Pershing & the 100 days.Egoist,Pro or deranged?

[59165]

Well,1 chance is all you get but,

"the cowardice of the tough-talking Yanks in North Africa, Italy "

that merits you a slap,boy.

If you read my other threads,you may find I'm more Canada than USA but,knowing several veterans of the African & Italy,Cassino even,campaigns,your quote annoys to the extreme.

If you wanna go bash the States,do it on your own time & not on your 3rd posting on this forum,& definately NOT on my thread.Now,piss off back to WW2talk.com

With never ending respect,

David.

[River97]

David, Bill,

That is the reason why both Chris and I deleted our replies.

The whole post was a rant, however, it was the cowardice word that got me.

I'm damn sure 117,000 in the first war and another 407,000 in the second war weren't cowards and their families would believe they made a major contribution.

Lets not get side tracked and keep to the topic, I knew someone would have saved it to add later.

Cheers Andy.

P.S. It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're working with turkey's

[Pete1052]

None of the people posting in this thread have claimed that the AEF singlehandedly won the war--the closest things said to that effect have been the suggestion by Jdajd that some Americans believe that to have been the case and 4th Gordons citing the author Mosier's writings in the book Myth of the Great War. When this topic began I feared that a binary all-or-nothing discussion might follow, with some exaggerating the contributions of the AEF and others dismissing them as having been negligible. I think the truth lies somewhere between those extremes--shades of gray as it were. In any event remarks about valor and modern politics ought to be avoided.

[59165]

P.S. It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're working with turkey's

heres some soaring eagles;

Oooooh,he died after the war ended.He must have been a real coward

As were all these kids,no doubt;

That blimmin post has got me going almost as much as finding the grafitti on my uncles grave marker last year.

Anyway.

Lets get back on topic

[4thGordons]

None of the people posting in this thread have claimed that the AEF singlehandedly won the war--the closest things said to that effect have been the suggestion by Jdajd that some Americans believe that to have been the case and 4th Gordons citing the author Mosier's writings in the book Myth of the Great War. When this topic began I feared that a binary all-or-nothing discussion might follow, with some exaggerating the contributions of the AEF and others dismissing them as having been negligible. I think the truth lies somewhere between those extremes--shades of gray as it were. In any event remarks about valor and modern politics ought to be avoided.

and I have been pleasantly surprised that this has NOT happened and it has become a wide ranging and interesting thread...to which we should return.....

[Pete1052]

Lt. Kramer C. Tabler, whose grave is shown in a photo in Dave's posting above, is mentioned in a 1919 newsletter of the American Field Service, an ambulance group working for the French army. Click here to view the newsletter and scroll down about halfway to read about Lt. Tabler's assignment in AEF aviation. Possibly Tabler was in the American Field Service before he became an officer and aviator. I live in West Virginia where he was from; Tabler is a local family and also in the name of a road a few miles from here.

[4thGordons]

Lt. Kramer C. Tabler, whose grave is shown in a photo in Dave's posting above, is mentioned in a 1919 newsletter of the American Field Service, an ambulance group working for the French army. Click here to view the newsletter and scroll down about halfway to read about Lt. Tabler's assignment in AEF aviation. Possibly Tabler was in the American Field Service before he became an officer and aviator. I live in West Virginia where he was from; Tabler is a local family and also in the name of a road a few miles from here.

Kramer Core Tabler from Parkersburg W.Va. attended Marietta College and joined the AFS in 1917. He served 6 months in TMU 184 before transferring to the Air Service.

TMU = Transport Matériel Unit (ie a TRUCK unit, not an ambulance unit) the TMU drivers (of the Reserve Mallet) have a pretty strong claim to being the first official US "combatants" on the Western Front as the units were formed and were supplying war material to the front lines in May and June of 1917.

He was killed in an aircraft accident near Colombey-les-Belles, aged 24..

I am currently working on a project looking at one of these units and happened to have the history (Vol 3 of the History of the AFS in France) to hand. As a side note the AFS slogan on their newsletter was "Tout et Tous pour la France"

Chris

Here is Kramer Tabler from his 1917 passport application. AFS men traveled as civilians and therefore applied for passports, most of which are available on-line.

Edited 18 December , 2008 by 4thGordons

[Pete1052]

If he was from Parkersburg he wasn't from around here, although he may have been a cousin to the local family. There is a Tabler Station Road a few miles north of my house and a farm with that name is also shown on a Civil War map of the area. The online Field Service Bulletin uses a font that makes me believe the text has been reconstituted using modern word processing software, but I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the copy. If I hadn't seen that newsletter I wouldn't have realized how heavily Army aviation recruited from personnel in American Field Service.

[4thGordons]

If he was from Parkersburg he wasn't from around here, although he may have been a cousin to the local family. There is a Tabler Station Road a few miles north of my house and a farm with that name is also shown on a Civil War map of the area. The online Field Service Bulletin uses a font that makes me believe the text has been reconstituted using modern word processing software, but I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the copy. If I hadn't seen that newsletter I wouldn't have realized how heavily Army aviation recruited from personnel in American Field Service.

Yes they recruited heavily from the AFS. I am editing some letters of a man who followed a similar path. One reason seems to have been that once the US entered the war one of the fastest ways into US service for men already in France was to enter the Air Service (as almost all of the training was done in Europe by the French and British, joining another branch meant returning to the US and training) Some simply stayed doing what they were doing and when the AEF arrived the AFS was rolled lock, stock and barrel into the US army. The AFS itself recruited very heavily on college campuses (inc the Ivy League Schools) and the volunteers have been referred to as "The Gentlemen Volunteers" (the title of Arlen Hansen's book on the subject). If you look at the roll at the end of Vol 3 (also on the AFS site) it shows where people went when they left the AFS and the Air Service was popular.

BTW passport app comfirms Parkersburg, although he made the application in Ohio (where he was at college)

Name: Kramer Core Tabler

Birth Date: 2 Apr 1895

Birth Place: Parkersburg W, W VA

RESIDENCE: Parkersburg, W VA

Passport Issue Date: 21 May 1917

[dutchbarge]

Hi Bill

Thanks to Dave for opening a fascinating thread, and thanks to you and others for thoughtful contributions. But if you continue to call my country 'Britian' I'll have to consider renaming our best ally 'The Untied States of Amercia'. You have been warned.

Jim

British citizen of Great Britain

Sorry Jim. Mild dyslexia and a Jesuit education are the cause of my consistently poor spelling, not an intent to offend. I promise to write Britain on the blackboard 100 times. I must say thoughh that given our current straightened situation I am more inclined to the Untied States than United States. Cheers, Bill

[dutchbarge]

Is it written officially anywhere that the USA broke neutrality?Not that neutrality ever did any good for say...Belgium.Twice.

Good point Dave! America held that according to international law neutral nations had the absolute right to trade with anyone they chose, including belligerents. Early on the US did infact trade with both the Allies AND Central Powers. As the war progressed and the items deemed contraband by the Allies grew to include practically everything, Britain's tightening blockade of Germany (and harassment of US shipping) simply made it more profitable for the US to trade with the Allies (who while objecting to contraban going to the Central Powers did not object to receiving it themselves). Another factor which made it easier to trade with the Allies was that US credit was flowing overwhelmingly to Britain and France (although early on US institutions did infact loan to the Central Power). Predictibly, Germany thought it very unfair that Britain, by blockading neutral shipping (in violation of international law), had turned the US into what effectively became an extension of the Allied war effort. This also troubled many in the US gov't who saw this as a moral hazard for neutrality and insisted that trade to any belligerents must stop. Fat chance. It was just too lucrative. And many in the gov't did strongly favored Britain over Germany. In the end it was the huge loans that private US firms made to the Allies (with a wink and nod by the US gov't) that drew America into the war as much as anything else.

Short of actually engaging the enemy (which US mechant and Naval vessels, in self defence, did in the Atlantic) the US provided every sort of assistance to the Allies. Guns, rifles, submarines (fabricated in the US, assembled in Canada) munitions, raw materials, food and the most precious of all war materials, cash (it commands all others). Probably would have provided the same to the Central Powers if not for the blockade. Freedom of the seas, freedom of trade.

But we weren't the only ones. Almost everyone was trading with the belligerent powers. Think of Holland. They were neutral yet acting as a middleman they bought British cement which they resold to the Germans who used it to build bunkers on the Western Front.

Cheers, BIll

[SiegeGunner]

Think of Holland. They were neutral yet acting as a middleman they bought British cement which they resold to the Germans who used it to build bunkers on the Western Front.

That one has been discussed on the forum before, and, if I remember rightly, the story was de-bunk(er)ed ...

[truthergw]

I am still waiting for some books to do a bit of in depth study of the American fighting. However I do not believe that one needs to be a WW1 buff to know that the entry on one side of a war of hundreds of thousands of fresh troops would not make a tremendous difference. Of course they made A difference and may well have made THE difference.

I still think that your views on international finance are more than a bit naive. Britain in 1919 had the Indian sub continent as a colony. The Dominions were self governing but their wealth was available for the Mother Country to call on at very favorable terms. Until just a decade or so ago, Hong Kong was a colony. Would anyone like to estimate what that might be worth to The Great White Investors Over the Water? Look at a map of the world in 1919. Look at the red bits. Remember that many were colonies where all wealth produced was sucked straight into London. Look especially at the Middle East oil producing countries that were mandated or administered by Britain. ( Bush was very late to the game as well as lacking finesse). Britain was starting on the downward trend as an Imperial Power but she was wealthy beyond dreams of avarice and that takes a long time to change. She is still enjoying the autumn fruits of that Victorian summer.

[George Armstrong Custer]

She is still enjoying the autumn fruits of that Victorian summer.

Excellent Tom - I may steal that aphorism sometime!

[nigelcave]

Just a little quibble: quite correct that Canada and the other Dominions had to declare war on Germany etc in line with GB. However, apart from the obvious measures, Canada (and the others) were at liberty to decide how they engaged in the war - thus there was no obligation to send the CEF off to fight in France and Flanders, for example. That was a decision made locally.

[59165]

+Dredging the old memory banks,I recalled this one.

We've all heard in films the phrase,'Just what the Sam Hill are you doin',boy?'Well,if it's not the memorial Sam,it's this man;

An all American boy,his dad was in the diplomatic service attached to the consulate in New Zealand at the time war broke out.

Young Sam was eager to join up ,& indeed he did,going to France with the NZRB,ending up on the Somme in 1918 where he was run over by one of our trucks.

His family,as they thought was within their rights,asked for the repatriation of the body but,as he'd signed up with a Commonwealth force,London forbade it.He was originally intered with other Commonwealth troops.His brother,a succesful lawyer of the time,pressed London to have him sent home but,no.After some legal wrangles he was eventually allowed to be buried at Bony American cemetary,Somme.

I have a Google problem.Each time I click on a selected link,it directs me to some spam or search page so I'm doing all this from memory.

Hope it's right.

[4thGordons]

He is in the ABMC database too:

A somewhat confusing entry:

Samuell D. Hill

Rifleman, U.S. Army

3rd New Zealand Rifle Brigade

Entered the Service from: Kentucky

Died: June 30, 1918

Buried at: Plot A Row 29 Grave 1

Somme American Cemetery Bony, France

[truthergw]

Just a little quibble: quite correct that Canada and the other Dominions had to declare war on Germany etc in line with GB. However, apart from the obvious measures, Canada (and the others) were at liberty to decide how they engaged in the war - thus there was no obligation to send the CEF off to fight in France and Flanders, for example. That was a decision made locally.

I am unsure if you are referring to my post Nigel, if not, I apologise. I was pointing out that much of the wealth in all the dominions was in fact channeled straight back to Britain even though the countries were self governing. The big companies, banks etc were either British or had a large British presence in their main share holders.

[truthergw]

I have a Google problem.Each time I click on a selected link,it directs me to some spam or search page so I'm doing all this from memory.

Hope it's right.

Completely OT but urgent. You need to do some serious anti virus work toute de suite, mon ami. That may not be all that is wrong with your PC.

[59165]

He is in the ABMC database too:

A somewhat confusing entry:

Yes,Chris.

But it makes sense that he is commemorated on both CWG & ABM if his brother had him later recognised officially as an American to get him moved.

Just a wild idea.I wonder if the Harlem guys are on SGA & ABMC?

They were fighting for the French Army so.....

I need the names of some 369th men who were killed in action whilst under French control to do a comparison.

Anyone know of any?

Dave.

[Capt_Starlight]

I had a virus called zlob or something,Tom.

I got rid of it but there is still something there,I reckon.

Blimmin thing

May have been part of what is classed as "Malware" - there are quite a few products which will get rid of it. Will PM you a recommended freeware piece of gear.

Cheers

Frank

[Pete1052]

A thread on the recently published book To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 by Edward Lengel can be viewed by clicking here. The Meuse-Argonne offensive from 26 September until the Armistice on 11 November produced approximately half of those killed in action in the AEF during the war.

[nigelcave]

I am unsure if you are referring to my post Nigel, if not, I apologise. I was pointing out that much of the wealth in all the dominions was in fact channeled straight back to Britain even though the countries were self governing. The big companies, banks etc were either British or had a large British presence in their main share holders.

Yes, indeed: and sorry about that - I should have retained the quote!

Even then I am not so sure; I think of all the Dominions that India most obviously falls into that category - ie providing significant - very - benefit to the British economy. I suppose one could also talk about imperial preference. Canada offers plenty of room for discussion and (doubtless already written) learned research; more so, perhaps (pleased to be corrected if wrong) than, say, Australia and New Zealand. I ramble!

There is also the situation in 1939, when the Dominions (post Statute of Westminster) declared war independently of the UK.