Mead’s Trek by Tom Gauthier

Reviewed by Cy Hilterman

Mead’s Trek is the story of a group led by Major Amos Mead of the United States Marines into territory both friendly and hostile during WWII mostly in 1943. Much of the trek began with meetings in Hawaii that led to travels by Mead’s thrown together group to Thailand, Vietnam, China, Burma, Australia, with much direction from Washington, DC. Some of the group was CIA, some in various military services, one in British Intelligence, some OSS (Office of Strategic Services) but all specialists in their field. Their contacts in the United States were of utmost importance since they had to gather the information available from any source, interpret the importance of all of it, and attempt to relay that thought pertinent to Mead’s group. One selected for this group was a radio specialist who built his own radio figuring he could trust what he knew worked, against what might work in the field of battle. They knew they had miles of jungles and small villages to trek through, much of it inhabited or controlled by Japanese. Fortunately some of their contacts along the way were natives fighting to kill all the Japanese they could see and, in many cases, could not be seen by the Japanese. It was hot, humid, bug infested, dry, and not people friendly at all.

Major Mead had met a very charming and beautiful army nurse, Major Brigit O’Hare, before he had undertaken the mission. Little did he know at the time that Brigit was also a specialist in delving into messages, articles, or any other intelligence documents concerning the war, especially in the area that Mead’s group were heading into, then extracting information of utmost importance and relaying it to Mead or his contacts along the way. Mead and Brigit had that “certain spark” between them and Brigit had a difficult time as she constantly worried about Mead all the time he was gone in a dangerous area of our world and he wishing they were together.

The story is historical fiction with the authors’ characters and scenes thrown in but the locations written into this book are the same ones that had very bitter and deadly battles during WWII. Mead’s group was on a mission to find who in the area was with the Japanese and who was really with the allies. Even the Vice President of the United States, Henry A. Wallace, was thought involved in a conspiracy against his own nation. This was also a part of Mead’s mission. The mission became deadly for some in the group. Those that lost their companions and fellow mission engagement friends had an extremely hard time coping.

You will live with these men, scrounge for food, share each trail and flight, cope with the extreme weather, find a tiny area to sleep or rest a while, exist with those that might be your enemies—or friends– and get to the bottom of who is giving secrets to the enemy. They will not all return from this mission and your heart will be with those that came back in a casket. Mead’s Trek is a very good story of WWII in that area of the world and its fight for freedom.

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