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Beautiful water, which flowed from a clear spring in a picturesque French village, inspired the name Bel- leau. The old, dense wood nearby, which undulated around the adjacent wheat fields, thus became known as Belleau Wood, or Bo is de Belleau.
In 1918, these woods became the arena for one of the most savage and critical battles of World War I. In this battle filled with individual acts of heroism, two gallant men are etched together in history.
One was Dr. Orlando H. Petty, a prominent Philadelphia physician. A pioneer in the field of diabetes, he held the post of chief of the department of metabolic diseases at the Philadelphia General Hospital and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Medicine.
In 1917, Dr. Petty, married and the father of two small children, was at the apex of his professional career.
That year, a heavy cloud of despondency hung over England and France because of the devastating casualties already suffered in the war. Confusion and low morale pervaded the Allied high command, affecting the ground troops who were already exhausted and dispirited from years of fighting trench warfare.
When the United States declared war against Germany in April 1917, it had little manpower with the proper training to fight on the battlefields of France. The Marines were better trained for the operation, but their number was only a fraction of the strength needed. They were hastily
Generations of Marine recruits have glowed on hearing the response made by handsome Captain Lloyd Williams to his French superior officer: “Retreat, Hell. We just got here!” The retort is credited by some as having changed the course of the battle which changed the course of World War I and may have inspired the same kind of stubborn courage in bespectacled Navy Lieutenant Orlando Petty, seen in Marine uniform, as he fought to save Williams’s life.
recalled from their various stations and assembled into the 5th Marine Regiment, part of the Army’s 2nd Division.
A massive recruitment drive was launched. Men enlisted in droves. They came from farms and cities. Colleges were nearly emptied as students left school to serve their country. At age 43, Dr. Petty enlisted.
Captain Lloyd Williams of Virginia, a dashing young professional Marine, was commander of the 51st Marine Company which was part of the 5th Marine Regiment. He would also play a key role at Belleau Wood.
By June 1918, the war was at a critical period. The Germans continued their relentless drive into the Marne Valley and other sectors and were determined to take Paris before more American reinforcements arrived. Scores of weary and disheartened French soldiers retreated through American lines. They feared a final murderous enemy attack on the western front.
. At Belleau Wood, a French major sent a written order to Captain Williams to have the 51st Marine Company fall back.
Captain Williams’s response was immediate and fiery': “Retreat, hell! We just got here!’’
The captain’s words spread like wildfire throughout the ranks and stiffened resolve among the fighting men. .
Captain Williams then sent his own written message to his battalion commander: ‘ ‘The French major gave written orders to fall back. I have countermanded the order. Kindly see that the French do not shorten their artillery range.”
A first aid station had been set up in a small house in the town of Lucy, near Belleau Wood. On the morning of 10 June, Lieutenant Petty, a Naval Reserve medical officer with the 5th Marine Regiment, left the station and went up to the front line at Belleau Wood. He talked briefly with
Captain Williams, who was in good spirits, preparing for the next day’s action. .
Lieutenant Petty, who deeply admired Captain Williams, later wrote: “His men worshipped him, his superior officers counseled with him and trusted him.”
On 11 June, when Captain Williams’s company was well into the woods, it was hit by the massive fire of machine guns and mortar, suffering heavy losses. Captain Williams was wounded and was removed to the first aid station.
A fresh wave of Marines replaced their fallen comrades and engaged in fierce fighting against the enemy. They never gave up the offensive.
Lieutenant Petty, dressing the wounds of the injured, happened to glance out the door of the first aid station and saw a man’s feet with officer’s boots on a litter carried by German prisoners. As he ordered the man to be brought inside, a shell burst under the litter, killing the prisoners.
When the smoke cleared, the doctor saw that the officer was Captain Williams, conscious but badly wounded. As the medical officer attempted to treat Captain Williams, a poisonous gas shell burst in the first aid station. Lieutenant Petty immediately put a gas mask on the captain, whose own mask had been lost in battle. The doctor’s gas mask had been partially tom away in the blast and was useless.
The first aid station was in flames. Lieutenant Petty, although violently sick from inhaling the gas, dragged and half-carried Williams to the comparative protection of a stone wall, near a graveyard, as shells fell in their path.
Captain Williams was mortally wounded. He asked the doctor to leave him and to come back “when it quiets down a little.” Lieutenant Petty refused. He gave the captain medication to ease his pain and, although nearly overcome by the gas, he managed to stumble out and stop an ambulance.
As the Marine captain was being lifted into the ambulance, he smiled and said, “Thank you, Doctor.”
Less than two hours after reaching the hospital, Captain Williams died.
Lieutenant Petty was awarded his country’s highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor. The citation for the medal read:
“For extraordinary heroism while serving with the 5th Regiment, U. S. Marines, in France, during the attack on the Bois de Belleau, June 11th, 1918. While under heavy fire of high explosive and gas shells in the town of Lucy where his dressing station was located, he attended to and evacuated the wounded under most trying conditions. Having been knocked to the ground by an exploding gas shell which tore his mask, he discarded the mask and courageously continued his work. His dressing station being hit and demolished, he personally helped carry Captain Williams, wounded, through the shell fire to a place of safety.”
Captain Williams’s leadership is credited by some historians as having changed the outcome of the battle of Belleau Wood. The enemy was stopped there, and the Allies counterattacked. After pulling back, the Germans never regained the offensive at Belleau Wood. This action
marked a turning point in World War L[1]
Although the Germans waged several major battles against the Allies at the same time as the battle of Belleau Wood, the psychological value of the American victory at this battle was of enormous importance to troops in other areas. From the brink of defeat, the Allies pushed on to victory. Within a few months, the war was over.
Dr. Petty returned to practicing medicine in Philadelphia. He wrote a definitive book on diabetes, became director of public health for the city of Philadelphia, and was active in numerous medical and civic organizations for the remainder of his life.
In July 1919, he received a letter from Captain Williams’s widow asking him about her husband’s fatal day. He replied that her husband was “a super man who fell on the field of honor defending the highest ideals of humanity.” His letter concluded with the wish that she would “meet me and my family sometime.”
Mrs. Williams had the name of her young daughter, Selena, an only child, legally changed to Lloyd.
Not only has Captain Williams's rejoinder, “Retreat, hell! We just got here!” remained part of Marine lore, but Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher quoted it in a speech to the Confederation of British Industry in June 1981. Standing firm on her program of economic restraints, Prime Minister Thatcher insisted that she would resist political pressures to ease the curbs. She then quoted the American officer.
A few weeks later. Prime Minister Thatcher responded to an inquiry from Captain Williams’s daughter. She wrote Lloyd Williams Moore: “I was very interested to hear that the courageous remarks which I quoted at the end of my speech came from your father.
“One of my staff here came across [the quotation] while browsing through some history books recently and drew it to my attention because he thought it exactly summed up our feeling that it would be a terrible mistake to throw away now the prospect of success, built on the basis of so much effort.
“I’m sure,” she concluded her letter, “that these were the feelings of your father.”
Prime Minister Thatcher used the quotation again in a television address during the 1982 Falklands Conflict.
Dr. Petty’s son, Orville, a retired corporate executive, has hung his father’s Congressional Medal of Honor citation and other related awards on a wall of the Pettys’ country house near Princeton, New Jersey.
In the summer of 1982, Orville’s wife Betsey gave a luncheon for a bride-to-be, the daughter of friends. The bride’s mother, who was raised in North Carolina, was idly reading the citation when she cried out in astonishment. The widow of Captain Williams, she said, had been her mother’s closest friend. Furthermore, their daughter, Lloyd, and her husband were planning to attend the upcoming wedding.
So it was that in September 1982 the son and daughter of the two heroes met, 63 years after Lieutenant Petty had told Mrs. Williams he hoped they would.