When word that a detachment from New York's own 77th Division had been surrounded by Germans in the Argonne Forest leaked out, a wily editor saw an opportunity to sell more papers and immediately dubbed the unit "The Lost Battalion." Over the next week, as the men held out in the face of overwhelming odds, the story of the "Lost Battalion" became the most widely reported episode of the war. It hardly mattered that the battalion wasn't a battalion at all and certainly wasn't lost. The group of some 500 men was made up of companies from two different battalions of the 154th Infantry Brigade, and headquarters knew the exact coordinates of the unit's location from the beginning of the siege. What did matter was that this group of determined men made a gallant stand reminiscent of the Alamo and Little Big Horn, and this one had a happier ending.

In a general offensive against German positions in the Argonne Forest on October 1, only this makeshift battalion managed to advance. With its flanks thus exposed, the unit awoke on the morning of October 2 to find itself surrounded. The unit's commander, an unassuming New York lawyer (Major Charles W. Whittlesey), held his position for the next five days despite overwhelming odds. Besides sporadic artillery and sniper fire, the Germans launched eight attacks against the unit's lines. Food ran out on the first day of the siege; bandages, a day later; and ammunition was so low by October 7 that the unit could not have repulsed another attack. Fortunately they were finally relieved that evening. On the morning of October 8, 194 of the men walked out. Another 202 wounded were carried out. Sixty-nine were dead or missing. Three of the unit's officers, including Whittlesey, were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their actions during the siege.

The compelling story of the "battalion's" ordeal is told with reasonable accuracy and vivid action in The Lost Battalion (DVD/A&E Entertainment). An A&E original movie, The Lost Battalion first aired in 2001. Directed by Russell Mulcahy (The Shadow) and starring Rick Schroder (NYPD Blue) as Major Whittlesey, the movie employs the action techniques that proved so effective in Saving Private Ryan -- e.g., hand-held cameras focused tightly on the action. Here too, the effect is to render the horror of combat in graphic and relentless images. The cast, especially Schroder, is solid and the screenplay is serviceable. Schroder bears a striking resemblance to the real Major Whittlesey and plays him as the citizen-soldier facing -- and ultimately defying -- overwhelming odds that he was.

The script is compelling on several levels. Whittlesey, the bookish-looking New York lawyer turned soldier, is the Everyman Warrior that viewers enjoy identifying with. Most would like to think that placed in a similar situation they too would find the courage to act as Whittlesey did. Moreover, the movie offers another take on the classic theme that pits an intrepid underdog David against the prohibitive favorite Goliath. As with the Biblical David -- but not with Sam Houston at the Alamo and Custer at Little Bighorn -- the underdog prevails here.

The producer, however, could have made an equally good movie without resorting to distortions. The movie perpetuates the notion that the unit was indeed lost when the coordinates of its location were known to higher headquarters from the beginning of the siege. It also leaves the impression that Schroder was commanding a single battalion rather than companies from two separate battalions. And, worst, the movie gives the siege an undeserved tactical significance in the larger battle for the Argonne Forest. What Whittlesey and his men did needs no embellishment.

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If you enjoy the DVD and want to know more about the battalion, you might check out Five Days in October: The Lost Battalion of World War I, by Robert H. Ferrell (University of Missouri Press, 2005) and Blood in the Argonne: The "Lost Battalion" of World War I, by Alan Gaff (University of Oklahoma Press, 2005).