Our Desperate Hour – A Novel of the Great War

By John F. Andrews

46 North Publications, LLC, 2024

David F. Beer, Reviewer

First Aid Station by George Harding

The army lied to me. And I think it’s about to get worse.

Although Our Desperate Hour is premised on the search of a father for his estranged son in the madness of World War I, it is also a detailed look at varied military personalities and the brutal human cost of the battle for Belleau Wood. Failed communication—and outright deception—are additionally revealed as piercing flaws that beset military endeavors and cause numerous deaths.

You’ll meet an assortment of characters in this book, from Major Ab Johnson to Medical Corpsman Lyle McCormack, and most are either Marines or Naval medical personnel. Each chapter is related in the present tense by different voices, although Major Johnson dominates the narration. Many of these figures are based on real men who in one way or another took part in the actual combat, although here their words are fictionalized. You will also meet some of the same people who appear in the two other novels by this author.

In some ways this is a shocking novel. Most of us have read various accounts of the events at Belleau Wood and perhaps have some idea of the military incompetence that resulted in carnage that to some extent should have been avoided. The author skillfully includes within the novel’s plot the great difficulty of dealing not only with the French military but also with our own. As Major Johnson observes:

I manage to get a shower, then talk with several neatly attired staff officers over breakfast. They’re out of touch with the battlefield. Their bravado is typical of those in the rear echelons. One thing I noticed in my first tour of army service is that bravado is proportional to the distance between the man and the battlefield. The longer the distance, the more bravado. Those in the shit rarely brag—most don’t say anything (p. 270).

A short description by a Marine runner, Private Carl Larsen, sums up what portions of Belleau Wood have now turned into: “Human decomposition, dysentery, and the sulfurous smell of gunpowder meld with the musty odor of the residual mustard and phosgene…” (p. 261). That the body parts are primarily those of young Americans who had signed up for the Marine Corps (despite the army’s prejudice against the Corps) effectively enhances our involvement in the novel.

Considerable sections of Our Desperate Hour are devoted to the work of the medical personnel involved in the fighting, from stretcher bearers to surgeons and some Naval ranks. The description of their actions is at times riveting, and all the more realistic due to author John F. Andrews being not only a retired critical care physician but also a down-to-earth and evocative writer. We may have read accounts of the fighting for Belleau Wood in histories, but this work presents not only rare background facts but also feelings, thoughts, fears and raw heroism that perhaps can only be shared through the novelist’s hand.

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Our Desperate Hour certainly keeps one’s attention. It is also well worth reading the Afterward the author provides, which in some ways is an effective explanatory abstract of the key points of the book. You will enjoy this fine historical novel. 

David F. Beer