A Classic Read - The Emma Gees

I'm currently reading Herbert W. McBride's The Emma Gees, about his service as an American in the Canadian Army in World War I with a machine gun section. McBride relates his training and combat experiences, including sniping on the Western Front.

Better known for his work A Rifleman Went To War which holds a major place in sniper and shooting lore, McBride's The Emma Gees is a great read.

You can now get the Emma Gees for free at the Project Gutenberg library, or Free for the Kindle at Amazon, or In Paperback Form from Amazon.

Any way you get it, it is well worth reading.

One of the most striking things about the book is how erudite Mr. McBride is and how it is conveyed in his writing. His vocabulary is very rich and wide, and he knows the history of the land he travels through in England and in France at a level that the average college graduate of today would be hard pressed to match.

He vividly conveys the conditions of trench warfare and his combat experiences in a prose that is both very readable and well suited to his tale. I'd highly recommend giving the Emma Gees some of your reading attention as a vivid first hand account of the Great War.

An obituary for Mr. McBride, who died in 1933 from a heart condition at the age of 59, appeared and can be read in the NRA's American Rifleman.