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Blood in the Argonne: The "Lost Battalion " of World War I. By Alan D. Gaff. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8061-3696-0. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 368. 832.95.
The Lost Battalion has been found. Fresh on the heels of Robert H. Ferrell's Five Days in October (see review in JMH, January 2006), comes Blood in the Argonne by Alan D. Gaff. The fate of the Lost Battalion stands alongside the heroism of Alvin York as the best known episode of America's First World War experience. On 3 October 1918, a hybrid group of about seven hundred soldiers from the 77th Division were positioned on a heavily wooded slope in the Argonne Forest of northeastern France. It had reached the Charlevaux Valley after a successful attack on the German defenses the day before, but then the unit...