The American soldier of World War I is the most forgotten about of all our soldiers from any war. Few people remember today that in 1918 there were almost five million Americans in uniform; two million of them were in France, and that, in six months of combat, 53,513 of them were killed in combat and 63,195 died from other causes, a total of 116,708 deaths. How better to tell the story of heroism and self-sacrifice of the doughboys than through the medium of the written word. The history of the American Expeditionary Forces must be preserved and shared with future generations so they better understand how and why the war was fought and the sacrifices they made. In these articles I have tried to recreate the experience of World War I and the American infantrymen and artillerymen of the AEF, an experience which molded an entire generation and forever changed them and our world.

David C. Homsher

  Highly Recommended Books On America at War and Fighting With the A.E.F. in World War I

Here is a distillation of a quarter century of reading by the author on the American Expditionary Forces (AEF) and its battles. These forty books tell you just about all you need to know about life in and fighting with the AEF in World War I. These are books written by the combat infantrymen and artillerymen of 1918, and not by the generals, of whom it is said, "anyway, they all die in bed."

  Securing the Flanks at Belleau Wood

Much has been written about Belleau Wood. Comparatively little has been written about the savage fights waged to take the two strongly fortified German positions on the left and right flanks of the Wood--Hill 142 and Bouresches, both of which must be taken before Belleau Wood itself could be conquered.