WILLIAM J. DONOVAN

The enemy position was formidable. At the eastern end of the fortified Hindenburg Line, the Germans had prepared a veritable killing ground to greet any assault in the sector between the winding River Meuse and the dense, dark Argonne Forest. In less than a month, the Armistice would cause the guns to fall silent. However, until then, Allied and German troops continued fighting and dying on the Western Front as the holocaust of World War I played out in the terrible autumn of 1918.

By September, the 42nd ‘Rainbow’ Division of the US Army had become a veteran outfit, blooded in battle and absorbing tremendous casualties. The fighting in the spring and summer had cleared the St Mihiel salient, but the troops had suffered badly, losing hundreds to concentrated enemy artillery and machine-gun fire. Among the dead was famed poet Joyce Kilmer, shot in the head by a sniper. Kilmer had accompanied Major William J. ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, commander of the 1st Battalion, 165th Infantry