John Allan Wyeth (October 24, 1894 – May 11, 1981) served as a military intelligence lieutenant in the 33rd U.S. Division of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I and subsequently became a war poet, composer, and painter. After the Armistice, Wyeth lived in Europe and became both a Post-Impressionist painter and a war poet.
According to literary critic Dana Gioia, who wrote the introduction to the 2008 reissue of Wyeth's war sonnets, Wyeth is the only American poet of the Great War who merits comparison to British war poets Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen. In response to the 2008 republication, British poet and literary critic Jon Stallworthy, the editor of The Oxford Book of War Poetry and the biographer of Wilfred Owen, wrote, "At long last, marking the ninetieth anniversary of the Armistice, an American poet takes his place in the front rank of the War Poet's parade."
Early life Wyeth's father, also named John Allan Wyeth (1845–1922), grew up on a plantation in Guntersville, Alabama, and served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, and later in life became the surgeon in New York CityJohn Allan Wyeth (2008), This Man's Army: A War in Fifty-Odd Sonnets, University of South Carolina Press. Pages xi-xii. who founded what is today the Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital in 1882 (which became Cabrini Medical Center).
Wyeth's mother, Florence Nightingale Sims (d.1915), was the daughter of Lancaster County, South Carolina, native J. Marion Sims, a pioneering surgeon who is considered "the father of modern gynaecology." As it was both uncontroversial and common practice at the time, Sims founded gynecology through many experimental operations upon enslaved black women without anesthesia. Although Sims' patients were willing to go through with his experimental procedures, medical ethicist Barron H. Lerner has said of Sims, "One would be hard pressed to find a more controversial figure in the history of medicine." After serving as a Confederate spy under diplomatic cover in Europe during the American Civil War, Sims also settled in New York City, founded the New York Cancer Hospital, and served as president of the American Medical Association. He is also remembered for inventing Sims' speculum, Sims' sigmoid catheter, and the Sims' position.
John Allan Wyeth was born on October 24, 1894, in New York City. His brother, Marion Sims Wyeth, became an architect. Wyeth grew up in what Dana Gioia has called "a cultured family" which attended the Episcopal Church.Dana Gioia, John Allan Wyeth: Soldier Poet, St Austin Review, March/April 2020. Page 6.
Wyeth was educated at the Lawrenceville School, a Presbyterian boarding school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. During his time at Lawrenceville, Wyeth was president of the drama club and the class poet. He published some of his work in the Lawrenceville Literary Magazine and, in 1908, a play by the 13-year old Wyeth was performed for a charity benefit.Wyeth (2008), page xii.
Princeton Wyeth began attending Princeton University in 1911. He was a member of the Princeton Charter Club. He studied mostly literature and languages. He was an average student, but contributed to the Nassau Literary Magazine and was a member of the Class Ode Committee.Wyeth (2008), pages xii-xiii. His friends at Princeton included Edmund Wilson and F. Scott Fitzgerald.Dana Gioia, John Allan Wyeth: Soldier Poet, St Austin Review, March/April 2020. Page 5. Wilson later recalled that he and Wyeth read the novels of Henry James, and later credited Wyeth with leading him to a sympathetic understanding of James's recreation of period style and dialogue.B.J. Omanson (2019), Before the Clangor of the Gun: The First World War Poetry of John Allan Wyeth, page 96. Wyeth, unusually, had no roommate at Princeton. Wilson later described Wyeth as "the only aesthete of the Class of 1915", which according to Gioia is "almost certainly" a codeword for "homosexual".Wyeth (2008), page xiii. Wyeth graduated from Princeton in 1915.
After his graduation, Wyeth taught French in a high school in Mesa, Arizona, for a year, then returned to Princeton, where he intended to pursue graduate school and become a professor of Romance languages. However, he only completed a master's degree program.
World War I On December 28, 1917, almost nine months after the American entry into World War I, Wyeth enlisted in the United States Army as a second lieutenant in the 33rd Division, which was largely composed of soldiers from the Illinois Army National Guard. Because Wyeth was fluent in French, he was assigned to the Interpreter's Corps at Division HQ. After completing their training at Camp Logan in Houston, Texas, Lieut. Wyeth and the 33rd U.S. Division were transferred to Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, to await transport overseas.Wyeth (2008), page xxx. On May 15, 1918, Wyeth and his division were instructed to proceed to Hoboken, New Jersey and board a troopship bound for France. In his sonnet Camp Upton: Sailing Orders, Wyeth recalls the pain of saying goodbye to a loved one after receiving the orders.Wyeth (2008), page 1.
In his sonnet Camp Upton to Hoboken: Secret Troop Movement,Wyeth (2008), page 2. Wyeth describes how, in the early morning of May 16, 1918, he and his fellow soldiers boarded a railroad train in Yaphank and arrived in New York City. Wyeth and his division then boarded a ferry to Hoboken. As they crossed over, Wyeth claims, someone aboard a passing ferry shouted, "Give 'em hell, boys!" and a Doughboy from the 33rd shouted back, "Give 'em hell yourself, it's not too late to join!"
Wyeth and thousands of other doughboys boarded the USS Mount Vernon, which steamed out of New York Harbor at sunset.
On May 24, 1918, the USS Mount Vernon approached the French port of Brest.Wyeth (2008), page xxxi. In his sonnet Brest: The Waterway, Wyeth recalled the sight of French and Breton civilians enthusiastically waving and cheering over the arrival of his division. He also claims, however, that some of his fellow Doughboys made off-color jokes about the women on the dock.Wyeth (2008), page 5.
Because Brest's waterfront, with its "regiments of streetwalkers" and regular drunken brawls between sailors, was considered "the scourge of the provost-marshal", Wyeth's division was diverted to barracks. Wyeth, as an officer, was at liberty to explore the city. In the sonnet Brest: The Waterfront, Wyeth claims to have seen a French war widow dressed "in shabby black." The sight supposedly made Wyeth wonder whether, after four years of war, all of France, like the widow, was "too casual and numb for tears."Wyeth (2008), page 6.
On May 25, 1918, a train carrying Wyeth and his division left Brest, bound for Paris. In his sonnet The Train from Brest, Wyeth describes listening to the bickering of his fellow Doughboys accompanied by "the clank of iron beating a rackety tune." Wyeth also describes waking up to see the spires of Chartres Cathedral "against a low-hung lazy moon."Wyeth (2008), page 7.
After passing the Palace of Versailles, which looked like "a bridge of shadow on a lake,"Wyeth (2008), page 8. the train arrived in Paris. The 33rd Division's commanding officer, Major General George Bell Jr., had received orders to proceed from Paris to Rouen. When the train arrived at the Gare Montparnasse, however, a British Army staff officer delivered new orders reassigning the 33rd Division to Oisemont. Wyeth was ordered to take his men by subway to the Gare du Nord, where they boarded a train heading north.Wyeth (2008), pages xxxi, 8. Wyeth later recalled in his sonnet The British Front how, as they arrived at Oisemont, he and his fellow Doughboys heard for the first time, "the muffled pulse of guns along the front."Wyeth (2008), page 9. That evening, Wyeth watched in the Mercerie of Oisemont as a Scottish regimental band, playing bagpipes, passed by with "kilts flapping while the drumsticks thump and fly," followed by fascinated French civilians. The church bell, however, tolled "a reprimand," as a funeral procession also passed by.Wyeth (2008), pages xxxii, 10.
Wyeth spent the night of May 26–27, 1918, unable to sleep due to the constant arrival of "jolting troop trains", at Oisemont's "British Detraining Station", which "choked the yard with soldiers all night long." As "the grey dawn," shivered on Wyeth's "grimy skin", he took breakfast, with "cognac and coffee villainously strong." Also with the dawn, new orders arrived and assigned the 33rd U.S. Division to move ten kilometers north to Huppy. As the trains finally stopped arriving in Oisemont, Wyeth strolled down a nearby hillside and tried to sleep, while eyeing "those frail trees and the town's naïve profile."Wyeth (2008), pages xxxii, 11.
On May 31, 1918, Division HQ was established in Huppy, where the 33rd Division was designated as part of the U.S. Army II Corps and passed under the jurisdiction of the British Fourth Army.Frederic Louis Huidekoper (1921), The History of the 33rd Division A.E.F., Four Volumes. Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, Illinois. Volume I, Page 35. Lt. Wyeth and his fellow Doughboys were stationed in nearby Huppy when aeroplanes from the Imperial German Flying Corps began one of their nightly bombing raids on nearby Abbeville. At the time, Abbeville was being evacuated and Wyeth versified his memories of the panic caused by the air raid in the sonnet Huppy.Wyeth (2008), page xxxii.
In his sonnet Huppy: The Life o' Riley, Wyeth described an incident that he claims took place sometime between June 1 and 8, 1918. While out on a nighttime carouse with his fellow Doughboys, Wyeth and his buddies found a village café and marched inside despite the protests of the proprietress, who told them that her business was closed. One of the soldiers replied, "Allez toot sweet," ("toute de suite", meaning "go right away"), "to hell!" One of the soldiers ordered Black & White Scotch whiskey. As the proprietress obliged, another Doughboy launched into a rendition of the new song, You're in the Army Now.Wyeth (2008), pages xxxii, 13.
On the night of August 8–9, 1918, as Doughboys from the 33rd U.S. Division were joining the Allied offensive during the Battle of Amiens, Wyeth and Thomas J. Cochrane were assigned to deliver sealed orders from Division HQ at Molliens-au-Bois to the Field Headquarters of all three Battalions engaged in the attack. The location of each Battalion was unknown, but they were believed to be along the northern bank of the Somme River, near the village of Sailly-le-Sec. Wyeth would later describe the mission in detail in his six interlinked "Chipilly Ridge sonnets."Omanson (2019), pages 36-39.
On the afternoon of September 14, 1918, while the men of the 33rd U.S. Division were stationed at Fromereville near Verdun, Wyeth was taking a shower with a group of bickering Doughboys when he heard the cry, "Air Raid!" Like every other bather, Wyeth ran, naked and covered with soap, into the village square. There, he watched as a Fokker D VII, flown by Unteroffizier Hans Heinrich Marwede from Jasta 67's aerodrome at Marville, attacked and set on fire three French observation balloons.Omanson (2019) Before the Clangor of the Gun, pages 7-13. Lieut. Wyeth later described Marwede's victory in his sonnet Fromereville: War in Heaven.Wyeth (2008), page 49.
Post-war After the Armistice, Wyeth served in the Weimar Republic with the Army of Occupation for nearly a year.Omanson (2019), page 79. He received an honorable discharge from the United States Army on October 23, 1919.Wyeth (2008), page xiv.