FOLLOWING THE DOUGHBOY FROM THE HOME FRONT TO THE WESTERN FRONT - AND MAPPING THE MANY MEMORIALS BUILT IN HIS HONOR It has now been a century since World War I began, but America's role in this colossal struggle has been largely forgotten on both sides of the Atlantic. Historian and travel writer Mark D. Van Ells aims to change that. America and World War I follows in the footsteps of the Doughboy - as the U.S. soldier of the Great War was known - from the training camps of the United States to the frontlines of Europe. Tracing the totality of America's experience from the factors that led the nation to enter the war in April 1917 to the armistice in November 1918, his riveting narrative describes a military buildup on a scale the world had never seen, as well as the war's major battles and campaigns - and, throughout, it leads the traveler to the memorials erected in the Doughboys' wake, as well as to the many places that remain unmarked and uncommemorated. Through their own words, we learn the feelings of those young men and women who served in the war. What were their private thoughts and fears? Their personal memories? Such eyewitness accounts, woven into the fabric of each chapter, give this absorbingly written book an immediacy and vividness that marks a new departure in guidebooks. Complete with photographs, the voices of the doughboys themselves, and up-to-date travel information, America and World War I is an indispensable guide for those who wish to explore this vital but neglected chapter in the American and European experience. * Major battles and battlefields * Memorials, museums, sites, cemeteries, and statues * How to get there * What to see * Eyewitness accounts * Maps * Then and now photographs.

America and World War I: A Traveler's Guide

History

Van Ells, Mark D.

Americas

INTERLINK+BOOKS

A Postcard View of Hell: One Doughboy's Souvenir Album of the First World War (Critical Media Studies)

Jacob, Frank

Military

Vernon Press

For many the postcard may seem trivial, little more than a mundane souvenir or a way to keep in touch with friends and relatives while on vacation. But if we look carefully, postcards offer valuable insights into the time periods in which they were created and the mentalities of those who bought or sent them. Frank Marhefka, while serving in the U.S. Army Motor Transportation Corps during the First World War, amassed a collection of more than 150 postcards and photographs while in France, and bound them into a souvenir album. Marhefka’s collection provides a diverse and vivid look into a period of history that – in many soldiers’ accounts – is not usually visualized with all its cruelties. Emphasizing the pictorial turn of the Great War, this album offers personal insight into a conflict that caused so much death and destruction. The book begins with an introduction providing a history of postcards and their extensive use by soldiers during the Great War.  Then, after a biography of Marhefka, his postcard collection is presented in its entirety.  Accompanying the images are brief texts that place them into historical context, as well as suggestions for further reading.As a visual artifact of the First World War and the perspective of one U.S. soldier, this book is aimed at students, scholars, postcard collectors, and general readers alike who have an interest in military history and popular culture.

The history of WWII's most battle-tested US Army division and its crucial role in achieving Allied victory in the Pacific Red Arrow across the Pacific reveals the long-overdue story of the renowned Thirty-Second "Red Arrow" Infantry Division. Discover how this National Guard unit--which originated in Wisconsin and Michigan but soon evolved to include soldiers from California to New England--became one of the first US military units deployed overseas in World War II, eventually logging more combat hours than any other US Army division.&nbsp; Far more than a traditional battle narrative, Red Arrow across the Pacific offers a cultural history of the Red Arrow's wartime experience, from its mobilization in 1940, to its deployment across New Guinea, Australia, and the Philippines, to its postwar occupation of Japan. Drawing from letters, memoirs, and interviews, author Mark D. Van Ells lets the soldiers speak for themselves, describing in their own words the terror of combat, their impressions of foreign lands, the struggle to maintain their own humanity, and the many ways the war profoundly changed them. Nuanced and remarkably thorough, this book explores the dramatic evolution of the Thirty-Second Infantry Division and reveals how the story of the Red Arrow reflects the experience of the US military during World War II. &nbsp;

Red Arrow across the Pacific: The Thirty-Second Infantry Division during World War II

Wisconsin Historical Society Press

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