Echoes of Armageddon
B. Cory Kilvert Jr.
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1418456586

An American's Search Into the Lives & Deaths of Eight British Soldiers in World War One.

Cory Kilvert Jr., had grown up listening to the stories of his cousin Captain Robert Young Cory, B Company Commander, 48th Highlanders of Canada, who set sail for England in October 1914. While visiting war memorials in England & the Continent Cory Kilvert began the search for the stories behind the medals he'd been collecting most of his life.

Echoes Of Armageddon 1914-1918 are those stories & the twists & turns the author's search took to find the living relatives who remembered the eight British soldiers consumed in the fires of The Great War.

As you read about the eight men who never came home: Private Arthur Small; Capt. The Honourable William Thomas Payne-Gallwey; Private Albert Armitage; Acting Corporal William Kirkham; Capt. Bleddyn Williams; 2nd Lt. Jeffery Bradley Penfold; 2nd Lt. William McNally, MC, & Private Arthur Horner, you will feel you have entered a time warp.

Cory Kilvert lets us be flies on the wall as the blunders of The War to End All Wars tragically unfold, so clearly showing how few of the movers & shakers of the time understood as it was happening, & how even fewer knew when it was over. What everyone did understand, however, was the ineptitude of the military brass in fighting a modern enemy with old-fashioned methods, the under-estimation of the enemy's forces & intentions, & the vast loss of lives this conflagration meted out, in some cases eradicating family lines.

1914, while less than a century ago, was an entirely different world, no matter on which side of The Pond you lived, and Cory Kilvert simply & succinctly walks us through the histories of British military units, the prevailing social attitudes & language before leading us into the mayhem & insanities of battle.

Few of us are alive who remember World War I, none of us remember it wasn't a “Good” War as we've come to eulogize WWII. It was a squabble between an uncle & a nephew with European countries vying for power & getting into treaties with all the wrong people, & then reneging & taking advantage of them, while literally millions of enlisted men were sent into the fray under strategies that wouldn't work, led by untrained officers, fighting with outdated materiel.

A work of intense detail & devotion, Echoes Of Armageddon 1914-1918, complete with photos & bibliographies, is a worthy memorial for every citizen soldier who goes to war on our behalf, is used for cannon fodder & whose medals signify all our gratitude.

Echoes Of Armageddon 1914-1918 could have been dreary & lifeless instead, with the deftness of a born story-teller, Cory Kilvert has breathed life back into these long-ago warriors so we may meet them, their families & legacies, & occasionally their surviving relatives, as well as their commanding officers & brothers-in-arms.

I would have liked to have seen photos of the medals that started the search for the Echoes Of Armageddon 1914-1918
(01/16/05)

Rebecca