The American Legion Weekly – Page 2

U.S. Cemeteries: A Flag for Every Grave
(American Legion Weekly, 1920)

An article that appeared in an American veterans magazine concerning the pageantry that would mark the Memorial Day of 1920 at each of the primary A.E.F. cemeteries in France.

More than 127,000 American soldiers, sailors and Marines gave up their lives during the war…Total battle deaths in the A.E.F. killed in action and died of wounds were 50,329 including casualties in the Siberian force. Deaths from disease including the A.E.F. and men in the home cantonments, were 58,837…No American field of honor will be without it’s Memorial Day ceremony, no American grave without its flag and its flowers…

An interesting article that was written at a time it was believed that the A.E.F. cemeteries were going to be closed and the interred repatriated. There is a photograph of an early prototype headstone that was later rejected in favor of a stone cross; references are made to Suresnes Cemetery in Paris.

Carrier Pigeons of the US Army Signal Corps
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

Illustrated with images of maimed and disfigured carrier pigeons, this article is filled with interesting lore of the battles waged by the ‘feathered aviators’ of the 1914 – 1918 war. You will read about how the pigeons were often dyed black so as to be mistaken for crows; how they were used at sea and at Verdun and that spies relied upon them.

During the course of World War II the U.s Army signal Corps deployed more than 50,000 pigeons.

It was said that the carrier pigeons of W.W. II were ten percent stronger.

General John J. Pershing
(American Legion Weekly, 1924)

An interesting profile of General Pershing by the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Marquis James (1891 – 1955):

• Ever hear about the time the C-in-C saluted a French cow?
• Did you know he had the right to put ‘Attorney at Law’ after his name?
• That he was given eight hours extra guard duty for a breach of discipline at West Point?
• Do you know why he was chosen to command the A.E.F.?

Read another post-war article about General Pershing.

November 11, 1918: Paris, France
(The American Legion Weekly, 1920)

Much has been written on the unique relationship that has existed between African-Americans and the city of Paris. The following is one of those anecdotes that illustrates that cultural fellowship, a fellowship that began with the First World War. Quite predictability, it is written in the disrespectful manner that was all-too common of that era.

Benito Mussolini And His Followers
(American Legion Weekly, 1923)

A 1923 article about the earliest days of Mussolini and the Italian Black Shirts; their discomfort with neighboring Yugoslavia, their love of the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863 – 1938) and their post-war struggle against the Italian Communists:

When the Communists virtually ruled over Italy in 1920 and 1921, they set up a detestable tyranny. Railways could not carry troops. Officers were forbidden wear sidearms, and men with war medals were spat on and beaten.

Mussolini changed all that.

You can read about his violent death here…

The U.S. Navy Railway Guns
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

An article written for an American veterans organization one year after the war, the attached piece tells the story of the five American naval batteries that were mounted on specially made rail cars and deployed along the Western Front. The article is two pages long and is filled with interesting facts as to the whereabouts of their assorted deployments and what was expected of the naval crews who worked them.

A POW Hears About The Armistice
(American Legion Weekly, 1921)

A former American prisoner of war recalled the American flag that he and his fellow prisoners had fashioned from Bull Durham and Lucky Strike bags the day they heard that the Germans had quit.

P.G. Wodehouse: Master of American Slang
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

At the time this profile first appeared in 1919, P.G Wodehouse (1904 – 1975) had recently resigned his post as the drama critic for Vanity Fair in order to realize his ambitions as a novelist and playwright. This article revealed to all Wodehouse’s keen interest in American slang and American comic strips.

A Price was Paid at Fismette
(American Legion Weekly, 1924)

A two page history of the 32nd Division and their struggle to eradicate the bulge in the Marne battle line that resulted in the liberation of Fismette and Fismes.

The Military Police in France
(American Legion Weekly, 1923)

A genuinely funny reminiscence written by an anonymous Doughboy recalling his days as an M.P. in war-torn France during the First World War:

Now that it is all over I wonder what did I gain from my experiences as an M.P. in the great Army of Newton Baker’s Best?…Watching the dawn coming rosily up over snow-clad barracks roofs and rows of tents; informing careless privates, sergeants, lieutenants and even majors to ‘button that there button’; listening to the dull bang-slamming of artillery barrages on crossroads; jotting down the names of high-spirited young men found in cafés at the wrong hours -such things aren’t of much lasting value.

Click here to read an article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I – and the M.P.s in particular…

First Blood
(American Legion Weekly, 1922)

A veteran of the U.S. First Division, Sixteenth Infantry, tells the chilling story of that rainy night in November, 1917, when the first German raid upon the American trenches took place:

It was on that night that Company F took over its first front line position, received its baptism of fire, bore the brunt of the first German raid and lost the first American troops killed and captured in the World War.

…two hundred and forty Bavarians, the widely advertised cut-throats of the German Army, hopped down on us. The first raid on American troops was in full swing. They had crawled up to our wire under cover of their artillery barrage and the moment it lifted were right on top of us.

The U.S. Army would not launch their own trench raid for another four months.

A Clever Way to Escort Prisoners…
(American Legion Weekly, 1921)

This piece reminds me of what my son’s history teacher so wisely passed on to them one day in sixth grade: History can be found anywhere. How right she was, and in this case, a seldom remembered but perhaps widely practiced method of escorting German prisoners to the rear was rendered by a cartoonist in a 1921 magazine advertisement for a firm that manufactured men’s accessories [underwear]:

Remember that big attack? You couldn’t spare a whole squad to escort your prisoners back to the cages; you needed every man in front. You got around the difficulty by cutting off the Boches’ trousers. That made them helpless. They couldn’t run and they couldn’t fight. You parked the skipper’s dog robber on their flank with a warped rifle and ran’em back.

Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.

An Interview With P.G. Wodehouse
(The American Legion Weekly, 1919)

At the time this magazine profile first appeared in 1919, P.G. Wodehouse (1904-1975) had recently resigned his post as the Drama Critic for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE in order to pursue his ambition as a novelist and playwright. This article revealed to all Wodehouse’s keen interest in American slang and the language of American comic strips.

Click here to read magazine articles about D.W. Griffith.

The Shell-Shocked Millions
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

With the close of the war came the release of millions of combat veterans onto the streets of the world. Some of these veterans adjusted nicely to the post-war world – but many had a difficult time. Their maladjustment was called Shell Shock and it could manifest itself in any number of ways; in the attached article, written less than a year after the war, one anonymous American veteran explained his own personal encounter with the illness.

Click here to read a post-W.W. I poem about combat-related stress…

Resident Aliens: Not Eligible for the 1917 Draft
(American Legion Weekly, 1923)

Here are a few lines from The American Legion Weekly that reported to their disappointed veteran readership that the foreign-born men residing legally in the United States who were previously accused of shirking the 1917 draft were, in fact, absolved from service and thus free to swear the oath of citizenship, after having been slandered as draft dodgers and alien-slackers until the finer points of the selective service law was clarified.

In Search of the W.W. I Draft Dodgers
(American Legion Weekly, 1920)

This is a fiery editorial from a U.S. veteran’s magazine covering American law enforcement’s search for the 487,003 young men who resisted the draft of 1917-1918.

The War Department will take care of the actual deserters, the men who went into camp and then deserted. Such men are liable to prosecution at any time in their lives. The Department of Justice will get after the draft dodgers, who never answered the summons…

Draft-Dodgers and Deserters in Federal Prison
(American Legion Weekly, 1923)

Only eight men are serving sentences as draft deserters in Federal penitentiaries, Mr. Taylor declares. ‘Yet, the number of men defying our country in its hour of need, was many times the number who deserted the Army after the Armistice.’ Thirty-nine men, he states, are still serving time for desertion from the Army, and the draft deserters are serving shorter average sentences than are the soldiers who took unauthorized leave of the service after the Armistice.

‘Americans in Name Only”
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

Few topics were as irksome to the editors of THE AMERICAN LEGION WEEKLY than that of the draft dodger. This article appeared one year after the close of the war and presents all the facts about the deferment process and how many native-born American men had shirked their responsibility to kin and country.