a portion of his army to assist the French in blocking the German advance in May 1918. Prelude Looking to defeat the British occupied in Flanders, Ludendorff sought to divert the Allies' French reserves away from the region. In his Operation Blucher, Ludendorff aimed some of his forces at the Chemin des Dames and took the French Sixth Army by surprise. Driving on, the Germans were soon at the Marne River, situated under 50 miles from Paris. With Marshal Ferdinand Foch unable to acquire British assistance, General Pershing's chief of operation, Colonel Fox Conner, recognized the gravity of the situation and ordered the 3rd Division to block them. The 3rd Division occupied the main bridge on the south bank of the Marne River that led in Château-Thierry on 31 May 1918 as the French 10th Colonial Division rendezvoused with them from the north bank. The Americans positioned their machine guns to cover the French retreat, and had a unit led by Lt. John Bissell situated north of the second bridge. The French spent the night adding explosives to the bridges to destroy them. Early the following morning, 1 June, the Germans advanced into Château-Thierry from the north, forcing the French to the main bridge, which they defended with the support of American machine-gun fire. The French succeeded in destroying the bridge as the Americans kept up their fire on the Germans. Lt. Bissell's group was still on the north side of the Marne. They worked their way back to the secondary bridge in-between American machine-gun fire and made it across, along with a group of Germans that were captured shortly afterwards. From the north of the Marne on 2 June, the Germans engaged in heavy artillery and sniper fire against the Allies. They made an attempt to take the remaining bridge but were forced to end the assault as the casualties rose. Counter-Offensive action On the morning of 18 July 1918, the combined French and American forces, under the overall direction of Allied Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch, launched a general counter-assault on a wide front between Fontenoy and Château-Thierry, the first Allied offensive in the area in over a year. The American army played a role fighting for the regions around Soissons and Château-Thierry, in collaboration with predominantly French forces. The Allies had managed to keep their plans a secret, and their attack at 04:45 took the Germans by surprise. The