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Through the Wheat A Novel of the World War I Marines Thomas Boyd Edwin Howard Simmons Books

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Through the Wheat A Novel of the World War I Marines Thomas Boyd Edwin Howard Simmons Books

Focusing on a platoon of U.S. Marines during the summer months of 1918, the novel follows one Marine and a few of his comrades as their division moves in and out of action. The novel highlights the emotions and perceptions of the protagonist.


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Through the Wheat A Novel of the World War I Marines Thomas Boyd Edwin Howard Simmons Books Reviews

THROUGH THE WHEAT THE U.S. MARINES IN WORLD WAR I
BRIGADIER GENERAL EDWIN H. SIMMONS, USMC (RETIRED) AND COLONEL JOSEPH H. ALEXANDER, USMC (RETIRED)
NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS, 2008
HARDCOVER, MAPS, PHOTOGRAPHS, 304 PAGES, $34.95

On March 6, 2008, then President George W. Bush met with Corporal Frank Woodruff Buckles, who at the age of 107, is America's last living veteran of the First World War. That war, and the men who fought it, are now nearly forgotten. When Taps is finally sounded for Corporal Buckles, there will no longer be any living memory of America's military experience of World War I. Among the millions of American fighting men who marched off to save Europe, end all war, and make the world safe for democracy (and who accomplished only one of those three goals, through no fault of their own) was Thomas Boyd. Born in Ohio in 1898, Boyd enlisted in the U.S. Marines when war came, and saw action in France. When he returned home, he took up writing. His literary career was fairly brief, for Boyd died in 1935. But among his books was a remarkable novel, THROUGH THE WHEAT, which deserves to be ranked among the best American war fiction. Boyd combined an eye for detail, a talent for clear, highly readable prose, and actual combat experience to produce a book that was, in many ways, ahead of its time. Boyd has been compared to Hemingway. It could be going too far to say that Boyd was doing Hemingway before anyone knew who Hemingway was. But like Hemingway, he wrote a kind of direct, straightforward, action-oriented prose before such a style became common. THROUGH THE WHEAT vividly captures frontline combat in World War I. THROUGH THE WHEAT follows the experiences of William Hicks, an automatic rifleman in the U.S. Marine Corps, through his first taste of combat at Belleau Wood. We meet him first in France, where he has served as a military policeman, stevedore, and construction laborer, but has yet to see combat. Neither Hicks nor most of his fellow U.S. Marines (including many officers and NCOs) had had much training. The only officer in his battalion, a highly respected major, had seen combat in the Philippines. But that would soon change as his unit was rushed to the front to help halt the great German offensive of 1918, which was slowly grinding its way toward Paris. Throughout this book, the reader sees combat from a rifleman's perspective. Boyd remains tightly focused on Hicks and a few other characters and thus the reader never gets to see the larger tactical picture. Like Hicks, the reader is in the fog of war. When Hicks is sent out to locate a French unit that was to be posted on the U.S. Marines' flank, there are no Frenchmen to be found and neither Hicks nor the reader ever learns why. The first time Hicks is taken under fire is during a night patrol and its friendly fire. One effect of this rifleman's eye view is to bring home to the reader how isolated the Marines were. THROUGH THE WHEAT depicts infantry combat after both rifles and machine guns forced the infantry to disperse before the advent of effective battlefield radio communications. Neither Hicks nor the reader know how the U.S. Marine attack is going until they see some German troops begin to surrender. The first indication of the cost of a successful attack doesn't come until after the attack is over and the reader is shocked to learn that the ground gained had cost the battalion a staggering 80% casualties with one company being nearly annihilated. THROUGH THE WHEAT was, in many ways, ahead of its time. Boyd wrote about the chaos of war and what it does to men. He especially understood how the prolonged stress and fear of combat effects those exposed to it. He also has a talent for sheer terror, especially in a scene where Hicks and a fellow U.S. Marine while escorting a wounded man to the rear, get caught in a barrage and are gassed (Boyd himself was gassed). But in other ways, the book is clearly a product of its time. This is an exceptional book that belongs in the library of on any serious student of military history.

Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
Orlando, Florida
I came across a first edition at the local library sale. Quite honestly I didn't expect much even though the gift inscription to a previous owner in the book said that this novel captured the war as the inscriber experienced it.

I started to read, and I was thrown back 100 years into the hellish landscape and horrors facing American marines during The Great War. To recommend this book has to include a warning about that war it was brutal, it was destructive in ways that one can't imagine today. (Of course, all wars boast their own aspects of destruction, but this war . . . this war. . . .)
It was for a gift. It was a photocopied library book with a new cover on it. Terrible and embarrassing, especially for a birthday gift.
Excellent. Would use this seller again.
I consider the writing substandard. The overly ripe adjectives do not paint convincing pictures. Boyd is compelling when limning the tedium of the trenches or the terror of attacking over No Man's Land. He bogs down when trying for artistic embellishment. As a description by someone who was there, the book is rewarding to WWI buffs, but as literature it is as leaden as a pair of muddy boots.
Good companion book to the difficult book of the same title but continues "wheat The U. S. Marines in World War I.
A good read for anyone interested in WWI. I first read this in High School and it's gritty representation of life in the trenches made quit an impression. Some 45 years later I revisited this work and found it equally engrossing. It compares favorably to All Quiet on the Western Front. This edition seems to be a reprint of the hardback, albeit sans any pictures of illustrations, but the text paints a picture of the life of a dough boy that needs no further embellishment.
Focusing on a platoon of U.S. Marines during the summer months of 1918, the novel follows one Marine and a few of his comrades as their division moves in and out of action. The novel highlights the emotions and perceptions of the protagonist.