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WWI MARINES GET THEIR DUE FREDERICKSBURG'S ARTIST: Exhibit of John Adams Elder's art, Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center, 907 Princess Anne St., Fredericksburg, through Sept. 7. For the first time since 1947, a retrospective of the works of John Adams Elder is on exhibit. See portraits, landscapes and genre paintings of the Civil War and Southern life. 540/371-3037.

August 2, 2008 12:15 am

THE UNITED STATES Marine Corps has occupied a distinguished position in the national military arsenal throughout the memory of most living Americans. Ninety years ago, though, that glowing cachet did not yet exist. World War I, especially the famous engagement at Belleau Wood in June 1918, thrust the Marines under a dazzling spotlight and gave the Corps national recognition that has grown steadily since.

Despite the importance of "the Great War" (as contemporaries called it) in the emergence of the Corps, no definitive study of the Marines' role in France had appeared until the recent release of this important work.

The late Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons went from a distinguished field career, including a Silver Star awarded for service at Seoul in 1950, to serve as director of Marine Corps history for a quarter-century. Under his devoted leadership, that program became a model of its kind.

After his retirement, Simmons worked on this World War I book, stimulated to the task by his recollections of Marine veterans he had listened to in his youth. Late in life Simmons bequeathed the completion of the job to Col. Joseph H. Alexander, who stands well clear of the field as the leading living historian of the Corps.

The book that flowed from their collaboration is a masterpiece, based on exhaustive research in obscure sources, and unveiled in deft prose.

Flamboyant war correspondent Floyd Gibbons of the Chicago Tribune played a key role in splashing Marine achievements across American headlines. Gibbons wrote in a vivid dispatch, "I am up front and entering Belleau Wood with the U. S. Marines." The daring front-line coverage nearly killed him. A German bullet plucked out an eye, smashed one cheek and tore out through his forehead.

His vivid account of the Marines reached the censors together with word that Gibbons had succumbed to his dreadful wounds (he actually recovered). As a tribute to his friend, the censor let the dispatch through untouched, ignoring the protocol that dictated removal of unit identities. As a result, the Marines' achievements made Americans proud, while details of sturdy fighting by other units remained shrouded in censorship.

One of the most famous battle cries in all of Marine history emerged from Gibbons' account. As the attack toward Belleau Wood started through the wheat of this book's title, a sergeant yelled: "Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?" Corps tradition ascribes the shout to legendary Gunnery Sgt. Dan Daly.

Another Marine line, almost as famous, is attributed to Capt. Lloyd W. Williams of Virginia: "Retreat, hell! We just got here!" Williams died a few days later, in the famous wood.

Gibbons' Tribune ran a banner headline: "U. S. Marines Smash Huns, Gain Glory." The New York Times opened its story with "Our Marines " (Can anyone imagine today's Times calling the Corps "our" Marines?)

In fact, the justly renowned battle for Belleau Wood was only the first of a succession of engagements in France in which Marine units distinguished themselves. At Soissons, St. Mihiel, Blanc Mont and the Meuse-Argonne, Marines fought as desperately as at Belleau Wood. Appropriately, about 80 percent of "Through the Wheat" examines the rest of the Marine experience in France.

Young officers, most of them subalterns at this early point in their careers, appear in "Through the Wheat" as they earn their baptism of fire in France. For many of them, the experience served as prelude to becoming legends in the Marine Corps between the wars and in World War II: Lejeune, Holcomb, Erskine, Cates, Thomas, Virginian Lem Shepherd and others.

Perhaps the most important single source on Marines in World War I is Lt. John W. Thomason Jr., whose numerous articles and books combine an adroit literary touch and pen-sketched illustrations of great power. "Through the Wheat" quotes Thomason steadily, as must any work on the topic, and reproduces several of his evocative drawings.

Thomason lived in Fredericksburg in 1917-18, just before he left to fight in Europe. He was part of the first Marine Corps generation, with countless to follow, that lived here while posted to Quantico. Thomason and his wife stayed at 1200 Prince Edward St. for a time, then boarded at Mrs. Rowe's on Princess Anne Street.

The Thomasons loved the town. He called Fredericksburg "old," and compared it to Charleston, which they had just left: "But it does not look as desperately old and mothy as Charleston and is infinitely cleaner."

If John Thomason could review the Alexander and Simmons book on the Corps in France in 1918, he surely would like it as much as I do. There is no evidence that either of the modern authors could draw as skillfully as did Thomason (if at all), but their graceful prose tells an important and interesting story in a first-rate book. "Through the Wheat" seems certain to become a military-history classic of lasting value.

Robert K. Krick of Fredericksburg was chief historian of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park for 30 years. He is the author of 15 books. His latest work, "Civil War Weather in Virginia," was published by the University of Alabama Press. E-mail him in care of gwoolf@free lancestar.com.