World War One

The attached file is composed of two informative paragraphs and a table listing the 42 American Army divisions, the states from which they were pooled and the locations of their respective training camps:

The Doughboys were trained in the division, which was our typical combat unit. In the American Army it was composed of about 1,000 officers and 27,000 men. Training and sorting organizations of about 10,000 men, known as depot brigades, were also utilized, but as far as possible, the new recruits were put almost immediately into the divisions which were the organizations in which they would go into action.

Click here to read about the efforts that were made to get free cigarettes to the Doughboys…

The attached pie chart will give you an understanding as to the history of the U.S. Army officer corps that served throughout the First World War. Drawn in 1931 and based upon the data collected by the Department of War, this study outlines the history of Army leadership between April of 1917 through November of 1918.

Click here to read a 1917 article about the U.S. Army officer training camp at Plattsburg, New York.

Attached is a small piece that explains how the draft of 1917 was conducted. Illustrated with three charts, this article provides the number of males in the U.S. at that time (54,000,000), how many had registered under the Selective Service Act (26,000,000), the percentage of the whole number who had never registered and how the onslaught of the influenza epidemic had effected the W.W. I draft.

In the fall of 1917 the first half million came rapidly. During the winter the accessions were relatively few, and those that did come in were largely used as replacements and for special services.