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Hellfire Boys: The Birth of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service and the Race for the World's Deadliest Weapons Kindle Edition

by Theo Emery (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 70 ratings
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This explosive look into the dawn of chemical warfare during World War I is "a terrifying piece of history that almost no one knows" (Hampton Sides).

In 1915, when German forces executed the first successful gas attack of World War I, the world watched in horror as the boundaries of warfare were forever changed. Cries of barbarianism rang throughout Europe, yet Allied nations immediately jumped into the fray, kickstarting an arms race that would redefine a war already steeped in unimaginable horror.

Largely forgotten in the confines of history, the development of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service in 1917 left an indelible imprint on World War I. This small yet powerful division, along with the burgeoning Bureau of Mines, assembled research and military unites devoted solely to chemical weaponry, outfitting regiments with hastily made gas-resistant uniforms and recruiting scientists and engineers from around the world into the fight.

As the threat of new gases and more destructive chemicals grew stronger, the chemists' secret work in the laboratories transformed into an explosive fusion of steel, science, and gas on the battlefield. Drawing from years of research, Theo Emery brilliantly shows how World War I quickly spiraled into a chemists' war, one led by the companies of young American engineers-turned-soldiers who would soon become known as the "Hellfire Boys." As gas attacks began to mark the heaviest and most devastating battles, these brave and brilliant men were on the front lines, racing against the clock -- and the Germans -- to protect, develop, and unleash the latest weapons of mass destruction.
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  1. Print length
    559 pages
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  4. Publisher
    Little, Brown and Company
  5. Publication date
    November 14, 2017
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Editorial Reviews

Review

One of Hello Giggles' "Top Books to Get Your Dad for Christmas"

Praise for Hellfire Boys

"Through dogged reporting and a clear-eyed journey back through a world of secrets that are literally toxic, Theo Emery has dispassionately constructed an astonishing narrative of the scientists and soldiers who were tasked with winning a horrible war a century ago. Refusing to allow our modern revulsion of chemical weapons (however well-founded) to shape his extraordinary narrative, Emery--like all good historians--is determined to let the era of his subject speak for itself."―Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice, Ghost Soldiers, Hellhound on His Trail, and Blood and Thunder

"A fascinating and deeply researched account of how America reinvented its military--and itself--in its first modern global war. Theo Emery combines science, history, and character-driven drama to illuminate some of the darkest aspects of our national past."―Beverly Gage, author of The Day Wall Street Exploded and Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University

"Brims with shock and surprise... Through squarely a crackling history, Hellfire Boys is also a relevant primer on the past 100 years and on a kind of total warmaking that continues to haunt us--sometimes from another hemisphere, sometimes in our own back yard."―Dan Zak, Washington Post

"Moving crisply between stateside turf wars and battlefront combat, this well-written and well-researched slice of history will appeal to virtually any history or war buff."―Library Journal (starred review)

"Even military buffs will learn from this intensely researched, often unnerving account.... Readers will share Emery's lack of nostalgia for this half-forgotten weapon, but they will admire this satisfying combination of technical background, battlefield fireworks, biographies of colorful major figures, and personal anecdotes from individual soldiers."―Kirkus

"Journalist Emery offers a useful and absorbing reminder that, a century earlier, it was a different weapon of mass destruction that terrified both soldiers and civilians... This is a timely and often unsettling examination of a previously well-hidden government program."―Booklist

"Illuminating... Emery zeroes in on a little-known and sparsely documented moment in the history of chemical warfare."―The National Book Rivew

About the Author

Theo Emery is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Tennessean, and other publications. He has appeared on NPR and WBUR in Boston. He graduated from Stanford University in 1994, and earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College in 2014. He was a 2015 Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow. He lives outside Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B06XFV93PT
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company (November 14, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 14, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 40355 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 559 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 70 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
70 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jim Schmidt
5.0 out of 5 stars "The Devil's Perfume"
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2019
Verified Purchase
I may be a little late to the WW1 centennial in terms of my reading, but I've really enjoyed some "specialized" WW1 reading in the past few months: the air war fought by the British, American volunteer ambulance drivers, and this - the most interesting, yet - Theo Emery's excellent book on the American chemical weapons program.

Emery's special talent here is enriching a chronological narrative with a variety of interesting and interconnecting threads.

As a chemist, I found it of great scientific interest, and it built on reading I had done on the use/development of chemical weapons in the 19th century, esp. the American Civil War (I highly recommend Guy Hasegawa's book - "Villainous Compounds" - for that interesting story); but there was so much more than just the play on the "Chemists' War," as WW1 has been called: the use and expansion of the American University campus in the DC suburbs as a research facility (and the ensuing environmental hazards that lingered well into the early 21st century), the Army leadership and the quest to make the "Chemical Corps" a separate and important command, the ethical/moral questions, the stories - buttressed by wonderful first-hand accounts, of soldiers in the "First Gas Regiment" employing chemical weapons in France, and an especially interesting story thread involving Walter Scheele: a German chemist sent to America to conduct industrial espionage, planted bombs on European-bound ships, was captured and faced possible execution but agreed to work for the US government during the war at a secret lab in New York state.

The author's research is outstanding - his diligence in reaching out to relatives/descendants of soldiers, chemists, and Army leaders is impressive and resulted in a trove of documents which he uses to great effect in the narrative; likewise, his skills as a journalist show in his pursuit of government and archival documents. The writing is very good.

Easily one of my new favorites - I listened to the audiobook, but quickly added the hardcover to my personal library.

Highly Recommended!
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SA
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is hidden-history at its best. The story is both deeply disturbing and extraordinarily ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2018
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This book is hidden-history at its best. The story is both deeply disturbing and extraordinarily compelling, exploring the lives, and the motives, of a group of people immersed in the development of a chemical weapons program that begins as a defensive strategy and rapidly, perhaps inevitably, acquires an offensive momentum. Emery's talents as a story-teller are manifest. In reading this volume one is transported back a century, to the halls of power in D.C., and also to the European battlegrounds of the First World War. One can, in his descriptions, practically see, hear, and smell, the ghastly conditions on the front -- the waterlogged trenches, the gas-clouded, shell-pocked landscape. The characters Emery focuses on jump out of the page.

This book is as epic as, say, a book such as Adam Hochschild's Spain in Our Hearts, and as compelling a portrait of a group scientific-political endeavor as Segre and Hoerlin's The Pope of Physics. It is also a salutary tale for our increasingly dangerous age.
3 people found this helpful
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MRG
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2018
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I started this book expecting a history of chemical weapons. It is that and so much more - an engaging story with a cast of characters furiously driven by a noble but horrible cause. The slow flow of information from Europe to the US while both sides were experimenting with these chemicals is so unthinkable in our instant information era, adding such tension to the tale. There’s just so much in this book -- the testing of these poisonous gases on animals and willing humans, the cavalier attitude of both the scientists and the public as they transported these deadly toxins -- holy contamination, Batman! What were they thinking? What an eye-opener. Theo Emery’s book is a brilliant piece of research, storytelling, and history.
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anthony mincu
4.0 out of 5 stars Must read for Ww1
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2018
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Great read about a different aspect of WW1, informative and illuminating
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Will Turner
5.0 out of 5 stars A vivd accounting of the US development of gas/chemical warfare in WWI
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2019
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The constructions of research labs and enormous research/production sites, at emergency war-time speed, is pretty exciting. There are scientists, spies, secret factories, gas masks, and accidental explosions, as well as military infighting and our boys in the cold muddy trenches.
This is a large book with a huge cast, but it is very well written and draws extensively from primary sources. There is a good index to help you out when someone reappears chapters later.
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Alicia
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is amazing. I learned so much about World War I ...
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2018
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This book is amazing. I learned so much about World War I and about the U.S.'s role in it. Theo Emery's anecdotes and impeccable research make for fascinating reading. I actually couldn't put it down, and really got caught up in the stories and the personalities of the different individuals involved in this incredible story. The issues about weapons of mass destruction and chemical warfare are as pertinent now as they were 100 years ago, which makes for one more reason to read this important book. Go buy it! You won't regret it!
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JK
5.0 out of 5 stars This is so much more than an historical account
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2018
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I was carried away on a powerful current of history, meticulously researched detail from a wealth of sources, memorable characters and excellent and suspenseful writing, all of which made the book hard to put down. This time in history, and war in general, was made vivid and real. I was swept away and informed. Highly recommended, even if, like me, you're not a history buff.
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Pam
5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for history lovers
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2017
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When the U.S. entered World War I, the nation knew little about the chemical weapons that were transforming warfare on the battlefields of Europe. This untold story explains how America scrambled to catch up, and how American University became its chemical research headquarters, the site of gruesome experiments on animals and humans. The book also takes us to battles in France, following the U.S. soldiers tasked with using the weaponry. The narrative is compelling, the characters are vivid, and the story is very relevant today.
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