John Allan Wyeth (1894 – 1981) was an American World War I veteran, war poet, and artist.

John in WW1

John Allan Wyeth was born on 24th October 1894 in New York City, USA. His parents were John Allan Wyeth, a war veteran and surgeon, and his wife, Florence Nightingale Wyeth, nee Sims. He had a brother, Marion Sims Wyeth, who designed houses in Florida.

Educated at the Lawrenceville School, a boarding school in New Jersey, John graduated from Princeton University in 1915, where he was a member of the Princeton Charter Club. He became a French teacher in a high school in Mesa, Arizona for a year, then went to graduate school at Princeton to study to become a professor of Romance languages.  

During the First World War, John served with the 33rd Division of the American Expeditionary Force as a translator/interpreter and then with the Army of Occupation in Germany. His WW1 collection was“This Man’s Army: A War in Fifty-Odd Sonnets” published in 1928 by Harold Vinal, Maine.

The Road to Bayonvillers

A German gun, Bayonvillers, 1918

The sidecar skimmed low down like a flying sled

over the straight road with its double screen

of wire—the blue profile of Amiens sank

below the plain—near by, a hidden blast

of gunfire by the roadside—just ahead,

a white cloud bursting out of a slope of green.

Then low swift open land and the wasted flank

of a leprous hillside—over the ridge and past

the blackened stumps of Bois Vert, bleak and dead.

Our sidecar jolted and rocked, twisting between

craters, lunging at every rack and wrench.

Through Bayonvillers—her dusty wreckage stank

of rotten flesh, a dead street overcast

with a half-sweet, fetid, cloying fog of stench.

On To Paris

Map of Paris subway WW1

Light enough now to watch the trees go by--

a sleep like sickness in the rattling train.

Men's bodies joggle on the opposite seat

and tired greasy faces half awake

stir restlessly and breathe a stagnant sigh.

The stale air thickens on the grimy pane

reeking of musty smoke and woolly feet.

Versailles—a bridge of shadow on a lake

dawn-blue and pale, the color of the sky.

Paris at last!--and a great joy like pain

in my heart. We scuffle down the corridor.

"Lieutenant."

                          "Sir."

                                       "In half an hour we meet

at another station — your orders are to take

these men by subway to the Gare du Nord."

"French Countryside" a
painting by John Allan Wyeth

Sources:

https://allpoetry.com/John-Allan-Wyeth

http://johnallanwyeth.blogspot.com/2012/03/why-blog-about-unknown-wwi-poet-and.html

https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/FRENCH-COUNTRYSIDE/41B04544749A69D8F471185778947DC7

https://fr.usembassy.gov/world-war-i-centennial-series-getting-around-paris/

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E02936