A M E R I C A N
V O L U N T E E R S
They Were Over There
Before All the Others
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Andrew, A. Piatt, FRIENDS OF FRANCE: THE FIELD
SERVICE OF THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE DESCRIBED BY ITS MEMBERS.
Houghton MIfflin, 1916., Good. 1st Edition. Spine faded & creased,
but without chipping. Edgewear is minimal, though boards show some
slight spotting. Worst damage is a deep waterstain on rear board
along spine. Also a waterstain through much of the book along the
gutter, s ometimes spilling into text but not affecting legibility.
Text clear throughout. The Memorial Edition by the Inspector General
of the Field Service, designed to encourage more young men to
volunteer in the American Volunteer Amubulance Services two full years
before America entered the War. Photographs, drawings, histories,
letters, citations, tributes, rosters, biographies. Also a foldout
notice to volunteers. 345 pp. $25.00
$25.00
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Buswell, Leslie.
AMBULANCE NO. 10, PERSONAL LETTERS FROM THE FRONT.
A.L. Burt Company, by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Co, 1915, 1916., VG. Tenth Impression. 7.5x5. Spine somewhat darkened with spotting, but lettering still plainly legible. Some discoloration to back cover. Front cover clean with crisp lettering & decoration. Some foxing to frontispiece and title page, interior of book otherwise tight & clean. An American volunteer ambulance driver describes his experiences with the American Field Service on the Western Front in WWI, serving with the French army in the years before America entered the war. Photographs, drawings, 155 pages.
$25.00
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Fitch, Willie S.,
WINGS IN THE NIGHT:
FLYING THE CAPRONI BOMBER
IN WORLD WAR I.
 .
$30.00
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Hansen, Arlen J., GENTLEMEN VOLUNTEERS.
Arcade Publishing, 1996. "The Story of
the American Ambulance Drivers in the Great War, August 1914-September
1918." NEW copy. First Edition. Forward by George Plimpton. Photographs,
extensive notes & bibliography, index, 254 pages. $27.00
$27.00
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Howe, M.A. DeWolfe (editor).
THE HARVARD VOLUNTEERS IN EUROPE.
Harvard University Press, 1916., NF. Second Impression. A clean, tight
copy with very little wear. Spine very slightly sunned. Small,
discrete 1920s-style bookplate. A small amount of light pencil
annotation which could be easily erased. A series of first-hand
narratives by Harvard men who volunteered in WWI before America
entered the war. This was one of the books which helped win support
in America for the French cause. Volunteers were serving with the
French Foreign Legion, the Lafayette Escadrille, the American Field
Service, the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Service, as well as with various
foreign military and medical services. Accounts by Alan Seeger, Victor
Chapman, Harvey Cushing, George Benet, Richard Norton, Waldo Pierce,
and numerous others. Contains a complete roster of Harvard volunteers
in the European war up to the time of publication. An important book.
264 pp.
$40.00
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LAFAYETTE
ESCADRILLE
& The Lafayette
Flying Corps
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Seeger, Alan,
POEMS, First
Edition, inscribed to a family friend, with photo of Alan as a baby,
by Alan Seeger's mother.
$195.00
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Sheahan, Henry..
A VOLUNTEER POILU.
Houghton Mifflin, 1916., VG, 1st edition. Blue cloth with map printed
on endpapers. Minimal edgewear at inner corners; outer corners intact
but turned in slightly. Spine somewhat darkened. Spine intact, not
chipped. Some minor discoloration to cover. Photographs.
A young American, a Harvard student, volunteers as an ambulance driver
with the American Field Service in support of the French Army in the
years before America enters the war. Well-written & keenly observant,
from a Sunday morning stroll through the Tuileries Gardens in Paris to
the desolate horror of the Verdun trenches. 218 pp.
$25.00
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~ ~ Y A N K S ~ ~American Expeditionary Force
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Baker, Chester E., .
DOUGHBOY'S DIARY. Burd Street Press, 1998. New copy, F/F.
Appendices, rosters, index, 138 pages. Author was a corporal in F Company, 8th Regiment,
Pennsylvania National Guard. Saw action at Vesle River & the Argonne.
$19.00
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Collins, V. Lansing, PRINCETON IN THE WORLD WAR
.
The Office of the Secretary, Princeton University., 1932. VG. Some
darkening to spine, very slight discoloration to boards, minimal wear.
Interior bright & tight. A sound, clean copy. Service records of over
6000 Princeton men, arranged by year of graduation Statistical
summary, index, 644 pages.
$45.00
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Fleming, Thomas,
THE ILLUSION OF VICTORY: America in World War I.
NEW copy. Hardcover in dust jacket. Basic Books, 2003. Frontispiece map, notes, index,
543 pages. "In this book, acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming undertakes nothing less than
a drastic revision of America's experience in World War I. He reveals how the British and
French duped Wilson and the American people into thinking the war was as good as won, and
there would be no need to send an army overseas. He describes a harried president making
speech after speech proclaiming America's ideals while supporting the Espionage and Sedition
Acts that sent critics to federal prisons. Meanwhile, a government propaganda machine created
a hate-driven "war will" that soon spilled over into attacks on ethnic Americans. On the
Western Front, the Allies did their utmost to turn the American Expeditionary Force into
cannon fodder. At the Paris Peace Conference, the cynical Europeans mocked Wilson and his
ideals, and browbeat him into accepting the vengeful Treaty of Versailles, sowing the seeds
of World War II." ~~ Hardcover originally in print at $30, now OUT OF PRINT.
$30.00
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Graham, John W.,
THE GOLD STAR MOTHER PILGRIMAGES OF THE 1930s.
. NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK.
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006). Photographs, chronology,
notes, bibliography, index, 239 pp.
~~~ During the first World War, a flag with a gold star identified families who had lost soldiers. Grieving women were “Gold Star” mothers and widows. Between 1930 and 1933, the United States government took 6,654 Gold Star pilgrims to visit their sons’ and husbands’ graves in American cemeteries in Belgium, England, and France. Veteran Army officers acted as tour guides, helping women come to terms with their losses as they sought solace and closure. The government meticulously planned and paid for everything from transportation and lodging to menus, tips, sightseeing, and interpreters. Flowered wreaths, flags, and camp chairs were provided at the cemeteries, and official photographers captured each woman standing at her loved one’s grave.
~~~ This work covers the Gold Star pilgrimages from their launch to the present day, beginning with an introduction to the war and wartime burial. Subsequent topics include the legislative struggle and evolution of the pilgrimage bill; personal pilgrimages, including that of the parents of poet Joyce Kilmer; the role of the Quartermaster Corps; the segregation controversy; a close examination of the first group to travel, Party A of May 1930; and the results of the pilgrimage experience as described by participants, observers, organizers, and scholars, researched through diaries, letters, scrapbooks, interviews, and newspaper
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Harris, Stephen L.,
DUTY, HONOR, PRIVILEGE: New York's Silk Stocking Regiment and the Breaking of the Hindenburg Line
.
NEW copy. Trade paperback. Brassey's, Inc., 2001. Photographs, drawings, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 374 pages. "Many critics regarded New York's Seventh Infantry Regiment as a social club for Manhattan's most prominent sons rather than a serious National Guard unit. But during World War I, they proved their critics wrong. On September 29, 1918, as part of the newly formed New York 107th Infantry Regiment, they attacked the Germans' feared Hindenburg Line. At a frightful cost, suffering more killed on a single day than any other regiment in American history, they broke the enemy line and helped conclude World War I. Stephen Harris follows these 'silk stocking soldiers' from the outbreak of war to their triumphant return home."
~~~ Formerly in print at $18.95, now OUT OF PRINT.
$18.00
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[Lost Battalion] Micheal Clodfelter,
THE LOST BATTALION AND THE MEUSE-ARGONNE, 1918: America's Deadliest Battle
.
NEW copy, hardcover 7x10. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2007). 37 photographs,
maps, notes, bibliography, index, 256 pp.
On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war and the United States joined the great conflict that had engulfed Europe since the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) took the better part of a year to train and mobilize and their first major battle did not take place until the following May. The real challenge for the American troops came in September 1918. It was then that the 47-day battle of the Meuse-Argonne began. Encompassing seven weeks, a 25-mile front and more than one million American troops, the Battle of the Argonne Forest averaged 558 deaths per day, a human cost exceeding any America has paid in battle before or since. Despite the carnage and death, a mixed unit (from one machine gun and three infantry battalions) and their commander, Charles Whittlesey, rose to the rank of legend. Eclipsed by more publicized—yet no more deserving—tales of military valor, this final American offensive of the Great War and the heroic tale of the “Lost Battalion” remained largely obscure in the annals of American history, until now.
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This volume, with exhaustive on-site research, details America’s last major offensive, the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne, which took place from September 26 through November 11, 1918. It examines the movements and countermovements that comprised the still unequaled conflict of the Argonne Forest. The main focus of the work is the five-day isolation and besiegement of the so-called “Lost Battalion.” From October 2 to 5, Major Charles Whittlesey and 554 men were cut off from all other U.S. units and attacked by German forces in an area known as “The Pocket.” Written with a view toward bringing this legendary tale to a more personal level, the work creates a vivid picture of the men who lived, fought and died in the final, all-consuming battle of World War I.
$55.00
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"Black Jack"
PERSHING
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[Pershing] Goldhurst, Richard,
PIPE CLAY AND DRILL: John J. Pershing, the Classic American Soldier. VG/VG. Jacket in mylar. Original $12.95 price still on jacket flap. Clean tight copy overall except for residue of small sticker on front end page. Reader's Digest Press, 1977, First Edition. Bibliography, Appendix (Pershing's first Philippine Tour), Index, 343 pages.
~~~ Pershing's career was long and colorful, but he himself was austere, an inexorable taskmaster rarely capable of inspiring affection among his troops. He seems not to have thought much about military philosophy, but he could quickly master the details of military organization, even amid the unprecedented, ever-expanding crisis of a great European war. He became the prototypical American soldier -- nurtured and matured by republican institutions; a military man, but not a militarist; something of an evangelist; and above all a hero.
$35.00
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[Pershing] Donald Smythe,
GUERRILLA WARRIOR: The Early Life of John J. Pershing.
VG/VG. Minor chipping & creasing to dust jacket, which is in a mylar protector.
(NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). Maps, photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 370 pages.
~~~ We retrace the long apprenticeship during which Pershing had prepared himself for high
command. We see him as an ambitious young of farming stock, a superb horseman and dogged
student; and as a West Point cadet, rugged in exterior but with a deep vein of sentiment
and a human warmth that were revealed to but few. We follow his early career as a lieutenant
of cavalry, ripening the skills of his profession as he rode after Apaches and Sioux, and
experiencing at once humiliation and success as a trainer of cadets. Assigned to
counter-insurgency operations against the Moro tribesmen in the Philippines, he drew official
notice when he won the respect and submission of those fierce warriors by a notable display of
fearlessness, diplomacy, and -- only if necessary -- force. the book ends with an account of
the inconclusive, frustrating episode which closed Pershing's career as a 'guerrilla warrior'
-- the pursuit into Mexico after Pancho Villa; and with a summary of the man on the eve of his appointment to lead the A.E.F...
$45.00
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Ruckman, John H.,
INTERPRETATION OF THE CONTRIBUTION MADE BY THE MASSACHUSETT'S
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ITS STAFF, ITS FORMER STUDENTS AND ITS
UNDER-GRADUATES TO THE CAUSE OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE ALLIED
POWERS IN THE GREAT WAR, 1914-1919.
Published by the War Records Committee of the Alumni Association of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Cambridge, 1920. Some rippling & spotting to front cover; corners frayed. Some
creasing & chipping to spine. End pages soiled. Despite flaws, book overall is sound: binding
tight; interior clean. Contents as follows: The Work of Technology as an Institution; War
Activities Associeated with the Institute; The Roll of Honor (with portraits & biographies
of each man); Decorations & Citations; Our Men on the Western Front; Our Men in the Navy;
Our Men in Military Service in the United States; Our Men in the Militariezed Societies &
Other Auxiliaries; Our Men in Civilian Government Service; Other Civilian Service; Register
of Military Records; Register of Civilian Records. Photographs throughout, itemized Table of
Contents, 747 pages.
$95.00
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Books about the
UNITED STATES
AIR SERVICE
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Books about the
UNITED STATES
MARINE CORPS
in World War I
and the
2d DIVISION A.E.F.
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