Patrick K. ODonnell - The unknowns: the untold story of Americas unknown soldier and WWIs most decorated heroes who brought him home

Washingtons Immortals:

The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment

Who Changed the Course of the Revolution

First SEALs:

The Untold Story of the Forging of Americas Most Elite Unit

Dog Company:

The Boys of Pointe du HocThe Rangers Who Accomplished D-Days

Toughest Mission and Led the Way Across Europe

Give Me Tomorrow:

The Korean Wars Greatest Untold StoryThe Epic Stand of the Marines of George Company

They Dared Return:

The True Story of Jewish Spies Behind the Lines in Nazi Germany

The Brenner Assignment:

The Untold Story of the Most Daring Spy Mission of World War II

We Were One:

Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah

Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs:

The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War IIs OSS

Into the Rising Sun:

World War IIs Pacific Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat

Beyond Valor:

World War IIs Ranger and Airborne Veterans

Reveal the Heart of Combat

Copyright 2018 by Patrick K. ODonnell

Cover design by Daniel Rembert and Gretchen Mergenthaler
Cover photograph E.B. Thompson, courtesy of the District of Columbia Public Library (public domain)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or an anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or .

FIRST EDITION

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

This book was set in 11 pt. Janson by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: May 2018

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-2833-1

eISBN 978-0-8021-4629-8

Atlantic Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

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To the doughboys, Americas unknown generation who changed our world

Scars of war.

Cratered shell holes so large they could hold a small house.

A moonscape crisscrossed with ghostly depressions, remnants of trenches where men fought hand to hand to the death with knives, clubs, pistols, and bayonets.

Artillery shells, still bearing deadly mustard gas, entombed in dense hardwood that swallowed them long ago.

Over the last hundred years, the world has moved forward from the most important event of the twentieth century. World War I marked the death of the Old World and the emergence of the modern era.

But the Great War remains forever trapped in time at Belleau Wood.

Outside the wood, as far as the eye can see on a clear spring day, golden fields of wheat, rolling hills, and bucolic pastures testify to decades of peace and tranquility.

However, looming in the foreground is the dense patch of woods the French renamed Bois de la Brigade de Marine. In that dark and bloody forest, men of the United States Marine Corps sacrificed themselves to stop the great German drive toward Paris in the final weeks of spring 1918. The somber ground surrounding that wood still bears the marks left by some of the bloodiest days of the USMC. Yet through this crucible of battle emerged the modern Corps.

In 2013, Marines of the Wounded Warrior Regiment, men whose bodies were racked and savaged by war, solemnly traversed this hallowed ground. Many of these veterans were missing limbs; all bore the invisible mental, emotional, and spiritual scars known only to those touched Together, we followed in the footsteps of the generation of Americans who landed on the beaches of Normandy in World War II, and then we went back even further in time to revisit the sacrifices made at Belleau Wood.

The trip was meant to help heal these wounded warriors. They hoped that fellowship, brotherhood, and sharing the history of their forebears might soothe and restore their spirit.

Two generations of Marines met at the wood. Nearly one hundred years separated the wounded warriors from their historic brethren. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan connected profoundly with those who had fought in World War I. They shared a bond of valor, agony, and losses suffered in battles fought in the former Ottoman Empire, now a patchwork of artificial countries sewn together in the aftermath of the Great War. The doughboys who fought in WWI are a forgotten generation. Many of their sacrifices have gone unnoticed and unrecognized, much like those of Americans who fight in todays seemingly never-ending wars. The current generation is the living embodiment of the fallen and their sacrifices. Only veterans truly know their war; they lived it.

Every Memorial Day, the commandant of the US Marine Corps and small contingents of Marines travel to Belleau Wood to honor the fallen buried in an American cemetery. The graveyard sits on a hill near the ancient hunting lodge that weathered shells, mortars, and bullets as the battle raged. In the nearby town lie the ruins of a centuries-old chteau the Germans used as their headquarters. Before they leave, the Marines also visit the chteau and seek an old stone fountain set in a wall adorned with moss and ivy. As a rite of passage, the Marines drink from the fountains cool stream, which ironically and fittingly pours from the head of a bulldog (the mascot of the Marine Corps) into a heavy stone basin.

On that day in 2013, after imbibing the cool waters of the fountain, the Marine entourage of wounded combat veterans maneuvered through a golden wheat field still damp from a fresh spring shower. Then they slowly trundled up a muddy path to the crest of Hill 142crucial high ground during the epic battle.

Lance Corporal Ray Shearer, the great-nephew of the Marine officer who cleared the final northern section of Belleau Wood with his battalion, served as our esteemed guide. After weeks of bloody, unrelenting combat, the elder Shearer had proclaimed, Woods now US Marine Corps entirely.

On top of Hill 142, the vortex of war raged. At this key inflection point, the Marines took to the offensive for the first time in the Great War. Shearer related the story of one of the heroes of Hill 142: Gunnery Sergeant Ernest August Janson. Considered an old-timer by some for his age and experience, the thirty-nine-year-old Janson made a one-man bayonet charge, killing several German machine gunners poised to unleash their deadly weapons on Jansons company. His selfless heroics left him severely wounded but saved the hill from falling back into German hands.