George Browne: An American Soldier in World War I (review)

Here are letters written by Corporal George Browne, 117th Engineers, 42nd Division, during American participation in World War I. They detail Browne's consuming love for his girl Martha Johnson, against a backdrop of experiences in training prior to and during the division's coming together in Camp Mills on Long Island, shipment to France, more training over the winter of 1917–18, and then gradual introduction into the line against the German Army. The book ends with two touching photographs of "Brownie" and "Marty" at their marriage in 1919 and the couple as they appeared in old age in the late 1960s. The editor accompanies the letters with descriptions of the AEF and of the 42nd's weary but victorious course to the armistice. He has sought out the major depositories of material on the division, archival and manuscript.

What to say about this collection? Several years ago one of the editor's students told him about it, and he looked at the letters, a wise thing to do. Possibly he should not have contemplated putting them into a book. They are much like other soldier letters, hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of which have survived through the many years. The Browne letters are not well written; they lack literary quality. When Browne went overseas he encountered censorship, which in World War I was so straitening that most soldier letters were full of the march, weather, and longing for home. In the present instance one wonders if the love that Browne expressed for his friend Marty is enough to hold the letters together. Undeterred, the editor spent an enormous amount of time surrounding them with explanations that threaten to overweigh the letters. Chapter two of twenty-five pages has fifteen of explanations, the Meuse-Argonne chapter of sixteen pages has twelve.