“I’M TRYING to create a more personal connection with the soldiers, to help people understand the gravity of what they did,” says director Jo Throckmorton ’87 of America's Deadliest Battle, his documentary about the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of World War I.
The largest independent American offensive in history, the battle left an estimated 110,000 Americans dead or wounded and led to the end of the war.
Yet today it is nearly forgotten by the American public.
Throckmorton’s advisors on the project hope the film and centennial observances of World War I will change that.
Historian Rob Dalessandro recalls Laurence Stallings’ book The Doughboys: “Stallings bemoans the fact that if you asked any child in America in 1940 what the pivotal battle was in American history, that child would have said Meuse-Argonne. By the fall of 1945, a child might answer Normandy or the Battle of the Bulge. World War I was forgotten—all those people who perished for America were forgotten.
“I’d like us to redeem this—and have children today at least know where the Meuse-Argonne was and know that we fought there.”
Throckmorton adds: “By focusing on a small number of soldiers, I hope the film will help people realize these men not only fought for their country, but they were a band of brothers, committed to one another.”
The film, sponsored by the American Battle Monuments Commission, will have a permanent home, shown on the large screen at the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in France, where more than 14,000 American soldiers are buried.