In the early morning sunshine of the fourth spring of World War One, young lieutenants climbed onto the dirt parapets of their trenches, blew their whistles, and led riflemen “over the top” and across no-man’s-land into battle. It was a scene that had repeated itself time and again along the length of the Western Front. But on this morning, May 28, 1918, the 1,394th day of the World War, for the first time ever the attacking legions wore American khaki, and these 3,500 “doughboys” became the first face of United States military might on the global stage.
These were the soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 1st Division, and having been the first American troops to land in France eleven months earlier, they had since become the first doughboys in the trenches, the first to feel the shock of combat, and now they would be the first to attack the enemy. Their objective was the German-held jumble of timber and bricks that had once been the small farming village of Cantigny, yet another anonymous French hamlet recently stomped unrecognizable by the jackboot of the Kaiser’s Army.
Read Full Article »