At last the story of Major Charles Whittlesey finally was told on screen in a fine production from the History Channel. Fresh from his stint on NYPD Blue, Rick Schroder gives a fine performance as the caring major who leads his battalion into a horrendous situation behind enemy lines. Along with what Sergeant Alvin York did, Whittlesey's Lost Batallion was one of the great stories to come out of World War I.
On October 2, 1918 who could have known the war that had stalemated for four years in the trenches on the Western Front was a little more than a month away from the finish. At least that was the view for the dough-boy in those trenches. The leaders of the various countries were negotiating for an armistice. But rumors of armistice had been circulating in the trenches for years.
Whittlesey's Lost Batallion was part of the general offensive in the Argonne Forest and his command advanced way ahead of the rest of the army. Like the soldiers at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in the next World War, his battalion became surrounded by the German Army and held out for four days. They even had to endure a rash of friendly fire from our side. You're just as dead if you're hit by that. When it was all over the battalion had about 200 men left from the 500 that started.
Rick Schroder does a fine job in essaying the role of Whittlesey who in civilian life was a lawyer. It's touched on slightly, but Whittlesey's politics were fairly left wing, but unlike a lot of the people on the left who opposed the war, he enlisted and received a commission.
The experience in the war and those four days when he had the responsibility of holding his men together, scarred his very psyche. He went back to practicing law and with a really prestigious Wall Street firm, but was constantly in demand for various patriotic type events which didn't sit well with him. In 1921 he went missing from a ferry boat and his body never recovered. That part of the Whittlesey story was not told in this film and is open to a lot of speculation.
Still the story of The Lost Batallion is as ingrained in the American Experience as The Alamo or Pearl Harbor. And we should thank the History Channel for finally being the ones to do the film that tells the story.
On October 2, 1918 who could have known the war that had stalemated for four years in the trenches on the Western Front was a little more than a month away from the finish. At least that was the view for the dough-boy in those trenches. The leaders of the various countries were negotiating for an armistice. But rumors of armistice had been circulating in the trenches for years.
Whittlesey's Lost Batallion was part of the general offensive in the Argonne Forest and his command advanced way ahead of the rest of the army. Like the soldiers at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in the next World War, his battalion became surrounded by the German Army and held out for four days. They even had to endure a rash of friendly fire from our side. You're just as dead if you're hit by that. When it was all over the battalion had about 200 men left from the 500 that started.
Rick Schroder does a fine job in essaying the role of Whittlesey who in civilian life was a lawyer. It's touched on slightly, but Whittlesey's politics were fairly left wing, but unlike a lot of the people on the left who opposed the war, he enlisted and received a commission.
The experience in the war and those four days when he had the responsibility of holding his men together, scarred his very psyche. He went back to practicing law and with a really prestigious Wall Street firm, but was constantly in demand for various patriotic type events which didn't sit well with him. In 1921 he went missing from a ferry boat and his body never recovered. That part of the Whittlesey story was not told in this film and is open to a lot of speculation.
Still the story of The Lost Batallion is as ingrained in the American Experience as The Alamo or Pearl Harbor. And we should thank the History Channel for finally being the ones to do the film that tells the story.