On 30 May, during Regimental Review and Ceremonies, Field Order Number 3, Second Division, 1918, was received, directing the Ninth Infantry to proceed to Beauvais-les-Nonoins on the 31 May, clearing Chaumont at 8:00 A. M. Billetting [sic] parties were at once organized and started out. Orders were changed, however, and the Regiment was directed to hold itself in readiness to move at once. The Regiment stood to, the men sleeping that night in their equipment. A long line of French camions formed up in Loconville and under new orders the Regiment was assembled there before daybreak, ready to embuss. The start, however, was not made until well along in the forenoon, Through terrific dust and heat the train rambled along until the middle of the afternoon, when those elements of this camion train still intact messed into a big jam of traffic in May-en-Multien. The best information obtainable was that the Regiment would bivouac there during the night and take up a defensive position on the heights North and East of the town. Billeting parties again started out to nearby villages. The main highroad at this point was filled with a solid column of French artillery, calvary, infantry and thousands of French peasants, carrying their household goods, or driving ox carts filled with children and old people, and all their possessions, going to the rear. Before the Regiment was entirely de bussed new orders arrived. These instructions were to march to Crouy-sur-Ourcq and bivouac Northeast of that town. All elements of the Regiment not having arrived, Lt. Col. Stone remained at this point to take charge; while Col. Upton led such elements as had arrived to the fields on the heights designated, where by nightfall the First and Second Battalions managed to assemble. The Third Battalion had not yet arrived at the debussing point. The men bivouaced [sic bivouacked] in the wheat. The enemy had undoubtedly seen the approach of the Regiment and his night bombing planes dropped bombs, but no casualties were suffered. Sectors were allotted to the battalions and a reconnaissance of the position was about to be made, when new orders were received; and with Col. Upton leading his two Battalions on foot, the Ninth Infantry started for Chateau-Thierry to get between the Boche and Paris, via Colombes, Dhiusy [sic], Montreuil-aux-Lyons [sic], to the cross roads at Ventelet Farm, on the Paris-Metz Road.

This march lasted throughout the night and until well after daylight on the morning 1 June. It was made with only the hourly halt, the men not having been fed for thirty-six hours, and being constantly forced to march off the road on account of the streams of French soldiery and civilians who were beating a disorganized retreat in the direction from which the Regiment had come. The French soldiery which this Regiment passed assured us "Le Guerre est finis" and that no Americans need try to stop the angry Boche, who had a running start for Paris and could not be stopped. It is only fair to state that most of these men were intoxicated and that when the actual line was reached there were well organized French units in place facing the Germans. They expected, however, to be forced to fall back at any minute by the on-rushing of the large and victorious forces which were bearing down upon that highroad.

At Ventelet Cross-Roads French staff officers stopped the Colonel and directed the Commanding Officer to clear the road of troops immediately, as we were in plain view of the enemy, and gave him an order from the general commanding the Twenty-First French. Army Corps, which placed the Regiment under command of General Gouraud. The Regiment was directed to throw two battalions scross [sic] the line Bonnel-le-Thiolet, and to organize Redoubt 201 at the head of the ravine of La Croisette on the Paris-Chateau-Thierry Road with the other battalion. This order also stated that the leading battalion would occupy Thiolet if it reached there in time. This last direction indicates the state of the line at this point.

The Regiment marched across country to these positions at once, Regimental Headquarters being established at Les Aulnois-Bontemps; First Battalion on the right of the line; Second Battalion on the left; and the Third Battalion, which came up at noon, as regimental reserve, with "K" and "M" companies on Redoubt 201, and "I" and "L" companies, with the Battalion P. C. in the Northeast corner of the Aulnois Woods. Small out posts of French cavalry occupied the Northern and Eastern edges of the Bois-de-la-Marette. The Regiment proceeded to dig in. First Battalion P. C. was at La Nouette; Second Battalion P. C. at La Croisette. No attempt in force was made by the Germans upon this position while the French cavalry held the outpost line, but on the afternoon of 2 June, the first heavy shelling of the area began, the woods particularly receiving attention, and accurate registration of the whole area proceeded without interruption almost day and night. The Twenty-Third Infantry came in on the left; Brigade P. C. was established at Ventelet Farm; the Third Battalion passed from Regimental to Brigade reserve; Battalion P. C., and "I" and "L" companies left Aulnois Wood, and with two companies of the Fifth Machine Gun Battalion, moved into Coupru on 5 June. The Regiment at this time being without its kitchens or Supply Company, which were proceeding overland, obtained its food from the newly deserted villages and farm houses in its sector, and from the game which it could scare up in the nearby woods. Division trucks brought up reserve rations and ammunition shortly, and on 6 June, regimental transporation [sic] arrived, and the Regiment again proceeded to function on its own.

The enemy had discovered that there was an organized line opposing his advance and prepared both with his artillery and aeroplane reconnaissance to continue his advance. On the night of 6-7 June the Second Battalion advanced the line to the higher ground Northeast of the Bois-de-la-Marette, "F" and "G" companies taking up these advanced positions despite heavy machine gun fire, and artillery fire from both enemy and our own batteries. The line ran from the Southeast corner of the. Bois-de-la-Marette, along the Eastern edge of the Wood to a point on the Paris Road at Le Thiolet. The Germans attacked the entire Brigade Front, concentrating heavily against the Twenty-Third Infantry, to whose assistance "K" and "M" companies, then at Redoubt 201, moved up behind the Third Battalion of the Twenty-Third Infantry as support, near Le Thiolet. "I" and "L" companies left Coupru and occupied the Redoubt, standing to from 9:00 P.M. to 3:00 A.M. The Boche attack along the front line was repulsed, and on 7 June the First Battalion moved to the Northwest, in conformity with, and in support of, the new front line. On the night 11-12 June the First Battalion took over the front line sector from three hundred meters East of Bourbelin to Le Thiolet, inclusive; "D" company relieving "H" company; "B" and "H" companies constituting the regimental reserve, "B" in South edge of woods North of La Nouette Farm, "H" in the woods just Southeast of Tafournay Farm. On the Redoubt, Company "L" relieved Company "K". On the night 12-13 June, Company "I" relieved Company "M", it being impracticable to relieve more than one company at a time on account of the violent shelling to which this Redoubt was subjected. During the entire period of stay in this sector the Third Battalion, with three companies working each night, and one company garrisoning the Redoubt, organized this position the high ground behind Bouresches, from Belleau Wood to Triangle Farm (called Line A). On the night 13-14 June, the Regiment took over this Sector, 177.1-258.9, to the Eastern limit of the Division Sector; "B" company relieving the right company of the Twenty-Third Infantry, which extended over to include Bouresches "D" on the right of "B" company, P.C. First Battalion, (Major F. L. Whitley, commanding) at La Croisette.

On the night 14-15 June, while "F" company was being relieved by "E" company, a First Battalion patrol, led by Lt. William H. Zwicky, left Bourelin [sic] at 10:00 o'clock, crawled across one kilometer of No Man's Land, ambushed two Boche sentries, killed them, and furnished the Division with its first identifications of the 444th Regiment, 232nd German Division, on that front. On 17 June the Third Battalion P.C. and support company moved to the Aulnois woods. Active patrolling by both front line battalions resulted in numerous encounters with similar enemy expeditions. This continued during the remainder of the stay in the area.

Various company reliefs were effected along the line, but the terrific shelling which the great concentration of German artillery was able to bring down in this sector (29,500 enemy shells falling in the Brigade Sector in one twenty-four hour period), gave the men no rest; and, as the woods were made uninhabitable by the great quantities of mustard gas thrown into them, men were forced to lie in the open without movement during the daylight hours. Each night work was done upon a protective trench, system, but all evidences of new work and emplacements received the immediate attention of the German artillery, and it was only by the construction of several systems that any protection could be obtained. At 10:30 P.M. 26 June the ammunition dump of the Twenty-Third Infantry was located and destroyed by enemy fire. The following day the Regimental P. C. was bombarded with 210 gas shells, an evidence of the material which confronted the Regiment at this point. Intelligence report proves that up to this time the German lines opposite this Regiment were held by three different organizations and that fresh German troops were confronting us.

Plans for an advancement of the Brigade front lines were being developed, however, and in conformity therewith, on the night 30 June "I" and "L" companies with two attached machine gun companies from the Fifth Machine Gun Battalion, moved to Tafournay Woods behind the sector held by the Second Battalion. Extensive plans of engagement were received from the French Corps, giving detailed directions for both the troops of the Second American Division and the Thirty-Ninth French Division, which was to attack on our right. Preparations for this attack were not only complete in every detail, but the cleaning up of Vaux, and the organization of the new lines was rehearsed by the units which were to perform them on the first of July. Every possible assistance was given by Division and higher Headquarters with the various services which were at their command; and the attack itself, which accounted for, in its captures and enemy killed, an entire German Regiment, the 402nd Infantry, was one of the cleanest cut, most precise, and successful attacks ever put on in modern warfare. American artillery and American aeroplanes assisted materially. The great German drive on Paris had been stopped by the Second Division during the month of June, the enemy had been thrown back all along the line, and on the first of July soundly thrashed. His hitherto victorious and arrogant infantry made its counter-attack, after this operation, with hands high above heads, officers being unable to make the men retain their weapons or attempt to defend themselves.

On 2 July the First Battalion, Ninth Infantry, relieved, with one company, the line taken by the Third Battalion, Twenty-Third Infantry, in La Roche Woods. Relief was completed at 5:35 A.M., 3 July, after both relieving and relieved troops had been subjected to an intensive bombardment and forced to pass through a steady barrage of heavy enemy fire, which lasted throughout the night.

The Regimental Intelligence Department, whose O.P.'s had obtained valuable information before and during the last attack, suffered heavy losses on this and on the following night. The O.P. First Battalion in Bourbelin received a direct hit with four casualties, and the Second Battalion O.P. at the same time suffered six casualties. But the next night the Regimental O.P. received a direct gas shell, and three regimental observers were badly burned. The First Battalion had seven observers evacuated during the night.

5 July was the night set for relief of the Second Division by the Twenty-Sixth Division; but the Ninth Infantry was ordered to the alerte [sic alert] and the relief was called off temporarily, on account of strong indications of an enemy attack in force on the line Rheims-Chateau-Thierry. Allied aviators reported a massing of enemy aviation squadrons and a concentration of bridge material North of the Marne, East of Chateau-Thierry, concentrating fire on Hill 204, and a constant heavy registration on the front line held by the Third Brigade. 6 July the alerte continued. The French attacked on Hill 204 during the forenoon and reported objectives taken at 2:00 P.M. They reported that they had lost their old front line trenches some hours later. Hill 204 commanded the entire front line held by this Regiment, and throughout the occupation of this sector furnished the Germans with an excellent observation of all our movements and operations, and allowed them to fire upon us accurately and almost at will. The French troops on our right (there were several regimental reliefs made by the French during this period) attempted to take this hill on three separate occasions, succeeding eventually in losing what foothold they had. This loss seriously threatened the Third Brigade line and would have made occupation disastrous, had not the tide changed a few days later when the Germans were forced to fall back from this position to safe-guard their flanks. On the night 7—8 July the 101st Infantry, scheduled to relieve the Ninth, started its movement into the sector, one battalion bivouacing [sic] at La Croisette, and the actual relief started — a badly mixed up affair, as the trucks transporting the relieving regiment became lost and de bussed troops at the wrong points. On the night 8—9 July the relief was completed at 3:50 A.M., battalions proceeding independently to the woods West of Montreuil by the Beaurepaire-Villers-Bezu-Montreuil Road, where the Regiment was assembled and bivouaced. Casualties this tour of duty:

Orders provided the night 9—10 July to occupy a sector of the army advance line La Barre-Bezu-Chambardie les-Bruilis, Ninth Infantry on the left of the line, which was to be held with two battalions, one in support. The First and Third Battalions marched to Dhuisy Woods, and bivouaced there. The Second Battalion billeted in the town of Chaton, Regimental Headquarters, Headquarters Company, and Supply Company at Cocherel. The army line mentioned above was to be organized and held as a secondary position. Assignment of sectors was made to all companies; they were marched into their combat positions, and a drill program of work in organizing and wiring these positions was started, under direction of Engineer officers.