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Since its release in 2006, 'Finding the Lost Battalion' by Robert J. Laplander has become the benchmark work against which all things Lost Battalion related have been measured. Now, in this updated 3rd edition released to coincide with the centennial of America's entry into WW1, Mr. Laplander again takes us to the Charlevaux Ravine to delve deeper into the story than ever before! Meticulously chronicling what would become arguably the most famous event of America's part in the war, we find the truths behind the legend. Spanning twenty years of research and hundreds of sources (most never before seen), the reader is led through the Argonne Forest during September and October, 1918 virtually hour by hour. The result is the single most factual accounting of the Lost Battalion story and their leader, Charles W. Whittlesey, to date. Told in an entertaining, fast moving style, the book has become a favorite the world over!With new Forward by Major-General William Terpeluk, US Army (Ret).… (meer)
Laplander’s book is an extremely detailed, exhaustively researched, near hour-by-hour recitation of 5 days of hell 680 men faced in an isolated ravine on the Western Front during World War I. The authors account begins with the efforts of the AEF’s slogging through the Argonne Forest. During one of the frontal attacks a group of men from the 154th Infantry Brigade, 77th ‘Metropolitan’ Division was ordered to press an attack against the German lines and not worry about anything happening on their flanks. They successfully broke through the German lines but the units on either side could not keep up. The end result was on October 2, 1918 they found themselves fighting for their lives on the wrong side of a hill in the Charlevaux Ravine completely surrounded by Germans.
The word of the situation was quickly relayed to headquarters and efforts were immediately launched to break through the German lines and relieve them. Their situation was also part of the reports being sent to other sections of the A.E.F. command network. One of these sections was the A.E.F. press office. The press office for 1st Corps was in charge of sifting through newsworthy events from the front, such as the Charlevaux Ravine fight, and sending daily bulletins to the local press headquarters where civilian reporters read them and decided what was worth reporting back to their newspapers in the U.S.
One story about the unit in the October 4th bulletin from the 1st Corps press office caught the eye of a war correspondent by the name of Damon Runyon. He sent an initial report to his editor and traveled to the 1st Corp press office to find out more. When he returned he found his editor had cabled back a single message, “Send more on Lost Battalion.” He did and, courtesy of the newspapers, the plight of those 680 men became the overnight concern of every newspaper reader in the U.S.
On the evening of October 7, 1918, 5 days after the 154th entered the ravine, AEF forces were able to link up with them. Of the 680, slightly more than 190 men, including the wounded, were all that remained. When they emerged, they were still men of the 154th Infantry Brigade, 77th ‘Metropolitan’ Division but to the world then and to history they were known and will always be remembered as “The Lost Battalion.”
The book’s text is a documentation of war at its worst. Every aspect of terror, heroism, blood, gore, extreme pain, sacrifice, mistakes, dumb luck, mental and physical fatigue and super human effort can be found between the covers. The read is exhausting and after absorbing 683 pages of text a reader is left wondering how it was possible anyone survived. Laplander’s book has been called the definitive account of the unit and this reviewer would have to agree. I would recommend Finding the Lost Battalion to anyone interested in history of any kind.
Book length – 721 pages, text length 683 pages, Includes Appendix of list of individuals known to have been in the Charlevaux Ravine, bibliography, an index, 22 pages of photographs, and numerous maps.
See Common Knowledge for some short quotes from the text.
One small criticism - the maps have the kind of detail one would expect from a real map and, as printed, they are difficult to follow. What they need is simplification and some annotation with respect to things like labeling hills and other geographic features with their names as recorded in the text. They could also use a compass to indicate direction, ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
This book is respectfully Dedicated to the memory of Charles White Whittlesey January 20. 1884 - November 26, 1921 and to the men that served under him.
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Rumors, myths, and legends.
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Probably the worst of the sicknesses that the men suffered through, and one that would later have consequences for many after the war, was gas poisoning. The Germans used a lot of gas against the Doughboys in the Argonne, primarily Mustard and Phosgene and both were quite equally effective. Phosgene was a vesicant, which caused death basically by over stimulation of the water glands in the lungs until a man literally drowned internally. Mustard gas (the German’s primary gas of choice), had the smell of strong Mustard seed and was really not a gas at all but a liquid that was sent over in shells that vaporized it into the air when they exploded. Mustard gas killed by burning, when inhaled or swallowed it seared everything inside on its way down. If one brushed up against trees, bushes or even ground that Mustard gas had settled onto the residue would then cling to the man’s skin or uniform and cause burns to the epidermis. Both kinds of gas had similar effects in other ways too. Even a little bit of gas inhaled – and most men that served on or near the front at one time or another inhaled a little gas – brought on violent diarrhea and a sickness similar to the flu. Traces of gas in the air or on the ground had the nasty effect of drying out ones fingertips near the cuticle until they split open and bled. The gas that then got into the dried cracks sometimes caused infection. Enough in the eyes could cause blindness. Inhaled gas usually also produced a heavy, chest-deep cough as well as made the nose run incessantly. The wet weather only increased its effects and therefore gassed men were sometimes difficult for others to listen to as they snuffled and gasped for breath. Gas masks were carried by everyone and were supposed to prevent the worst effects of inhalation. However, the masks were only effective if they fit snuggly around a man’s face, and a mask could not fit snuggly if a man did not shave every day. A.E.F. regulations insisted that a man shave daily but in the hell of the Argonne, where water was at a premium, this was clearly not possible.
Few were actually killed by gas during the war, the number equaling something like one-half percent of all combat deaths. In fact, far more died following the war from its after effects. However, there are many, many cases of its long-term effects lasting for years after the war was over. Others ended up going to different extremes to try and correct their problems, such as relocating to different, dryer parts of the country in order to relieve the most common problem that men who had suffered from gas during the war afterwards faced – tuberculosis.
Major Whittlesey already had the men just under the road’s edge pulled back some and firing good, aimed volleys when all at once a second German wave came, spilling down the embankment and actually advancing into the edge of the Pocket. With yells and a roar of close-range rifle and grenade fire the Boche hammered at the filthy men below them. Barely 10-meters separated some of the Doughboys from the Germans while they fought viscously on the side of the hill. Then something in the Doughboy troops seemed to snap. All at once some of Major Whittlesey’s ragged men stood fully upright in their holes, all caution gone, wide-eyed, intense, and screaming, and began literally pouring fire up into the wall of onrushing attackers. The line of Germans wavered, rallied, wavered at a second furious U.S. volley accompanied in one or two spots by a rush with the bayonet, and then began to fall back in some disorder. Then the Doughboys, still yelling like maddened demons but picking their shot carefully and calmly, started climbing out of their holes and actually began to give chase up to the edge of the road. Some then stood on the road and fired up into the back of the Germans as they scrambled up Mont d’Charlesvaux ahead, while a very few others climbed up after them and continued the chase briefly. Down on the left flank Lt. Cullen witnessed a similar phenomenon from his quarter with some measure of internal disquiet. The fury with which the attack was being beaten back was almost scary to watch. None of the men had ever acted like that before and when it was all over, some of them came back down off the road still shaking with rage and shouting obscenities and epithets back at the Germans. It took some of them a long time to calm back down, while others, exhausted by the whole ordeal, simply collapsed wherever they happened to be once the attack had ended.
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Since its release in 2006, 'Finding the Lost Battalion' by Robert J. Laplander has become the benchmark work against which all things Lost Battalion related have been measured. Now, in this updated 3rd edition released to coincide with the centennial of America's entry into WW1, Mr. Laplander again takes us to the Charlevaux Ravine to delve deeper into the story than ever before! Meticulously chronicling what would become arguably the most famous event of America's part in the war, we find the truths behind the legend. Spanning twenty years of research and hundreds of sources (most never before seen), the reader is led through the Argonne Forest during September and October, 1918 virtually hour by hour. The result is the single most factual accounting of the Lost Battalion story and their leader, Charles W. Whittlesey, to date. Told in an entertaining, fast moving style, the book has become a favorite the world over!With new Forward by Major-General William Terpeluk, US Army (Ret).
Google Books — Bezig met laden...
(4.25)
1
The word of the situation was quickly relayed to headquarters and efforts were immediately launched to break through the German lines and relieve them. Their situation was also part of the reports being sent to other sections of the A.E.F. command network. One of these sections was the A.E.F. press office. The press office for 1st Corps was in charge of sifting through newsworthy events from the front, such as the Charlevaux Ravine fight, and sending daily bulletins to the local press headquarters where civilian reporters read them and decided what was worth reporting back to their newspapers in the U.S.
One story about the unit in the October 4th bulletin from the 1st Corps press office caught the eye of a war correspondent by the name of Damon Runyon. He sent an initial report to his editor and traveled to the 1st Corp press office to find out more. When he returned he found his editor had cabled back a single message, “Send more on Lost Battalion.” He did and, courtesy of the newspapers, the plight of those 680 men became the overnight concern of every newspaper reader in the U.S.
On the evening of October 7, 1918, 5 days after the 154th entered the ravine, AEF forces were able to link up with them. Of the 680, slightly more than 190 men, including the wounded, were all that remained. When they emerged, they were still men of the 154th Infantry Brigade, 77th ‘Metropolitan’ Division but to the world then and to history they were known and will always be remembered as “The Lost Battalion.”
The book’s text is a documentation of war at its worst. Every aspect of terror, heroism, blood, gore, extreme pain, sacrifice, mistakes, dumb luck, mental and physical fatigue and super human effort can be found between the covers. The read is exhausting and after absorbing 683 pages of text a reader is left wondering how it was possible anyone survived. Laplander’s book has been called the definitive account of the unit and this reviewer would have to agree. I would recommend Finding the Lost Battalion to anyone interested in history of any kind.
Book length – 721 pages, text length 683 pages, Includes Appendix of list of individuals known to have been in the Charlevaux Ravine, bibliography, an index, 22 pages of photographs, and numerous maps.
See Common Knowledge for some short quotes from the text.
One small criticism - the maps have the kind of detail one would expect from a real map and, as printed, they are difficult to follow. What they need is simplification and some annotation with respect to things like labeling hills and other geographic features with their names as recorded in the text. They could also use a compass to indicate direction, (