ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED. 2/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by Patrick K. O'Donnell
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2024
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335
When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America’s most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O’Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America’s service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America’s involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War
1922 TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a series, I on the world with Patrick O'Donnell, the author of The Unowns, |
| 0:09.2 | The Eight Body Bears that greet the, who greet the unknown soldier in November of |
| 0:15.4 | 1921 it is now July of 1918 the Battle of Swasson the man we're watching his color sergeant James Dell, his field artillery, light artillery. |
| 0:28.0 | Harry Truman was light artillery. |
| 0:30.1 | They are using what was called the French 75. |
| 0:33.2 | A very good weapon, 3,000 pounds, 15 rounds a minute. |
| 0:38.2 | And they're part of an offensive launched by the French with the US in support is the second division. |
| 0:47.0 | Significantly here I learn why they're unknown soldiers. |
| 0:52.0 | It's because of the shelling, the heavy shelling. What happens to men when they're hit by those shells, Patrick? |
| 0:58.0 | John, the 75 is light artillery, but many of the guns in the Great War are massive artillery rounds. |
| 1:07.6 | They could crater the battlefield like a moonscape, you know, creators the size that could bury a nice single family home. |
| 1:17.9 | They were that large. |
| 1:20.3 | You know, just imagine the devastation that those shells wrought and they wrought on the human body. |
| 1:26.6 | They vaporize it in many cases. |
| 1:29.5 | And this is the reason why there are, you know, tragically unknown soldiers in World War I. |
| 1:35.0 | Yes, they did not have what we understand today to be a way of tracing people's identities with DNA. |
| 1:42.0 | What they could do is have witnesses nearby to say who is that and who is that? |
| 1:47.0 | The unknown soldiers are Legion in the graveyards in France when you go there to visit them from the first war. |
| 1:55.0 | Many unnamed, they're unnamed in the Second War as well. |
| 1:59.0 | It's only here in the 21st century we have details. |
| 2:02.0 | Another battle is important. This is September |
| 2:05.2 | 1918 and it's at sea again. The USS Mount Vernon, a mission of mercy carrying the wounded and the gassed and the damaged and those |
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