Remembering a Veteran: James Montgomery Flagg, Poster Artist Extraordinaire

Flagg Painting Main Subject for His "Tell It to the Marines" Poster
11 August 1918, NY Times

Noted artist and illustrator James Montgomery Flagg was born on 18 June 1877, in Pelham Manor, New York. He painted dozens of memorable posters, book covers, magazine covers, and more, with the most notable being his interpretation of Uncle Sam. Flagg was a skilled artist from a young age, with his illustrations appearing in national magazines when he was just 12 years old. By the time he was 14 his work appeared in Life magazine.

Flagg went on to attend the Art Students League of New York before studying art in London and Paris. After returning to the U.S. in 1900, Flagg kept busy providing illustrations for many books, magazine covers, political cartoons, and advertisements. Among these works was a comic strip for Judge magazine featuring the character Nervy Nat. At the height of his career, Flagg was the highest-paid magazine illustrator in the country.

Flagg’s great claim to fame, however, came in 1916 when he re-imagined the way we saw Uncle Sam. A popular symbol of America for over a century, Uncle Sam was pictured in a variety of ways—including closely resembling Benjamin Franklin. But in 1916 Flagg illustrated Uncle Sam in a new way—as an elderly man with white hair, goatee, and red, white, and blue top hat. According to Flagg, he didn’t want to bother hiring a model, so instead based Uncle Sam on himself, aging his own  features. Flagg’s illustration was first shown on the cover of Leslie’s Weekly magazine on 6 July 1916, with the caption “What Are You Doing for Preparedness?” The following year the image was printed on thousands of recruiting posters declaring, “I Want You For US Army.”

The poster became the most famous poster in American history and more than four million copies were printed. It inspired countless young men to join the fight and defend America. The image was so popular it was used again during World War II. During  World War I, Flagg produced more than forty posters for the war effort, often carrying positive messages encouraging recruitment, buying war bonds, national unity, or increasing production. He went on to produce several more powerful posters for World War II. In addition to his magazine work and posters, Flagg also painted portraits. Among his subjects were Mark Twain, Ethel Barrymore, and Jack Dempsey. Flagg remained a productive artist up to his death in 1960.

Source: Mysticstamp.com, WikiCommons

Romano's Well, Gallipoli: A Sacred Spot for the Royal Naval Division

Insignia of the 63rd Royal Naval Division

During the Gallipoli Campaign (1915), Romano's Well was a stagnant, mosquito-infested water source in the "W" Beach and Cape Helles sector. It served as a vital but hazardous landmark and logistics point for British forces, particularly the Royal Naval Division (RND), which spent most of the campaign in the vicinity.  Romano's Well was situated between a shallow ravine  and the road running from Helles to Krithia. It was utilized by medical units (such as the 3rd Lowland Field Ambulance) to treat casualties and by water carts supplying nearby artillery batteries. Members of the Royal Naval Division dubbed the spot after a very famous and popular Edwardian-era Italian eating house and restaurant in London (Romano's in the Strand). 

The Well Head Today

Water was one of the greatest logistical challenges of the Gallipoli campaign. Because groundwater was close to the surface at Romano's Well, it provided abundant, naturally cold water even during the driest summer months. As the campaign deteriorated into grueling trench warfare, the well area became a contested, muddy stretch of land behind the front lines, often subjected to Ottoman shrapnel and artillery fire. 

Trenches of the Royal Naval Division, Cape Helles

Due to the brutal summer conditions on the peninsula, stagnant pools like Romano's Well quickly turned into breeding grounds for disease. Many soldiers in the RND sector fell ill due to the polluted water and the swarms of mosquitoes. As the campaign dragged into late summer, the risk of disease forced the Allies to chemically treat the well, causing it to lose its "charm."

One of the Original Romano's Well Cemeteries,
Well Visible on the Left

Nearby was once located two Romano's Well cemeteries, established for the fallen Allied soldiers of the campaign, including men from the Hood and Howe Battalions. Those graves have since been moved to the nearby Skew Bridge Cemetery, three quarters of mile to the south of the well.

Sources:  The Great War Forum; Thebignote.com; CWGC

Paths of Glory and Fear: Kubrick's Film and Chevallier's Novel Both Censored in France

 

Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax in Paths of Glory

By Jennifer Orthveillon

Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick. Two American names that have meant worldwide stardom and cinematic virtuosity across decades. But in France, the award-winning actor and director faced the opposite for almost twenty years. Made in 1957, Paths of Glory (adapted from the novel by Humphrey Cobb), the WWI film that chronicles the unjust deaths of three innocent soldiers accused of battlefield cowardice by corrupt leaders, was censored in France until 1975 due to its anti-war stance and criticism of France's military leadership. The film was also banned from American military bases in Europe. 

The title of the novel and film comes from a stanza from the 1751 poem by Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard". 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th'inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Watch the film. It is stunning.

Order Here

We might guess that France didn't want Americans taking cinematic ownership of their role in the Great War. The film's events happen well before America's official entry. However, the French also censored their own WWI authors at different periods in history. For example, Gabriel Chevallier's book Fear, published in 1930, was censored in 1939 during WWII because it lacked the warring idealism that France needed to fight off the Germans. . . one more time. In a world where explicit combat violence can be viewed on T.V., Chevallier's descriptions of wounded and dead bodies do not fail to shock. “In 1939,” Chevallier wrote in his preface to a 1951 edition, “its author and publisher agreed to suspend sales. Once war has come, the time has passed for warning that it is a disastrous venture.” Critics today herald the book as one of the most accurate depictions of a WWI French soldier's experience. The book made its way onto American soil only recently—the first English translation appeared in 2014.

Read the book. It's eloquently stupefying.

While some works of art are quietly swept away by cultures over time, many WWI works were forced to disappear. In the next installment of this series in a few weeks, we will look at the ways the forced disappearance of certain WWI artistic works help us understand not just the real, horrifying backdrop of combat, but also something about the corrupt politics of commemoration and monument building following Armistice.

If you happen to watch the film or read the book, I would love to hear your comments. Why do you think these were censored?  Contact me HERE please.

Source: Originally presented at the World War One Centennial Commission's Website

Eyewitnesses: First Combat of Four Eloquent French Soldiers

French Bivouac During the First Battle of the Marne

Marc Bloch, Infantry

It is likely that as long as I live, at least if I do not become senile in my last days, I shall never forget the 10th of September, 1914. Even so, my recollections of that day are not altogether precise. Above all they are poorly articulated, a discontinuous series of images, vivid in themselves but badly arranged like a reel of movie film that showed here and there large gaps and the unintended reversal of certain scenes. . .

Despite so many painful sights, it does not seem to me that I was sad on that morning of September 11. Needless to say, I did not feel like laughing. I was serious, but my solemnity was without melancholy, as befitted a satisfied soul; and I believe that my comrades felt the same. I recall their faces, grave yet content. Content with what? Well, first content to be alive. It was not with-out a secret pleasure that I contemplated the large gash in my canteen, the three holes in my coat made by bullets that had not injured me, and my painful arm, which, on inspection, was still intact. On days after great carnage, except for particularly painful personal grief, life appears sweet. Let those who will condemn this self-centered pleasure. Such feelings are all the more solidly rooted in individuals who are ordinarily only half aware of their existence. (Later, a notable historian.  Executed as member of the Resistance, 1944.)

Jean Galtier-Boissière, Hussar

All of us, we believed in the story of the Alboches who would surrender for a tartine [a slice of bread with butter]. Persuaded of the crushing superiority of our artillery and our aircraft, we imagined the war naively as something of a military parade, a rapid succession of easy and brilliant victories. The thunderclap that followed, in showing us the terrifying disproportion be-tween the engines of death and the tiny soldiers, whose nervous systems were not up to such a shock, abruptly made us understand that the struggle then beginning would be a terrible ordeal. (Later, journalist and satirist.  Survived until 1966.)

Jacques Brunel de Pérard, Artilleryman

In some sense, and from a strictly personal point of view, I will regret these two months that I have just lived through which, alongside very difficult privations, have carried with them emotions of marvelous richness and variety. Although I do not have the slightest fear of death, it would be a shame if I do not return. Up to now, I have known how to make war. (Last diary entry.  The journalist and literary critic was KIA 27 September 1914)

Abbé Eugène Evrard, Medic and Chaplain

I have been wounded twice within fifteen days, and the shock was so violent and the part of my body struck so crucial, that both times I believed I was only a few moments from death. And, you see, I keep an ineffaceable memory of these moments. In full conscience, I have made the sacrifice of my life, with joy, for the re-christianization of our country, for the greater love of God on the part of my parents and my friends, and I do not feel the least bitter-ness. This sacrifice will be even more easy and joyful now, because I have reflected a great deal on it since then. (Notable Catholic journalist and editor. Died during the WWII occupation.)

Source: The Embattled Self: French Soldiers’ Testimony of the Great War by Leonard V. Smith; order HERE.

The Milwaukee Germania-Herold Gave America a View of the German and Austrian Side of the War

Click on any of the images to enlarge.

The Germania-Herold was a major, widely circulated German-language daily newspaper published in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, between 1913 and 1918. It was formed by the merger of the city's two prominent German papers—the Germania and the Milwaukee Herold. The publication was part of the media empire built by George Brumder, a German immigrant who turned his publishing company into the largest producer of German-language materials in the United States. Aside from daily news, the company also published annual almanacs (the Germania Kalender) and photo-journalistic magazines such as the Kriegs-Album, which covered World War I events.

Once America entered the war, intense anti-German sentiment in the U.S. forced the company to drop "Germania" from its title and strip the word from its historic downtown Milwaukee headquarters. To mitigate anti-German sentiment, the Germania-Herold (formed from a 1913 merger) was renamed simply the Milwaukee Herold in 1918, toning down overt expressions of German nationalism in favor of patriotic assimilation messaging.  It continued to publish until 1982

What is of particular interest to the editors of Roads to the Great War is the unique photos the Herold published during the war in their Kriegs-Album. They are not especially dramatic, but they do a good job of presenting a sympathetic and human look at the Central Powers side of things. Here is a sampler from Tony Langley's collection.

Three Memorable Days for WWI Destroyer USS Ward

 

USS Ward Underway

The USS Ward (DD-139) was a U.S. Navy Wickes-class 4-stack, flush-deck destroyer built at Mare Island shipyard in California. Ward was named in honor of Commander James Harmon Ward, USN, (1806–1861), the first U.S. Navy officer to be killed in action during the American Civil War.

1 June 1918 — Record-Setting Launch Day

The Ward was laid down at Mare Island on 15 May 1918 and built in a record of 17½ days. (Some sources claim 15 days.)  Under the pressure of urgent World War I needs for destroyers, her construction was pushed rapidly from keel laying on 15 May 1918 to launching on 1 June. Ward transferred to the Atlantic late in the year and helped support the trans-Atlantic flight of the Curtiss NC flying boats in May 1919. She came back to the Pacific a few months later, and remained there until she was decommissioned in July 1921. The outbreak of World War II in Europe brought Ward back into active service. She was recommissioned in January 1941 and sent to Pearl Harbor shortly after. Throughout 1941, Ward conducted routine antisubmarine patrols in the Hawaiian area.

        

Launching Day at Mare Island

7 December 1941 — WWII Firsts

At 0408 on 7 December, while on weekend submarine patrol the old destroyer went to general quarters to search for a suspected submarine detected by the minesweeper Condor , but came up with nothing. Ward continued her early morning vigil until lookouts on the destroyer’s bridge noticed a small feather wake astern of the auxiliary tow-ship Antares and a target raft. Within moments, Ward went to general quarters.  The first shot of the Pacific war was fired by a Ward’s gun at 0645 and splashed harmlessly beyond the submarine's small conning tower. As Ward pounded past at 25 knots, number three gun atop the galley deckhouse amidships commenced fire—its round passed squarely through the submersible’s conning tower. As the Japanese midget wallowed lower in the water and started to sink, the destroyer swiftly dropped four depth charges—signaled by four blasts on the ship’s whistle. Black water gushed upwards in the ship’s boiling wake as the bombs went off—sealing the submarine’s doom.  On that Sunday morning, Ward had the distinction of firing the first American gun in anger during the Pacific war.  Shaw continued her patrolling duties until ordered to Bremerton, Washington, for conversion into a high-speed transport.  In February 1943 she was detailed to the South Pacific in support of the island-hopping campaign of Douglas MacArthur. 

Depiction of the Midget Submarine Under Fire
(From Tora, Tora, Tora)

For decades after the incident there was some doubt, about whether this sinking had actually occurred. In 2002, however,  a team from the University of Hawaii’s Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) discovered the submarine sunk by the USS Ward on the morning of 7 December 1941. Intact, the sub lies in 1100 feet of water just a few miles from where Ward’s captain reported their brief encounter had taken place. A single four-inch diameter hole in the hull, just below the conning tower, marks the first shot fired in the Pacific War. 

USS Ward (APD-16) Afire on Its Final Day

7 December 1944 

Ward would earn eight Battle Stars for its service in the South Pacific.  The last for the  Battle of Ormoc Bay, Leyte Island, during which the transport Ward and destroyer USS Mahan were both disabled by Japanese kamikazes and had to be destroyed by U.S. gunfire. One bomber hit the Ward's hull amidships, bringing her to a dead stop. When the resulting fires could not be controlled, Ward's crew was ordered to abandon ship, and she was sunk by gunfire from the USS O'Brien, whose commanding officer, William W. Outerbridge, had been in command of Ward during her action in Hawaii three years before.   

A Postscript:  The Ward's wreckage was discovered on 1 December 2017, in Ormoc Bay by the research vessel Petrel.

Weapons of War: Barbed Wire Made in Allentown, Pennsylvania

132nd Infantry Firing from Behind a Barbed Wire Barricade, 3 October 1918

James Patton

The Early Days of Barbed Wire

Barbed wire consists of a twisted pair of thin solid steel wires with slightly smaller gauge steel wire "barbs," short lengths spaced at regular intervals and wound a few times between the twisted pair. The use of the terms “barbed” and “barb” are commonly used interchangeably, but "barbed wire" is a descriptor, whereas "barb wire" is a label, originally a brand name. 

Just as the wire is twisted, so is the history. Although the original patent was granted in France in 1860,  there is evidence that barbed wire was in use on the North American Great Plains well before that. Due to the astronomical growth of livestock grazing there was a huge need for effective fencing. In the more Eastern parts of the continent they had been building walls and planting hedge rows for hundreds of years, plus they had abundant sources of wood, too. 

Many Midwestern farmers and ranchers recognized the value of adding sharp points to their otherwise flimsy wire fences. Over 500 patents were applied for, covering over 2,000 distinct barb variants, as well as production machinery. Although it is possible to make barbed wire by hand, relatively simple machines can do it better, and at high speed as well.

There were many lawsuits and judgements that were evaded; at least two of the cases went to the Supreme Court. Needless to say, the barbed wire industry was in a state of flux, made up of large number of small producers, and since barbed wire was relatively simple to make, competition was intense, and prices were cheap. Attempts at forming cartels failed, and there were two attempts to corner the market. The second one succeeded.

The Iowa-Type Barbed Wire

Warfare Finds Barbed Wire

Agricultural use was not the only market for barbed wire. Military usage of barbed wire formally dates to 1888, when British field manuals first encouraged its use. During the Spanish American War (1898), it is said that Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt’s 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry (the “Rough Riders”), most of whom were westerners and quite familiar with barbed wire fences, chose to encircle their camps with them. 

During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), the British force built over 8,000 small forts and blockhouses, which were protected by five-strand barbed wire fences. Additionally,  about  4,000 miles of barbed wire fencing restricted the mobility of the Boer’s mounted commandos. Barbed wire also protected British  camps and supply lines from surprise attacks, and was also used to enclose the concentration camps where Boer civilians (26,000 of whom) and ‘hostile’ native Africans (20,000 deaths) were forcibly detained.

A few years later, during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), the Russian defenders of the Chinese territorial concession at Port Arthur lacked sufficient time to build moats and fortifications, so they installed complex, often electrified, barbed wire belts in front of their positions that slowed down, and even stopped Japanese assaults. The wire was so dense that the Japanese had to use wire cutters to create gaps, all the while under fire. The attackers shifted to siege warfare, using saps, tunnels, mines and heavy artillery barrages. The campaign lasted for 155 days and cost the victors over 57,000 casualties. 

Defensive Barbed Wire Entanglements, Russo-Japanese War, 1905

The Business of Barbed Wire

A few years ago, WFMZ-TV in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania reported that, when interviewed back in the 1980s, several elderly Doughboys then living at Allentown’s Phoebe Home, were asked to share their experience of service on the Western Front. One man had a particularly interesting memory. He said that, attached to the barbed wire in front of German trenches, he saw a small metal tag which was stamped with the words, in English: “Barb Wire Works Allentown Pa.”  

The Allentown Barb Wire Works, by then part of U.S. Steel, had sold an awful lot of barbed wire to both sides in World War I. The plant was known locally as simply “the Wire Mill”,  and I will continue to use this term.

The Wire Mill’s story began in 1879 with the founding of the Iowa Barb Wire Company in Johnstown PA, near America’s largest steel wire mill, the Gautier Works, founded in 1852.  Originally the Wire Mill was a branch of the Iowa Barb Steel Wire  Company of Marshalltown, Iowa (founded in 1877). After a couple of difficult years, the Iowa owners sold the works to Charles and George Douglass. Shortly thereafter, in 1881 the Gautier Mill was acquired by the Cambria Iron Co., who expanded it to make their own barbed wire, so in 1884 the Douglass brothers moved their Wire Mill to  Easton, PA, where nearby Bethlehem Steel Co. could supply the wire stock. This turned out to be a fortuitous move for the Douglass brothers, as the Gautier Mill was destroyed by the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889. Just before that the Easton site had proven to be unworkable, and in 1888 the Wire Mill was moved twenty miles west to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where they raised $75,000 from the community by selling collateral bonds, and built a new works from the ground up. 

The disorganized barbed wire industry had attracted a flamboyant promoter,  John W. “Bet-a-Million” Gates (1855–1911), who with the help of Chicago mogul Elbert Gary (1846–1927)  set out to corner the market through mergers, acquisitions, law suits and price wars. Gates earned his sobriquet in 1890 by winning about $600,000  against a $70,000 bet, on a horse race in England. A news editor’s headline rounded up the winnings amount to a million dollars, maybe misunderstanding the exchange rate. 

Million Dollar Gates & Elbert Gary
Barbed Wire Monopolists

Beginning in 1890, Gates and Gary began their quest, and by 1899 they had done it. One of the companies that Gates and Gary acquired in 1892 was the Allentown Wire Mill, which had been renamed the Consolidated Steel & Wire Co. 

Gates attributed their success to his gambler’s instincts. In 1899 all of their operations  became the American Steel and Wire Co. Later, when asked by a Congressional committee what his goal was, Gates replied, “We wanted to be the wire manufacturers of the world.” 

Gates also attracted the attention of J.P. Morgan, who was a crony of Gates’s partner Gary. In business,  Morgan was like Gates in only one way: they both liked monopolies. In 1901 Morgan acquired American Steel and Wire, with the specific proviso that Gates would have no role in operating the business. It became a subsidiary of Morgan’s U.S. Steel Corp., which he had previously formed  by buying out Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919). Miffed, Gates then spent a good deal of his considerable proceeds from the sale on attempts to make Morgan lose money, continuing right up to Gates’s death in Paris in 1911. Gates is still commemorated in Port Arthur, Texas, for his many contributions to that city, which is another story entirely.

U.S. Steel didn’t want to buy wire stock from Bethlehem, so the  Wire Mill was expanded to roll its own wire stock, using re-melted billet steel from U.S. Steel’s Monessen, Pennsylvania, works. In peak years, the Wire Mill produced more than 100,000 tons of barbed wire (for perspective, a ton of barbed wire makes a bit over six miles of single-strand fence).  

The Allentown Plant in All Its Glory

The First World War and Barbed Wire

During World War I, the Wire Mill operated continuously, selling most of its output to the Allies, but apparently some got to the Germans as well, possibly shipped through neutral countries. The 13-acre facility employed 1,200 men working 12-hour shifts, had its own police and fire departments and even a hospital. Orders were received by telegraph and telephone and shipments left by rail round the clock. The employees, many of whom were immigrants, mostly lived in the neighborhood focused around Wire Street, near the Wire Mill. All of Allentown kept track of time by the Wire Mill’s whistle.

Although no longer operating non-stop, the Wire Mill continued to prosper through the 1920s, but during the Great Depression it slid into a long decline. During World War II, most tonnages of steel went for ships, tanks and the like, and barbed wire was a low priority. Like much of American industry, to use idled capacity the Wire Mill tried its hand at other defense contracts, but in the summer of 1943, U.S. Steel decided to consolidate its wire operations in a Youngstown, Ohio, facility, where they were already making wire rope and steel cable. That December, the Wire Mill was closed for good. Later completely demolished, today the site is the park-like Wire Mill Arboretum.Sources include

WFMZ TV, The Morning Call, CherylMullenbachInk.com, the National Archives,  the National Park Service, and InvestigateMidwest (Link)

AEF Veteran Perry Mason and the Great War’s Blue Ticket Discharge

Captain Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys), 79th Division, AEF

 

By Kimball Worcester, Assistant Editor

Matthew Rhys plays the young Perry Mason, a troubled, down-on-his-luck, private investigator (and nascent attorney) in the eponymous HBO television series (2020 to 2023). The show posits some insight into the origins of Mason’s more polished—and graver—persona, the distinguished defense lawyer (played by Raymond Burr) of the first TV series from the 1950s. The viewer hopes that Erle Stanley Gardner would be pleased with this intense and creative origin story for his esteemed character. 

This version of Perry Mason is set in 1932, in Los Angeles, 13 years since the end of the Great War, referred to in the show as “The War.” Mason is still reliving his experiences as a captain in the 79th Division; he responds to the statement "God is with you" with God left me in France. 

Private Eye Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) and Police Officer Paul Drake (Chris Chalk)

Mason’s postwar discharge status is that of a “blue ticket,” given mostly to black soldiers, or those considered troublesome, queer, or “undesirable” for some unspecified reason. These discharges prevented the veteran from accessing postwar benefits and limited his employment opportunities. The blue ticket was a sad, murky assessment that left open so many interpretations applied to the veteran burdened by this label. Mason is taunted in a conversation with a combative district attorney about his (apparently known) blue ticket status. In a successful attempt to provoke Mason, the DA asks if Mason is a “Negro,” and Mason responds defiantly that he is “one quarter Welsh and queer only once,” a sarcastic retort that expresses his disgust at both racial and social discrimination. Mason is also reminded by the same adversary that he is known as “The Butcher of Montfaucon.” Mason’s actions with the 79th at Montfaucon were those of a horrified soldier in the heat of battle who administers several coups de grace to mortally wounded, suffering soldiers, German and American alike—not a butcher but a thoughtful man in a challenging moral dilemma, a parable for much of any war. This district attorney and Mason are about to face off in a highly charged murder trial. 

A blue discharge, commonly known as a "blue ticket," was a form of administrative military discharge issued by the United States Armed Forces between 1916 and 1947. It was printed on blue paper and classified as neither honorable nor dishonorable. For the First World War it turns out to be impossible to determine how many were issued. The military did not track them as a separate statistical group with the same scrutiny it did later in the next war. Furthermore, a massive 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center destroyed roughly 80 percent of Army personnel records for those who served between 1912 and 1960, making exact data retrieval virtually impossible.  However, for the Second World War, during which about 16 million Americans were mobilized, the records have survived, so a precise total of 48,603 is available.

WWII-Era Blue Ticket Form

Blue tickets were used to separate service members who were simply incapable of exercising their duties, troublemakers, or individuals deemed to have "undesirable habits and traits of character" without subjecting them to a formal court-martial, which would necessitate charging them with a specific offense contrary to the Articles of War. In Perry Mason, it seems to be implied that it is Captain Mason’s unconventional world view and his expressed moral outrage that prompted his nebulous discharge; military decisions have been based on even thinner grounds. Given that interpretation, we can only guess that it may have been more politic to give this officer a blue discharge rather than a dishonorable one. The viewer can easily see how Mason’s subsequent legal work defending the underdog could reflect on a grander scale the injustice of his army discharge. We may surmise that Mason was discharged after the Armistice, given that his Montfaucon service was in late September 1918 and the army’s bureaucracy may not have proceeded efficiently before 11 November to be rid of him before then.

In both World Wars, black soldiers received blue tickets at a higher rate than white troops, and gay men were singled out. Perry Mason (21st century version) accurately brings up these points. In both World Wars, blue ticket recipients lost their veterans benefits, including the famous "Bonus" for the Doughboys (another likely source of Mason’s disaffection).  Post-WWII, with the implementation of the G.I. Bill, these losses were potentially much more substantial.  Also, a blue ticket was detrimental to civilian job prospects and one's reputation back home.  

 

Veterans Bonus March Through Los Angeles from Perry Mason
During Which an Important Trial Witness Is Lost

The unpopular practice came to an end in 1947 after facing organized opposition led by Black newspapers. The category "Other Than Honorable" discharge was introduced in the same year, and that too still has serious long-term consequences for recipients.

It's the Anniversary of the Second Battle of the Marne

"Men of Iron"
109th Infantry, 28th Division, at the Second Battle of the Marne

On 15 July 1918 American forces in France began fighting a two-month campaign that—to that point—would become the largest battle the nation had ever engaged in.  The Second Battle of the Marne marked the turning of the tide in World War I. It began with the last German offensive of the conflict and was quickly followed by the first Allied offensive victory of 1918 The 270,000 soldiers committed and the nearly 40,000 casualties suffered dwarfed the previous totals of the previous record holder, the Battle of Gettysburg, which had lasted 3 days and involved 165,000 men counting both sides.

There are a lot of reasons why this rather remarkable fact is overlooked. The title of the action used herein, the Second Battle of the Marne, isn't universally respected.  Some histories use terms like the Aisne or Aisne-Marne Offensive, or the Battle of Soissons,  or bundle the somewhat disjointed Allied operations  with earlier engagements around nearby Chateau-Thierry. Further, American forces didn't fight independently—they were under French command and were intertwined with French, British, and Italian forces. Also, in accounts I've read about the battle, historians seem to understate the size of the American contingent, with some apparently not grasping that American divisions of the Great War were roughly 28,000 effectives, over twice the size of other countries divisions, friend or foe. In fact,  the Yanks constituted about half of all the troops engaged in the fighting. Finally, some histories don't include the period 15–17 July, when American units were deeply involved in the defense of the Marne River line and the Champagne against the last German offensive of the war. 

In any case, the record for largest American Battle ever, was quickly superseded by the St. Mihiel and then the Meuse-Argonne Offensives. But "Jeopardy" fans should stay alert for the question: "As of 1 September 1918, what was the largest battle America had ever fought?"  Now here's a little information on the Second Battle of the Marne that I published on my old Doughboy Center site.

42nd Division Troops East of Reims, Awaiting the Opening Attack

Quick Facts

     Where:    The Aisne-Marne Sector, 75 Miles Northeast of Paris in a Triangular Area Bounded by Chateau-Thierry, Soissons and Reims

     When:    July 15 – September 16, 1918

     AEF Units Participating:   Nine U.S. Divisions Under French Command, Coordinated by Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Click HERE To See a List of U.S. Divisions and Their Commanders

     Opposing Forces:    German First, Third, Seventh and Ninth Armies

Click on Map to Enlarge

Areas Captured by U.S. Divisions in the Battle
(42nd Division, East of Reims, Was Strictly on the Defensive)

Summary of Operations

Phase I:  German Operation Friedensturm Launched (5th Ludendorff Offensive), 15–17 July 1918 (Defensive Phase)

15 July 

Three and a half German armies attack in the early morning. The 3rd Division and a regiment of the 28th Divisions of the AEF makes a strategically important stand on the left end of the Marne River line.

16-17July 

German units occupy southern bank of Marne between Epernay and Chateau Thierry and advance their line 7 miles east of Reims, where the 42nd (Rainbow) Division holds the line.

 

3rd Division Engineers Building Bridge to Cross the Marne

Phase II: The Aisne-Marne Counter-Offensive, 18 July -  17 August, 1918

 18 July

French 10th and 6th Armies attack the salient from the west, with 1st and 2nd U.S. division and elements of 4th Division attacking south of Soissons. 3rd and 26th U.S. Divisions join crossing of River Marne. German high command decides to reinforce the salient to avoid a rout.

 19 July

American units south of Soissons start meeting fanatical resistance. German air force commands the air.

 21 July

Second assault against the salient from the south. Five more AEF divisions would eventually be committed.

30 July - 1 August 

Battle before Sergy; Ourcq River line crossed.

4-22 August 

Tenacious battle before Vesle River at Fismes and Fismette as German Army defends vigorously on the Vesle.

4th Division Supply Train on Way to the Front

Phase III: The Oise-Aisne Offensive, 18 August – 16 September 1918

August  18

French 10th Army launches major offensive near Soissons

August 28 - 2 September

U.S. 32nd Division captures key town of Juvigny cutting the Soissons-St. Quentin road. Germans find Vesle line untenable and withdraw before River Aisne.

4 September 

Vesle River crossed; U.S. 28th & 77th Divisions advance.

16 September 

Last full American division in sector [77th] relieved as the axis of the French and American offensive operations shifts east to the Champagne and Verdun sectors.

American-Manned Tanks Preparing to Attack Juvigny

Some Eyewitnesses to the Fighting

Captain Jesse Woolridge, 38th Infantry, describes the 15 July fighting along the Marne:

Newly captured prisoners began to give real information - a grand offensive was to be made [where] the Marne was only about 50 yards wide...We had 600 yards of [this] front all to ourselves...[When it began] it seemed [the Germans] expected their artillery to eliminate all resistance...French Officers attached to our Brigade stated positively there was never a bombardment to equal it at Verdun.

At 3:30am the general fire ceased and their creeping barrage started - behind which at 40 yards only, mind you, they came - with more machine guns than I thought the German Army owned...

The enemy had to battle their way through the first platoon on the river bank - then they took on the second platoon on the forward edge of the railway where we had a thousand times the best of it - but the [Germans] gradually wiped it out. My third platoon [took] their place in desperate hand to hand fighting, in which some got through only to be picked up by the fourth platoon which was deployed simultaneously with the third...By the time they struck the fourth platoon they were all in and easy prey.

It's God's truth that one Company of American soldiers beat and routed a full regiment of picked shock troops of the German Army...At ten o'clock...the Germans were carrying back wounded and dead [from] the river bank and we in our exhaustion let them do it - they carried back all but six hundred which we counted later and fifty-two machine guns...We had started with 251 men and 5 lieutenants...I had left 51 men and 2 second lieutenants...

Two future Marine Corps Commandants correspond:

From Co. "H"

At: ?

Date: July 19. Hour 10:45 am

To: Major [Thomas] Holcomb.

I am in an old abandoned French trench bordering on road leading out from your P.C. and 350 yds. from an old mill. I have only two men out of my company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try and get here as we are swept by machine-gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold.

[Clifton] Cates, 2nd Lt. 96 Co.

Bridge to Fismette Looking from Fismes

 

Captain Harry Withers, 112th Infantry on attempts to cross the River Vesle from Fismes to Fismette

Absolutely unable to get patrols into FISMETTE. Got down as far as 100 yards from bridge. Streets of FISMES running north and south covered by machine-gun fire and one-pounders. Two casualties in one patrol of six men. REIMS Road covered with machine-gun fire from left. Noticeable absence of flares. FISMETTE very quiet. No firing on FISMETTE since 1000 hrs., August 27. If there any of our men in FISMETTE they are very few and scattered and in hiding. No evidence to confirm any of our men holding out. Will make further reconnaissance. 27 August, 1015hrs.

A Last Word on the Battle from Erich von Ludendorff, Quartermaster General, German Army

...All [German] divisions [on 15 July] achieved brilliant successes, with the exception of the one division on our right wing. This encountered American units! Here only did the Seventh Army, In the course of the first day of the offensive, confront serious difficulties. It met with the unexpectedly stubborn and active resistance of fresh American troops.

While the rest of the divisions of the Seventh Army succeeded in gaining ground and gaining tremendous booty, it proved impossible for us to move the right apex of our line, to the south of the Marne, into a position advantageous for the development of the ensuing fight. The check we thus received was one result of the stupendous fighting between our 10th Division of infantry and American troops...

America's Beautiful Oise-Aisne Cemetery, Where Many of the Fallen
of the Second Battle of the Marne Found Their Final Resting Place

My thanks to Robin Clayton of Walnut, Mississippi, who encouraged this article. MH