OVER THERE: A MARINE IN THE GREAT WAR

Carl Andrew Brannen

NEW, a mint copy. First Edition. 39 b&w photos, afterward, notes, bibliography, index, 192 pp. Dust jacket summary: "OVER THERE takes the reader on an almost two-year journey through his world as a young soldier in the war. Based on Brannen's memoirs recorded in the 1930s and photographs he took as a soldier with a German camera, this book describes day-to-day obstacles he and his fellow soldiers faced during Marine Corps training, movement to France, and mortal combat. "As I jumped for protection into a ditch nearby, a fusillade of bullets caught me below the heart on the left side, through one lens of the field glasses, and against my bandoleer of ammunition. The best I remember, ten bullets in my own belt exploded, but they had deflected the enemy bullets, saving my life." Brannen, though wounded in battle and in the hospital for three weeks, went on with 80th Company through the Meuse-Argonne campaign to the armistice on November 11. He pulled his months of duty in the occupation of the Rhineland and, at its end, earned a place in the Composite Regiment of men selected to represent the American Expeditionary forces in the many ceremonial events of 1919. Complemented with a unique set of photographs by the author's son that retrace his father's military campaigns and insightful annotations by two military figures, OVER THERE is a highly personal account, presented from an enlisted man's perspective of the battle fronts of Belleau Wood in the Chateau-Thierry sector, Soissons, Pont-a-Mousson, St Mihiel, Blanc Mont Ridge, and the Meuse-Argonne battle. As a first hand commentary and a social document of life in the trenches during World War I, it is a useful contribution to military history."

$25.00