The First World War was a conflict of unprecedented ferocity that unleashed such demons as mechanized warfare and mass death on the twentieth century. After the last shot was fired and the troops marched home, approximately three million soldiers remained unaccounted for. Some bodies were found, but they bore no trace of identification; many more had simply vanished in battlefields where as many as a hundred shells had fallen on every square yard. Author Hanson animates and brings to life the combatants who perished without a trace by focusing on three soldiers--an American, an Englishman, and a German--and narrating their war experiences through their diaries and letters. He describes how each man endured the nearly unbearable conditions in the trenches and in the air and relates what is known about their deaths.--From publisher description.