AT BELLEAU WOOD

by Robert Asprey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 1965

The battle of Belleau Wood had effects out of all proportion to the area disputed. After years of stalemate on the German Western Front, the French and British were pounded over backward by a massive, jumpingly brilliant German offensive that was over-extending itself. But now the Americans arrived, flag-happy doughboys cud Regular Marines. And at Belleau Wood they got their first major chance to kill the Huns at 4-to-1 losses--or over 8,000 casualties in two weeks. The world press glorified the Marines. The Army lists Belleau Wood as a minor engagement. But it has since become, like the halls of Montezuma, practically a Marine Corps colony. This victory spurred the Allies and pinked the German rampage, but it also opened the way for later military historians (a breed of humanoid computers) to write stumping dramas of troop movements. And several hundred communique quotations can numb the most ardent reader. In other respects, Asprey quotes well from diaries and letters, splicing in personal observations. And when he quotes some magnificently hard-eyed prose poetry from an unpublished manuscript by John Thomason, Jr., whom Hemingway thought our best WWI writer, it may be that the wrong manuscript got published.

Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1965

ISBN: 1574410164

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION