It is fascinating that so many stories of courage, honor and humanity grow out of horrifying, bloody conflicts. 

     In 1918 a Cunard cruise ship converted into a troop transporter called the S.S. Tuscania left Hobokan, New Jersey on January 24. This was one of the first waves of American doughboys destined for Le Havre, France after a future stop at Liverpool. About 2200 Americans were on board as well as over 200 crew members, mostly from Scotland. The troops aboard were recruited mostly from the Great Lakes region and the Pacific Northwest, serving in the D, E and F Companies of the 6th Battalion of the 20th Engineers; members of the 32nd Division; and the 100th, the 158th and 213th Aero Squadrons.

      The Tuscania had made many voyages prior to this time.  This time it joined a convoy of American troop ships, and had the protection of UK destroyers.  Nonetheless on February 7th, close to the island of Islay, Scotland, it was struck "squarely mid-ship on the starboard side by a 2,000-pound torpedo launched by the German submarine UB-77. The explosion engulfed the boiler room and echoed throughout the Tuscania. Flames shot up some 200 feet in the air according to one account, and literally shifted the entire ship along the surface of the water according to another. With a massive hole torn through its hull, the ship began to list" (Smithsonian). The men calmly followed evacuation procedures, but more than 200 died. More would have died if it were not for the UK destroyers Mosquito, Grasshopper and Pigeon that scooped survivors from the frigid waters that slapped upon stark cliffs.  Locals waded out into the waves to rescue 137 who miraculously survived to make it to the shore of Islay.

       This was the first major loss of life of Americans in The Great War. 

       The wonderful people of Islay reverently cleansed and prepared the American bodies for burial, meticulously recording information about each soldier's appearance down to tattoos. They communicated with the American families. Interestingly all bodies buried by the people of Islay were later exhumed for home burial but one.

       They were so respectful that they felt the men should be buried under an American flag.  So five sewers studied an encyclopedia to get the design right and stitched all night to create a two-sided American flag rectangular Stars and Stripes 67 inches long by 37 inches wide to be carried along with the Union Jack of the UK during the funeral procession.  The flag eventually took up residence at the Smithsonian and this year traveled back to the UK for the centennial of the tragedy and humanitarian remembrance of the entire incident.  More can be read in the original Smithsonian article below.


Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/hundred-year-old-handmade-american-flag-flies-home-scotland-180968008/#ulOEpAWv1kXMz9Yq.99
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We spent Independence Day sauntering through the carnival and market crowds at our Lake Sacajawea.  At night we watched the fireworks around town and at the Lake from our deck, along with up-close and personal ones shot by our neighbors.

     My uncle, of the 347th Machine Gun Battalion of the 91st Division spent the 4th of July 1918 in New York City enjoying Coney Island rides with his buddies.  In France doughboys there enjoyed the 4th also, often to the chagrin of the German forces.  This short article from the World War I Cenntenial staff writer, Joseph Vesper, talks about July 4, 1918 in France.

How Doughboys Celebrated Independence Day in France 
By Joseph Vesper
Staff Writer

July 4th, 1917: Imagine yourself, an American, on the streets of Paris. Crowds bustle and cheer in excitement as you march past them. Even though you have yet to fight you feel triumphant, as if the battle has already been won. The American and French flags fly in unison high above you and in the air the scent of American food cooking smells delicious. A French child gives you a flower as you march by, a symbol of gratitude for fighting as an ally. Back home it is Independence Day, but in this foreign land you are joined in celebration.
     In June 1917 only 14,000 American soldiers had arrived in France. These first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed at the port of Saint Nazaire and were quickly organized into training camps by General Pershing. Though their numbers were still low in July that did not stop General Pershing nor his soldiers from celebrating America’s Independence Day with the local population.
     Leave was not granted to American troops until after the close of the Fourth of July celebrations. If you were there as a Doughboy you would have marched in a massive parade down the streets of Paris with General Pershing. After the parade there were numerous events in which to participate. Baseball, boxing, and other athletic sports were at the forefront. In addition, the Young Men’s Christian Association took soldiers on sight-seeing tours throughout Paris using motor trucks.
Around noon American troops received, what one newspaper reported as, “an excellent luncheon.” The menu consisted of; “roast beef, cold bologna sausage, baked potatoes, cucumber and lettuce salad, cream cheeses, bread and butter, coffee, and cherries and oranges for dessert.”
     All the rations were supplied by Americas grateful hosts, France. In addition, local restaurants tried their best to recreate certain American foods for all to enjoy.
A year later in 1918, the entire 4th of July celebration would have been even grander. By now a little over a million American Doughboys had joined the fight to end The Great War and Paris’s streets would have been filled to the gills by locals and the massive surge of troops celebrating the 4th of July together.
     Unlike the previous year’s holiday, however, this one was marked by combat and the first offensive action taken by an AEF unit serving under non-American command. A thousand men from the 33rd Division saw combat in the Battle of Hamel. And a Corporal named Thomas A. Pope was awarded the Medal of Honor for his brave actions during the battle that day.
     The holiday roused such patriotic spirits for the Americans that even the Germans felt it in their trenches. As one newspaper noted:
“The Germans also knew it was America’s great day, from the artillery, machinegun and rifle firing which was increased on the American fronts. It gave the enemy something to think about and made him keep his head down in the trenches and in the dugouts.” 
~ French Observe The Fourth of July. (1918, July 5). The Tennessean 
​
Joseph Vesper is a Summer 2018 Intern with the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission.

There are multiple lists of "the best books" about World War I. I rejected Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's lists, because they are retailers and their lists were extremely long.  And let's face it, my book is not listed on either of them, a gross oversight.  (That was a joke. I think).

I settled on a short list created by Adam Hochschild, the author of The War to End All Wars for two reasons.  His research was exhaustive, and that research introduced him to books that were not only scholarly but readable.  Another reason I chose his list is that it is short.  People curious about a topic might actually tackle a short list.  Please don't judge me.

I must make a minority plea to read Michael Morpurgo's War Horse. It is a short, emotionally charged novella about the cycle of life of a British war horse. I cried for a hour as I finished it. No judgement here either, Michael was the third Children Laureate of England. And don't let "children's literature" drive you away from the book.  His writing is magical.

So, with that birdwalk, here is Hochschild's list of the best of the best books about World War I as recorded by The Smithsonian.

"Journalist Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars (2011), an account of World War I from the perspective of both hawks and doves in Great Britain, provides his picks of books to read to better understand the conflict.
Hell’s Foundations (1992), by Geoffrey Moorhouse
Of the 84 British regiments that fought in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey in 1915 and 1916, the Lancashire Fusiliers from Bury, in northern England, suffered the most casualties. The regiment lost 13,642 men in the war—1,816 in Gallipoli alone. For journalist Geoffrey Moorhouse, the subject hit close to home. He grew up in the small mill town of Bury, and his grandfather had survived Gallipoli. In Hell’s Foundations, Moorhouse describes the town, its residents’ attitudes toward the war and the continued suffering of the soldiers who survived.
From Hochschild: A fascinating and unusual look at the war in microcosm, by showing its effects on one English town.
Testament of Youth (1933), by Vera Brittain
In 1915, Vera Brittain, then a student at the University of Oxford, enlisted as a nurse in the British Army’s Voluntary Aid Detachment. She saw the horrors of war firsthand while stationed in England, Malta and France. Wanting to write about her experiences, she initially set to work on a novel, but was discouraged by the form. She then considered publishing her actual diaries. Ultimately, however, she wrote cathartically about her life between the years 1900 and 1925 in a memoir, Testament of Youth. The memoir has been called the best-known book of a woman’s World War I experience, and is a significant work for the feminist movement and the development of autobiography as a genre.
From Hochschild: Brittain lost her brother, her fiancé and a close friend to the war, while working as a nurse herself.
Regeneration Trilogy, by Pat Barker
In the 1990s, British author Pat Barker penned three novels: Regeneration (1991), The Eye in the Door (1993) and The Ghost Road (1995). Though fictional, the series, about shell-shocked officers in the British army, is based, in part, on true-life stories. Barker’s character Siegfried Sassoon, for instance, was closely based on the real Siegfried Sassoon, a poet and soldier in the war, and Dr. W.H.R. Rivers was based on the actual neurologist of that name, who treated patients, including Sassoon, at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland. The New York Times once called the trilogy a “fierce meditation on the horrors of war and its psychological aftermath.”
From Hochschild: The finest account of the war in recent fiction, written with searing eloquence and a wide angle of vision that ranges from the madness of the front lines to the fate of war resisters in prison.
The Great War and Modern Memory (1975), by Paul Fussell
After serving as an infantry officer in World War II, Paul Fussell felt a kinship to soldiers of the First World War. Yet he wondered just how much he had in common with their experiences. “What did the war feel like to those whose world was the trenches? How did they get through this bizarre experience? And finally, how did they transform their feelings into language and literary form?” he writes in the afterword to the 25th anniversary edition of his monumental book The Great War and Modern Memory.
To answer these questions, Fussell went directly to firsthand accounts of World War I written by 20 or 30 British men who fought in it. It was from this literary perspective that he wrote The Great War and Modern Memory, about life in the trenches. Military historian John Keegan once called the book “an encapsulation of a collective European experience.”
From Hochschild: A subtle, superb examination of the literature and mythology of the war, by a scholar who was himself a wounded veteran of World War II.
The First World War (1998), by John Keegan
The title is simple and straightforward, and yet in and of itself poses an enormous challenge to its writer: to tell the full story of World War I. Keegan’s account of the war is, no doubt, panoramic. Its most commended elements include the historian’s dissections of military tactics, both geographical and technological, used in specific battles and his reflections on the thought processes of the world leaders involved.
From Hochschild: This enormous cataclysm is hard to contain in a single one-volume overview, but Keegan’s is probably the best attempt to do so."

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/five-books-on-world-war-i-199/#FtkUghM9O7Yzlwoh.99

The U.S. mint produced this beautiful silver dollar coin.  What I appreciate is that part of the purchase of the coin is dedicated to the World War I Memorial in Washington DC.

The barbed wire on both side reminds me of the horrors of forging through no-man's land.  Of course the poppies hark back to the writing of "In Flander's Field" by John McCrae. He wrote poetry as he studied to become a physician. Then he served in the South Africa War, appalled at the lack of medical attention to the soldiers.  Moving to England he continued his studies and when The Great War broke out he was commissioned to be bridgate-surgeon to the First Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery. He lost a great friend at the 2nd battle at Ypres. The next day he noticed the wild poppies growing amongst the makeshift graves and wrote the most well-known poem of the war. His last known poem was "The Anxious Dead." In early 1918 he became very ill and passed of pneumonia and meningitis. 

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae, 1872 - 1918
​
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
​In Flanders fields.