Through grain fields with bayonets fixed,
from Belleau Woods the Germans came.
The sixth Marines in shallow pits
unleashed a deadly metal rain.
The French collapsed upon the left
Their flank exposed by craven fear
The Marines held fast when urged to flee:
"Retreat?, Monsieur? We just got here."
By June the sixth, it fell to them
to take a Hill to save the French.
A German company with machine guns
waited for them, well entrenched.
Their tactics from another war,
Audacious yes, but not too clever
"Come on, you bastards" Dan Daly roared,
"Do you really want to live forever?"
With casualties high, so many dead
The Marine Corps held the hill by night.
Counter attacks were fended off
some times with fists and K bar knife.
Now the cannon of both sides
rained steel where the combatants stood:
A once beautiful preserve of princes
was turned into a shattered wood.
Through mustard gas and cannon fire
The Marines advanced into the Wood.
Silenced machine guns and cut bared wire
till the enemy fled, this time for good.
Before the flag at Iwo flew,
Before the Canal's jungle squalor
Marines were nicknamed "Devil Dogs"
by the Germans who admired valor.