NEVER IN FINER COMPANY: The Men of the Great War's Lost Battalion
Nonfiction
NEVER IN FINER COMPANY:
The Men of the Great War's Lost Battalion
By Edward G. Lengel
368 pp. Da Capo
Reviewed By William C. Crawford
War produces instantaneous heroes as well as those who percolate up to public prominence over time. The men of the Lost Battalion fall squarely into both camps. This book illustrates how makeshift, multiethnic, military units made up of mostly poor, Gotham City soldiers rose up to demonstrate surprising battlefield valor during the Great War.
When the Yanks were surrounded with no food and little ammunition, our boys had a plucky way of shifting the odds miraculously back in their favor. They stuck together and leaned on their New York City roots. Blind luck and a wounded carrier pigeon also played into this saga, but mostly dogged personal determination overcame blatant command mistakes to produce a gripping rescue of US soldiers hopelessly trapped in the Argonne Forest.
A disparate group of 600 Americans from several units was cut off and surrounded in a deep ravine called The Pocket in October 1918. General Black Jack Pershing’s fanatically aggressive tactics often led American troops to get in way over their heads.
The Yanks were soon out of food and water, and were short of ammunition. There was no communication between the marooned troops and their headquarters, save for a small coop of carrier pigeons trapped with the soldiers. The standoff eventually reached epic, siege proportions with brutal suffering for the shell-shocked, starving Americans.
Lengel writes in a straightforward, entertaining style reminiscent of the many military exploit books coming forth in recent years. He tells his story by weaving the narrative around four participants: the two commanding officers of the Lost Battalion; a fledgling war correspondent, Damon Runyon; and Corporal Alvin York, the bigger-than-life hero who responded to deadly combat chaos with his sharpshooter skills and his keen country instincts.
Runyon was more a dashing young sportswriter than a real war correspondent. He was also a hard-drinking gadfly, but he was true to the ideals of the great wartime journalists. He wanted to get close to the line soldiers, tell their harrowing stories in their own words, and then pretty much ignore most of what the generals said to buttress their sketchy tactical decisions.
This recipe served Runyon well because he promptly exposed US military bungling while simultaneously revealing the personal heroism and just plain luck that helped to avert a complete disaster. He was a creature of the big-city streets, and a master at drawing out the unpublicized, personal exploits of the New York City doughboys who fought in the Argonne.
During the entire siege of the Lost Battalion, only a couple of messages were delivered to headquarters from the surrounded US troops. They arrived by carrier pigeon, including one decisive missive flown in by a badly wounded bird affectionately known as Cher Ami. Despite the appearance of the airplane, the Great War was still, technologically speaking, more like the American Civil War. One deadly new innovation was the horror of trench warfare punctuated by poison-gas attacks.
The other Americans highlighted in the book include a lawyer and a stockbroker who commanded the trapped American troops. Their devotion to duty and to their men helped to avert disaster. They led by example and offered a glimpse into the high-quality leaders plucked from New York’s elite professional classes.
Their experience and training was irregular from a strictly military perspective, but their college and family backgrounds armed them with a strong bent toward public service that was then successfully channeled into military leadership. The men deeply respected Major Charles Whittlesey and Captain George McMurtry. Tactically speaking, these brave officers were initially shaky. But their cool heads under fire and their obvious devotion to their men helped the beleaguered unit to survive. These officers were of a higher socio-economic class, but they never let that show, especially to their ethnically diverse soldiers from Brooklyn and Hell’s Kitchen.
Corporal Alvin York is the fourth US soldier featured by Lengel’s narrative. He is an American icon, thanks to his place in history books and on the silver screen. The Tennessee farm boy was a religious, humble hero. He was able to use his outdoor acumen to secure a superior firing position overlooking a series of German machinegun nests. He was a country marksman who rained deadly fire down on the exposed enemy. However, what happened next forever cemented his place in American military history.
The Germans were stretched thin themselves. America’s entry into the Great War portended that eventual defeat was at hand. At first, York rounded up a dazed captive or two. As he tried to figure out what to do next from a corporal’s lowly perspective, enemy soldiers started appearing with raised hands to surrender. He policed up 120 or so badly deflated German soldiers, and marched them back toward the American lines. He arrived with what one officer described “as half the German army” at gunpoint.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Lost Battalion. Their story is one of inept initial choices eventually overshadowed by incredible bravery and resilience. All Americans who served in combat will recognize that much battlefield heroism is forged out of dire necessity, and it is often fueled a bit by blind luck. Necessity, in these situations, is truly the mother of invention!
This book is entertaining and very readable. The deprivation and horror of the French front come through Lima-Charlie – loud and clear. The average reader will get a clear glimpse into nearly forgotten World War I history. But for an ex-grunt like me, I can only think of a timeless, epigrammatic, combat saying: “Sit Rep Normal, All Fucked Up!”
Inevitable, hapless tactical situations like this always produce a plethora of berserk, bizarre human stories. Lengel retrieved some of them in the Argonne Forest, and he wrote the riveting account in this volume. Readers will inevitably wonder when this saga will be adapted into a compelling screenplay? Of course there will be a hero’s role for an intrepid pigeon. Maybe Tom Hanks could provide the heroic bird’s screen voice?
WILLIAM C. CRAWFORD is a writer and photographer based in Winston Salem. NC. He was a grunt and, later, a combat photojournalist in Vietnam. His war memoir, Just Like Sunday on the Farm, is available from Amazon.com
Comments
Post a Comment