Trench Knives and Mustard Gas; With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France

College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 2004. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, 205, [1] pages. Illustrations. Introduction: A Note on the Editing by Robert H. Ferrell. Notes. Further Reading. Index. This is Number Six in the C. A. Brannen Series. The 42nd Division was activated in August 1917, four months after the U.S. entry into World War I. It was composed of National Guard units originating from 26 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The 42nd arrived overseas to the Western Front of Belgium and France in November 1917, one of the first divisions of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) to do so, under MG William A. Mann's command and also Colonel Douglas MacArthur as chief of staff. The AEF was commanded by General John Joseph Pershing. After initially landing at St. Nazaire (France), the 42nd was temporarily located at Vaucouleurs, Lorraine (France), from 7 November - 7 December 1917, to preliminarily train before transferring to another training area between Lafauche and Rimaucourt. The day after Christmas, the 42nd, along with other divisions it had now linked up with, departed for another training area near Rolampont, Langres (France). French officers had been attached to the 42nd at Lafauche, Rimaucourt, and Rolampont as instructors in trench warfare. During 1918, the 42nd took part in four major operations: the Champagne-Marne, the Aisne-Marne, the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In total, it saw 264 days of combat. Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France is the memoir of a soldier on the front lines of World War I. Hugh Thompson's memoirs of his time in France demonstrate a keen eye for detail and a penchant for philosophy. Thompson combines the fast-paced prose of the jazz age and the passionate observations of an engaged intellectual. Originally serialized in the Chattanooga Times in 1934, this newly edited version allows the author to tell his story to a whole new generation. Thomspon takes the reader on an intense journey with the 168th regiment of the 42nd Rainbow Division through the villages, towns, battlefields, and hospitals of France. He points out the sights along the way and has a knack for compressing a complex reflection on life into a single sentence. Severely wounded in his arm and back, Thompson reassesses his situation after visiting comrades who lost arms or legs. I went back to my tent, he recalls, almost ashamed of my own lucky wounds. Homesick for the States during his first months overseas, Thompson discovers that his platoon has become his second family. He becomes increasingly estranged from his old one and accustomed to the war's distortion of time and values. Friendships form and disappear in the hour it takes a stranger to die. When he is wounded, Germans serve as his stretcher bearers. And things never happen when they take place, but later when one learns of them from a letter or from a soldier passing through. War does not destroy the physical man. It leads to strange experiences. Trench Knives and Mustard Gas brings the front lines of World War I, the Great War, to the hearts and minds of its readers. The book is an indispensable guide into the past, told by a man who was there.