Articles from 1918
A short notice printed in May of 1918 which intended to let the Doughboys know that the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps was well aware that changes needed to be made in the American uniform in response to the damp French climate.
The additional uniform items never went into production in light of the fact that the war ended six months later.
One of the most curious aspects of the Great War that generated a good deal of conversation among the civilian populations was camouflage. Many people believed that camouflage was one of many elements that made that war so terribly different from all other wars. One well-read reader from a respectable American magazine would have non of it: she composed a well researched letter explaining that the need for camouflage preceded the era of industrial warfare and was practiced by the ancient combatants of Greece and Rome as well.
Instructions as to how American insignia was to be worn on the trench coat as well as the officer’s raincoat. An additional notice can be read concerning the Army’s wish that all Doughboys maintain a good, soldierly appearance while not serving in the zone of advance.
Appearing in The Stars and Stripes in mid-February of 1918 was this column about one of the newest disciplines to be introduced to the photographic section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps: the motion picture branch.
There is one movie-officer at present assigned to every division in the A.E.F.; one might call him the camera battery, if one wanted to get really military about it. Under him is a squad of expert photographers, some movie men, some ‘still’ snappers.
From the time when the sun finally decides that he might as well hobble up in the sky and do part of a day’s work, which isn’t often in this region, until the time that the aged, decrepit old solar luminary decides again, about the middle of the afternoon, that he’s done all he’s going to do while the calender is fixed the way it is, the camera battery is up and around taking pot-shots at everything in sight… They may be ‘covering’ a review, a series of field maneuvers ‘up front’ or merely Blank Company’s wash day at the village fountain. But always when the sun is shining, they are at it.
Click here to read a YANK MAGAZINE article about the Signal Corps films in the Second World War
This article,Photography’s Notable Part in the War was written by an active participant in the aerial reconnaissance arm of the Royal Flying Corps, Captain Henry A. Wildon. He reported that both sides in the conflict recognized early on that intelligence gathering by way of camera and aircraft was a real possibility:
Our first airplanes in France were not supplied with photographic equipment. It was not until the beginning of 1915 that the importance of of photography became apparent, and was made possible by improvements in the type and general stability of the airplane.
The American performance at the battle of Chateau-Thierry proved to General Foche that the Americans had the necessary stuff, and it was widely recognized that the Doughboys played the key roll in keeping the Germans out of Paris.
The attached STARS AND STRIPES article is extremely detailed as to the individual units (both French and American) that participated in rolling back the Germans along the Marne.
In the spring of 1917, the German Air Corps developed a squadron of large aircraft capable of dropping 660-pound bombs on London -and drop them they did, killing as many as 788 human beings between May of 1917 and May of 1918. The Giant Goltha Bombers conducted these raids primarily at night and utterly terrified the East End of London. Eventually, German losses escalated and the London raids were canceled in favor of Paris and various other French targets. In 1917 this image of a Goltha cockpit appeared in the French press.
The Lewis gun was, in the circumstances, a weapon of very considerable value. It helped the British infantry to hold back masses of the enemy in the opening phase of the war, and became one of the most important instruments of attack and defense during the long period of trench warfare.
The light Lewis gun became the favourite weapon of the British airman, against the Parabellum gun of German pilots and fighting observers.
Click here if you wish to read about the American inventor of the Lewis Gun.
If you are looking for a serious report concerning the political battles fought in Congress regarding Prohibition (1919 – 1933), you can keep looking. The attached essay is a humorous parody of that dispute between the Drys and Wets as it existed just months before the ‘Noble Experiment’ began in earnest. By November of 1918, the American newspaper readers had simply overdosed on the redundant writings of assorted war correspondents – and so, with a bit of whimsy, the VANITY FAIR writer George S. Chappell sat down to write about the political war between these two groups using the same journalistic affectations everyone was so heartily sick of. You will also find a mock military map depicting the faux topography in dispute.
A NEW YORK TIMES correspondent reported from Washington what the official line was as to why the U.S. Army had seen fit to toss out the campaign hat in preference to the European-style Overseas cap:
When the Americans entered the trenches, said an official statement today, it was found that the brim of their campaign hat interfered with sighting through the trench periscopes and that the high crown, in the case of tall men, could be seen above the parapets. The new cap is so low that it permits the men to move with the same freedom as when they are hatless.
When the songwriter Irving Berlin sat down in 1915 to write his well-loved ditty I love the Girl on the Magazine Cover, we have no doubt that it was the Christy Girl who inspired him. The Christy-Girl, so-called, was the creation of the American commercial illustrator Howard Chandler Christy (1873 – 1952) who placed her famous mug on thousands of magazine covers, newspaper ads and billboards.
The attached file consists of two articles, both pertaining to recruiting posters; one for the U.S. Navy and the other for the Marines. In the interest of national security, the Christy-Girl is depicted as a cross-dressing patriot in both of them, and the sailors loved it; they preferred to call her Honey Girl, and as far as they were concerned, that name fit her just fine.
Attached are a few words on the W.W. I naval recruiting poster To Arms by illustrator Milton Bancroft.
The article primarily describes what the duties of a ship’s bugler are, what this position represents and why this was such an suitable graphic image for recruiting sailors for the war.
Strikingly similar to the American Army officer’s 1912 great coat, Sears manufactured this cotton khaki trench coat in the same olive drab shade as the enlisted man’s slicker.
A whimsical article about the topography of New York’s Greenwich Village and the migratory habits of all it’s assorted bohemians, vagrants, spinsters and vegetarians during the Prohibition era.
Click here to read some high praise for Greenwich Village from a French film star.
The writer who toiled over the attached STARS and STRIPES article worked very hard to convince his Doughboy readership that the latest piece of U.S. Army headgear was made on a scientific plan, terribly stylish and well-worth having around:
It has neither brim nor visor…It is better made than the old cap. It fits more neatly, looks more chic, adapts itself far more genteelly to the average Doughboy braincase.
To put it in a word, the new cap is natty. And the old cap was not even hatty.
A cartoon by C. LeRoy Baldridge (1889 – 1977) which depicted the streets of Paris in a way that only the A.E.F. could have witnessed it. A Yank-heavy Place de l’Opera is overwhelmed by sight-seeing Doughboys (note the Y.M.C.A. patch on the tour guide) and loitering officers lounging about over-priced cafes. In the foreground stands a bewildered Doughboy, dumb-struck by the passing gaze of an appreciative Parisienne while a few steps away a four-gold-chevroned private gets reamed for failing to salute the single-chevron looey. The stage is shared by bickering cabees, melancholy widows, wandering sailors, unforgiving MPs and a hard-charging, over-weight uniformed woman.
Click here to read about W.W. I art.
Click here to read the observations of U.S. Army lieutenant Louis L’Amour concerning 1946 Paris.
The Doughboys were grateful to be issued European spiral-puttees in place of their canvas gaiters -which did them no good whatever in the dampness of Northern Europe; however, as the attached W.W. I photographs so clearly indicate (as does this cartoon by Walgren), not many Yanks were as proficient at wrapping them as the upper brass had hoped.
Attached you will find some kind words promoting brown linen as the preferred fabric for summer golf, yet what is most striking is the accompanying photo of a young rake in his period golf apparel sporting a pair of putees for his time upon the links. It is rare that one finds a photograph of a golfer in putees and one might get the sense that the look never really caught on.
