FOR HEAVENS SAKE STOP IT.

October 7, 2018 6:35 PM

100 years ago today the Lost Battalion was rescued. It may have been the most famous American story of the Great War: more than 500 soldiers in the Argonne forest totally surrounded by the German Imperial Army, cut off, starving, under nearly continuous attack by artillery, gas, snipers, flamethrowers, and infantry assaults, not to mention subjected to friendly artillery fire. Commander Charles White Whittlesey refused multiple German entreaties, and six days later reunited 194 survivors with their army.

A heroic pigeon and a Polish immigrant helped save the day.

Immediately after the war a movie about the Lost Battalion appeared. Whittlesey was much in demand, but disappeared at sea in 1921.

A memoir from one veteran.
About another memoir.
James V. Leak, "The Experience and Meaning of the Lost Battalion" (1938).
A 1977 account.

From the National Archives.
The battlefield a century later.
Finding the Lost Battalion from the United States WWI Centennial Commission.

There is a Sabaton song and a 2001 movie.

(Previously.)

posted by doctornemo (7 comments total)

Thanks for posting, I had just read the Washington Post link before coming to metafiler and seeing much more about an event I had never heard of.
posted by benk at 7:06 PM on October 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Family member was in the battalion. Hell of a story.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 7:48 PM on October 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

From the American Heritage article, The Lost Battalion:

In the early fall of 1918 five hundred American infantrymen were cut off from their regiment and surrounded by Germans during five days of fighting in the Argonne Forest. Though they would be forever remembered as the Lost Battalion, they were not really a battalion and they were never lost. “We knew exactly where we were,” one of them said later. “So did the Germans.” The only nearby Americans uncertain about the location of the trapped band of riflemen and machine gunners were their own division’s artillery officers, who bombarded them with heavy shellfire for two terrifying hours during the second day of the siege.

The fog of war settles in.
posted by cenoxo at 11:16 PM on October 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

I didn’t know Whittlesey is presumed to have killed himself. What a tragic end.
posted by corb at 12:56 AM on October 8, 2018

Sabaton has a song about it. There's some poetic licence here, but worth a listen if you like that kind of thing.
posted by LegallyBread at 5:41 AM on October 8, 2018

Cher Ami and Sgt. Stubby (beloved war dog) both currently reside at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It is amazing to see how small such a heroic bird is and heart wrenching to see his wounds.
posted by Qex Rodriguez at 5:53 AM on October 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

The American Civil War was the price the Americans paid to participate in the hell and horror of the European wars. Which is why once they got involved, shit got solved in a hurry. The pattern would repeat later on in the century...

Step 1: destroy the Luftwaffe.
Step 2: destroy the Luftwaffe.
Step 3: Tanks and paratroopers and stuff, IDK
Plan B: Luftwaffe must be destroyed.

In the Pacific?

Step 1: destroy all carriers
Step 2: survive all storms
Step 3: destroy all carriers
Step 4: they actually have a secret base its totes adorbs destroy it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:29 AM on October 8, 2018 [3 favorites]