Publisher Description
Uncover the larger-than-life story of World War I’s “Lost Battalion” and the men who survived the ordeal, triumphed in battle, and fought the demons that lingered.
In the first week of October, 1918, six hundred men attacked into Europe’s forbidding Argonne Forest. Against all odds, they surged through enemy lines—alone. They were soon surrounded and besieged. As they ran out of ammunition, water, and food, the doughboys withstood constant bombardment and relentless enemy assaults. Seven days later, only 194 soldiers from the original unit walked out of the forest. The stand of the US Army’s “Lost Battalion” remains an unprecedented display of heroism under fire.
Never in Finer Company tells the stories of four men whose lives were forever changed by the ordeal: Major Charles Whittlesey, a lawyer dedicated to serving his men at any cost; Captain George McMurtry, a New York stockbroker who becomes a tower of strength under fire; Corporal Alvin York, a country farmer whose famous exploits help rescue his beleaguered comrades; and Damon Runyon, an intrepid newspaper man who interviews the survivors and weaves their experiences into the American epic. Emerging from the patriotic frenzy that sent young men “over there,” each of these four men trod a unique path to the October days that engulfed them—and continued to haunt them as they struggled to find peace.
Uplifting and compelling, Never in Finer Company is a deeply moving and dramatic story on an epic scale.
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The Great War remade our world and continues to cast its shadow more then one hundred years later. Edward G. Lengel, one of the great chroniclers of that conflict, has revealed a hidden war within that war and masterfully tells one of WWI’s paramount stories. By carefully building the backstory of the main characters of the Lost Battalion, Sergeant York, and the intrepid war correspondent who initially captured this story, Lengel’s powerful prose transports the reader back in time in a gripping, searing narrative of the men who transcended the bounds of human endurance and courage.
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Patrick K. O’Donnell, bestselling author of The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home
