Chateau-Thiery and Belleau Wood did not save Paris. Just as German historians have insisted for many years, those German divisions were simply not headed for Paris. "Monday, June 2 [1919], was a holiday in the 2nd Division in the bridgehead on the Rhine. The anniversary of the battle of Chateau-Thierry was observed. It is just a year ago that infantry and Marines of the 2nd Division were thrown against the Boche on the Paris-Metz road near Chateau-Thierry, and from that moment on the Americans were in continual fighting until November 11." In 1923, a seasoned war reporter returned to the battleground of Chateau Thierry and walk the old turf where so many had died. | | |
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