Stars and Stripes Archive

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.

On June 4, the best information available indicated that the enemy was employing not less than 33 divisions, about 3000,000 men…But like the defenders of Verdun, the American machine gunners set their teeth and said, ‘They shall not pass.’

The influenza of 1918 took a large bite out of the American Army, both at home and abroad. The military and civilian medical authorities were at a loss as to what actions should be taken to contain the disease, and as they paused to plan, thousands died. The attached article describes one step that provided some measure of success in the short term.

A more thorough article about Influenza can be read here.

Click here to read more about Influenza.

Coffee has the ability to remedy some physical ailments, however this small article told the story of one U.S. Army Colonel who felt so helpless upon seeing so many sick army men come ashore in France suffering from such a terrible illness as influenza, and was moved to do the only thing that he could in his power to offer comfort: unlimited cups of hot coffee. How real was coffee as a preventative measure in the face of influenza? The good colonel was on to something – it wasn’t the java bean that made an impact, it was the heat: viruses die when exposed to high temperatures.

A more thorough article about Influenza can be read here.

Click here to read about the earliest use of face masks to combat airborne disease.

A short notice concerning the number of sexually diseased American World War I soldiers who were treated or segregated during the war and post-war periods.

What is missing from this report was an anecdote involving General John Pershing, who upon hearing that his army was being depleted by social disease, quickly called for the posting of Military Policemen at each bordello to discourage all further commerce. The immediate results of this action were pleasing to many in the American senior command however the next problem concerned the growing number of venereal cases within the ranks of the Military Police.

On February 5, 1918 the Cunard passenger liner, Tuscania (having been pressed into service as a troop ship) was sent to the bottom of the sea by a German U-boat; well over one thousand, five hundred Doughboys from various units were drowned, as were her British crew which was numbered over three hundred. On the first anniversary a survivor of the attack wrote to the editors of the Stars and Stripes.

An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army’s Twenty-Sixth Division

(a.k.a. the Yankee Division

)during World War I.

The battle of Cantigny (May 28 – 31, 1918) was America’s first division sized engagement during the First World War; George Marshall would later opine that the objective was of no strategic importance and of small tactical value. General Pershing was hellbent on eradicating from the popular memory any mention of the A.E.F.’s poor performance at Seicheprey some weeks earlier, and Cantigny was as good a battleground in which to do it as any. Assessing the battle two weeks after the Armistice, Pershing’s yes men at the Stars & Stripes wrote:

But at Cantigny it had been taught to the world the significant lesson that the American soldier was fully equal to the soldier of any other nation on the field of battle.

Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.

Click here to read a STARS & STRIPES article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I…

Written during the closing days of the paper’s existence, the reporting journalist could not emphasize enough how lousy the paper was with enlisted men serving in the most important positions. You will come away with a good amount of knowledge concerning the manner in which THE STARS & STRIPES crew addressed their daily duties and still made it to the presses on time. Surprising is the high number of experienced newspapermen who wrote for the paper during the paper’s short existence.

Click here to read World War II articles from YANK MAGAZINE.

A few historians tend to believe that the sobriquet Doughboy had it’s origins in the 1846 – 48 war with Mexico (a perversion of the Spanish word ‘adobe’), but the attached article makes a different reference, dating the term to the American army’s period in the Philippines. An effort was also made to explain the term Buck Private.

Click here if you would like to read an article about the Doughboy training camps.

Best known for his 1913 poem, Trees, Joyce Kilmer (1886 – 1918) served as a Sergeant in the 69th Infantry Regiment (Forty Second Division). On July 30, 1918, he took a German bullet in the head and was buried not far from where he fell.

This short piece reported of the despoiling of that grave by his fellow Americans.

An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army’s 90th Infantry Division during World War One. We have also provided a review of A History of the 90th Division by Major George Wythe (which the reviewer didn’t especially care for but nonetheless provides a colorful account of the division’s history in France).

An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army’s Seventy-Eighth Division in the First World War

<img.

Although the unit arrived rather late, it saw a great deal of combat.

An explanation from the official newspaper of the A.E.F. as to how the First World War American fighter pilots were credited for their victories in the war against Germany.