To the Limit of Endurance

Winner 2008 General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award presented by the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Peter F. Owen offers a tautly worded historically rigorous and intensely human survey of the agonizing burden shouldered by the Second Battalion of the Sixth Regiment of US Marines from its formation in Quantico Virginia in 1917 until the cessation of hostilities in November of the following year. In places like Belleau Wood and Soissons these young men led by dedicated officers died in staggering numbers-primarily because of the outmoded tactics they had learned. Owen shows how the battalion regrouped after these campaigns however and embarked on a period of intense retraining molding themselves into a coldly efficient military machine.. . . the maps figures and photographs are excellent . . . a timely original and important contribution to the record. I highly recommend it to the infantry professional operating at the tactical level of war or to any Marine who is interested in our rich and storied history.--Marine Corps Gazette This is one of the most useful 'soldier's eye' stories published during the last few years. Built on interviews archival deposits memoirs printed documents and appropriate secondary sources it catches in the words of the actual participants the grim realities of rain mud bad food lost friends and a formidable adversary characteristic of Great War literature. . . . a serious addition to the study of the American military experience in the Great War.--Journal of Military HistoryPETER F. OWEN retired from the US Marine Corps as a lieutenant colonel. His first command was a weapons platoon in the 2nd Battalion 6th Marines. During his research for this book he walked every battlefield on which 2/6 fought during the Great War. Owen previously annotated Carl Brannen's World War I memoir Over There.Number Nine: C. A. Brannen Series