The Cellars of Marcelcave: A Yank Doctor in the BEF

Before America went to war in 1917 to make the world "safe for democracy, " Uncle Sam sent over 1,500 doctors to fill the depleted ranks of the British Army. Among these volunteers was Ben Gallagher, 28, fresh from his internship. With a clinician's eye and a historian's sense, he saw the "war to end all wars" from a front line aid post. He survived several hairbreadth escapes as well as a successful escape from a prisoner of war camp. But only Ben's shoes make it to freedom Ben's encounters with wounded British, the famous Baron von Richtofen, and a German intelligence officer bring the conflict to life. Edited by his grandson, also a doctor, Ben's journal of his actual experiences make for an unforgettable read. This book is for historian and non-historian alike. A real life "All Quiet on the Western Front" as told by an American doctor who was "over there."Step into the mind and heart of Ben Gallagher, fresh out of the University of Minnesota Medical School and a battalion surgeon with the Gloucestershire Regiment on the Somme Front in France, as the Great War stumbled into its climactic last year, 1918.

He treated me as a friend. I never worked with a better medical officer. He had no fear of enemy shelling. His first thought was always for the men in the firing line. His motto was surely "service not self."

The fact that an American medical officer had been posted to us made him a special character to us young soldiers...He must have been brave, to be in the vanguard of our cousins who came to help us in that Great War. He treated the men with a common bond of humanity.

This is how British veterans remembered Ben Gallagher fifty years later.

Dr Christopher J. Gallagher is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at Stony Brook University. He is the recipient of teaching awards from Duke University, the University of Miami, and Stony Brook University. He was also awarded the Anesthesiology Teaching Recognition Award for Achievement in Education by the International Anesthesia Research Society. Dr Gallagher is the author of books on oral boards, anesthesia procedures, and TEE simulation. Outside of medicine, he has written one book on tennis, one on World War I, and another on learning foreign languages. He is fluent in five languages, conversant in another five, and can ask for the bathroom in an additional five. He has not yet achieved People magazine's '50 Most Beautiful People' list, but hope's spring is eternal in the human breast. He is the father of one and husband of one.