An astonishing account of fortitude and bravery in World War I

The Best World War I Story I Know: On the Point in the Argonne is the breath-taking story of three US Army divisions tasked with capturing the Côte de Châtillon during the Meuse-Argonne offensive in autumn 1918. Readers will first follow in the footsteps of Missouri-Kansas Guard troops who were repulsed in the opening days of the battle; their courage in the face of heavy fire was not enough to overcome poor leadership.

They were replaced by the 1st Division, the “best of the Regular Army.”  This fine unit became physically and mentally exhausted after suffering  horrendous casualties. Unable to fight on, “The Big Red One” was exchanged at the base of Côte de Châtillon, with the 42nd, the Rainbow Division. It too struggled to gain ground on the heavily-contested hill until General Douglas MacArthur’s determined 84th Brigade of “Alabama cotton pickers and Iowa corn growers” forced their way past the Germans. The Côte was finally in American hands and the war all but over.

Nimrod T. Frazer was born in Montgomery, Alabama, to a family with a strong military tradition. Following in their footsteps, Frazer enlisted in the Army in 1950 and volunteered for Korea. Serving as a tank platoon leader, he was awarded the Silver Star for Gallantry in Action.

On returning to the United States, Frazer attended Columbia University and Harvard, receiving an MBA from Harvard. He engaged in a successful business career. Service to country and community have been his main focus throughout life.

In 2011, he erected a Memorial to the Rainbow Division and the 167th Infantry Regiment on the site of the battle of Croix Rouge Farm in France where his father received a Purple Heart. It honors all soldiers of the Rainbow Division who gave their lives on French battlefields during WWI. He has told their story in a book called Send the Alabamians, published in 2014 by the University of Alabama Press. In 2017, he gave the same over life-size bronze sculpture, representing an American soldier carrying the body of his dead comrade, a work by the British sculptor James Butler, R.A., to the city of Montgomery.

In 2017, France made Frazer a Knight in the Order of the Legion of Honor.
 

“Rod Frazer has done a terrific job tying together a three-division campaign in a coherent fashion, but the thoroughness of his work doesn’t stop at this overview level. There are excellent discussions of small unit actions—his discourse on the work of the 151st [Georgia] Machine Battalion in the last action is a classic, for example. More than any comparable military history works I can remember, he also remembers to honor the contributions of the individual Doughboys, and, in one case, a brave French liaison officer, Capitaine Maurice Drouhin. Let me not forget either, GREAT MAPS. I strongly recommend The Best World War I Story I Know to anyone interested in the AEF, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, or well-researched and written military history.”
—Roads to the Great War


“With a combat veteran’s eye for detail, Rod Frazer narrates how three American divisions struggled to capture the Côte de Châtillon during the forty-seven day Meuse-Argonne battle. The Best World War I Story I Know: On the Point in the Argonne is a compelling story of grit and determination by untested doughboys matched against far more experienced German troops in the final showdown of World War I.”
—Mitchell Yockelson, author of Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I and Borrowed Soldiers: American Under British Command, 1918

"As he did with Send the Alabamians, Rod Frazer gives an excellent account of the Meuse-Argonne campaign, the most important battle fought by the American Army in WWI. He sets the strategic picture then details the battle through the eyes of the doughboy. The horrors of WWI come to the fore. During the 42nd Division’s deployment to Iraq in 2005, we adopted the motto “Never Forget.” We should Never Forget what happened one hundred years ago in the Meuse-Argonne."
—Major General (retired) Joseph Taluto, Chairman, Rainbow Division Veterans Foundation

"A detailed account of how American military forces finally succeeded in breaking through the famous Hindenburg Line to end WWI. I  am proud of the role the 42nd ID played in key Meuse-Argonne battles, especially their victory at the Côte de Châtillon, which proved to be the Division’s most difficult battle of the war."
—Major General Steven Ferrari, CG, 42nd Infantry Division