Articles from The American Legion Monthly
Appearing in The American Legion Monthly some nineteen years after the end of the war was this nifty article written by a German veteran. The article explains quite simply how his forward listening post operated in the German trenches North of Verdun during the early Autumn on 1918.
A German Listening Post North of Verdun (American Legion Monthly, 1937) Read More »
This piece was penned by an anonymous expatriate, a former American soldier of the Great War who went into some detail comparing life in 1920s Paris to the life he knew in America, and he is quite funny about it. He described a Paris that Hemingway, Stein and Fitzgerald didn’t talk about.
Back in America I sincerely thought that my hometown had the worst telephone system in the world. This was a colossal error…
Click here to read about the fall of Paris…
‘Why I Live in Paris” by a Former American Soldier (American Legion Monthly, 1927) Read More »
Eighteen years after the last shot was fired in World War I, Americans collectively wondered, as they began to think about all the empty chairs that were setting at so many family dinner tables, Do the French care about all that we sacrificed? Do they still remember that we were there? In response to this question, an American veteran who remained behind in France, submitted the attached article to The American Legion Monthly and answered with a resounding Yes on all six pages:
…I can assure you that the real France, the France of a thousand and one villages in which we were billeted; the France of Lorraine peasants, of Picardy craftsmen, of Burgundy winegrowers – remembers, with gratitude, the A.E.F. and its contribution to the Allied victory.
The article is accompanied by eight photographs of assembled Frenchmen decorating American grave sites.
Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.
American W.W. I Cemeteries and French Gratitude (American Legion Monthly, 1936) Read More »
Almost twenty years after the First World War reached it’s bloody conclusion, Americans collectively wondered as they began to think about all the empty chairs assembled around so many family dinner tables, Do the French care at all that we sacrificed so much? Do they still remember that we were there? In response to this question, an American veteran who remained in France, submitted the attached article to The American Legion Monthly and answered those questions with a resounding YES.
Click here to read an article by a grateful Frenchman who was full of praise for the bold and forward-thinking manner in which America entered the First World War.
‘Thanks, America”: French Gratitude (American Legion Monthly, 1936) Read More »
Almost twenty years after the First World War reached it’s bloody conclusion, Americans collectively wondered as they began to think about all the empty chairs assembled around so many family dinner tables, Do the French care at all that we sacrificed so much? Do they still remember that we were there? In response to this question, an American veteran who remained in France, submitted the attached article to The American Legion Monthly and answered those questions with a resounding YES.
Click here to read an article by a grateful Frenchman who was full of praise for the bold and forward-thinking manner in which America entered the First World War.
‘Thanks, America”: French Gratitude (American Legion Monthly, 1936) Read More »
Illustrated by a photograph depicting the cold weather uniforms worn by each of the six Allied armies that served time in Siberia(North Russia), this article is a reminiscence told by one of the American veterans of that cold, uncomfortable and long-forgotten campaign.
– from Amazon:
Why did we go to Russia? by Harry J. Costello
The A.E.F. in North Russia 1918 – 1919 (American Legion Monthly, 1934) Read More »
This article tells the World War One story of Irene McIntyre, a Salvation Army volunteer who served at the front during the most bloody period of the war:
In her two-hundred and fifty-six days under enemy fire, Irene McIntyre was twice gassed and twice received the unusual distinction of a personal citation in Army orders. She saw more of the war at close quarters than any other American woman. One of her citations read:
‘Under fire of high explosives and gas, she established and conducted huts that were noted for their good cheer and hospitality. Her courage and devotion to her voluntary work were a splendid inspiration to the troops.’
Read about the Women Marines of W.W. II HERE.
A Woman in the Salvation Army (American Legion Monthly, 1928) Read More »
Twelve years after the end of the war, former Y.M.C.A. volunteer Francis Grulick wrote this moving account of her days as a canteen worker in France. She had vivid and colorful memories of her days in the forward positions bringing some measure of comfort to the men of the U.S. Army First Division, to whom she was devoted. She was with them at Gondrecourt, Bonnvillers, Boucq, Cantigny and Soissons. She filled their canteens, served them lemonade, poured their coffee, cooked their meals and also saw to it that cigarettes were plentiful. By the time the First Division arrived in Coblenz for occupation duty, she recognized that the unit was composed almost entirely of replacements and that she was the only witness to the First Divisions earliest days in France.
The Woman with the First Division (American Legion Monthly, 1930) Read More »
This chill November morning the Cenotaph is surrounded by serried masses of men. Up and down Whitehall as far as one can see are thousands and thousands packed in so tightly they cannot move…Suddenly from St. James Park comes the sound of a gun. They used to say it was impossible for a British crowd to be quiet. That was before Armistice Day. For the hum of London dies at the sound of the gun…Somewhere in the distance a horse paws the ground and neighs. A flag flaps in the breeze. Never such a silence as this. A King and his people pause sixty seconds in solemn celebration for the dead. It is the Great Hush.
Remembrance Day at the Cenotaph (American Legion Monthly, 1936) Read More »
American World War I veteran John Roberts Tunis (1889 – 1975) was charged with the task of writing about the two Armistice Day ceremonies as they were marked in both London and Rome; needless to say they were entirely different in nature and spirit. The attached piece is an excerpt from that article and reported on the manner in which fascist Italy observed the anniversary of November 11, 1918 – the day World War I came to a close; a war in which Italy lost 1,240,000 men. Tunnis was disgusted to observe how the Italians seemed to learn nothing from the war – Mussolini’s Armistice celebration was drenched in fascist pageantry and the attending masses had far greater interest in their current military adventures in Africa than remembering their sons and fathers who had perished just eighteen years earlier.
Armistice Day Mussolini Style (American Legion Monthly, 1936) Read More »
